Time to Feast

No matter your faith or nationality, there’s one thing we all do with great gusto in December and that is we eat. Some might argue the season is about giving gifts. Let me ask you this, how many of those gifts are edible (or drinkable)?

If you take a deep dive into the historical roots of many holiday festivals, you’ll find there was a reason everyone got together to eat. This week we’re coming up on the Winter Solstice, a time for an assortment of celebrations throughout the world on the shortest day of the  year.

Thanks to market customers, I learned about a new one—Yalda Night, which is the Persian  Winter Solstice. Like everyone else’s parties this time of year, Yalda celebrates the triumph of light over darkness.  The word yalda mean birth in Syriac which was a standardized classical language that emerged in the first century AD and flourished throughout  the world in early Christian literature until the Middle Ages.

But Yalda pre-dates Christianity, originating in the pre-Zoroastrian worship of Mithra, the Sun God. I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m starting to see a pattern here. So I bit and asked how one goes about celebrating Yalda.

My Yuletide celebration this year will include an assortment of foods not traditionally found on a mid-Atlantic farm. Pomegranate and persimmon, dried figs and dates, hazelnuts and pistachios, this is going to be delicious and I haven’t even dug into the sweet treats such as sohan which is a style of brittle made with pistachios instead of peanuts.

Like other Solstice parties, including ones I’ve thrown over the  years, Yalda gatherings often include bonfires that burn all night while friends and family get together to eat, drink, play music and sing while reading classic poetry and telling stories about the past. Raise your hand if this, too, sounds like your December holiday gathering.

Our conversation led to recipes for omelets made with dates and walnuts then drizzled with honey. This was new to me as I am used to savory ingredients such as mushrooms, peppers, and spinach covered in melted cheese. Fried onions, raisins and saffron aren’t flavors I typically combine, however, I’m an adventurous eater.  

Everything sounded so delicious, but the recipe I jotted down in my little black book was something called Tahchin made with rice, yogurt, eggs, saffron, and meat. I’m already a fan of tahdig, which is the crispy rice on the bottom of the dish. There’s also fesenjan, a dish full of complex ingredients and flavors that I’ll attempt another time as my culinary endeavors for this month are quickly reaching maximum capacity.  

I would never have known about Yalda had it not been for the excitement of a patron over finding quinces and persimmons at the market along with many of the other ingredients for their feast that spilled over into our conversation. This is the true beauty of a farmers market where relationships are built and knowledge is exchanged over our most basic need to eat, which has blossomed over millennia into holidays.