Sa-ma-nu! Sa-ma-nu!

Every year my dad's cousin Nosrat cooks up a big pot of samanu and invites all the family over while she is cooking it. Samanu is a wheat pudding, made from wheat grain, water, hazelnuts and almonds (no added sugar). It is one of the things that are placed on the haft sin for Noruz, and so it is traditional that it is cooked around this time, just before the New Year. It is also believed to be a good omen. Samanu burns very easily, but takes a long time too cook, which means it has to be continually stirred until it is ready, usually taking at least 48 hours. This samanu party is the kind of traditional gathering that is hard to find nowadays, even in a city as traditional as Isfahan. So as friends of mine partied with ambassadors in Tehran, I was at a much more exclusive engagement.

Nosrat's house is the old fashioned kind, with a courtyard in the middle and rooms coming off opposite sides. For the samanu cooking the whole garden was covered with a huge chador (tent). We entered through the back garden, and straight into the heat emulating from the huge copper pot the samanu was cooking in, and the gas underneath it. The garden was full of about 30 women, and 5 men. Traditionally cooking samanu is something women do, probably because, well, cooking is something women do. It means that at a samanu party the ratio of women to men is always very unequal. Everyone had their roosari's on. Neither my cousin or I were sure why, but decided as the average age of the guests was 60, and the kind of ladies who don't take their roosari's off, the youngsters must have decided to keep them on in their company. So we did too. After a long round of hellos, with many comments directed at my Ameh "Is this your brother's daughter?", "The one with the foreign mother?","Mashallah!" (literally-May God preserve you, but an expression of praise) etc, a few gave me big smackers on my forehead, and then continued questioning my Aunt; "Does she speak Farsi?", "How long is she here for?", "Does she like Iran?'". Only one deemed to address me directly, but then commented to my Aunt and not me; "Oh her Farsi is good!". The huge wooden spoon was passed between us to stir the samanu and make a wish for the coming new year. There is also a special song/ prayer that is sung, but seemed no one could remember much of it. The joke is that girls wish for husbands, and are even teased for going to the samanu party for that reason. Clearly there is nothing else worth wishing for. Not to break tradition my Ameh took hold of the great spoon, rolled up her sleeves and as she turned the spoon announced how she was wishing for husbands for her daughters and me, to whom the older ladies responded with cries of Enshallah (god willing), and again a few big kisses were placed on my reddened forehead. It was one of those situations I often find myself in Iran, where everyone knows who I am and I don't have a clue who anyone else is. It's not just that they know who my dad is, they know me, they know I'm the younger daughter and they know my name. Luckily my Ameh was on hand to fill in the blanks about everyone as we plonked ourselves on a ledge next to the pot of bubbling samanu. The gossip was fairly usual; she can't have kids, she is trying to immigrate to America, her dad is a criminal. Tea, juice, ice cream and cakes were offered, until ghormeh sabzi was ready. We sat on the ledge eating, gossiping, listening, others inside the house, and others in another corner, everyone just spread lazily wherever there was room. Eventually we said a long round of goodbyes, and went home with full, warm bellies.

I wish I was a little bit taller

I wish I was a baller

I wish I had a rabbit in a hat

We were back the next evening, to an even fuller garden (at least 70) and accompanied by more of my aunties and cousins, although all the males in our family chose to stay away. We all carried buckets and pots to be filled with samanu and carted home the following morning. Overnight the colour of the samanu had deepened from a rich caramel colour to a dark chocolatey brown, with hazelnuts and almonds bobbing along the edge of the pot. The night unfolded much as the previous one had, with slight differences: we sat inside, we ate Ash-e Reshteh, we gossiped about different people. On leaving we were told to take a big handful of sweets and nuts. They're called moshkel goshaa (problen solving) sweets and nuts, while you suck on them your problems somehow melt away.

By the following morning the samanu was finally ready. We drove the 3 minutes to Nosrat's house, as we would be taking all the family's samanu home, and couldn't manage to carry it all. There were a few girls and Nosrat in the garden today, with rows and rows of pots filled with the chocolate coloured samanu arranged on the floor. The huge copper pot had been washed and discarded on its side, to be hidden in an attic until next year. No roosari's were worn today, revealing disheveled hair, and limbs heavy from a long night of stirring. A feeling of satisfaction hung in the air, a good deed done, hopefully proving auspicious for the year ahead.

On getting the samanu home I finally had a little taste. I'd tried it before, and wasn't keen, but that was the store bought variety… of course the fresh stuff is better right? Wrong, as suspected it was disgusting, the kind of thing you only eat once a year. Doesn't matter.. .....someone enjoyed it.