Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Picnic-Iran style

On the 13th day of the New Year, Iranians head out to their favorite nature spots to have a picnic. In our case, we went to the orchard of my sil's in-laws. The funny thing about orchards here, in part because of urban sprawl, is that the orchards are often located side by side with houses, shops or resturants. And, because all property with any kind of yard is walled and almost all houses have some kind of trees growing inside the walled yard, it is difficult to tell from the outside which property is an orchard and which is someone's house.

Anyway, back to the picnic. As you can probably tell from the pics, an Iranian picnic is basically just a regular meal eaten al fresco. This includes rice, stew and tea as well as real plates, glasses and silverware. Paper or plastic dishes or utensils are a no-no. Here we had three kinds of rice, boiled chicken and a simple summer salad made on the spot. It's not unusual to see people bring along the equivalent of a camp stove to keep the food and tea hot.
I'm the one in the blue scarf down at the end between Mustafa and Reza. We had our own more American-style picnic fare of kebab (spiced hamburger) sandwiches, juice and cookies. Posted by Picasa

3 comments:

Patty said...

Looks like a fine picnic ! We don't take paper plates on a picnic either. Just dishes from the kitchen.
When we were mennonite and I dressed in long sleeve, black stockings all the time, a dress with an added layer on the top and a headcovering people always asked if it was hot ? We were so used to it, we never thought about it. But I hear its very hot in Iran. Do you get very warm in your dress ? Do you cover while in the house too ? I am so nosey : )

Jeanne said...

Hi Shellie!
Oh, the picnic looks so pleasant! I might need to add this to my holidays-round-the-year schedule :)
Are there cousins there for your kids to play with?
Jeanne :)

Anonymous said...

Hi, I was out blogging and found your site. It certainly got my attention and interest. I was looking for Grass information and even though this isn't a perfect match I enjoyed your site. Thanks for the read!