Semnopzan takes us back to childhood. To the days when the smell of burnt wood mixed with the rawness of flour. Sometimes the smell of snow. People sat next to the bottle of Semno, drinking tea and hookah and taking turns mixing Semno under the worried eyes of Semnopaz. From dawn to the end of the night. At night, however, Patil would put his white veil on his head, put the Quran and water, the rosary and the mirror, sweets and Mahdi flowers on his head and wait for the goddess of water to drop his veil in the morning and his red, oiled cheeks would come out of the veil.

In Qomsheh (Shaherza), the elders used to attribute the cooking of Semnu to Fatimah, the daughter of the Messenger of God. But it seems that Semnou has an older history and water and mirror may be proof of the antiquity of its myth. A simple food made of water and wheat with a very complex taste, the taste of which activates all the memories hidden in your cells. For us, Semnou is a strange and intertwined concoction of Nowruz, Quran reading, party, guests’ words and childhood love. Semnu is the memory of that woman who brings the sun, grows the earth and sweetens my palate.