ناهار

Lunch is also when family politics get sorted out. The phrase ناهار خانه مادرم (nâhâr-e khâne-ye mâdaram), "lunch at my mother's," is a Friday institution in many Iranian families, with adult children returning to the parental home for a meal that gathers cousins, aunts, and grandparents around one sofreh (سفره, the cloth spread on the floor or table). To say no to a Friday lunch invitation requires a serious excuse. Lunch is also the meal at which big news is delivered: engagements, job changes, illnesses, decisions about who is moving abroad. In poetry and proverb, ناهار rarely appears (دینر-time evening meals dominate Persian classical verse), but in modern fiction and film, the slow lunch hour is a recurring scene of intimacy and conflict. The phrase ناهار را با هم خوردیم (nâhâr-râ bâ ham khordim), "we had lunch together," carries the weight of a small alliance.