What it means
توت فرنگی (tut farangi) is the everyday Persian word for strawberry. The compound is built from two parts: توت (tut), meaning mulberry, and فرنگی (farangi), meaning European or foreign, a word that entered Persian from Old French “franc,” referring to the Frankish peoples of Western Europe. Together they mean something like “the European mulberry,” which is how Persian speakers named this fruit when it arrived from Europe. A related contrast is توت (tut) on its own, which refers to the native mulberry, a far older fruit in Iran.
How to use it
- توت فرنگی تازه میخوای؟ (tut farangi taze mikhai?) “Do you want fresh strawberries?”
- یه کیلو توت فرنگی بده بهم. (ye kilo tut farangi bede beham.) “Give me a kilo of strawberries.”
- مربای توت فرنگی خونگیه. (morabaye tut farangi khungieh.) “The strawberry jam is homemade.”
- توت فرنگیها خیلی شیرین بودن. (tut farangiha kheyli shirin budan.) “The strawberries were very sweet.”
Cultural note
Strawberries are a popular early-summer fruit in Iran, especially in the northern provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran where the cooler, humid climate suits their cultivation. Street vendors in Tehran sell them by the kilo from spring carts, often alongside sour cherries and cherries. The name itself is a small record of cultural contact: farangi was historically applied to anything European or Western that arrived in Iran as a novelty, from the potato (sib zamini, though sometimes called sib farangi in older usage) to firearms.