Culture
The culture of Mazandaran is closely related to that of neighboring Gilan (or Guilan). The peoples of the two provinces are largely secular, and consequently women have had greater social freedom and independence than their Persian cousins. (Reference: "The Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran, 1920-1921: Birth of the Trauma" by Cosroe Chaqueri.)
The cuisine of the province is very rich in seafood due to its location by the Caspian Sea, and rice is present in virtually every meal. Indeed, the rest of Iran was introduced to rice through Gilan and Mazandaran. Before the 1800s, Persians, Kurds, and other Iranian ethnic groups used bread rather than rice as an accompaniment to their meals, though bread remains a prominent staple among them. While bread remains very popular among those groups, in Gilan and Mazandaran, rice remains the choice staple of the indigenous inhabitants.
Read more about this topic: Mazandaran Province
Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“The time will come when the evil forms we have known can no more be organized. Man’s culture can spare nothing, wants all material. He is to convert all impediments into instruments, all enemies into power.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“... there are some who, believing that all is for the best in the best of possible worlds, and that to-morrow is necessarily better than to-day, may think that if culture is a good thing we shall infallibly be found to have more of it that we had a generation since; and that if we can be shown not to have more of it, it can be shown not to be worth seeking.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“Nobody seriously questions the principle that it is the function of mass culture to maintain public morale, and certainly nobody in the mass audience objects to having his morale maintained.”
—Robert Warshow (1917–1955)