Every year when the weather gets warmer, the days get longer and the flowers start budding, Egyptians pack up their picnic baskets, and go with their families to verdant parks to eat their favourite salty meals! It’s Sham el Neseem, an Egyptian spring holiday that brings to mind picnics, spring and insanely salty fish. One has to wonder, where do all these traditions come from and how old are they?
Essentially, Sham El Neseem is a spring festival, most cultures in the world have one: Easter in the West, Holi in India and Nowruz in the Persian world. However, what makes Sham EL Neseem special is just how old it is. It originates from the ancient Egyptian festival of Shemu, which was a spring festival that celebrated the end of the season of Emergence and the beginning of the harvest season from Pashons to Mesori in Coptic Months (May to September). The name Shemu comes from the Ancient Egyptians words for “Low Water”, which refers to the state of the Nile before the flood season. It’s also where Sham el Neseem comes from, as arabic likes to take words that mean something in one language and twist it into having an arabic meaning.The celebration was associated with many flowers and plants like the lily flower, ever so present in ancient Egyptian architecture and the lotus flower.
The festival was celebrated for thousands of years with ancient Egypt’s history; however as Egypt Christianised, the festival lost some of its pagan roots and became associated with Easter. When Egypt later was conquered by Islamic powers and islam began to spread, which is a religion that doesn’t celebrate Easter, the festival gained a new meaning that sounded like the original Shemu: Sham Al Neseem. It means Smelling the Zephyrs (the west wind). The orientalist E.W Lane wrote in 1834 as follows about the holiday:
“A custom termed 'Shemm en-Neseem' [sic.] (or the Smelling of the Zephyr) is observed on the first day of the Khamaseen. Early in the morning of this day, many persons, especially women, break an onion, and smell it; and in the course of the forenoon, many of the citizens of Cairo ride or walk a little way into the country, or go in boats, generally northwards, to take the air, or, as they term it, smell the air, which, on that day, they believe to have a wonderfully beneficial effect. The greater number dine in the country, or on the river.”
As we can see, the festival's current form of celebration where families have picnics are quite old and probably originate from the times of the Pharaohs. He also noted that the celebration is close to Easter, but is not related to any major religion and is purely a spring festival.
Let’s be honest though, when we think of Sham El Neseem, we think of Feseekh. Love it or hate it, Feseekh (fermented Mullet) is a core part of the holiday and probably originated from ancient times, where people in Esna would offer it to the gods. It’s also not exactly an uncommon food worldwide, as preserving by salting is an ancient tradition.
Another tradition that comes from ancient times is the colouring of eggs as ancient Egyptians believe that eggs were a symbol for new life and rebirth. Ancient Egyptians would boil and then colour eggs and write on them their wishes for the new year. Yet another practice that comes from ancient Egypt is eating onions as Egyptians believed that onions had medicinal properties. There's a legend that says that when one pharaoh’s daughter was ailed with an incurable disease, doctors gave her some onion juice extract and she got cured. The pharaoh was so ecstatic that he declared Shemu as a celebration day for onions. People would also hold supernatural beliefs about onions and would hang them around the house to ward off evil.
Sham El Neseem has been here for thousands of years, and will probably be here for thousands more. Nothing else can unite Egyptians regardless of creed, social class or age except eating some Feseekh and watching the flowers bloom by the Nile.