When May comes, for Istanbul the artichoke season has officially started. May must be the most beautiful month of the spring season. May means lots of greens and fresh flavors on the tables. It also means youth and renewal. In fact, the word “Maius,” which gives this month its name, stands for growth in Latin. In Roman mythology, the goddess Maia is the symbol of growth and greenery. It is not for nothing that Atatürk named May 19 as Youth and Sports Day. Hıdırellez, the foremost spring festival, sort of a May Day in Turkish tradition, will be celebrated next weekend on May 5-6. On the night of May 5, people will jump over the fire to get purified and leave the old year’s troubles behind, and on May 6, they will have a picnic in the open fields in the countryside, joyfully transitioning from winter days to summer days. In the past, the folk calendar was divided into summer and winter, the period starting from May 6 until Nov. 7 was called Hızır Days, aka the verdant days