For many Muslims around the world, it has been nearly 30 days without lunch and dinner. We’re entering the final week of Ramadan: the holy month during which observers of Islam go without food from dawn until sunset, when they break their fast with the evening meal of iftar.The dishes Muslims eat at this evening meal vary hugely—different ethnic heritages have different food traditions. Indonesians, for example, often eat a fruit compote dish called kolak, while those in Turkey eat Ramazan pidesi, a special bread that is only baked during Ramadan. In my Iraqi-Lebanese household, our Ramadan dishes are soup and salad. I know, that sounds dull af, but this isn’t a bland tin of Heinz and some wilted lettuce leaves. It’s Arabified, which means tons of herbs, spices, and obligatory fried stuff.
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My favourite is a lentil soup called shorbat addas, made with fried onions, cumin, black pepper, and dried vermicelli. Every Ramadan since childhood, I come home to hear the whir of the blender, and my stomach does a happy dance because it means my mum is cooking a fresh batch of addas. The thick, flavourful, yellow broth is the most comforting way to fill an empty belly.
We also eat big bowls of fattoush. It starts out as a normal salad: mixed greens, tomatoes, peppers. Then it gets more Arab with the addition of chopped herbs, olive oil, lemon juice, and sumac. And after that comes the best bit: pieces of fried Arabic flatbread. I call it “salad on acid,” not just for the amount of lemon juice it uses, but because I imagine this is how someone on hallucinogenic drugs would make a salad. Kibbeh and mains such as tashreeb, an Iraqi dish of broth-soaked bread and black eyed beans, also feature on our iftar table.But what do other British Muslims eat when breaking their Ramadan fast? I asked Muslims from different backgrounds living in the UK to share what’s on their plate, come sunset.
Shehab
Sabreen
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