Monday, 18 October 2010

Iftar: إفطار‎

It appears to me that the month of Ramadan is almost as much about eating as it is about fasting.  Wherever you go during this season, you can't get away from food.   There are recipes in the newspapers and special offers in the shops encouraging you to cook all sorts of dishes for your family to eat at breakfast, or Iftar.
Umm Ali  (top pudding) is a bit like bread and butter pudding.  The word Umm means 'mother of ' in Arabic.  She must have been a good cook.
 
In the UAE it is actually against the law to allow any food or drink to pass your lips from sunrise to sunset, in public, during the month of Ramadan, so people spend the whole day looking forward to breakfast. All the restaurants and cafes are closed during the day, but at sunset, after the Magrib prayer is over, you can feast at one of the many 'all you can eat' buffets. We went to one in a lebanese retaurant.  In this region, it is traditional to break your fast with a date and water.  The local petrol station kindly provides these for passing travellers.
Free dates and water during Iftar time




Charitable works are also an integral part of Ramadan.
Because fasting from dawn to dusk for thirty days each year is such a difficult thing to do, families encourage each other to become more generous to others by preparing and looking forward to lovely meals which they eat together at sunset every day.  It is the time of year when families make a special effort to visit each other as well and they may take gifts to their neighbours.


Ramadan Kareem means 'May Allah make your Ramadan period generous'.  This slogan is posted all over the place.




As you can see, everyone gets on the band wagon
Well of course, some people find it easier than others and the fasting does lead to some extremely erratic behaviour, especially towards the end of a hot day.  The roads can become lethal.  I felt very sorry for a Philipino man on a moped one morning who was being tailgated by a car at a distance of about two feet. It might have been something to do with the fact that he was delivering a pizza to somebody.  But as the car park attendant pointed out with a wobble of his head  when he stopped me for driving the wrong way round the carpark one day. 'It is alright madam: To err is human. But don't do it again.'