Ramadan Meals When Fasting

Ramadan Mubarek

Happy Ramadan.

Like Christmas (and Thanksgiving in America) Ramadan is a family occasion. It lasts for a whole month, and is the biggest event in the Muslim calendar. Unlike Christmas, it isn’t on a fixed date, but moves forwards every year according to the moon, by about 10 days. This year (2024) it is expected to start on the 10th of March.

“Expected to start”?

Yes – it is confirmed on the eve, with the Imam (Islam’s chief honcho) inspecting the moon. The same with its end date.

Apparently, this can vary a little – curiously, Ramadan in Morocco often finishes a day later than the rest of the Islamic world.

What is Ramadan?

Ramadan is very similar to Lent in the Christian calendar – it is a month of abstinence. This translates to fasting through daylight hours – no food or drink, not even water. Abstinence includes not only food, but also sex and smoking. Drinking is not approved by Islam, but those who do drink will also often abstain for the month.

Night clubs and most bottle shops are all closed for the month, and most food outlets and cafes are closed during daylight hours. A very small number are open, mostly for tourists and expats, and many will refuse to sell to anybody Arabic or even with an Arabic look or name. In fact, by Moroccan law it is illegal for an adult Moroccan to eat in public during the day.

But Ramadan has its charms, just as Christmas does. It is a time for special foods and family get-togethers, schools and public areas are decorated. While the day may be quiet, the nights are full of life.

The last couple of hours of daylight are rush hour – everyone is hustling to get their shopping done for dinner. Then just before dusk the streets will clear – in about 15 minutes they will go from solid people and cars to deserted. Don’t expect to catch a taxi at this time – there are none.

For a couple of hours the streets are quiet while everyone enjoys breaking their fast, and then it is evening. The food shops and cafes open, the streets come alive, and people are out and celebrating, often for the whole night.

What does Ramadan mean?

Ramadan is a spiritual festival. It is about restraint from excesses and luxuries and a time of reflection. It is not about hunger, but about appreciating those who are hungry.

Fasting becomes a part of everyone’s life at puberty – for girls, when they start menstruating, for boys, at the age when they traditionally went through circumcision as their introduction to adulthood. (See religious practices.) This being said, in the typical way that children like to imitate their elders, many children will fast for short periods of time starting from as young as 8 years old.

While it is mandatory for Muslims (of course, just like Christianity, there are those who don’t), there are exemptions for special circumstances. When travelling or sick, during menstruation, or women who are pregnant are all excused. However, the missed days become a debt which still needs to be “paid” off by fasting for those number of days later.

Henna Tattoos

It is typical for girls to get these beautiful tattooed patterns covering the backs of their hands, sometimes also their palms, on their first day of fasting. These are temporary tattoos painted with a red dye which comes from the henna tree. Henna has been used as a hair dye and temporary tattoo since ancient Egypt times. It wears off through the natural process of exfoliation in about 3 weeks.

Henna tattoos are not restricted to Ramadan. They are used for all sorts of occasions. It isn’t even restricted to being Moroccan. If you’d like a tattoo, there are some artists next to Gran Café de Paris where the canons are. Go and choose the design you like, and sit with views of Tangier Bay and the Spanish hills while an artist decorates your hand.

Breaking the Fast – F’tour

“Please come to breakfast at my house tomorrow.”

“Shookran! I’d love to. What time?”

“7pm.”

Huh?!!!

F’tour, means exactly the same in Arabic and in English – literally, breaking the fast. Normally this fast is during the night while we’re asleep, ending in the morning. But during Ramadan, f’tour is at dusk.

Most people will have f’tour at home, or with friends and relatives. They are big gathering occasions, just like Christmas and Thanksgiving. But some will eat out, and there are always a few cafés which will offer a Ramadan special for you to try f’tour for yourself. They usually advertise on their shop windows and doors.

In Tangier, the Downtown café and Comedia, both on the Boulevard near La Grande Poste, are two which usually do. Comedia has two cafés, the second almost next door and through the orange fronted plaza – I like that one because it has views of the sea and Spain.

I have often gathered with friends at a favourite café, each with our own food to share, followed by a tea or coffee when the waiters have had their f’tour. They set up the cafés ready, but they won’t start serving before they have eaten.

It is worth doing this on a busy street, just to watch the transformation. I have done this from Café Colon on Rue d’Italie, watching the walls of people and cars filling the street with barely room to move even on foot. Just before dusk the streets empty out. They go from packed to empty in just 15 minutes.

Then there is a very calm pleasant space for a couple of hours while everyone eats.

Moroccans who eat out will sit facing the street, lined up in 2s or 3s in cafés. In front of them, each will have a glass of milk and a plate with 3 dates. This is your traditional Ramadan break-fast.

But don’t gulp the milk down in one go!

Take 2 small sips, then the gulp! This way you have drunk your milk in 3 mouthfuls. Odd numbers are important in many cultures, especially the number 3. Dates can be 1 or 5 or more – as long as the number is odd.

Traditionally you are also likely to get a chbakia – this is a pastry typical in the north, and a special one in Ramadan. The pastry is cut into ribbons and knotted in particular patterns, deep fried, then covered in a sweet honey-based syrup. For a good one, buy from one of the fancy bakeries. Better still, hope to be offered a home-made one.

Everyone will wait until the prayer call for Adhan which signals dusk and the end of the day’s fasting. Then as one, they drink their milk and eat their dates.

Those who attend this prayer meeting – Adhan – often go to the mosque half an hour before dusk in order to spend time rereading the Qur’an. By reading 10 to 15 pages a day it is possible to reread the Qur’an 3 times through Ramadan. For those who do, the mosque will have glasses of milk and individual dishes of dates scattered around the mosque for them.

Ramadan Breakfast – F’tour

But don’t worry. Milk and dates are not the end of the meal. They are something sweet for instant energy. The next part will be a soup, with hard boiled eggs cut in half either with it, or in it. The point of the soup is that it is easy to digest for the empty stomach, with the added advantage of being full of high energy foods.

The most likely soup is harira. This is a tomato-based soup full of goodness – chickpeas, lentils and charia (short fine spaghetti 1 or 2 cm long). Flavoured with bones, parsley and cilantro, some vegetables and finely chopped beef or chicken (never fish), and the ever-important s’mn (ghee or clarified butter, integral to cooking in Morocco).

Harira is my favourite Moroccan soup. If you want to try it, you can find it from ladies in the markets, and tiny shops which sell almost only the soup. I often stop at a soup shop just to get my bowl with fresh bread, setting me back by just over half a euro.

My favourite shop is near Gran Socco and the fountain. Go through the arched street – Rue d’Italie, opposite Cinema Rif. On your right just a few shops down there’s one with a bright orange front. For just 70 dirhams (70 euro cents) you can get a bowl of soup with bread. Squeeze the lemon over it, and enjoy!

Another soup popular during Ramadan is t’cha (in Tangier, the rest of Morocco calls it bilboola) – a tomato based barley soup seasoned pepper – and always with cumin, and s’mn. This one is best as a fish soup.

There is a third classic Moroccan soup – b’ssara – which is based on green split peas, very popular year round.

F’tour Proper

All that is just the preamble, the entrée. Especially in summer where the daylight hours are long, the meal needs to really nourish and replenish.

Meat and cheeses:- Especially the first Ramadan breakfast, the dates and soup will be followed by many Ramadan foods – smoked meats, cheeses such as the Kiri or Cow brand cheese. You probably remember them from school days as a part of your lunch box – the triangular shaped ones in foil.

And of course there is also Morocco’s cheese, the soft white ones often bought in the markets in a disc shape and wrapped in a green leaf, a cheese very like cottage cheese. This is the sort of thing I prefer to buy from the mountain ladies. It’s not only good, but if you buy your herbs and your cheese from them, it will be far more helpful on an immediate level.

Breewat:- These are small pastries shaped into triangles. In Ramadan the fish with charia noodels, and the sweet chicken are the ones eaten. The meat is cooked then shredded, mixed with spices and herbs. There are also some cheese and spinach ones, but they’re not part of Ramadan foods.

Tagine:- Just as at Christmas, after the small snacks and preambles, there are a great variety of foods, any of which could be served up for the main meal. Naturally, tagine is very common, being Morocco’s traditional food.

Coffee and the Sweet Stuff

Following the meal, everyone has coffee ad s’foof. S’foof is the northern version. Nuts are ground up and mixed together, moistened by adding just enough honey til it holds together loosely. It is eaten with a spoon, not being solid. Its texture is grainy and loose. You will find it in the shops formed into a big mountain, and of course by it by weight.

Outside the northern parts, it is called s’lou. A lot more honey is added until it becomes solid enough to be moldable into a cake or disc shape. Some get very creative and turn them into mini ‘art works’, often with their name or logo as part.

Rziza is another desert popular during Ramadan. There is a type of bread you will see which looks more like a cake of noodles. Rziza uses this bread, adding lots of honey of course.

After F’tour

Once everyone has enjoyed their Ramadan breakfast, they will emerge again onto the streets. Now revitalized by their meal, they are ready to celebrate. The cities come alive. In Tangier, this will mean the Boulevard, and the Corniche, where shops will be open late, and people will be out and about til all hours – often all night, and dinner is eaten around midnight. The chawarma shops seem to have a constant flow of hungry customers.

During the day time without food, people get very tired. To accommodate this, the work day is shorter and businesses generally open later than usual. Morocco also switches the clocks back an hour to normal time, starting from the weekend before Ramadan starts. (Morocco stays on summer time for the full 11 months of the year, switching out only during Ramadan.)

Some people will even spend most of their day sleeping, and become nocturnal for the month of Ramadan, staying up all night. The streets in the day time become very crowded with traffic because the coffee shops are all closed.

S’hour

Then it is time for the pre-dawn meal – s’hour. To help get through the long day of no food or drink, this is a very important meal, focusing on foods high in stored energy such as smoked meats, cheeses, leftovers, the Moroccan type sandwiches and chwarma, s’foof, dates, and of course a lot of water.

Since no one can eat or even drink water for the daylight hours, everyone wakes up just before dawn for  meal called s’hour. Only one thing is noticeably absent from this meal – and that is coffee.