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Next: about 8 Feb to 9 Mar 2027

Ramadan and iftar

A month of fasting from dawn to sunset, broken each evening with dates, spiced soups, samosas and sweet drinks.

@ Bur Dubai Grand Mosque, Dubai, UAE. "Breaking the Fast" Many mosques will provide iftar (literally: break fast) meals after sundown for the community to come and end their day's fasting as a whole. - Wikipedia This Hol
Photo: Gabby Canonizado, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Spices for Ramadan and iftar

Each evening the fast is broken with dates and water, then a meal that varies hugely by region. In Morocco, harira soup with tomato, lentils and chickpeas is seasoned with ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, black pepper and saffron, served with chebakia, sesame cookies scented with anise. In Pakistan and India, samosas, pakoras and fruit chaat with chaat masala are eaten; in Egypt and the Levant, soups of lentil with cumin and lamb with warm baharat; in Indonesia, es campur and kolak with cinnamon and pandan. The hours of fasting make the spice shelf feel generous in the evening.

The spices

GingerHarira and spiced drinks.CinnamonSweet and savoury dishes from Morocco to Indonesia.CuminLentil soup of the Levant and Egypt.BaharatThe Arab warm spice blend.
About this page

Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Ramadan" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

The weekly digest

Every Monday: seven spices you may not know, what is cooking this week, and one blend explained step by step.