
FirstLook: Iftar Nights
Photograph and video by Johnny Hanson
Iftar nights
Sunday, June 26, 8:42 p.m.,
Howard County, Maryland
We dug in, as we always do, just moments after sunset, as soon as it was time to break this day’s 16-hour Ramadan fast. As cell phone apps played calls to prayer in near synchrony, a small, hungry crowd descended upon the buffet table.
On this night it was a potluck iftar with a heri-tage theme, and the food mirrored some of the incredible diversity of suburban Baltimore itself: There was Malaysian tapioca cake (bingo ubi kayu), Ecuadorian empanadas, Bosnian stew (Bosanski lonac), Uighur steamed squash and lamb dumplings (petir manta), Italian escarole and beans (scarola e fagipoli), African- American bean pie, Senegalese peanut stew (mafe ginaar) and beignets (puff puff), Palestinian lentil soup (shorabit adas) and St. Thomas jerk chicken—all shared along with stories of their origins among friends old and new.
Iftar means “fast breaking” in Arabic, and the socializing that goes along with it is a worldwide hallmark of the month of Ramadan, which this year began on June 6 and ended with ‘id al-fitr (“feast of the fast breaking”) on July 5. (Following US Independence Day, this gave us a delightful double holiday.) In an upcom-ing feature article, I’ll be sharing some of the recipes you see on this table.
—Laila el-Haddad, author of
“Gaza’s Food Heritage” (N/D 11)
Sunday, June 26, 8:42 p.m.,
Howard County, Maryland
We dug in, as we always do, just moments after sunset, as soon as it was time to break this day’s 16-hour Ramadan fast. As cell phone apps played calls to prayer in near synchrony, a small, hungry crowd descended upon the buffet table.
On this night it was a potluck iftar with a heri-tage theme, and the food mirrored some of the incredible diversity of suburban Baltimore itself: There was Malaysian tapioca cake (bingo ubi kayu), Ecuadorian empanadas, Bosnian stew (Bosanski lonac), Uighur steamed squash and lamb dumplings (petir manta), Italian escarole and beans (scarola e fagipoli), African- American bean pie, Senegalese peanut stew (mafe ginaar) and beignets (puff puff), Palestinian lentil soup (shorabit adas) and St. Thomas jerk chicken—all shared along with stories of their origins among friends old and new.
Iftar means “fast breaking” in Arabic, and the socializing that goes along with it is a worldwide hallmark of the month of Ramadan, which this year began on June 6 and ended with ‘id al-fitr (“feast of the fast breaking”) on July 5. (Following US Independence Day, this gave us a delightful double holiday.) In an upcom-ing feature article, I’ll be sharing some of the recipes you see on this table.
—Laila el-Haddad, author of
“Gaza’s Food Heritage” (N/D 11)
You may also be interested in...
FirstLook - A blistering triumph for the back-street boys
Amid the roar of racers zooming toward the finish line in London during the 1980 Grand Prix, longtime auto-racing photographer and renowned artist Michael Turner trained his lens on a Saudia-Williams FW 07.Spotlight on Photography: Arabs In America
In 1975 AramcoWorld dedicated an entire issue to celebrating the lives of Arab Americans and their impact—from renowned heart surgeon Michael DeBakey to White House correspondent Helen Thomas to entertainer and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital founder Danny Thomas.How to Discover Egypt From the Inside Out
Rather than just telling travelers where to go, the guidebook Egypt: Inside Out by Trevor Naylor offers an inside-out perspective that evokes the experience of being there, inviting readers to embrace an almost meditative travel discipline of slowing down to take in the details and complexities of Egypt, moment by moment.