Ramadan

The bread salad of Ramadan tables — crunchy, tangy, impossible to stop eating.

2 versions

Smoky roasted eggplant whipped with tahini — baba ghanoush's creamier cousin.

2 versions

Golden half-moon pastries — the first thing to vanish from any iftar table.

2 versions

The upside-down pot of rice, meat, and fried vegetables — flipped at the table with held breath.

2 versions

Wheat and meat beaten into silk — the Gulf's Ramadan heirloom.

1 version

Morocco's iftar soup — tomato, lentils, chickpeas, and a silk finish.

2 versions

Tunisia's shatteringly crisp pastry with a runny egg heart.

1 version

Slow-stewed fava beans — Egypt's gift to every breakfast table in the region.

3 versions

Layers of toasted bread, chickpeas, and garlicky yogurt — brunch royalty from Damascus to Cairo.

2 versions

Ramadan's pancake: folded around cream or nuts, fried or fresh, always with syrup.

2 versions

The syrup-soaked semolina cake with an identity for every border it crosses.

2 versions

Egypt's bread pudding of victory — pastry, milk, nuts, and history baked to a bubbling crust.

1 version

Rice pudding, chilled and perfumed — the dessert every teta keeps waiting in the fridge.

2 versions

Sweet cheese rolls hugging clotted cream — Hama's gift to dessert tables everywhere.

1 version

Crisp golden fritters swimming in syrup — 'the floaters' of every festive night.

1 version

The Maghreb's semolina-date diamonds, fried and honeyed.

1 version

Morocco's sesame-honey rosettes, folded like flowers, inseparable from harira at iftar.

1 version

Date-grape molasses over crushed ice with pine nuts afloat — Ramadan in a glass.

1 version

Ruby hibiscus tea, hot in winter, iced in summer — Egypt's crimson welcome.

1 version

Apricot leather melted into Ramadan's golden iftar drink.

1 version

Sweet-sour tamarind, poured ice-cold from the shoulder jugs of Ramadan street vendors.

1 version

Bitter licorice brew, the acquired taste that owns Ramadan in Egypt and Syria.

1 version

Najd's cracked-wheat comfort pot, creamy with yogurt and crowned with crisped onions.

1 version

Spinach-stuffed triangles, sour with sumac and lemon — the pastry every teta folds by the hundred.

2 versions

Crisp phyllo cylinders hiding cold ashta — 'the lady's arms', named with a wink.

2 versions

'Lebanese nights' — a chilled semolina pudding under cream, syrup, and pistachio.

1 version

The milk pudding every MENA grandmother keeps in her fridge — silky, floral, and gone in a spoonful.

2 versions

Ridged choux fingers fried crisp and dunked in syrup — 'dates of Damascus' that contain no dates at all.

2 versions

Morocco's unbaked mound of toasted flour, almonds, and sesame — the Ramadan energy food.

1 version

Fermented batter piped into lace, fried, and lacquered in syrup — the Maghreb's Ramadan glow.

2 versions

The Gulf's little bites — crackly dumplings drizzled with date syrup, vanishing by the handful.

1 version

One name, two drinks: Egypt's snowy coconut-rice cooler and the Hijaz's tangy fermented barley brew.

2 versions

Carob steeped black and sweet — the deep, smoky cousin of Ramadan's street drinks.

1 version