Ode to the previous Ramadans

Prior to the approaching holy month of Ramadan, YESAM hosted Nedim Atilla, a journalist and food culture researcher, once again for his seminar titled “Where have old Ramadan traditions gone...” in which he talked about the old Ramadan traditions in Istanbul and Anatolia.

In summary, Nedim Atilla gave the following information:

“For Muslims, Ramadan is the most treasured month. For the whole Islamic world it has been a cause of excitement for 14 centuries.  Preparations, rituals, iftar (time of sundown to break the fast) traditions, entertainments of Ramadan, and bayram (holiday) period, greeted with enthusiasm at the end of the month, have all transformed over centuries into a mystical world on its own.

When new moon appeared for the first time, the first person who saw it would inform the mufti, explaining the sight along with witnesses. This was followed by the lighting of the mosque minarets and with playing the traditional Ramadan drums, announcing the arrival of Ramadan to the public. The month of Şaban (the month before Ramadan in Islamic calendar) may be 29 or 28 days depending on the appearance of the crescent; this affects the length of Ramadan as well. After Ramadan’s start date has been determined, the places called muvakkıthane would determine and regulate the fasting times among all the mosques based on sun rise and sun down.

Marketplaces of big cities would be more busy, crowded, and colorful during the month of Ramadan. It was also the busiest time of the year for various dessert sellers such as baklava, helva, kadayıf dessert and pudding sellers all located on the main street. One of the most important preparations of Ramadan is to prepare yufka (the thin hand-stretched dough resembling phyllo). The skillful housewives would be invited to homes of others and all together they would prepare this difficult task of yufka-preparation and then cook these thin doughs over flat sheet irons and store them in stacks in cool rooms of their houses.

Small restaurants would also do special Ramadan preparations and include a few Ramadan specialties on their menus for iftar. These restaurants would open right before iftar and then close after sahur (sun rise - the time to stop eating).  The owners would clean up, close the restaurant and go home to rest until noon the next day and go back to their restaurants to do iftar preparations again. As always Ramadan time was tedious time for the shopowners.”

Following this seminar full of traditions, the guests got to sample some of the traditional dishes of Ramadan.

27 June 2013

Lecture video is in Turkish.