‘Food Was More Central to Ramadan Than Any Other Time of Year.’
Memories of sehri and the morning meal in Pakistan
Although I live in Scotland now, throughout the month of Ramadan, I look back to the pre-dawn hustle in my family’s kitchen in Pakistan, where I grew up. It was always such a novelty preparing for the first roza, or fast in Urdu, and though it’s a month of abstinence, it is surprising how food is more central to Ramadan, or Ramazan, as it’s called in Urdu, than any other time of year.
Preparation and shopping began a few weeks in advance, especially for ingredients that gave us energy for the morning meal, called sehri, or daybreak in Urdu. Unlike many families in the Indian subcontinent who have family cooks, my mother cooked all the meals at home. As a result, I learned Pakistani home cooking, not by written recipe, but by osmosis.
I enjoyed cooking with her on most days, but it was always during Ramadan I savored every recipe she cooked. This was a time she delved into the store cupboard and made the foods I craved all year, ones that we only ate during the month of Ramadan: Kalay chanay (black chickpeas), sabudana kheer (sago pearl milk pudding), samosas, spicy coriander-scrambled eggs, but most of all, keema parathas, spicy minced-meat flatbreads.
