Changing Iftar Trends
By Abu Md Masani
What could be more blessed and exciting than the month of Ramadan? It is blessed in the sense that it brings all mercy, bounty and forgiveness in the true spirit of Islam. And exciting as it gives us a chance to enjoy time with our family and friends while breaking fast, with specially prepared dishes and drinks.
We cannot deny the fact that food becomes an integral part of our life during Ramadan. In fact, we tend to spend more on food during this month of fasting. Being food-enthusiast Bangalis, somehow our minds get more diverted towards food consumption, rather than the true reasons for fasting _ to restrain and reflect.
As long as we do not waste food, involve ourselves in unnecessary extravagance, and share and distribute food among the underprivileged with equal fervour, then enjoying a bit of extra flavours of Ramadan cuisine may seem fair.
Ramadan is the time when we truly love to have meals, like sehri, iftar and dinner, with family, relatives and friends. No matter what, having iftar with traditional items such as chhola (black beans), muri (puffed rice), chickpeas, vegetable fritters like piyaju, beguni and aloor dum, haleem, jilapi, chira-gur (flattened rice-mollases), chapti (rice pancake), and jao bhat (rice porridge) _ just to name a few items _ still seem to be popular on our iftar table. Without these delicacies, accompanied by traditional drinks such as homemade lemonade, tamarind or wood apple sherbet, jeera-pani, Ruh Afza syrup, lassi or matha, iftar would seem unfulfilling and less tempting.
However, due to passage of time and changing lifestyles, people nowadays have less and less time to prepare everything at home, and traditional iftar items are giving way to alternative dishes, bought readymade.
These days, our local iftar bazaar seems to be dominated by foreign cuisine. Traditional sheek or boti kebabs are being replaced with doner, shawrma and falafel-type kebabs; chhola-muri are being swapped with chanachat, chhola-bhatura etc; aubergine/ potato/ lentil-onion in fritters are being switched with other vegetables for fritters. Chira/muri/jao-bhat are getting replaced with couscous, oat porridge, quinoa etc in Dhaka, Chittagong and few other cities.
Its good to have different varieties of iftar items during Ramadan, but it is also very important that we preserve our old, traditional food items with equal amount of eagerness. Traditional iftar carry the long heritage of our homemade local flavours. Thus, if we do not make our future generation familiar with our local culinary items, days are not far when those will be lost in time.
