In cooking, a shared spirit

For non-Muslim expats, there are few opportunities that come our way that allow us a glimpse into the world of fasting and feasting during Ramadan. Of course, hotels offer grand iftars and a lucky few are invited to their friends’ homes to break the fast and enjoy a lavish meal. But to understood how various groups celebrated their first iftar this year, The National sent reporters across the country to talk to and report about people congregating on the first evening of Ramadan.

I headed to the labour camps in Musaffah. It is a 20-minute drive from the city of Abu Dhabi, over a bridge and a motorway that divides drivers who are rushing towards Dubai versus those, mostly in minivans, buses and taxis, ambling their way into a suburb of workers’ quarters.

The mood was festive. For the next month, they would be returning at least two hours early to their camps due to decreased work hours. That in itself lent an air of excitement to those busying themselves with the tasks at hand.

There was cooking to be done – chopping, peeling, frying and dicing – and washing and bathing after one prepared the feast and before evening prayers. Although the camps attract workers from various countries in South Asia and the Middle East, the majority of workers are Muslim. And away from home, they have improvised the ways in which they divide their duties.

Lacking women from their households who would typically take care of the food preparations, the men have come together in groups of anywhere between four and up to a dozen to share duties and divide cooking time. During Ramadan, friends take turns to prepare their favourite dishes for the rest of the group while also sharing precious kitchen time by cooking in shifts. So instead of 200 men cooking individual meals and being confronted with impossible shift timings in the kitchen, now each group sends a representative every day to sweat it out. Similarly, costs are divided by buying a large bag of rice at wholesale price rather than individual portions for every few days.

With workers cooking their favourite foods, one sees a bounty laid out like no other. Just as someone from Kerala grates coconut to mix with a rice paste to make pottu, another man from Pakistan is using his mortar and pestle to blend together coriander leaves, garlic and chillies to make a chutney, while a man from Bangladesh makes a curry out of mustard paste: the true diversity of the city and the spirit of Ramadan is best laid out here.