Mai Elzahwy, pictured at Portside Real Estate Group, cooks a few traditional dishes for herself during Ramadan, but her husband prefers American dishes, so they eat tend to eat those to break the daily fast. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

During the monthlong observance of Ramadan (Feb. 28-March 29 this year), Muslims break their daily fasts at sunset to enjoy the evening feast known as iftar.

Many tables in Maine’s Muslim households will be groaning under the weight of traditional dishes from Islamic cultures around the world, such as fattoush, samosas, kebabs, chorba frik soup and a variety of rich, sweet pastries.

But driven by generational preferences, a need for convenience, or just strong cravings after a full day without eating or drinking anything, some area Muslims eat foods much more familiar to the American palate.

Zahir Janmohamed of Portland got a burger and fries for iftar one recent evening. Mary Taddia of Portland and her husband got Mexican takeout — shrimp burritos, tacos and potato taquitos — from Restaurante El Corazon after the first full day of fasting this year.

Nozha Jebali, a Yarmouth-based wardrobe stylist, was tied up at work on a film set one evening a few days into Ramadan. So she broke her fast with a craft services meal of a turkey sandwich, cookies and chocolate. “And then I had a coffee,” Jebali said, “because I am a coff-aholic and my head needed caffeine.”

“The only thing that is universal when it comes to Ramadan that almost everybody eats for iftar is dates,” said At-Large Portland City Councilor Pious Ali. According to the Quran, the Prophet Mohammed broke his fast with a few dates and water, which is how most Muslims today break their daily fasts. “Anything that comes after that depends on an individual’s taste, and that choice is almost always influenced by what kind of food a person grows up with.”

MIXING IT UP

Ahmed Abdirahman, assistant Imam at the Maine Muslim Community Center, said “mixed families” — parents who immigrated from a predominately Muslim country, with kids who grew up here — are common in Maine’s Muslim community.

“So their iftar table to break the fast will be a mix of American food and homeland traditional food,” he said. In his own home during Ramadan, Abdirahman enjoys traditional dishes from his homeland of Somalia, such as sambusas and chicken or goat with rice. But his kids range in age from 12 to 19, and while they like the sambusas, they prefer to round out their iftar meals with typical western foods like lasagna, pizza, french fries and chocolate shakes.

The mix also occurs among the adults in the family. Taddia is from the Midwest and converted to the Muslim faith 30 years ago, while her husband, Ahmad, is Jordanian. She enjoys preparing some traditional Middle Eastern dishes like aushak (leek dumplings), maqluba (upside-down rice casserole) and musakhan (roasted chicken with onions, nuts and and fragrant spices like sumac, saffron and allspice served over flatbread).

But she also likes to make some of her family’s favorites for iftar, such as shepherd’s pie with brown lentils and mushroom gravy, American chop suey with veggie crumbles, or homemade pizza.

“Yes, I’m Muslim, but my culture is American,” Taddia said. “What’s great about being American is it’s such a hodgepodge of different foods. I like to make foods that are kind of a twist on American foods, mixed in with all these wonderful international dishes.”

Mai Elzahwy, a real estate agent with Portside Real Estate Group, is originally from Egypt. She’s been living in Rumford since 2020 with her husband Robert Barcena, a Muslim convert. “But my husband doesn’t like trying new foods,” she said with a chuckle, “so he actually doesn’t eat Middle Eastern food.”

A couple times during the month of Ramadan, Elzahwy will cook herself traditional dishes like mahshi (vegetables stuffed with rice, ground meat and spices like za’atar), or buy molokhia (jute mallow leaf soup) from a halal store. But most nights they’ll find a happy medium as she cooks seafood-based dishes like baked salmon with rice and salad, or pasta Alfredo with shrimp.

To give her a break from cooking, they’ll also dine out on the weekend and grab takeout on occasion, which often means samosas, lentil soup and lamb biryani from Taj Indian Cuisine in South Portland for her, and five-cheese ziti from Olive Garden for him. Sometimes, it’s as simple as a pizza from Domino’s.

Abdirahman said conservative Muslims might not buy food from a restaurant that doesn’t serve halal food (prepared in accordance with Islamic law), in part for fear of cross-contamination with haram (prohibited) foods like pork or improperly slaughtered meats. But because of their life circumstances, other Muslims cut themselves a little slack.

“We know that God is watching,” Jebali said. “We’re not (eating non-halal certified food) because we want to be bad Muslims, we’re doing it because we’re at work, at university, on the road.”

IN-N-OUT IFTARS

Like anyone else living in America, convenience is a prime concern for Maine’s Muslim community. Balancing work, family life and religious requirements can be tricky, especially in a country that doesn’t typically cater to the needs and schedules of Muslims fasting during Ramadan.

“Muslims living in the West have particular challenges,” Taddia said. “Predominately Muslim countries are an easier environment to practice Ramadan. So we have to be very efficient with our time and our meal prep when it comes to Ramadan. And sometimes it is easier to grab a package of frozen samosas, get takeout or reach for those donuts.”

Nozha Jebali carries groceries in Biddeford in the summer of 2023. Photo by Ruby Jean Photography

Jebali is originally from Morocco, though she’s lived in Maine since she was 9. She loves having harira soup, lamb tagines and chebakia pastry with her mom and sister during their weekend iftar dinners. But because of her work, which requires her to travel around New England, Jebali eats non-traditional foods about half of the Ramadan month.

“When you’re not home and you’re at work or in school, you have to get whatever is available to break your fast with,” she said. She’s sometimes grabbed an Otto pizza for both iftar and the pre-dawn suhoor meal, or lamb kebabs with rice, fries and lemonade from Crown Fried Chicken on Forest Avenue, where the food is halal.

Janmohamed, a visiting professor at Bowdoin College, was born and raised in California. He’ll be visiting there with his son during Ramadan this year, and they plan to hit the renowned In-N-Out burger chain, which he said has regular iftar group meetups for young Muslims.

Janmohamed noted California’s Muslim community is much larger and more deeply established than Maine’s is. Indeed, California has the country’s second-largest Muslim population at 504,056 in 2024, according to online database World Population Review. Maine’s Muslim community numbers just 16,894 (though way up from 1,500 in 1999).

While westernized iftar food traditions like the In-N-Out meetups have taken hold in big cities like Los Angeles, New York and Houston, they may take a while to develop in a smaller Muslim community like Maine, he said.

“I find that the Ramadan culture here in Maine is very much a family affair,” Janmohamed said. “You break fast at homes and you go to dinners, so it’s more insular. In a bigger metropolitan center, you’re going to have so many people who are living away from their families. You don’t really have that young professional Muslim class here.”

A manager at Crown Fried Chicken said business is actually slow for the first couple of weeks of Ramadan, when the customers looking for a halal iftar meal are some of the few single Muslims living here without families. Later in the month, business picks up as area Muslim families eat at Crown to give themselves a break from cooking at home.

‘CRAVINGS CREEP IN’

Perhaps a surprise choice, but a very Maine one, to break the Iftar fast? Donuts from The Holy Donut. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

Janmohamed said he’s noticed what may be a new Maine iftar tradition: Holy Donuts appearing in bulk at the Masjid Bilal mosque in Portland on Saturdays, and at the Eid prayer gatherings at Fitzpatrick Stadium.

“There’s always someone who brings Holy Donuts,” he said. “They open up their trunk and have two or three dozen donuts in boxes.”

Janmohamed will cook food from his Indian heritage during Ramadan. But he also loves making nachos, quesadillas and tacos for his family’s iftar meals, because he grew up with those Mexican dishes in California.

And sometimes iftar meal decisions are driven purely by impulse and the craving of the moment. Janmohamed recalled attending a lunchtime work meeting during the first week of Ramadan. He was fasting, and the person he was meeting with was eating a steak sandwich with french fries. “And you know what I was craving that night? A steak sandwich with french fries.”

“Throughout the day, you’re seeing people eat stuff, and you’re like, ‘I didn’t think about Thai or pizza today,’ but when you smell it, it gives you a different brain activity,” Jebali said. “You’re like, ‘Yup, that’s what I’m breaking my fast with.'”

And when you haven’t had anything to eat or drink all day, your senses grow more acute, making everything taste better. “I’m not going to lie — that pizza tastes amazing,” Jebali said.

“Once in a while, your adopted life and cravings will creep in, and it creeps in very strong,” said Ali, who has lived in the U.S. for more than two decades. He’ll get cheese or veggie pizza at Otto, Pizzaiolo or Flatbread Company a couple of times during Ramadan, along with Thai food from Boda and sweet treats at Gelato Fiasco and Gorgeous Gelato. In the past, when he was a heavy coffee drinker, local coffee shops would be his first stop at sundown.

According to the Quran, “We are supposed to adapt to wherever we find ourselves, and make use of whatever is available to us,” Ali said. He believes his personal western food adaptations over the decades have likely had a lasting effect on his palate.

“If I go back to Ghana now,” he said, “maybe my iftar will be full of American food, because that is what I have become used to.”