Harira and other Moroccan Soups

Ramadan is the Arab Lent, a whole month in the Islamic year when good Moslems fast all day, abstaining from food, drink and tobacco, and even medicines and sex, during daylight.

Ramadan begins officially with seven volleys of cannon sounded at first sight of the tiniest sliver of the new moon. And at the first light of the following dawn the day’s fast begins, to be broken only at the setting of the sun. For thirty days, Moroccans live to this exciting new rhythm: calm and sleepy during the day, rustling with activity at night. Ramadan is not a complete fast at all, but a strict discipline between the hours of sun-up and sun-down: at night there is feasting.