Ramadan (Ramazan in Turkish) is a holy month for muslims and they fast during this month as a worship. It started about a week ago and you can feel  the excitement of people everywhere in Turkey now. Although we can’t say that Turkey is a muslim country, a big number of  its citizens is muslim. The time of Ramadan was arranged by Islamic calendar and as this calendar is a moon calendar, it is 11 or 12 days shorter than Gregorian calendar. As a result, the month Ramadan starts about 10 days earlier each year.

Fast (oruc in Turkish) as a term means not eating or drinking anything and no sexual intercourse from sunrise till sunset. So the starting time and ending time of fast changes in each city depending on their direction.
The first step of fast begins after midnight, which is called suhoor (sahur in Turkish). People must prepare for the fast during suhoor. They can’t have any food after they hear the voice of imam calling all muslims to prayer (there are one or more mosques in a neighborhood and imams call to prayer from these mosques with loudspeakers). Imam’s voice is the reminder for the starting time of fast.

Do you think all muslims wind their alarm clocks and they wake up in the very early morning for suhoor  with its striking? As Ramadan is the month of ritual like traditons, there must certainly be something more interesting to wake people up. Believe or not, some men walk around the streets banging  drums during suhoor time to wake residents of that neighborhood. These men are called Ramadan drummer. They share the streets, so each street has its own Ramadan drummer. Although, some people are afraid of the sound of drums during night, this is one of my favorite traditions about Ramadan. When I was a child, I used to love watching the Ramadan drummer through the window every single night of the month. I found them…well…how can I say? Different from others. Maybe they look like people from a different world or maybe I find them so brave. Can you grab a drum and go out after midnight and bang it with all your might? I can’t. But Ramadan drummers can easily do it. I have many times wanted to ask one of these drummers to borrow me their drum and try it once.  However, I could never even dare to ask it. At the end of Ramadan, each Ramadan drummer walks around the street he is responsible for during day time and rings the doorbells to get some tip. And people give them how much money they want. (image source is here)

At suhoor time, people wake up and prepare some food to eat. This is so exciting to wake up at a very unusual time of night and eating some food with all family members. Doesn’t it sound enjoyable? Doctors say that people shouldn’t have heavy foods at suhoor not to have any health problems. And of course they shouldn’t forget to drink enough water at suhoor. People should prefer healthy and filling foods. People sometimes prefer having Turkish breakfast foods such as olive, cheese, sliced cucumber and tomatoes and of course boiled eggs (egg makes people feel full for a long time) and they have Turkish black tea as a drink. They sometimes have a warming soup and rice or bulgur pilaf or a kind of borek (doctors advice borek with vegetable filling, no meat).  And most people follow doctors advice and they always have compote (komposto or hosaf in Turkish) with their meal at suhoor. Compote is a very significant dish at suhoor as it prevents low blood sugar during the fast. When you have compote at suhoor, you don’t have vertigo caused by hunger and low blood sugar during day time. The other importance of compote is that it meets your need of drink during fast.

As we remember how compote is important for our health during Ramadan, I wanted to share how to make compote of cornelian cherries, which we can find during summer.

Kızılcık Kompostosu

Ingredients
-    250g cornelian cherries
-    1 cup sugar
-    5 cup water
-    A few cloves

Put the water in a pot and heat it. When it boils, add sugar. I don’t like it too sweet, so you can add extra sugar if you like. Taste and decide. Boil it for 1 or 2 minutes. Then add cornelian cherries and cloves. Boil it until the color and texture of cherries change, for about 20 minutes. Let it cool and put it in refrigerator. Serve it cold. This can also be a very good cold drink during hot summer days.

What do people generally have first to break their  fast? Do you have any idea? I’m going to tell about this in my next post.

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In Turkish cuisine, we have a variety of components in courses. If we have a main dish with meat, chicken or vegetable, we have one kind of pilaf or pasta near them. But it doens’t end here, we also have cacik or yogurt, a kind of salad, or greens such as parsley, garden cress, dill, arugula or scallion, or a kind of compote. You can guess how crowded our dinner table is.

Last night, I realized that we had two apples left and they were about to go bad, but they were still resisting. I decided to make compote from these apples without hesitation.

Compote is a kind of light dessert that you can have with pilaf, pasta or after meal (my husband also loves it near some soups, chickpeas or beans). Compote is made from fresh or dried fruits, both are delicious and healthy. It helps digestion system and doctors advise it to those having problems with liver.

We generally prefer to have it cold, that’s why I make it at night to make it ready for the following day. If you don’t want your children so much coke, compote may also be a good alternative for it in summer. But if you like, you can also have it warm.

Ingredients
•    2 apples
•    2 cups water
•    5 tbsp sugar (if you like it more sweety, you can add more)

Mix water and sugar in a pot and boil it.

Peel the apples, discard the seeds and slice.

Add apple slices into boiling water and boil them until they get they get tender. Then let it cool and put it in refrigerator.

Tip: If you put the apple slices in water at the beginning and then start to boil, apples will be mashed. So you should boil the water first, and then add the apples or other soft fruits.

If you like you can also add a few cloves into the boiling water to give it a different flavor.

And I want to share my happiness with you. Mommy gourmet gave me a blogger award, Kreativ Blogger Award. I’m so honored. I’d like to thank her from here. I also love reading her blog which is full of recipes with sincere stories. And now I want to pass this award on some other blogs that I follow.

1 – The Daily Spud
2 – Oyster Food & Culture
3 – Sophies Foodiefiles
4 – Tangled Noodle
5 - Cinnamonspiceandeverythingnice
6 – Sankeerthanam
7 – HealthyandGourmet
8 – lisaiscooking
9 –Rubber Slippers in Italy

Note: I’d like to pass it on more bloggers, but some of them already got it from Mommy Gourmet.

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