A movable feast day
Tomorrow night is the beginning of Eid al-Adha, the Muslim holiday corresponding to the final day of the Mecca pilgrimage. Non-Muslims are probably more familiar with Eid al-Fitr, which ends the Ramadan fast, but Eid al-Adha -- the Feast of the Sacrifice -- is actually the more important celebration. It's also known as the Great Feast (Eid al-Kabir).
Over the three-day holiday, Muslims around the world gather with family and friends, sitting down to tables laden with special-occasion dishes, turning their thoughts to the pilgrims in Mecca, performing acts of charity and welcoming visitors.
It's an important food holiday, but the celebratory menu varies widely, with dishes particular to each region on the family tables -- curries in Bangladesh, pilafs in Iran, red-stewed lamb in China, whole roast lamb in Iraq. Since the Muslim calendar is lunar, Muslim holidays don't fall in the same season every year, so even in the same place, the menu may change from year to year.
With the success of its recent elections, Afghanistan is much in the news lately, so I talked to some Southland Afghans about their Eid al-Adha culinary traditions.
There may not be many of them in this country, but Afghans are proud of their cuisine, and surprisingly often they open restaurants. Relatives of newly elected Afghan President Hamid Karzai run restaurants on the East Coast. It's an attractive cuisine, a little like Persian and a little like Indian, but with a number of pastas and a distinctive taste for seasoning meat with yogurt.
Zahir Habib, who formerly ran Kabul Cuisine in Reseda, told me that in Afghanistan, as in other countries throughout the Middle East, Eid al-Adha is a time of feasting on meat dishes. "Everybody who can afford it kills a cow or a sheep," he says. "In Afghanistan they make it in all sorts of ways -- kebab, qorma [stew], soup, which we call shorwa. Lamb shanks, lamb chops, steaks, qabili pilau [pilaf with lamb, carrots and raisins]."
Throughout history, meat has been a luxury ingredient. The abundance of meat served during Eid al-Adha not only connects celebrants with the pilgrims in Mecca, who are sacrificing lambs in memory of Abraham, but is an occasion for charity. Traditionally a portion of the meat should go to the poor. (In the modern world, many Muslims donate money to charity instead of making a physical gift of meat.)
