The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Since 2009, Ramadan has been synonymous with summer, which nearly makes up most of the conscious years of our generation! Despite complaining about it, we’d just gotten used to it. But that’s about to change! It’ll be around 2041 by the time Ramadan starts to coincide with August again. A decade of winter Ramadan followed by a decade of autumn Ramadan. Starting next year, we’ll taste it more in late winter and early spring, as we are this year! 

So what should we expect? How do we imagine our celebration of the holy month will change according to the season it’s in? How does a winter Ramadan differ from a summer Ramadan?

The Night is Longer

We’ll start with the basics. In winter, days are shorter, and nights are longer; we all know this. But, what does it mean for Ramadan? For starters, we will be fasting for shorter hours. As a result, we’ll have longer Ramadan nights, hanging out with family and friends, eating desserts and sipping our evening tea and coffee. It also means later Suhoor, so we don’t have to fight our way to staying up; we can set our alarms and get extra hours of sleep! 

Al Mesaharaty Might Return

Which gets us to this point! Ramadan during winter means more often than not, people will choose to sleep and wake up for Suhoor rather than stay up and wait for dawn. With the drowsiness the warm blankets drape on us during the cold winter nights, we’ll all be fast asleep hours before our daily Suhoor. So this would be a great chance for Al-Mesaharaty to return to wake us up with his drums and beat away the heavy sleep of winter, because the blaring sounds of an alarm going off just won’t do! Only Al-Mesaharaty, waking up entire neighbourhoods of adults and children from their slumber might do the trick. 

Hunger Beats Thirst

For the past years, we’d got used to being more plagued by thirst than by hunger. When it’s 42 degrees outside and it feels like the 72 per cent of water in your body has evaporated under the sun, you can barely care for food, certainly not when all you want is a cold glass of water. But, this is about to change soon! While staying hydrated throughout winter is just as important, we naturally crave food more for warmth. Besides, we all know how winter enlarges our appetite! 

Kunafa bil Borto’an

Seasons change, and so do seasonal fruits! We’ve had our fun with mangoes, watermelons, and grapes during the hours between Iftar and Suhoor. We also got accustomed to having our traditional desserts and dishes renovated with different fruit, like what happened with mango years ago! Can we expect something similar to happen with the coming of winter? As Egyptians, we’re known for our creativity and endless spins on familiar things. We’re also known for having an incredibly sweet tooth. So, if we had to imagine what we’ll come up with, our guess is kunafa bil borto’an (orange kunafa), or maybe even pumpkin. We might even make a classic return to qara’ al-asl (pumpkin gratin) as a Ramadan dessert. Tangerine flavoured basbousa, anyone? Maybe even qatayef filled with pomegranate cream, who knows! The sky’s our limit, and we are excited to see the changes!