In the wake of the deadly swine flu contagion, food safety requirements have been stepped up at the Ramadan food stalls that open Saturday night to continue a tradition of livening up the night-time markets of downtown Balad during the holy month. Supervision by Balad Municipality will be stricter this time around, said municipality President Wadea Abu Al-Hamail who was proud to declare that Balad is the only municipality to have a computerized system to direct field staff. “The database monitoring system helps us quickly contact our field inspectors on their handhelds, and this has vastly improved their response time,” he said. The municipality aims to step up food safety through promoting personal hygiene and heightened civic sense as elemental to minimizing the impact of the H1NI virus that has caused 16 human deaths in the Kingdom as of Friday, though none so far in Jeddah. Expecting the seasonal night-time crowds and the ensuing mess of washing up, the municipality has also placed a licensing condition that the food stalls use only disposable plates, forks and spoons. “Besides, barbers should also use disposal gloves and wear a face mask,” Abu Al-Hamail said. The extra vigilance and precautions should not hamper the seasonal happening, he said, because few will disagree with the special delight of digging into baleelah (boiled chick peas), kibda (minced liver) and labaniya (a milk preparation) from the Ramadan food stalls. Some of the stalls, including those selling bakhour (incense), dry fruit and Eid sweets have been seasonally run by the same Saudi families for generations, for example, Hamdan Abu Sabayen, Badrah, and Fakhry (sweets) and Al-Hamid (bakhour). Nowadays, these families run the stalls more out of continuing a tradition than for commerce: profits are negligible today compared to the hefty amounts of ‘60s and ‘70s when commercialism and competition were not so rampant. Stalls were allocated only to Saudis through a lottery draw in their presence, the municipality president said. The licensing costs for the Ramadan period up to Eid were SR1,500 for a kibda stall, SR1,500 for a dry fruits and sweets stall, SR500 for Bakhour, and SR1,000 for traditional sweets (like labaniyah). The Eid sweets stalls will operate from Ramadan 19, Al-Hamail added. The stalls can be found in Kandrah, Balad, Bab Makkah (in front of Asit cemetary) Gabil Street (bakhour sweet, dry fruit), Abdul Aziz Street, Kitar Roundabout, Gold Souk Bab Sharif (Kibda), Al-Ammariyah (dry fruit, sweets and clothes), Souk Al-Nahda (next to Queen's Building), and Abdul Aziz Street near the Juffali roundabout. In Kandrah, the street will be closed so as to make way for 69 food stalls run by Saudi women. The criteria for licensing were that they should be above 30 years of age and either divorced, orphaned or widowed, Al-Hamail said. Charity is a large part of the municipality's effort to operate the stalls. The families running the stalls for generations are conduits for Ramadan assistance gathered from regular donors from distribution among the poor who make their way to the stalls during month of fasting.
