Each year people in the Kingdom wait until the last week of Sha'ban to stock up on food for Ramadan with supermarkets advertising special offers for a long list of soups, sweets and drinks many of which cannot be found at other times of the year. As Ramadan approaches, it is not unusual to see a family lined up at the check out counter of a cavernous hypermarket with a fleet of shopping carts each containing a mountain of food items. But it was not always so. And those Saudis over the age of 60 can still remember when things were different. “In the past,” 72-year-old Ali Yousef remembered, “just before Ramadan in Jeddah, people used to buy simple food supplies from the nearest small grocery in their district. “I just bought soup, jelly and milk with some kilos of rice and sugar. I only spent between SR100 to SR150 to buy all the Ramadan food supplies for the family.” He added that in those days they did not eat much during the month of Ramadan, because if they did, they would fall asleep instead of offering Al-Taraweeh (special night) prayer. In the past, people all over the Kingdom used to buy sugar, wheat, rice, tea, dates and milk from their nearest market. In most cities there was only one big store which belonged to a well-known food merchant. In Jizan, in the south of the Kingdom, for example, villagers used to ride camels and donkeys in order to reach the city to buy certain food items necessary for Ramadan. “I used to go to the city with my father and uncle riding our camel to buy salt, sugar, tea and rice five days before Ramadan,'' said 67-year-old Yousef Ahmed. “We would spend two days on the round trip from our village in Ahad Al-Masarehah to Jizan in order to buy the food we needed for Ramadan,” he said. Umm Muhammad, aged 65, told Saudi Gazette that in the past children and teenagers ate whatever food was available in their homes. Whereas, these days, she pointed out, many of them do not even drink milk or like to eat dates during Iftar, but prefer to drink special imported juices and eat cheese and vegetable pastries instead. She also drew attention to the amount of food that is prepared, eaten and wasted by families during Ramadan in the Kingdom and how this was never the case in the past. Today, she said, each family invites its relatives and friends for Iftar or Suhoor. The host family cooks many dishes in addition to preparing sweets and local juice drinks. When the party is over, a lot of the food unfortunately goes into the trash bin, she pointed out, instead of being given to charitable societies in the city. “When I was young, we used to cook according to the numbers of our family only, and we exchanged food with our neighbors,” Umm Muhammad said. If there was any extra food it was always given to poor families in the district, she added.
