A dessert made from melted Mars Bars and Corn Flakes seems out of place on Seda and Enes Kula’s iftar table during the Ramadan fast-breaking dinner.

But Seda insists she ate it back in Turkey, where it’s called kozalak because the sweet clusters are shaped like pine cones.

Still, her friends and family get a kick out of debating how Turkish “pine cones” really are before unanimously enjoying the crunchy dessert laced with walnuts from Costco.

“Does this exist or did you make it up?” asks her banker husband, Enes.

“Put some figs and dried apricots in it,” suggests Hasan Ozturk, a food engineer, giving the dish a more Turkish spin.

Hazar Yegul, who is 6, has the final say.

“It’s good,” he declares.

Turkish Recipes:

Pine Cones

Okra-Chickpea Stew

Baklava

Our meal comes in the middle of the Islamic month of Ramadan, which wraps up Aug. 19 with Eid al-Fitr. Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. At sunset, they gather with friends and family for iftar.

The Intercultural Dialogue Institute Toronto (IDI Toronto) has come up with an enticing twist to iftar. If you go to its website (toronto.interculturaldialog.com) and click on “Ramadan Family Iftars,” you can sign up to join a Muslim family for a homestyle meal.

That’s how I wind up at the Kula home, after requesting a Ramadan dinner with a family near the Danforth that would let me watch them cook in the afternoon and bring my 4-year-old to dinner.

Fatih Yegul, IDI Toronto’s executive director, says the family dinner program started in 2007 and is most popular at Ramadan but available year-round.

“The idea is to give people a chance to meet a neighbour who is from another culture, and vice versa,” he explains at the Kula home. “We mainly target non-Muslims, and most of our host families are Turkish.”

This year, there will be more than 35 dinner matches made for Ramadan.

“At first, when this program started, the hosts were very hesitant, wondering who would come and how they should be treated, but we said `Don’t worry. They’re just people like you,’ ” remembers Yegul. “Some people stay in their comfort zones and have never hosted someone from Canada before.”

On the flip side, notes Fatih’s wife, Ayse Yegul, an IDI outreach representative, “it’s not easy to knock on a stranger’s door.”

Turkish families invite non-Muslims to join them for dinner during Ramadan
Published on Tuesday August 07, 2012
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Aaron Harris for the Toronto Star Clockwise from left, Fatih Yegul, Ayse Yegul, Yusuf Yegul, Ferda Ozturk, Seda Kula, Enes Kula and Hasan Ozturk.
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Jennifer Bain
By Jennifer Bain Food Editor

A dessert made from melted Mars Bars and Corn Flakes seems out of place on Seda and Enes Kula’s iftar table during the Ramadan fast-breaking dinner.

But Seda insists she ate it back in Turkey, where it’s called kozalak because the sweet clusters are shaped like pine cones.

Still, her friends and family get a kick out of debating how Turkish “pine cones” really are before unanimously enjoying the crunchy dessert laced with walnuts from Costco.

“Does this exist or did you make it up?” asks her banker husband, Enes.

“Put some figs and dried apricots in it,” suggests Hasan Ozturk, a food engineer, giving the dish a more Turkish spin.

Hazar Yegul, who is 6, has the final say.

“It’s good,” he declares.

Turkish Recipes:

Pine Cones

Okra-Chickpea Stew

Baklava

Our meal comes in the middle of the Islamic month of Ramadan, which wraps up Aug. 19 with Eid al-Fitr. Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. At sunset, they gather with friends and family for iftar.

The Intercultural Dialogue Institute Toronto (IDI Toronto) has come up with an enticing twist to iftar. If you go to its website (toronto.interculturaldialog.com) and click on “Ramadan Family Iftars,” you can sign up to join a Muslim family for a homestyle meal.

That’s how I wind up at the Kula home, after requesting a Ramadan dinner with a family near the Danforth that would let me watch them cook in the afternoon and bring my 4-year-old to dinner.

Fatih Yegul, IDI Toronto’s executive director, says the family dinner program started in 2007 and is most popular at Ramadan but available year-round.

“The idea is to give people a chance to meet a neighbour who is from another culture, and vice versa,” he explains at the Kula home. “We mainly target non-Muslims, and most of our host families are Turkish.”

This year, there will be more than 35 dinner matches made for Ramadan.

“At first, when this program started, the hosts were very hesitant, wondering who would come and how they should be treated, but we said `Don’t worry. They’re just people like you,’ ” remembers Yegul. “Some people stay in their comfort zones and have never hosted someone from Canada before.”

On the flip side, notes Fatih’s wife, Ayse Yegul, an IDI outreach representative, “it’s not easy to knock on a stranger’s door.”

It’s not easy — but it sure is fun. I knock on the Kulas’ door mid-afternoon to watch the cooking.

Seda has enlisted three friends — Ayse, Aysel Celtikoglu and Ferda Ozturk — to help. With remarkable ease (and without a single complaint about being hungry or thirsty while they fast), the women whip up baklava, pine cones, okra-chickpea stew, meat-stuffed eggplants, beef shawarma and a buttery mix of calrose rice with risi (a rice-shaped pasta).

They swap tips, like the importance of using a sharp knife to cut the baklava into bite-size squares before it goes into the oven, the value in buying frozen, sliced okra instead of dealing with the raw, sticky vegetable, and dropping the hot baklava sugar syrup on your thumbnail to test if it’s ready.

Iftar is usually more than a family affair. Inviting guests is the norm.

This year, the women excitedly tell me, the Nile Academy (a Turkish private school near Eglinton and Warden) has set up an “iftar tent” offering a free public dinner each night, an event that reminds them of Istanbul. On Saturday nights, people stay, pray, socialize and drink tea and coffee until the morning fast-breaking meal, called suhoor.

Ferda dashes out at one point during cooking to get unsalted butter for the baklava. She is also pregnant and doesn’t have to fast, and so sips water and is asked to have a tiny bite of okra to see if it’s fully cooked.

When we reconvene at sunset (about 8:45 p.m.), Celtikoglu is at another iftar, but Yegul and Ozturk have brought their husbands and kids. My daughter Hazel plays with Kula’s 3-year-old daughter, Ceren, Ozturk’s 3-year-old son, Andac, and Yegul’s sons, Hazar (6) and Yusuf (2). The kids, who aren’t required to fast (or can do a modified fast), drop by the table occasionally for nibbles.

There is a prayer, dates (the traditional fast-breaking food item), all the dishes that were prepared in the afternoon, plus Turkish manti (thumbnail-sized meat dumplings in yogurt sauce), stuffed grape leaves, artichokes stuffed with rice and two kinds of salad. To drink, there is Pepsi, Canada Dry ginger ale, 7-Up, Brisk fruit punch or lemonade and, at the end of the meal, Turkish tea.

We chat about the meal, fasting, Turkish restaurants, and the food that will be served at the upcoming Toronto Turkish Festival (Aug. 24 at Nathan Phillips Square, and Aug. 25 and 26 at David Pecaut Square).

“You should also come to suhoor — the early breakfast,” suggest Fatih. “This year it’s around 3:45 or 3:50 a.m.”

Sounds delicious — but I’ll save that one for next year.

 

SOURCE:thestar.com