Because the minutes ticked nearer to sunset, the gang grew extra impatient, urgent in opposition to the glass show case, shouting and shoving payments towards the younger males filling order after order of the Ramadan candy bread.
“For those who please—”
“What is that this full of?”
“Sir, take my cash!”
“Simply be affected person!”
The high-pressure volley of queries, entreaties and pleas for persistence performs out every night of Ramadan as Syrians jostle for marook, a candy bread eaten right here throughout the Muslim fasting month. Because the time of iftar, the breaking of the quick, nears, a day’s price of starvation pangs mix with jockeying amongst patrons determined to get their marook loaves and rush house earlier than the decision to prayer sounds from mosque minarets.
There’s a trace of stress within the air, however way more pronounced is the scent of baked bread, sugar and chocolate.
Marook, a easy sweetened bread sprinkled with sesame seeds, has been part of Syrian Ramadan traditions for generations. Annually, as bakeries — and the occasional pizza parlor — dedicate their total manufacturing to it throughout Ramadan, new variations emerge to satiate evolving tastes.
Syrians are pleased with their wealthy culinary traditions, however not treasured about permitting them to evolve. There at the moment are olives within the fattoush salad. Onions within the shawarma. Parsley within the hummus.
After which there’s marook, which is available in so many various iterations that bakeries publish lengthy lists of all their choices, some unrecognizable from the unique. Maybe unavoidably given the viral meals development, a Dubai chocolate marook appeared in some retailers this yr.
Costs differ from bakery to bakery. Particular person loaves typically price round 4,000 Syrian kilos, lower than 50 cents, whereas massive ones — relying on how fancy they’re — can go as much as 45,000 kilos.
“The older folks just like the traditional for certain,” stated Tareq al-Abyad, the proprietor of 1 bakery, Al Jouzeh, standing between racks stacked with trays of marook. “I even get stunned by the brand new ones. For me, I solely just like the plain one. However I don’t promote solely what I like, I’ve to promote what the purchasers need.”
On the opposite aspect of the glass counter his prospects stood on the sidewalk calling out their orders above the honking on the street behind them. Often they needed to dodge a bicycle or motorbike racing onto the sidewalk to keep away from the bumper-to-bumper visitors on the street as everybody rushed to make it house in time for iftar.
“Please, is there pistachio bubbly?” requested Ayah al-Homsi, 27, referring to a marook that is available in a honeycomb form and is drizzled with pistachio cream.
The bakery was already out of that taste. She bought an Oreo-filled one as a substitute.
“The primary evening we all the time eat plain, date-filled and coconut,” stated Ms. al-Homsi, a Damascus native, of her household’s Ramadan consuming habits. “After which we begin making an attempt the opposite flavors.”
Seemingly overwhelmed by the alternatives, a pair and their younger daughter stood debating every taste earlier than strolling off with none marook.
At Al Jouzeh, baking begins at 6 a.m. The bakers eat suhoor, the predawn meal earlier than the quick, at house, then arrive for an exhausting day of kneading, stuffing, glazing and sprinkling.
They work like a well-oiled meeting line. Little is alleged apart from the occasional urging from one employee, Mahmoud Midani, 39, to select up the tempo.
“Let’s go — transfer this tray,” he ordered Muhammad Taboosh every time one other tray was crammed.
Mr. Taboosh, 16, was practically coated in flour.
The bakery runs off a mixture of photo voltaic vitality, a diesel-powered generator and two hours a day of government-provided electrical energy. Syria’s energy grid is marked by lengthy blackouts, a results of the 13-year civil battle.
Mohammad Hilwan, 20, from the Outdated Metropolis in Damascus, has been working on the bakery for greater than a yr.
“That is a part of our Syrian heritage and goes again many many generations,” he stated. “This selection, we’re altering with the instances. It’s not one thing unhealthy — quite the opposite, that is modernization.”
One after the other he took a small marook loaf from a tray and crammed it with melted white chocolate utilizing an computerized nozzle earlier than drizzling extra on prime and including a sprinkle of crumbled chocolate cookie. It’s his favourite taste.
“The plain ones our grandfathers used to eat,” he stated.
The bakery has three areas, and between them they make about 11,000 massive and small marook loaves every day, Mr. al-Abyad stated. These hundreds of loaves disappear shortly within the final hour of the day’s quick, and prospects in search of particular flavors could stroll away empty-handed.
“My pricey, only one with dates,” stated Salih Muhammad, 41, as he caught his head behind the counter making an attempt to maneuver previous the gang.
“There aren’t any extra date ones, uncle,” 17-year-old Muhammad Khawla advised him — after which reiterated this for his co-workers. “Guys,” he stated, “there aren’t any extra date ones.”
“Oh no, what’s going to I do?” Mr. Muhammad requested himself despondently.
In his hand he held a bag from one other bakery with three small marooks, a plain one for him and coconut ones for his two younger youngsters. His spouse had requested a date marook, and fewer than half an hour earlier than iftar he was going from bakery to bakery seeking one.
By then the varieties in bakeries throughout the town had thinned out.
“We don’t know precisely what’s nonetheless left,” stated Mr. Khawla, carrying an orange sweatshirt with a Syrian map and the date and time marking the autumn of the Assad regime in December. By that time the sweatshirt was smeared with their many flavors on provide: chocolate, pistachio and Biscoff.
Amid the flurry of enterprise, the younger males behind the counter didn’t all the time have time to depend all of the Syrian payments they have been being handed by prospects. Foreign money depreciation over the course of the battle has meant that even small on a regular basis purchases can require a thick stack of payments.
With solely minutes remaining earlier than iftar, seconds can matter, and a few prospects didn’t trouble ready for his or her change.
Mr. Khawla handed over an order of 5 coconut marooks, 5 Biscoff-flavored ones and a bubbly to a daily buyer, an older man, and stepped away to get his change. When he turned again, holding out a stack of 1,000 Syrian notes, he scanned the thinning crowd for him in useless.
“The place’s the hajji?” requested Mr. Khawla, utilizing an honorific for older folks.
Then he laughed.
“The hajji has rushed house,” he stated.
