People queue up for hours to buy Ramazan ‘pide’, an annual culinary tradition associated with the Islamic month of fasting.

Due to the difference between the Islamic calendar and the western calendar, the month of Ramazan arrives about 11 days earlier each year. As a major part of Turkish social life, this traditional month of fasting therefore falls at different seasons over our lifetimes. The dishes so carefully prepared during the month also change in keeping with the season. But there is one foursome that is never missing from the Ramazan table whatever the season: olives, dates, güllaç and Ramazan ‘pide’ (pronounced ‘pee-deh’).
Dates and olives satisfy the body’s need for salt and sugar after a day of fasting, while the unique dessert ‘güllaç’, which comes from ‘güllü as’ or ‘food with roses’, is prepared only in the month of Ramazan. But Ramazan ‘pide’, a flat bread that people wait for hours in front of bakeries to buy as its freshly baked aroma fills their nostrils, is a Ramazan specialty different from all the others.