My Personal Interfaith mini-Feast
On the 11th day of Ramadan I broke my fast with a truly interfaith meal.
To break my eleventh Ramadan fast for 2019, I started with a Matzo Pizza made loosely following a recipe given to me by Pamela Fender. Delicious, Pamela, just as you said it would be. Thank you! I’m going to have a hard time not gobbling down those matzos as pizzas way too often for a healthy body and waistline.
Who would have thought of Jewish pizzas as so delicious?
I also ate a scrumptious Indian eggplant dish called Baingan Bharta that my dear Muslim sister Nargis in Mumbai makes and taught to her kids, my wonderful neighbors. It seems that both a Muslims and Hindus cook this dish. It perfectly complimented the pizzas….
The Indian spices played off of the Italian ones beautifully, with the tomato, garlic and onion base flavors keeping the two flavor tunes in harmony.
Some lovely scalloped potatoes, which I always associate with Sunday after church dinners with my then Jewish sister’s Christian in-laws added their charm to the meal.
I also enjoyed a bit of slowly simmered chicken, fit for a Sunday evening feast.
To be sure that I honored the other half of the major Indian religious tradition, I made some turmeric and orange tea. And by mixing it with green and white tea I feel that I also paid homage to both Buddhism and Shintoism. Finally, I had a Chinese fortune cookie to celebrate Confucianism.
“Oh no!”
I suddenly realized that I was so hungry after that day of fasting that I did not take any pictures of my pizza or my plate for this article. So on Saturday, May 18, 2019, four good friends and I all broke our fasts on Matzo Pizza.
The last time when I made the pizzas, the only real problem came from the matzo getting very soggy in the middle of the pizza. So this time I carefully spread a thin layer of cream cheese on each matzo. We ate at my friend’s house, but unfortunately I did not bring enough sauce with me. So our pizzas proudly sported lovely crusts, but the edges of bare matzo embarrassed them, as you can see in the picture of the poor things above. They were very bare compared to my first pizza, so I recommend plenty of sauce, whether you cook your own or use a good pre-cooked commercial brand.
On both days of pizza making I used my favorite organic commercial spaghetti sauce, doctored with extra Italian spice, garlic, and some dehydrated spinach flakes to take up some of the moisture and add good vegetables. On the last set I put green pepper slices, mushrooms and lots of mozzarella cheese on top. One pizza had jalapeño slices added. You can add whatever toppings you enjoy. But please, do remember to have enough sauce on hand so that your pizzas will not be as sad as my second batch.
Thankfully everyone else contributed wonderful food to our shared feast, and though not in quite as much variety as the first time, I still considered it an interfaith feast. One friend made a delicious Mexican casserole I considered Christian since Catholic Christianity dominates the religions in Mexico. We also inhaled an original Indian dish which represented both Hinduism and Buddhism by the baby corncobs and other vegetables in it, and Islam by its ground turkey and sauce with traditional Indian Muslim spices. The matzo pizzas again represented Judaism. Later I made some green tea to once again stand for Confucianism and Shintoism.
The other food more than made up for my scanty pizzas and we all enjoyed a very satisfying and tasty breaking of this second fast…. And I took the picture — the original impetus to get together in the first place.
These interfaith meals give me a lot of fun and satisfaction. So you might well see more about them on down the road, God willing.
Until then, Peace, and may all your pizzas be saucy and your salads crisp!
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