Within the eyes of sociologists and advertising and marketing professionals, the month of Ramadan, which has simply ended, represents an excessively wealthy box of remark that permits us to review how rituals, particularly nutritional rituals, adapt to social building and intake conduct.
There are 1.9 billion Muslims on the earth, however it’s tricky to understand the precise share of Muslims who quick right through Ramadan. Consistent with France Tradition, a few of the 5.4 million French Muslims, 70% follow fasting. In a 2023 TGM Analysis find out about record in 15 nations, 98% say they are going to rejoice Ramadan and 94% say they are going to quick. In France, 83% of Muslims elderly 18 to 24 will apply the Ramadan quick in 2026, consistent with an Ifop survey revealed remaining November.
The month of Ramadan corresponds to the 9th month of the Hijri lunar calendar. It’s on the center of the lives of thousands and thousands of Muslims around the globe. Historically related to fasting (sawm), prayer and strength of mind, this pillar of Islam seems, to start with look, to be a month of de-consumption. For one of the crucial respondents of a survey in this matter carried out a few of the Muslim neighborhood in France in 2011:
“It is also a month of reflection and meditation, and given the obligations and responsibilities it carries, we must face all our human desires and temptations… It is a month of shared fervor and solidarity, but also a month of self-control.”
Alternatively, an in-depth research of formality and culinary practices finds a a lot more advanced phenomenon: Ramadan can develop into a veritable vacation of intake the place the sacred and the profane intertwine.
Culinary ritual, between custom and staging
Breaking the short (iftar), which corresponds to sundown, isn’t just about calorie consumption; this can be a codified gadget of symbolic practices. The ritual ceaselessly starts with the intake of dates and milk, a mimetic follow that mirrors the conduct of the Prophet Muhammad as recorded within the Koran. This straightforward act turns meals right into a sacred bond that binds the person to all the Muslim neighborhood (umma).
Consistent with some other respondent in our survey:
“We respect the time the mosque gives us, and the fact of breaking the fast at the same time as hundreds of other people is a truly magical act that strengthens our sense of belonging to the Muslim community of France.”
In different nations, the Ramadan meal turns into a “banquet for the senses”. Thus, one of the crucial interviewees specifies that “the presentation of the table becomes a real work of art that can awaken all the senses.”
In Tunisia or Morocco, for instance, we discover elementary dishes akin to chowder or hrira (conventional soup), egg brix, pastilla (a kind of pie), tagines, more than a few salads and aromatic pastries (like zlabi, makroud, samsa, or even baklava). This focal point on meals is such that the kitchen turns into the actual “center of gravity of the house”.
Shoor (the meal taken prior to daybreak) may be a key second within the fasting day right through which some folks can have breakfast and even lunch. Positive days mark this holy month, such because the 14th or twenty sixth day, the night time of Al Qadr, right through which households ceaselessly get ready couscous.
The “Christmasization” of Ramadan: cultural syncretism
The “Christmasization” of Ramadan describes the transformation of this “holy” month right into a length of intense intake, related to what the birthday party of Christmas has develop into in Western nations. This phenomenon manifests itself in a dramatic build up in spending on meals, clothes and presents.
Thus, consistent with a contemporary article in Les Echos revealed in February 2025, the meals intake of Muslim families in France will increase by way of a median of 40% right through this era, from 282 to 394 euros per thirty days, and the overall turnover for Ramadan could be greater than 400 million euros in France.
This building is especially visual right through Eid al-Fitr, the vacation that marks the tip of fasting. Firstly enthusiastic about spirituality, it has develop into a “kid’s pastime” in many houses. There’s a proliferation of presents, particularly technological toys (recreation consoles, smartphones) which might be changing the normal toys of the previous.
The marketplace has tailored, providing competitive promotions and festive decorations that make buying groceries the sector. The mall turns into a meeting position the place the neighborhood revel in is skilled thru buying groceries. Some households get ready the similar dishes yearly to rejoice the tip of Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr: hlalem soup with merguez, mloukhi, and even charmula and salted fish.
At the moment is a chance for a circle of relatives accumulating: visitors style conventional pastries and put on new garments. Youngsters obtain a amount of cash (mahba).
The French marketplace has tailored: supermarkets now be offering particular merchandise, starting from flatbreads to halal ravioli, permitting a mixture of culinary genres (at iftar you’ll be able to devour fries or pizza to thrill the children. French grocery store catalogs spotlight this particular time of 12 months.
Fb e-newsletter from the grocery store Carrefour, 2026. The perfect of sobriety is withered
Ramadan is basically attached with the need to purify the frame and thoughts. Through abstaining from meals, tobacco and fragrance, the believer tries to regain his authentic purity. Sarcastically, this pursuit of asceticism is ceaselessly met with ostentatious overconsumption.
A type of overspending every so often grips shoppers. We purchase greater than we’d like, and meals waste turns into an actual downside. Even if the objective of fasting is to make folks revel in starvation as skilled by way of the deficient, the abundance of fast-breaking foods every so often contradicts this perfect of sobriety. However this generosity has a good facet: oblation rituals (sadaqa) are expanding, with donations of meals and cash to essentially the most susceptible to make sure that no person is going with out a meal for the damage of the short or Eid. A number of on-line platforms can help you accumulate donations.
A ritual in consistent evolution
Ramadan isn’t a tradition frozen in time. It’s the fruit of an everlasting cultural syncretism the place the ancestral values of Islam meet the forces of globalization and capitalism. Whether or not in Tunisia, Paris or somewhere else, meals stays essentially the most robust marker of identification this month. It permits us to transport from the “private self” to the “collective us,” turning each chunk into an act of cultural resistance or religious devotion.
For entrepreneurs and sociologists, Ramadan has develop into a captivating laboratory for looking at how the sacred can coexist with the fabric, proving that, even in abstinence, folks stay “homo consumericus.”
