Eid al-Fitr Foods in Morocco

The small feast that ends the fast

Eid al-Fitr falls on the first day of Shawwal, the month after Ramadan, and marks the breaking of the long fast. Moroccans call it Eid es-Seghir, 'the small feast', to distinguish it from the larger Eid al-Adha later in the year. The day begins early with a communal Eid prayer, new or best clothes, and the giving of zakat al-fitr, a charitable donation traditionally made so that everyone, however poor, can share in the celebration.

Then the eating begins — and it begins, tellingly, with sweetness. After a month in which the first food each day was a date, the first proper breakfast of Eid is a celebration of everything the fasting body missed: butter, honey, almonds, warm bread and sweet tea, taken slowly and at leisure with the whole family awake and together.

The sweet Eid breakfast

The Eid morning table is a spread of the folded and griddle breads eaten with honey and butter, alongside the dense almond-and-sesame sellou, and a bakery's worth of home-made cookies. Baghrir — the spongy 'thousand-hole' semolina pancake — soaks up a warm butter-and-honey syrup; msemen and meloui are torn and dipped; and in many homes fresh sfenj, the ring-shaped Moroccan doughnuts, are fried and dusted with sugar for the children.

Mint tea flows without pause, poured from a height into small glasses, and the sweetness is the point: it is the joyful opposite of the disciplined month just finished. Make the centrepieces yourself with our msemen recipe, sfenj recipe and mint tea recipe.

• Sellou (sfouf): toasted flour, almonds, sesame and honey, pressed into a rich mound.
• Baghrir: honeycomb semolina pancakes drenched in honey and butter.
• Msemen & meloui: folded and coiled griddle breads with honey.
• Sfenj: airy fried doughnuts, a treat for the children.
• Mint tea: poured continuously, the thread that runs through the morning.

The cookie tins come out

No Moroccan Eid is complete without the boxes and tiered plates of home-baked cookies (halwa) prepared in the final days of Ramadan specifically for the visitors who will arrive. These are the jewels of the Moroccan sweet kitchen, almond-heavy and delicately perfumed with orange-blossom water and cinnamon.

The classics recur in every home: kaab el ghazal ('gazelle horns'), crescents of thin pastry packed with almond paste and orange-blossom; ghriba, crumbly cookies of almond, coconut or semolina; fekkas, twice-baked slices studded with almonds and raisins; and briouat bil louz, honey-dipped almond triangles. See the full range in our Moroccan pastries guide and desserts and sweets guide.

Visiting, and the meal that follows

Eid al-Fitr is above all a day of family and neighbourly visiting. People call on parents, grandparents, relatives and friends in turn, and at every stop the same ritual repeats: sit, take sweets, drink tea, exchange the greeting 'Eid Mubarak', and move on. Children receive small gifts or money. The generosity is relentless and lovely, and by mid-morning most people have eaten sweets in three or four houses.

Later in the day the cooking turns savoury for a family lunch — often a chicken tagine with preserved lemon and olives, a couscous, or another celebratory dish, since it is, after all, the first proper daytime meal in a month. It is a smaller, homelier feast than the great meat-centred Eid al-Adha; the joy of Eid al-Fitr is in the sweetness and the company. Read how the larger sacrifice feast differs in our Eid al-Adha and mechoui piece.