In April 2021, dozens of people lined up outside Al-Qutb’s shop in the Old City of Nablus in the West Bank to buy qatayef for Ramadan. Al-Araby Al-Jadeed recorded customers waiting for the round pastry shells, which are commonly filled with cheese or walnuts. Nablus is famous for knafeh, but during Ramadan the cheaper, easy-to-share qatayef and awama become more popular.
Even a city’s signature sweet can yield to the rhythm of a particular season. The queue reflected not what Nablus was most famous for, but what families wanted on the table that evening.