Humble fattoush salad shows cost of Lebanon’s crisis at Ramadan

After a year of economic meltdown in Lebanon, Hala Sheikh is sticking to a modest menu as she prepares the evening meal for her family to break their daily Ramadan fast.

“We didn’t want to prepare unnecessary stuff,” Sheikh said as she got ready for the first Ramadan meal this week. “We prepared basic things like fattoush, soup and a main course – we will not prepare big meals like last year or the year before.”

A study by the American University of Beirut (AUB), dubbed the “Fattoush Index”, found that the cost of its ingredients – including lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, parsley, radish and bread – soared 210% in the last 12 months.

For Sheikh, a 50-year-old former nutritionist who moved from the United States with her family, prices are a constant concern.

“During this bad economic situation you have to bear in mind the cost of making fattoush,” she said as she prepared the salad in her flat in Beirut’s Hamra district where she lives with her husband and four sons.

“This lettuce I’m cutting costs 3,000 pounds.” After the currency slumped 85%, that is worth barely 20 U.S. cents. But in a country where the minimum wage has plunged to around $50 a month, costs quickly spiral.

It will be hard “for poor families who are below the poverty line and it will also be hard for them to secure and maintain their daily food,” he said.

Yassine’s Fattoush Index may even under-estimate the scale of the problem, with official consumer price data showing the cost of food and non-alcoholic drinks jumped 417% in the year to February.

After decades of mismanagement and corruption, Lebanon’s leaders have failed to break their political deadlock and form a new government to tackle the crisis, which has only worsened with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and a devastating explosion at Beirut’s port in August.

“We witnessed many wars, civil war and the Israeli invasion,” Sheikh said. “But this is the worst Ramadan we have ever been through.”

(Reuters)