Pakistani charity dishes out ostrich as Ramzan treat for poor

Food dishes prepared with ostrich meat and chickpea are ready to serve, for first day of fasting month of Ramzan in Karachi | Photo from REUTERS

HIGHLIGHTS

• Volunteers served red meat to more than 500 Karachi residents before dawn broke on Tuesday
• An official said that there is plan to offer deer and other expensive cuisine in coming days during Ramzan
• Move is likely to be welcomed by those who stuffed themselves with ostrich meat

A Pakistani charity in the coastal metropolis of Karachi is serving up a rare treat for the city’s Muslims ahead of their fast for the holy month of Ramzan - ostrich meat.

Expensive and seldom eaten in Pakistan, ostrich is deemed exotic in the mainly Muslim nation of 208 million people.

Volunteers stewed the red meat in large metal pots and served it in a chickpea curry to more than 500 residents before dawn broke on Tuesday, when Pakistani Muslims began their month-long Ramzan fast.

A volunteer prepare food plates to be served with ostrich meat and chickpea in Karachi | Photo from REUTERS

"Keeping in view of this deprivation, [wealthy] people supported us and like the previous year, we offered those dishes which even a middle class person cannot afford, let alone the poor," Zafar Abbas, the general secretary of the Jafaria Disaster Management Cell Welfare Foundation, said.

Zafar Abbas said the plan is to offer deer and other expensive cuisine in coming days during Ramzan, when practicing Muslims abstain from eating, drinking and smoking during daylight hours.

The move is likely to be welcomed by those who stuffed themselves with ostrich meat.

"It felt very nice. I had never eaten [ostrich]," van driver Mohammad Hussain said.

"It was so wholesome that I feel no need to eat for the next two days," Mohammad Hussain added.

SOURCE