For much of the year, dawn breaks over sleepy lanes in Hyderabad, India, as chai and newspaper vendors rush to deliver piping hot tea alongside the news. But during Ramadan, mornings in the Old City, ...

Unlike nombu kanji — the rice-and-lentil porridge that has long been Tamil Nadu’s Iftar staple — haleem arrived relatively recently as an exotic import from Hyderabad. As historian Kombai S Anwar says ...