Customs of food and drink
The customs around eating and drinking: feasts, fasts, hosting and ceremony. Not recipes.
EveryParampara follows the customs around food, not the dishes: the blessing before a meal, the order in which guests are served, the feast that marks a day, the fast and how it is broken, the ceremony of pouring tea. A named food appears here only where it has a role in the custom, such as the sweet offered at a shrine or the bread broken at a Sabbath table. For dishes, recipes and cuisines, see Thali, our food guide.
Meals as rituals
Many meals are ritual in themselves: the Passover seder follows a script, the iftar ends a day of fasting with a prayer, a wedding feast has toasts in a set order. EveryParampara lists these by country and by meal, with the dates where the day moves each year.
Manners at the table
Table customs vary widely: eating with the right hand, sharing a single dish, waiting for the eldest to begin, leaving a little on the plate or clearing it entirely. A guest learns the rules by watching, and a host will forgive mistakes. Behind the rules is a simple idea: the meal is a way of showing respect.
Written by the EveryParampara desk with AI assistance. Background on Customs of food and drink (kind of tradition). Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
🇦🇿 Azerbaijan and 1 moreArmudu tea glassArmudu stəkan
A pear-shaped glass used in Azerbaijan to serve and drink black tea.Table custom · Tea, coffee and drinking ceremonies
🇬🇪 GeorgiaRtveliრთველი
A Georgian harvest festival marking the grape picking season with feasts and folk songs.Festival · Feasts and festival meals
🇦🇿 AzerbaijanNovruzNovruz Bayramı
The Azerbaijani spring equinox festival of bonfires, sweets and sprouted wheatSeasonal · Feasts and festival meals
🇦🇿 Goychay, AzerbaijanGoychay Pomegranate FestivalGöyçay nar festivalı
An annual gathering in Azerbaijan honouring regional pomegranates, crafts and musicFestival
🇹🇲 Ashgabat, TurkmenistanMelon Day
A nationwide summer holiday in Turkmenistan honoring the country's prized melonsTable custom
🇺🇿 Bukhara, UzbekistanNavruzNavroʻz
The spring equinox festival celebrated across Uzbekistan with sumalak and family visits.Seasonal · Sweets given and shared
🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan and 4 moreBeshbarmakбешбармак
Boiled meat and noodles, eaten by hand from one platter, with a set cut for each guestTable custom · Feasts and festival meals
🇬🇪 Tbilisi, GeorgiaSupraსუფრა
A Georgian feast led by a toastmaster, where toasts, wine and food carry the mealTable custom · Feasts and festival meals
🇬🇪 Georgia and 2 moreKvevriქვევრი
A buried clay jar, and the Georgian way of making wine inside itCraft
🇬🇪 GeorgiaTheodore's Saturday
The first Saturday of Lent, kept with boiled wheat and visits to the gravesSpiritual · Sweets given and shared
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Kvevri: Levan Totosashvili, CC BY-SA 2.0, source
- Rtveli: Grigory Gagarin, Public domain, source
- Novruz: Abutalub, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Armudu tea glass: Interfase, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Supra: Public domain Public domain false false This work is in the public dom, Public domain, source
- Beshbarmak: NataAllice, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Navruz: dalbera, CC BY 2.0, source
- Goychay Pomegranate Festival: Moonsun1981, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Melon Day: AltynAsyr, CC BY-SA 3.0, source