On Sunday, Muslims across Michigan–and the world–began their annual observance of the holy month of Ramadan. At iftar celebrations each evening, friends and families will gather around a delicious meal to break their fast together.
In the Sudanese community, these celebrations would not be complete without hilo mur. It’s a bright, magenta-colored beverage whose name translates to “bittersweet.” Members of Michigan’s Sudanese community recently gathered at the Arab American National Museum to welcome in the Ramadan season with the preparation of this traditional beverage.
On stage, groups of women lingered over two electric griddles. One of them was Intisar Elseddig, who helped organize the event. She ladeled a deep mauve batter onto the griddle. Once it looked cooked, she carefully picked up the sheets with her bare fingers, and tossed them into a wide, shallow basket.
“In Sudan, in these days, everywhere you can smell this–spices and the smell of hilo mur–everywhere. All Sudanese, they make this hilo mur before Ramadan,” explained Elseddig.
As the hilo mur is prepared, a warm, delicious aroma filled the room with notes of cinnamon and ginger and sugar, and a hint of curry. The public event had the feel of a family reunion. It seemed like every time someone new entered the room, they were welcomed by a warm hug.
“I came in here knowing exactly two people, but I've already met four or five people,” said Areej Aabbas, one of around a hundred people who showed up to the event in Dearborn. “We're just a very tight knit community, no matter where you go. It's kind of like a small world, the Sudani world.”
The pre-Ramadan celebration was hosted by Mayrum, a local company specializing in Sudanese food products. Elseddig owns and manages the company with her daughter, Khadega Mohammed. Mohammed said the company started out as an Instagram page featuring her mother cooking Sudanese cuisine, with a keto diet twist.
“But then I got an idea. I was like, mom, like, how about you teach me how to make these dishes because I truly don't know. And it kind of hit me that I would be the one to carry forth our Sudanese tradition, you know, like to my own kids, to future generations. If I don't learn these dishes, who's going to continue this tradition?”
So, the mother-daughter duo started cooking together. Eventually, they began to wonder if the homemade Sudanese food they loved making could be made more accessible by packaging it for easy home preparation.
“And we thought it was completely impossible,” recalled Mohammed. “So we just started, like, trying out stuff. I was like, mom, how about we, like, dehydrate food and make it into, like, these instant meals? And so then we bought a dehydrator and got started on just experimenting, and we were so surprised that it actually worked.”
Today, Mayrum sells a variety of Sudanese specialties in powder form–from stew bases to instant coffee. They have many Sudanese customers, of course, but also people who are just curious about the northeast African country’s unique cuisine.
“We figured out a way to make these ingredients that you can only find in Sudan, in America. For example, we have an ingredient called ‘weka,’ which is basically dried okra. And the weka is what makes our stews like this viscous consistency … and so you can't really find that here, like how we use it in Sudan. And so my mom started making that at home.”
But the product that really put the company on the map was the same one that drew Sudanese women from around the region to Dearborn: hilo mur. In fact, Intisar Elseddig is kind of a hilo mur celebrity.
“My mom happened to be the first Sudanese woman to figure out a way to make this drink outside of Sudan, in America,” said Mohammed. “And so this is why we're gathered here at this event, because for the past seven or eight years, we have been gathering the local Sudanese community to prepare this drink together.”
Of course, it’s hard to confirm whether Elseddig was truly the first Sudanese woman to make hilo mur in America. But figuring out how to prepare the bright pink drink was definitely not a simple process. The first step is to create a flour mixture from the sprouts of jowar seeds–a type of sorghum. This alone takes three days, not to mention a spike in the electric bill. In order to replicate the hot, humid environment of Sudan, Elseddig brought space heaters into her garage to get the jowar seeds to sprout.
“She would plant the jowar seeds, and it would sprout into a little plant, a little sprout. And then we would take the sprouts of that and dry it. And then after it is dried, we grind it into a fine flour. And then that flour is mixed with other spices, ingredients such as ginger, fenugreek seeds, hibiscus, cinnamon, all types of different spices to create this unique bittersweet flavor.”
To make the hilo mur, Elseddig takes the flour and spice mixture and turns it into a batter that gets cooked in thin layers, kind of like a crepe. The deep purple crepes are then mixed with water and a little sugar, and that’s hilo mur. A video Mohammed took of her mom’s involved hilo mur preparation process, space heaters and all, went viral among the Sudanese community.
“She posted it on her WhatsApp group, just to thank them for coming. And the next day, we woke up to see that our little video was shared out of the WhatsApp group into the world, and it went viral. I mean, millions and millions of views all over the world. In Sudan, they were like, who are these women in America creating hilo mur? It was unheard of!”
While the gathering at the Arab American National Museum was lively, this year’s Ramadan festivities are, like the hilo mur, bittersweet. Sudan is in the midst of a brutal and bloody civil war. More than ten thousand civilians have been killed, and millions have been displaced, according to a recent UN report.The conflict has raged on for more than a year now. Many of Mohammed and Elseddig’s family members have fled to nearby countries like Rwanda, seeking safety.
“So, this year we are celebrating Ramadan a little bit differently,” explained Mohammed. “It's not really a celebration because there is a war happening in Sudan right now. Millions of people have been displaced from their homes, including our own family. So, unfortunately the joy that we usually feel during this time of the year is not felt anymore.”
Mohammed translated her mother’s thoughts from Arabic.
“'We pray that hopefully by, next Ramadan, we get to celebrate with the same joy that we have celebrated with before,” Elseddig said. “And Insha'Allah, we pray that all of our families and every Sudanese person who has been displaced from their country can once again go back to Sudan. And we pray that it goes back to what it used to once be.”
Even so, Elseddig was happy to be share this piece of home with her community here in Michigan.
“So she's saying that she is extremely happy that the power of social media was able to spread this small video to the rest of the world to share our culture and cuisine and the hilo mur with the world. And it's just a beautiful thing to be able to see everybody gathered here from that. And the way that we welcome Ramadan, the month of fasting is so unique to Sudan. … And so we're happy that finally the world gets to see a glimpse of that.”
