Ka’ak

A ring-shaped leavened bread with a sesame crust. Across the Levant the raising agent is fermented chickpeas rather than baker’s yeast. It is sold stacked, on a pole or a cart or a counter: one is a snack for one person, two are breakfast.

How old it is

Ka’ak appears in the 10th-century Kitab al-Tabikh of Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq. Closer to home is the 13th-century Syrian cookbook Kitab al-Wuslah ila l-Habib, which gives three separate recipes for it, one of them a date-filled ring. What you are handed on the street has been sold here under the same name for at least eight hundred years.

How it is eaten

The vendor hands over a paper cone of za’atar with it; you tear the bread and dip. That is the standard way. It is also eaten with cheese, with a boiled egg, or plain. Morning and late afternoon are the two hours when the stall is busiest.

The Ramadan ka’ak is a different thing

This bread ring is everyday. The bread of Ramadan in Damascus is ma’rouk. For the Eid holidays a sweet semolina ka’ak is made instead — the same name, an entirely different dough: crumbly, buttery, often filled with dates or walnuts and offered by the tray. Asking a bakery for ka’ak gets you the sesame ring; for the sweet one you need a sweet shop.

Where to find it

It has no fixed address. Market entrances, mosque doors, bus stops, school hours — the vendor stands where the crowd is. Carry cash; these stalls do not take cards.