Another holiday season is nearly upon us, and we all know what that means: Loads of food. Let’s face it, a celebration just isn’t a celebration without good food on the table. No matter where you live or which religious festival or holiday you happen to be celebrating, it’s a safe assumption that food will be an integral part of it.

Food and community go hand in hand, wherever you are in the world: In Switzerland, close friends and family like to gather around at Christmas for what they call a fondue chinoise, a variation on the classic bubbly blend of melted cheese, that instead features thinly sliced beef in seasoned broth dipped into mayonnaise-based sauces. Lunar New Year in Korea, meanwhile, involves three days of feasting, where tteokguk — a soup prepared with thinly sliced rice cakes, egg, beef, vegetables, and sometimes kimchi mandu, or dumplings — is the star of the show, believed to bring health and longevity for those who eat it. And in France, around half of the country’s annual oyster production is consumed during the week from Christmas to New Year’s Day, as people gather to eat even more oysters and foie gras than they do the rest of the year.

The rituals and symbolism of food traditions are very powerful. Food carries social and cultural legacies of different communities and faith traditions. The rituals of preparing recipes that have been passed down through the generations, sharing meals with close friends and family or giving food to strangers all mirror principles often found in religious practice: Generosity, hospitality, kinship, honoring heritage. So it’s no surprise that you find food inextricably linked to religious practices and rituals all over the world.

The traditions are diverse, but the principles of generosity and participation are shared: Thai Buddhists make merit (a sort of spiritual deposit) all year round by giving food to monks, who are not allowed to work for money. The Mexican feast of La Rejunta honors an annual pilgrimage, made every December, and over thirty thousand tamales are made and distributed every year to those who have donated to the pilgrimage. In Belarus, people celebrate the pagan festival of Kolyadki by dressing in costumes, singing carols, and having feasts in their homes. And the Jewish festival of lights, Hanukkah, often involves eating fried potato pancakes called latkes, with food fried in oil commemorating a miracle in Jewish tradition, when oil burned during the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem burned for eight days.

Needless to say, Egypt is absolutely on board. Egyptians love to eat, and we love a reason to celebrate basically anything. So, naturally, all our festivities heavily feature food. That we eat well in Ramadan goes without saying, with lissan asfour, tender meat dishes, Ramadan juices including karkadeh and qamar al din, and desserts including atayef and 100 different kinds of konafa all being Iftar staples. But what would Sham el Nessim be without fesikh and ringa? Could you imagine Eid al Fitr without kahk or Eid al Adha without meat or fattah? Other traditions may be a little more obscure. According to this blog post, Islamic New Year in Egypt is a time to eat white food, including mahalabiya and roz bil laban, which symbolize new beginnings.