[3][4] In some Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions, a similar dish is prepared to commemorate a child's first tooth, or the passing of a family member.

[4] Ashure was traditionally made and eaten during the colder months of the year due to its heavy and calorie rich nature, but now it is enjoyed year-round.

The dish is traditionally made in large quantities and is distributed to friends, relatives, neighbors, colleagues, classmates, and others, without regard to the recipient's religion or belief system as an offering of peace and love.

Although they are connected to Abrahamic religious holidays like the tenth day of Muharram, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and Tu BiShvat, as well as occasions like a child's first tooth or a family member's passing, their roots can be traced back to fertility and rebirth rituals used by early farmers in the Near East.

Since their supplies were nearly exhausted, what was left (primarily grains, dried fruits and the like) was cooked together to form a pudding, what is now called ashure.

According to the Ottoman historian Ahmed Cavid (d. 1803), women gave this away to loved ones, friends, and the impoverished as a gesture of gratitude for the child's survival of the difficult first year of life.

According to Aylin Öney Tan, this practice may have originated from early Jewish communities in Anatolia during the Byzantine period rather than being brought to Ottoman Turkey by Sephardic Jews who settled there following their expulsion from Spain and Portugal in the late 15th century.

Among these are wheat, barley, rice, white beans, chickpeas, pekmez, date molasses, pomegranate molasses, beet juice, dried fruits like dates, raisins, currants, apricots, figs, apples and nuts like pistachios, almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, pine nuts and sesame seeds.