Egyptian Cuisine

Before moving on to some of the adventures you can experience while in Egypt (cab ride jokes aside), I thought I would round-out a description of daily life in Cairo. I've already talked about finding a place to live and getting around the city, so I thought here I would stop to take a minute and describe the culinary delights of Cairo. And here I make the distinction of Cairo, not Egypt, because for anyone who likes sea food, a trip to Alexandria would be well worth the effort. In that coastal city, you can feast to your heart's content for hardly any money.

One evening while in Alexandria, a friend that knew the area well took a group of about ten or twelve of us to a fabulous, well-known restaurant named Abu Ashraf where we picked our own sea food as we walked in the door. We chose from crabs (one for each of us, of course), salmon, shrimp, and a few other fish. At our long table in the back, we proceeded to add a few salads for us to share, and baskets with local Egyptian naan-like bread along with heaping plates of rice and possibly some chicken slices were brought to our table. The food just kept coming and it was all fresh, local and exquisitely delicious. After we finished, we were given the bill (which also included a pepsi for each of us and water for all) which was about 360£E (Egyptian pounds) total .... this translates into about $62 and was to be divided amongst the ten or so of us. We tipped heavily.

Cairo, on the other hand, is a slightly different story. Located farther inland, it doesn't have the same access to fresh meat and fish. While you can find them from vendors, you really have to search hard and know where to look. What are in abundant supply are fresh fruit and vegetables. The most delectable bananas, mangoes, strawberries, oranges, eggplants, peppers, zucchini, and more can be found in little vendors' carts peppered throughout the entire city. Lemons are sold at the vegetable stand in baggies of six or eight because they are so small; their diameter is probably no bigger than that of a quarter and they are all perfectly round and immensely flavorable. As a biproduct of having such fresh fruit available, it's always better to buy juice from small juice vendors instead of from the Metro grocery stores. The vendors keep large supplies of fresh seasonal fruit around and it's a BYOB set-up (Bring Your Own Bottle). My flatmates and I used to go to a vendor with empty 2-liter water bottles and walk away with fresh squeezed blood-red orange juice, regular orange juice and anything else that sounded good at the time. You can also buy juice by the glass and my two favorites from restaurants (vendors had more intricate mixtures) were mango juice - because it was thick and chunky with mango bits - and lemon juice. Both were very cool and refreshing, especially in the heat of summer.

But even these cannot be the staple of every meal. The most available foods - native to Egypt - are not for the faint-hearted. Atkins would not have fared well in Cairo. The plus side is that many are quite tasty and really cheap, even if you don't factor in the exchange rate.

One of the cheapest (small ~ 2£E or $0.35; large ~ 5£E or $0.86), most filling meals you can buy in a hurry is koshiri and is a mixture of white rice, macaroni noodles, chick peas, and marinara sauce, topped with copious amounts of lentils and fried onions. To this you can either add hot sauce or a garlic/lemon sort of sauce (which I recommend to give this dish some moisture). In fact, koshiri is so popular that while sometimes offered in restaurants, it's easier to find in little fast food stores dedicated almost solely to the dish.

Ta'amiyya - which is even less expensive (at about .35 £E or $0.06 per sandwich) - is also very popular, especially if you're in a hurry. It is a small pita sandwich filled with a little lettuce and tomato surrounding fried crushed bean cakes that for some reason are a really nifty color green. There was a little sandwich stand two blocks down from my school that was no more than a hole in the wall. It was take-out only so the quickest way to find it was to look for a large group of Egyptians crowded around what could have easily been mistaken for a blank wall. Inside was a long, narrow kitchen, barely wide enough for two people to stand next to one another but it functioned well and quickly.

Two more very popular small dishes that you can order in restaurants as part of a barrage of appetizer-like choices are fuul, and fried batinghen, which is the Arabic word for "eggplant". Fuul is beans that have been so deep fried, there is sometimes a layer of oil about 1 centimeter thick floating along the top (fuul also comes in small pita sandwiches and tends to not be quite as oily). It's eaten with local bread, either regular or baked until it comes out in crispy chip form.

If you're worried, there are also restaurants from other Arab countries (Lebanese food abounds in Cairo and is very good) as well as some American staples so you shouldn't run into too many problems. But my philosophy is - to rearrange a famous quote - "When in Cairo, do as the Cairenes do" and if you're ever there, I recommend trying some of these dishes which are really quite yummy.

One final note. The picture above is of me eating a dish my friends and I ordered without knowing exactly what it was. It turned out to be infinitely intriguing. In a few days, I will put up another food post. See if you can guess between now and then (when I reveal the secret) what I am eating.