[QGLUG] Egyptian Food

[Mostaqeel]

Egyptian Food
By Joyce Carta

Like any crossroads culture, Egyptian cuisine has picked and chosen
those ingredients and food that grow best as well as best meet the
flavor and nutritional needs of their people. Bridging Africa and Asia
as it does, Egypt has a lot from which to choose.

Tourist hotel meals will offer well prepared if unexciting
meat/vegetable/starch entrees but that's not the real food of the real
people. To eat "real," you have to eat "street." And Egypt is a
culinary adventure. "Eating street" as we define it, doesn't confine
itself to standup meals from cart vendors -- it's more the everyday
cuisine of the everyday person in the street. These everyday Egyptians
eat well. Meats are largely grilled or roasted, whole or minced, with
lamb and chicken predominating. You see a lot of cows but they seem to
serve more as farm equipment than beef.

The shish kabob style is extremely popular and is served either with or
without the skewers but always with traditional accompaniments: greens
and tomato salad, tahini sauce and pita bread. So you can stuff your
own sandwich if you want. Bread is always whole wheat pita, coated with
coarse ground wheat, round, fragrant and sheer heaven when hot from the
oven. Often pita plus a dipping sauce, tahini, hummus or babaganoush,
makes a fast food meal and a healthy, delicious one at that.

Egyptians have embraced the tomato and we never had one that wasn't
bursting with color and flavor. The traditional and ubiquitous salad is
chopped tomato, coriander, mint, little hot green peppers (not
jalapenos but close) and onions, coated with garlic oil. It's great for
digestion but death on the breath. Bring mints. Other veggies that grow
well and show up all the time include beans, mostly chick pea and fava,
which are eaten stewed for breakfast, hearty stewed for lunch and
dinner and ground and pasted for tahini and hummus with great amounts
of garlic.

Eggplant, mashed as the main ingredient in babaganoush, is also used in
Egyptian moussaka with a mild white cheese. Okra, cabbage, cauliflower
and potatoes show up frequently, stewed with tomatoes and garlic. Rice
is a universal constant and was consistently wonderful, even for
breakfast! The grains mix short basmati-like rice with longer brown,
nutty tasting rice and we wish we could have found it to bring back.

Grilled pigeon is the acclaimed delicacy and like any small game bird
is long on flavor but short on ease of eating. We only had fish on the
Red Sea, perch and tuna, both fried, but flavorful without excess oil.
We had various types of pasta from time to time but never did find out
if it was wheat flour or rice flour based. Nevertheless it was
uniformly delicious.

Of course, when you think "Orient" you think spices. Egyptian bazaars
display staggering amounts, sculptured into colorful spice pyramids,
from yellows of saffron and ochres of curries to deep blues of powdered
indigo dye. Food is usually spices but not spicy. Cumin and salt are
found on restaurant tables.

Middle Eastern desserts are nothing special; they do bake but, to the
Western taste, figs, date and nut fillings in largely unsweetened dough
isn't a dessert. Better to eat the fresh figs, dates (of which there
must be 200 different types and grades), oranges and pomegranates
without baked modifications.  Speaking of fruit, juice bars abound in
the streets and fresh squeezed oranges sweetened with cut sugar cane is
heaven in a hot climate.