Discover Egyptian food and cuisine

However, it has its own character, even if many of the dishes sound familiar to the taste buds of those who have explored North Africa or the Middle East. It is a rather simple cuisine and quite repetitive once you have tasted the specialities. Lots of “Egyptian pizzas”, savoury pancakes, lots of fried-panned mincemeat. But the emblematic dishes of Egyptian cuisine are well worth trying. At the top of my personal top list is the irresistible mouloukheya, a soup with an intense green colour and flavours that are as powerful as they are surprising. But also…

The national dish is resolutely the foul, the pillar of the Egyptian breakfast

Foul is a coarse purée of brown beans. Seasoned with oil and lemon, sometimes with chilli and tomato. The most basic form comes in a sandwich: the flat bread, ayish or aish baladi, opened in half, is generously spread with foul. It is the basis of the Egyptians’ national breakfast. Often supplemented with pickled vegetables (carrots, turnips), one or two crispy falafels, tahini, this delicious purée of sesame seeds. It is a breakfast very rich in fibre, iron, protein… and calories.
But there are many variations, even if the foul remains the common denominator. The fabulous babaghanoush, a spicy aubergine purée, and the shakshouka, a scrambled egg, tomato and onion mixture, are also served on the tiny food truck, on metal plates. The Baladi salata is the national salad served in a bowl at every meal: a sober mix of cucumbers, tomatoes and onions. Be careful, it is sometimes very spicy.
Egyptians usually buy their first meal in food truks that criss-cross the city. If you make the effort to get up early, they are easy to spot by the crowd of men all around. You order, and usually eat on the spot.

Interesting anecdote, the waiter almost always puts a glass on the table containing the juice made from the national salad Baladi Salata 

You will be encouraged to drink it, explaining that it will make you strong. Intrigued by this story, I conducted my investigation. You have to remember that Egypt is 95% desert. No water should be lost! Colourful vegetables are still in the Egyptians’ imagination synonymous with strength combining fertile land, water and sunshine. A very wise tradition.

In Egypt, home cooking and street food are inseparable

Egyptian cooks living in the cities never make their own falafels or bread. This work is done by street vendors, and there are many of them.
Families often eat outside or have their food delivered to their homes. In Egypt, everything can be delivered, even a bag of peanuts.

Bread is delivered to the four corners of the city by an unexpected means of locomotion: the bicycle. This is probably the first thing that will surprise the traveller: racks full of bread balanced on their heads, cyclists slalom through the infernal traffic, one hand on the handlebars, one hand on the goods. Whahoo. 
If a loaf of bread should fall, it is not uncommon for the traffic to spontaneously stop so as not to crush the wafer, and there is always someone brave enough to return it to the delivery man. The bread here is sacred, moreover, in Arabic aïsh also means life.