I am not from Canada Dry, Yasmin busts out the belly dancing, and we feast Egyptian style. (Cairo)
I can hear you saying enough, Yasmin, where’s the belly dancing? After giggling myself awake the next morning to Ali of Arabia galloping through my dreams, we visited the staggeringly chaotic Egyptian Museum. Through the masses we managed to find King Tut’s treasures and the mummies – with that bone structure old Tuthmosis IV must’ve been a hottie. We then made our way to the world-famous Khan el Khalili market. In a pre-trip briefing on Cairo, a friend recommended that when visiting the market we try to venture just outside the tourist area to get a feel for the local market too. No problem there — when Ali and I disembarked we promptly went the wrong way and got totally lost. We drifted through endless alleys of chickens, geese, goats, vegetables, meat, tires, various bread products and people and more people. None of them tourists. When we finally ended up in what was clearly a residential area, we looked to Allah to guide our way back, suspecting (correctly) that the larger the mosque, the closer the market.
The face of Khan el Khalili
Camel for dinner?
Colourful Khalili
When we finally made it to the more touristy chaos of el Khalili, we were endlessly bombarded by plucky vendors with “Hello! Where are you from?” (the response: Canada Dry, that joke again? sigh) until finally I said, okay, I’ve had enough, I’m going to learn how to say “hello” in Arabic. I was a little suspicious of the Arabic cheat sheet my friend had given me; the expression for hello was beautiful and just a little too lyrical. Sure enough, upon its use I was met with surprised, albeit friendly looks. I found out later that it meant roughly “welcome to my home”; no wonder they began asking me if I lived in Cairo. Ali meanwhile was mastering various ways to communicate her lack of interest in the incalculable trinket offerings. We ended up in one lively shop where, inspired by the middle eastern music and the metal castanets placed on my fingers by the proprietor, I began to dance like I learned in belly dancing lessons (that is, before I became I belly-dancing dropout). Wouldn’t you know everyone working in the store (about ten males, ranging from 15 yrs to 40) instantly dropped what they were doing, started smiling, clapping, and closing in on me, while others walking by on the street also stopped what they were doing, started clapping, smiling, and closing in on me. Turning bright red, I gave them one final figure eight with my hips and graciously thanked them. Those three lessons finally paid off!
The day’s highlight, however, was the fabulous meal at an authentic Egyptian restaurant, Abou el Sid, hosted by my friends.
An Egyptian feast
We began with assab (a sugar cane drink) and Stella, a local pilsner. Then began the parade of delicacies: foul (fava bean stew, rhymes with pool); tamiya (like a Krispy Kreme donut made of foul); mombar (rice and seasonings in sheep’s gut, putting a most definite closure on my vegetarian days); bamya (okra stew); sharka seya (chicken with walnuts, served on rice); merguez sausage; stuffed vine leaves; lessan asfour (which means tongues of birds, but more appetizingly comprises chicken stew with tiny pasta); arnab (rabbit); molokheya (a green vegetable stew made with rabbit stock, onions, cilantro, and garlic, whose traditional method of preparation includes a giant gasp, which in my case would be as I spilled it on the floor); keshk (chicken stock, flour, yoghurt with dried onions — doubles as wallpaper paste); and roasted eggplant. For dessert: om ali (a bread pudding made with croissant – heaven); mokhala beya (pudding of milk and cream), and fetir (a multi-layered pancake of filo made with black honey). And if that wasn’t enough, Alison and I completed our Egyptian dining experience by smoking a toffa (apple) shisha. Welcome to my home, all right!
Welcome to my home
