FOOL, cold beans are for breakfast!

   This post will be especially for those of you who are jealous/curious about what I am eating here in Egypt.  Before this trip one of the things I was most excited about was trying new foods, especially since I have liked every other food I've ever tried from Middle Eastern cuisine.  Well... Egyptian foods are a little different.

   First of all I heard while we were still en route to Cairo that a staple of Egyptian breakfasts is cold beans.  If I had not already eaten breakfast beans when I was in England last year, I might not have believed this to be true... but it is, in fact.  One travel book I read confirmed this very emphatically, or so it seemed, when I read: "Fool, fava beans are eaten for breakfast."  Fool?!  Whoa now. I thought at first that the author had gotten a little too much American pop culture influence (Mr.T?) but then I realized that the dish itself is called fool.  Ah.

I haven't quite acquired the taste for cold, oily fava beans in the morning (somehow the British baked beans were easier for me), but I'm trying.  It didn't help that our first introduction to them happened to be the one morning I was feeling really queasy in the first week...

   Other than fool, our breakfasts usually consist of some combination of the following: scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, fig jam, soft cheese, and falafel.  All of this (excluding the jam) prepared with copious amounts of SALT, which I am not used to at all, but at least it is encouraging me to stay hydrated! And did I mention bread... whole wheat pita bread that accompanies any and all of those breakfast elements, as well as every other meal.  Our group's appetite for pita bread has drastically dropped since the first day, though we are still served basketfuls at every meal.

   We buy lunches on our own, which is usually a desperate attempt to either a) stock up on fruit to combat our grain- and grease-heavy diets, or b) when we can't afford fruit on our lunch budget, opting for the 3-guinea (~50 cents American) bowl of "kushery"-- a mixture of lentils, rice, macaroni, spaghetti noodles, spices, and some more macaroni.  Both options are within a short distance of our school, so we basically decide based on how our insides are treating us on that particular day...

   I'm definitely enjoying the fruit options here, though many are not in season now because of the heat.  Since our arrival, though, I have tried my first fresh figs (love), my first fresh dates (if I could figure out how to choose the right ripeness, I would probably be a fan), and my first fresh guava (DISLIKE).  I've also discovered that the type of bananas I am used to have to be imported to Egypt, since local bananas are more or less the size of a large adult's thumb.  That is okay with me, it just takes a lot more peeling.

   Other favorite new dishes in Egypt are kofta sandwiches, which are kind of like meatballs and tahini in a pita, and fiteer, which I can best describe as a cross between crepes and pizza-- pancakes stuffed with vegetables, meat, olives, and cheese.  Genius.

   But by far my greatest gastronomical discovery so far has been a lovely thing we call "Fantaloube" (also known as cantelope-flavored Fanta for the unenlightened). :)  It is a beautiful shade of green, since Egyptian "kanteloube" is actually green, and the orange melon is called something else... and it may sound questionable, but oh my.  Delicious.  Unfortunately for us, the cantina that is part of our church compound home ran out of bottled Fantaloube immediately after we developed our obsession, so the search is on for another mass provider.  I think the main issue was that the cantina gave up on trying to restock it at the rate we were buying it... but we haven't given up on pleading them to order more!  We have almost four weeks left of our study term in Cairo, so I'm hopeful...