You see, for years we have been taught at school that Egypt “enjoys” a very strategic Geographical location.
Spread out through two continents and the links three. But at the same time, that caused it to be a pretty appealing land to add to your territories, so it wasn’t so “enjoyable” to its citizens.
Now why would I go into this short brief of history? It’s because I can see not only bad things came from being a well-positioned country, I can now see that we have an extremely diverse and intertwining Cuisine. Let me explain:
Alexandria has been through one too many civilizations, cultures and ethnicities. So you can clearly see it in their cuisine. It’s extremely diverse and inconsistent. You’d find a place that makes beef hearts sandwiches alongside some pickles, super simple, right? But yet, you can find another place that serves Basterma (Egyptian extremely salty version of the Turkish Basturma) with hot, freshly cooked molten cheese on top of it, among other options that has the same cheese on top of it. And not too far away you’d find a place that has about 20 different types of sandwiches that are served to you from behind a counter, On Demand! It’s like the Netflix of sandwiches. once you’re done, you go to the other side (of the shop, Duuh!) and pay for what you ate. The thing about this place is that it has a myriad of different options, like Halali (don’t ask, seriously, don’t), Basterma with sauce, Beef meat with Cheese, deep fried crabs, spleen with sprinkle of salt and a twist of lemon, Renga, and more! They have absolutely NOTHING to do with each other, yet, they are served literally centimeters away from each other, this place resembles Alexandria to me on a very personal level, in my heart of hearts.
Cairo on the other hand, is very consistent, I have no idea how it turned out this way, but you can find everything everywhere. That’s why whenever something different opens up everyone rushes to it to try it. But is it that simple? Oh, You know Noti’n, Jon Snow… You see, it IS consistent, but so help me God, it is NOT boring. You would be able to find at least 10 places that serve the same exact dish in your neighbourhood to deliver to your doorstep, and that gives us the benefit of the competition. As you can guess, the competition is fierce between the well known places, it’s like the wars between demi-gods to us, Egyptian Cuisine Aficionados. While the mediocre ones will always serve as a bite to grab whenever and wherever you are, but the content you never be surprising. You thought that was it, didn’t you? Pfft… No. Cairo has too many genres for food. We can break them down to mainly the following: Tajins, Levantian, Fattah, Organ Meats, Grilled Meat, Livers and Sausages, Deep Fried Livers and Brains, international options, Seafood, Sand Heat cooking and last but definitely not least, Hawawshi.
In simpler words: Cairo has fierce competition, too fierce if you ask me. But anything offered can be clearly assigned to one of the previous genres. They are all serving the same thing, but the taste spectrum for each varies between a 1 and a 1,000, where a thousand is “I can not live another week without this”.
So, you see, these were just extreme brief examples of only two cities in Egypt and its cuisine. It’s a huge perk to be living here when you’re a food aficionado. The country has so much to offer when it comes to cuisine and it is not by any means, lacking either skills nor demand for it.
Why did I write this post? This, this right here, is why I am a Local Guide. I want to give a chance to anyone and everyone with a connection to the internet to be able to find their second home and favorite food, or a traveler to find the place that would be “on point” to try Egyptian cuisine on a layover that will have him thinking about the next visit, or just laying out there the information people need to find and appreciate good food.
If you ever plan to pay a visit, ping me. I would love to have you have a taste of the country.
