Have I mentioned food already? Of course I have but since then I have had a lot more to eat, indeed I am almost certain that I have put on a bit of weight, either that or my clothes have shrunk in the wash...
Egyptians, like Greeks, do like to eat.....
Lunch is often a take away from the nearest shop where they have not quite succeeded with the technology yet, the plastic bag you can see contains soup. Yep. it's soup in a bag, they only seem to have the smaller liquid containers like the one that you can see, which contains tahini.The full spread, the foil package contains half a BBQ chicken... And yes that is beans on the left, they cam in aplastic bag too, the foil container contain the soup that came in a bag. The Greeks claim that a lot of their food is traditional Greek, but that soup contains 'kritharaki' the small pasta about the size of rice grains, the Egyptians claim it is their invention!I mentioned before the 'pickled' pink turnip they use as salad, where here it is in bulk.... This lot had just been delivered to a market stall...An Egytpian sandwich which is a split pitta turned in on itself and the filling shoved in....Another area where the Greeks claim to have invented everything is sweets...These you can buy in a pack at the corner shop, or in bulk at the baker's, and they are exactly the same as you would expect to get in Greece... So what they claim is Greek actually turns out to be common throughout the eastern Mediterranean region.
Popular in the morning is falafel, this hellish looking pan contains falafel being freshly cooked... I am very fond of falafel and there is a place just down the road from my hotel that makes them on the side of the road...Egyptians like their breakfast and if you are in a big hotel they very often have a huge buffet with all sorts of stuff on it, but below is a more normal breakfast which includes a traditional dish of beans!
By now you are wondering where Bob Marley comes into the story.....Although the Egyptian diet supposedly uses a lot of pulses, most of the people eat a lot of meat, they are especially fond of liver but there is a vegetarian restaurant nearby which also has an art gallery attached..
So on the right... Cauliflower curry, brown lentil salad, which was absolutely delish, and obviously there was rice, plus on the lower left a dish of tahini with dill...And it was all very nice... There appears to be a slight absence of fish in Egypt but if you search you can find places that specialise in fish, indeed in the main street on the West Bank in Luxor there is a very unassuming shop which only does fish, and only at lunchtime.. The best you will get in one of the 'tourist' places is a grilled piece of fish with chips. I suspect the fish is frozen but it ate well enough...
Don't ask me what sort of fish it was, but it could have been perch as it was a very 'meaty' solid type of fish, a bit like sea perch.
Having had this one evening I got told off by 'the boy' for going to the wrong place and he told me he would take me for lunch at a proper fish place. This means he is taking me but I am paying....
I must admit I was impressed although somewhat wary as it is a bit off-putting when the people at the table next to you are sporting pistols and you realise that there is a Kalashnikov lying on the bench seat behind them.... The explanation was that the President of the local farmer's union was being elected in the building next door.... I never realised that being the President of a farmer's union required such security....
Back to the food and Bob Marley....
While we are waiting we have tie to appreciate the Christmas decoration which are still up although looking a bit jaded, and also study the classic poster of Bob Marley, you know the one, it is the one made up of lots of small photographs of Bob Marley....
They have a 'thing' about Bob Marley, and I really don't know why...
I did ask the boy as on another wall they have the portrait that was popular after his death in 1980. And yes it really is that long ago that he died. Indeed he has now been dead longer than he was alive...
Finally the food starts to arrive because they are serving the farmers first... And you know you are in trouble when this lot arrives before you have even seen the fish.....
I told him not to order too much, instead we have enough rice to feed a family of 4, plus the salad, a dish of hot vegetable in tomato sauce, they do love peas here.....
And finally the fish..... I took the photo with my sunnies next to the plate so you can see how big the fish is.
And if you know me you know that I have an aversion to fish bones which goes back to being very young and getting a fish bone stuck in my throat, which is why I love fish fingers!!
Luckily this fish has huge bones in it, about the size of a good sized darning needle so there is no problem getting the flesh off it...
This is a freshwater fish from Lake Nasser and is called a Nile Tilapia although it is found further to the north east from Egypt as well, Ahmed actually called it a 'boulti' which threw me out a bit... Cooking wise they put it on the grill first and the put a sort of batter on it and fry it to finish it off. It sounds like they have overcooked it but the flesh flaked off very nicely.
Like fish anywhere these days it wasn't cheap cheap, the whole meal set me back 350 LE or about £17 for the two of us, and there really was too much food. We could have done without the rice...
I will leave you with a pudding... Fried bananas with honey which I made the mistake thinking that it would be a couple of bananas instead it was a plateful so I shared it with a British woman sitting behind me...
And lastly as so often happens abroad I leave you with the pudding menu which offers us something made of sand apparently.
And I can't believe I actually managed to post two photos next to each other!
