Message #128534

[Bianca]

                                                                Steeped in memory






AlAhram Weekly
Feb. 9, 2009

Serving up the Pharaohs' food by the plateful is meat and drink for one of Egypt's foremost cookbook writers, Magda Mehdawy. Gamal Nkrumah samples the delights of her Grandmother's Kitchen

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Dishes with an authentic Egyptian flavour.

Clockwise from left:

kofta (meat balls);
kushari (lentils with rice and pasta);
chopping molokhiya with a traditional makhrata and Mehdawy

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Fragrance or fetor, some staples of ancient Egyptian cuisine such as fenugreek and garlic seem designed to be evocative. And, so are certain Egyptian cities. If you approach Alexandria by sea, you might get a hint of why this Mediterranean metropolis was once known as "The Bride of the Sea". Alexandria has a long tradition of exploiting the opportunities its location, as the gateway of Egypt, offers and not least in the versatile domain of victuals. This maritime city has, from time immemorial, been the heartland of the cosmopolitan influence on Egyptian cuisine (Byzantine, Ottoman, Levantine and modern European), but the picture is changing rapidly with the influx of American-inspired fast food outlets that first appeared in Cairo and now across the country.