MODERN EGYPT

Magda Mehdawy's recipes can seem beguilingly like a time warp, dishes from the days of the Pharaohs. Fast food, as far as she is concerned, is public enemy number one. She is an Alexandrian, nevertheless, and she readily acknowledges that the dishes of her hometown are as diverse as its colonial heritage and resulting ethnic mix. Alexandrians have absorbed a melange of Greek, Italian, Levantine and Ottoman cooking traditions to create a distinctive cuisine. But, then so are many modern Egyptian repasts.

To her credit, Mehdawy concocted a powerful cocktail of data for the preservation of her grandmother's recipes and she hints throughout her works at the highly personal nature of the art of cooking.

For millennia, the jewel in the crown of Egyptian cuisine was the samna baladi, ghee or clarified butter. The precious cream that oozed out of the ballooned udders of the barseem -fed cows and water buffaloes were, as it were, the big wheels that made Egyptian country cooking turn. Or, rather the fuel that oiled soups, stews, casseroles, desserts and pastries both sweet and savory.

Mehdawy, however, has an instinctive appreciation of the value of the old-fashioned Egyptian foodstuffs. "Even traditional sweets such as assaliya [molasses candy] and simsimiya [a sesame candy] have a good nutritional value. And so do doum [the fruit of the doum palm], kharoub [carob] and lib [the seeds of melons and pumpkins]. These are all nutritious traditional snacks," Mehdawy asserts. She also has an insatiable appetite for exploring and documenting the cuisine of Egypt and refuses to confine herself to her native Alexandria. In her quest for the authentic Egyptian cuisine she reserves a special side serving of Saidi (Upper Egyptian) and Nubian cuisine in her cookbooks.

For a Muslim, she is irrepressibly inquisitive about certain Coptic comestibles.

"The most ancient and authentic Egyptian edibles have been retained in traditional Coptic, Saidi and Nubian dishes," stating I suppose the obvious.