Dishes with Béchamel

When you hear the word béchamel, usually you think of a wafter thin sauce that lightly coats pasta. In Egypt - not so!

Béchamel in Egypt is THICK, maybe an inch or up to an inch and a half. It is so thick it does not coat the pasta, but sits broadly atop it, like a proud king regally sitting atop his thrown, crowned with a golden layer where the oven bakes it to fabulous perfection.

Béchamel can cover pasta, and in this case there is usually a layer of meat added, and occasionally a thin layer of tomato sauce as well (depending on how your family prefers it) and even sometimes a bit of cheese. It is also used in other dishes with ground beef, such as fried aubergine or fried zucchini (yum, yum and more yum). The most delicious dishes of "casserole" I've ever had.

Barbecued sweet potatoes

One word: Fabulous.

Egyptian tea

Like most things in Egypt: Strong - and packed with sugar.

Uum Ali

Uum Ali, when well prepared, is one of the best - and more calorific - desserts you will ever feast on. Puff pastry, heavy cream, pistachios, almonds, pine nuts, condensed milk all cooked to a golden crisp in the oven (think of the taste of marshmallows over the campfire, peeled back to reveal lots of other melt-in-your-mouth yummy stuff added inside that forms a sweet bread-pudding-like milky goodness)

The Story of Uum Ali, so I've been told, is quite interesting as well, a historic tale of a fight over ascension to the thrown in Egypt and a mother (Uum Ali, the Mother of Ali) desperate to secure her son's place, driven to murder another woman with a ShipShip (wooden sandal used for the baths).

I am not sure how this nasty story got associated with this heavenly dessert... :( but most certainly don't let that stop you from eating it!

The dancing horse

Egypt has amazing horses, but this is a horse of a different kind. At celebrations where dance troupes come to perform, the dancing horse is a signature part of such evenings, a delight to all of the children in the audience, and drawing laughter and giggles as the mischievous horse goes around kissing people, tapping them on the head, cradling babies, and dancing with the other dancers and sometimes audience members.

New heroes born each day

I think Egypt has had a lot of unsung heroes for a long time now, but after Jan25 they are beginning to surface more and more. Egyptians are starting to realize their potential to redefine limits, to do the impossible, to stretch the folds of their own imagination, and to allow themselves to reinvent themselves as heroes.


For more on the redefining of heroes in the Arab world, read this article from the BBC on TEDGlobal talk 2011 by Suleiman Bakhit.

McDelivery

In Egypt, you can have anything delivered to your doorstep. Fast food, pharmacy, full restaurants, bakeries, groceries, etc. I'm not a big fan of McDonald's, but I am a big fan of delivery. These cute little delivery trucks fill the roadways of Egypt. Considering the Cairo roadways - McDonald's on wheels gives new meaning to the phrase "fast food".





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