What to eat in Egypt: the food that nobody knows outside Egypt

When people talk about Arab or Mediterranean food, Egypt rarely enters the conversation. Morocco, Lebanon and Turkey take the spotlight. And yet Egyptian cooking is one of the most original and oldest cuisines in the region, with dishes that have no equivalent elsewhere and a food culture that operates at a price point which makes eating well one of the most economically accessible experiences of any trip here.

Kushari: the world’s most improbable dish

Kushari is officially Egypt’s national dish, and it is a gastronomic construction that should not work. It combines rice, brown lentils, pasta (short macaroni and thin vermicelli), chickpeas, a spiced tomato-vinegar sauce with cumin, and a mountain of crispy fried onions on top of everything. It is an accumulation of carbohydrates that contradicts every principle of light Mediterranean cooking, and yet the result — a collision of textures and flavours — holds together perfectly.

Its origins are as eclectic as the dish itself: a mixture of ingredients brought by Arab conquests, by the Italians during the colonial era (the macaroni), by the British (who imported cooking practices from India), and by the Egyptian tradition of legumes. Kusharyat are eateries specialising exclusively in this dish, distributed throughout Cairo with the regularity of coffee shops anywhere else. Kushari costs between 20 and 40 Egyptian pounds — less than a dollar — and one plate feeds any hungry person well.

The Nile’s breakfast

Foul medammes — fava beans cooked very slowly with olive oil, lemon, cumin and garlic — is the most consumed food in Egypt. In the villages of the Nile Valley, in the popular quarters of Cairo, in the delta settlements, the day begins with foul. It is eaten with warm flatbread (aish baladi, the wholegrain flatbread that accompanies virtually every Egyptian meal) and sometimes with fried eggs, white cheese or fresh tomato.

Ta’ameya is Egypt’s version of falafel, and it is substantially different from the Lebanese or Israeli variety. It is made with fava beans rather than chickpeas, which gives it an intense green colour inside and a deeper, less dry flavour. Purists of either version claim theirs is the original: the debate is unsolvable and doesn’t matter much because both are excellent.

Molokhia and the soups of the Nile

Molokhia is perhaps the most representative dish of Egyptian home cooking and the one that most unsettles travellers the first time. It is a thick soup made from the finely chopped leaves of the plant Corchorus olitorius — known as jute mallow — which produces a gelatinous texture similar to okra. Spiced with coriander, garlic and cumin, served over white rice with chicken or chopped rabbit, molokhia has a distinctive flavour unlike anything in the familiar Mediterranean repertoire. It is the soup that Egyptian mothers make for birthdays and family visits.

Hamam mahshi — stuffed pigeon roasted whole with rice and herbs — is the festive dish of the Middle Nile Valley, especially in the cities of Luxor and Sohag. It is offered in family restaurants but rarely appears on tourist menus.

The fish of Alexandria

Alexandrian cooking deserves its own chapter for its Mediterranean-seafood character. The restaurants along the corniche serve fried squid, grilled prawns, whole fish with lemon and spices, and a version of the eastern meze adapted to Mediterranean produce. Gambari mahshi (stuffed baked prawns) and samak mashwi (charcoal-grilled fish) are dishes that the local restaurants in the Bahri neighbourhood execute with a quality far superior to that of tourist-facing establishments.

Sweets and the cost of eating

Konafa — very thin filo-like strands filled with cheese or nuts, soaked in rose-water syrup — is Egypt’s defining sweet. Basbousa, a moist semolina cake with syrup, is simpler and more common in daily life. Both can be bought at specialist pastry shops for less than half a dollar a portion.

Eating in Egypt outside the tourist circuit is extraordinarily cheap. A full breakfast of foul, ta’ameya and bread costs between 15 and 30 Egyptian pounds. A meal at a local kusharyat or molokhia restaurant doesn’t exceed 60 to 80 pounds. Only the restaurants oriented exclusively towards tourism — those with English menus right beside the main monuments — charge prices comparable to European ones.

The complete Far Guides Egypt guide includes detailed Nile Valley routes, interactive maps and all the practical information you need to plan your independent trip.