A Taste of Egypt

"Will you (vegetarian freaks) be able to eat much of the food in Egypt?"  This was one of the most common questons we heard upon announcing our move.  To be honest, we really didn't know.  So we asked anyone we knew who had traveled to Egypt about the food.  The overwhelming response made me think of the way my brother Billy described the first cake I ever baked as a young girl ... "You can eat it, but it tastes like sh!t"  Thankfully I disagree, not about that first cake (it was awful), but about Egyptian food.

There are many delicious vegetarian dishes local to Egypt and the Middle East.  Sorry omnivores, I can't comment on the traditional Egyptian pigeon.  What I can share is that Egypt's national dish, kushary, is a carb-loaded and protein-packed stack of tastiness.  When I get back to Canada I can even share the dish itself with you, now that Tom and I learned to make it on Thursday evening.  We won't share Egyptian wine with you at the meal though, despite quite enjoying our winery tour to cap off the weekend.

Thursday evening the teachers became the students.  We invited four colleagues over for a kushary making lesson that we persuaded one of our Egyptian running friends to teach.  You may think that 7 cooks is too many for one kitchen.  This is not the case for kushary, a meal that includes rice, two types of pasta, lentils, chickpeas, 3 sauces, and fried onions.  I now understand why most stoves in Egypt have five burners. 

The eager-to-help grade one french teacher started the kushary preparation with the tear-inducing task of chopping one onion per person.  A few of us got to work on the sauces, although Linda would claim that she slaved over two entire sauces on her own.  We learned the secrets to making the kushary as delicious as possible, and wondered if the real secret is to just buy it from one of the "fast food" kushary stands for only about $1.  We cooked for well over an hour, while Tom "supervised" over a cold beverage.  At least it was an Egyptian one. 

We chopped, fried, measured, mixed, boiled, blended, laughed, took pictures, and even belly-danced.  The final result:  an exhausted Egyptian teacher, 7 servings (+ leftovers) of delectable kushary, and 6 quiet teachers, enjoying their learning more than my students ever do.  I ate so much I felt a little sick, but it was well worth it!

After one day off, largely spent cleaning kushary dishes, we dove back into tasting Egypt.  We traveled about three hours north of Cairo for a tour of the country's only winery.  We started with a snack of croissants and fruit, then headed out to the very unimpressive vineyard.  We then toured the receiving area, processing plant, fermentation area, and saw some antique wine making machinery.  Next it was off to the most interesting room, the wine tasting cellar.

On the menu:  bread, wine, and cheese.  We enjoyed it, maybe a little too much.  We tried their sparkling rosé and sparkling white, one type of white wine, and three different red wines.  We bought the most expensive bottle of wine available to take back to Cairo (aka drink on the bus ride back to Cairo).  It cost us all of 85 Egyptian pounds, or about $15.  You can drink it, but it tastes like...