Grey Wool Knickers They breathe

April 3, 2009

Links for March 23rd through April 3rd

These are my links for March 23rd through April 3rd:

April 28, 2008

The Egyptian Bread Crisis—أزمة الخبز المصرية

Filed under: Masr —مصر — Tags: , , , , — admin @ 5:13 pm
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This article was commissioned for Is Greater Than

Speakers of Egyptian colloquial Arabic use the same word, عيش (‘aish), for both “bread” and “life”. Indeed, bread represents on average around 50–60% of Egyptians’ caloric intake and is the perennial complement to every meal. Cairo streets in the mornings are awash in the stuff, with the smell of bread wafting out of bakeries and mingling with the ever-present car exhaust, men and boys criss-crossing through traffic on bikes, balancing as many as a hundred of the flat loaves in wooden racks on their heads, vendors distributing the loaves from special racks on their backs or on blankets or sheets of plastic on street corners, carts and hole-in-the-wall shops doling out small sandwiches filled with فول (fuul, cooked fava beans) and تعمية (ta’maya, an Egyptian variation on falafel). (more…)

October 27, 2007

Maggots in the Cherimoya—دبان في القشطة

Filed under: Masr —مصر — Tags: , — admin @ 11:04 pm

MaggotsSugar Apple—قشطة

I ventured out today to get some fruit and vegetables at the Sayida Zeinab Suq. I have to admit that i walked around for a while and then chickened out and just went to the smaller market off of Falaki, near AUC. I barely feel confident ordering food in Arabic, and i definitely don’t feel up to the challenge of bargaining. I always get decent vegetables at a good price at the Falaki market, though, though not on fruit. After getting the veggies, i went to the fruit vendor on the corner of Falaki and Mohammed Mahmud and paid entirely too much for 5 mangos and a cherimoya. Actually, it wasn’t a cherimoya, but rather a similar species called in English a “Sugar Apple” or “Custard Apple”. I have to say, it does not compare favorably to a Cherimoya, at least the kind i’ve had in Southern California. (more…)

October 19, 2007

Food in Cairo—طعام في القاهرة

Filed under: Masr —مصر — Tags: , , , , , , — admin @ 6:56 pm

The food here is mostly pretty good. The taamaya (طعمية, what they call falafel here) is excellent. In most places, i’ve found the ful (فول, beans) to be pretty good, but it can be pretty bland in some places. We actually haven’t gone out to eat all that much. (more…)

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