Intro to Ramadan: Food

For some reason the insatiable urge to blog just hasn't come upon me lately, might have to do with the significant amount of writing I have to do for work, perhaps at the end of every day I'm just all lettered out.

Nahhhh.

I'm going to blame the camera again (It's broken and I'm stuck using my phone). The camera, and my schedule. Being the unfortunate person that I am, my summer job here requires that I go out just about every night, eat incredible amounts  of food, and then write about it the next day (read: BEST JOB EVER also read: SO FAT AND EXHAUSTED). But lets get down to it. Intro to Ramadan [foods].

I. The Drill

 It being Ramadan and all, restaurants are busting out their 'Ramadan menus' consisting of special foods for the two meals that are served every day during this holy season. After fasting all day one breaks said fast with the iftar meal (literally, breakfast), eaten after the maghrib prayer (the time changes by a few minutes every day, its approximately around 7ish for now). After spending a few hours digesting one then eats the second meal, so7our. Depending on personal preference/schedule this will get eaten any time between the end of fitar and the fagr prayer in the morning (morning = approx. 3-4 am). And so every night of and since the beginning of Ramadan I have ventured out to taste of the city's various fitars and so7ours, and boy has my circadian rhythm been suffering because of it.

II.The Foods

Fitar can be just about anything, if you're having it oriental style you'll most likely have a main dish involving chicken and beef kebabs and some kofta as well as tons of hot and cold mezze on the side and dessert options including rice pudding, rice pudding without the rice (mehalabeya), a sampling of oriental sweets or some om Ali (yummmm). Come to think of it sohour tends to not be that much different, except its almost always oriental food and comes with lots more mezze. Note that often fitar is just a regular dinner with any type of food, except that there's about twice as much of it.

Now, a sampling of my sampling of this week's culinary delights:

Foul Mahrous Street-side foul (beans) vendor. Other than the rat that crossed my path as we were sitting down (its kinda in the ghetto), made a great impression on me. 

Foul Mahrous Thats a big ol' stack of bread in the background. Its like eating at Medieval Times, who needs silverware when you have bread! Rating: 3.7 noms.

Khan al Khalili Restaurant serves all things Egyptian. Right in the heart of the khan and pretty yummy, except for the dry overcooked meat. Rating: 3.5 noms.

Ahlein If only it hadn't been deserted it could have been entirely pleasant. As I recall all the food was quite good, except for this thing which was supposed to be Hibiscus (karkady) creme brule. Fail. Rating: 4.0 noms. 

P'75 - Restaurant: Designed by the Germans (Porsche). Menu: Designed by the Italians. Food: Cooked by the Egyptians, in a very obvious way. I generally expect my lasagna to have more than three ingredients. Good, but simple. The fancy interior and the crazy good drinks get the better of me though. Rating: 4.0 noms. 

Tofaha So much love for this place. I got to walk through an APPLE. That and its right on the Nile.

Tofaha Look how pretty! The shisha was par excellence and the food was ok too. Rating: 4.0 noms. 

And to think this isn't even everywhere.

II. The Drinks

Ramadan drinks! Yes that's actually a thing. Lets go over a few of the most common ones, keeping in mind that they mostly exist during ramadan because of their extreme health benefits (need to fiber, protein, vitamin, and carb up if you're gonna fast all day!):

• Qamrideen: Maybe my favorite. Made by soaking dried apricots in water until the water tastes like dried apricot, a bit might be pureed in the mix too. Tastes just like, yep, dried apricots. Health benefits include excellent source of potassium, vitamin A, fiber, protein, and vitamin C. Helps deal with girly pains, the runs, and anemia. 

• Karkedeh: This isn't strictly a Ramadan drink seeing as how its often served as a hot tea throughout the  year. But this is the first time I've had it cold (or seen it on menus at all I guess..). A lovely tangy hibiscus drink, has a gorgeous color and a variety of tastes depending on how you make it (mostly just on how much sugar you put in it). Tastes like flowery cranberry juice cocktail. Health benefits include

• Tamar Hindi: Or 'Indian dates', or tamarind [drink], is another of those soak-it-in-water-for-hours-till-it-tastes-like-something creations. And its pretty good too, though I've only had it once so far. Health benefits: Has tons of calcium, phospohorus, iron, thiamine, riboflavin, and niacin.

• Er'sous: I have yet to try this one except in shisha form, but it sounds really delicious. Wrap up little bits of licorice root in muslin and drip water through them - boom er'sous. Licorice drink. Not as many people make this at home because its a bit more complicated than the above drinks. In the arena of health benefits er'sous sports plenty of potassium, calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus.

There are a few more out there, but these are the most common.

III. Lessons

• Ramadan is not about chugging water right before fagr. But I have to admit that in this manner I've lifted quite a few water bottles off those who didn't get a chance to finish them in time.

• Gaining 3.7 kilos during so7our is not advisable, but might be a record. Congratulations Mido. You should probably be dead right now, even if 1.5 of that was water.                                                                   

• If you do make a fitar reservation, you won't need it. If you don't, you will. 

• If you're going to order in, do it at least an hour before fitar, and certainly not in the half hour post-fitar. Your delivery guys will be busy breaking their fast and certainly don't have time to deliver you meal.

Well thats all for now, stay tuned for more information you never wanted to know about Ramadan!

Update on the Bible reading: I did attempt it, but I'm about 350 pages behind right now. Too many rules about how to cut up animals that I never wanted to know, and the death penalty is prescribed for pretty much umm everything = disconcerting 

'bout that time again, eh?

Indeed. The month of Ramadan is upon us, conveniently coinciding exactly with the month of August - for the noobs out there (I just wiki'd this so it must be true), Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar which follows lunar cycles rather than solar ones, thus resulting in a shifting of the month of Ramadan by about 11 days every year.

Having been absent from the world of blogging for quite some time (relatively speaking) I will endeavor to spend my last few weeks here in Egypt eagerly lapping up this blogger's fodder that is Ramadan in Cairo. You can expect along the way that I'll be subtly unraveling the past few months of my life in a denouement-like fashion, though the focus of this blog will be the 180° (more like 90° really) shift that this city undergoes.

We'll start with today. Ramadan is notorious for the horrid traffic that it brings along with it. Everyone rushes home from work at the same time to prepare for iftar (or fitar here in Egypt, the breaking of the fast i.e. breakfast) and the roads are even more of a mess than usual. This morning however as I went to flag down my usual morning taxi the roads were almost completely clear, I actually had to wait a bit before one came rolling along. Same thing coming home, with the exception of the 6th of October bridge, but thats only because the guys still holed up in Tahrir are really messing with traffic patterns. The corniche was its usual mess, but I'd never hoped for better from there.

Ramadan brings a world of paradox regarding moods and mannerism. One the hand, it's the holy month, and everyone is supposed to try extra hard to be extra nice and to act in the best and most charitable of ways. On the other hand, everyone is so damn hungry and thirsty and nicotine deprived (thou shalt consume nothing, including water and cigarrettes) that simmering beneath that gracious exterior is a wave of fury ready to knife you in the gut. We're only one day in so the worst hasn't come out quite yet... though the writer next to me at work today did find it prudent to take her McDonalds to the other room so as to decrease the chances of veins or eyeballs popping.

Speaking of eyeball popping, but not really, my cab driver home seemed to be compensating for the lack of food in his belly with excessive car honking. In a month where you're supposed to be more forgiving, especially in your car, the amount of road rage decreases considerably as does the incredibly obnoxious amount of car honking that this city prides itself on. But not this guy.

I'm pretty sure he actually honked at a wall at one point. I'd say he was crazy, as evidenced by the bugs bunny stickers scattered across his dashboard, but unfortunately thats pretty normal in Cairo cabs. As are other really cool accoutrements like this easy to use back seat basketball hoop. Also featuring bugs bunny, a masculine favorite in this town. 

And no, I don't usually take creepy pictures inside cabs, but my camera is broken so I don't have any other pictures, so I had to think fast and use my phone. Because as you should all know by now, I don't blog without pictures, because thats excessively boring.

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One other small note, many Muslims attempt to read the Quran in its entirety by the end of the month. In solidarity, I thought I might have a go at the Bible in that same period of time. At 1602 pages with 30 days on the clock, I should achieve my goal at approximately 53.4 pages a day. Lord help me.

Ramadan Karim everybody!