Egyptian ful medames

 I love the spices of Middle Eastern food. the way they mix in the air as you breathe them in and on the tongue as you take that first coveted bite. While I've never had ful medames, and am unsure of my cooking skills when it comes to this, I really want to try it! Alas, I don't live near any restaurant who makes it. One day.

Ful= beans and medames=buried, according to one recipe site I looked up. I love the idea of fava beans mixed with cumin, garlic, onions, lemon juice, and peppers. And, of course, pita bread! Because I love all sorts of breads.

It's pretty cool how they used to cook the beans. This is from the Clifford A Wright website.

There is an interesting story about how fūl hammām came to be known as "bath beans." Professor Janet Abu-Lughod, whose authoritative book on Cairo published by Princeton University Press is now a classic, told me the story of fūl. In the Middle Ages, the making of fūl was monopolized by the people living around the Princess Baths, a public bath in a tiny compound near today's sabil (public drinking fountain) of Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha, a block north of the two elegant minarets of the Mosque of Sultan Mu'ayyad Shaykh above the eleventh-century Bab Zuwaylah gate. During the day bath-attendants stoked the fires heating the qidras, huge pots of bath water. Wood was scarce, so garbage was used as fuel and eventually a dump grew around the baths. When the baths closed, the red embers of the fires continued to burn. To take advantage of these precious fires, huge qidras were filled with fava beans and these cauldrons were kept simmering all night, and eventually all day too, to provide breakfast for Cairo's population. Cookshops throughout Cairo would send their minions to the Princess Baths to buy their wholesale fūl.

I used ful medames in Husband of Convenience to both showcase Cairo and to introduce Paul, the English hero, to Egyptian foods. I don't have any photos of the meal, because I've yet to work up the courage to try it, but it looks amazing!