In response to a comment/question from Chris, Joe writes:
Aah--the food. Here are Joe's thoughts...
Egypt is a very poor country without particularly good sanitation (also lots of trash, bad smog, etc.). Kim & Joe have been very careful (read "paranoid") about our eating: only bottled water to drink, brush teeth, etc. They have avoided all fresh fruit and fresh vegetables, because of contamination risk on the skin (and some people say inside from water used in irrigation as well, but we're skeptical of that.). There are a lot of flies, so it's difficult (actually, impossible) to avoid eating food that flies have been on (Yuch!). In Dahab, they have also given up meat, after seeing how it is stored & transported (and how it smells).
Brie & Mark have "3rd world stomachs" that are acclimated to all the Egyptian bugs, so they are eating everything, but using bottled water.
Kim ate 1/2 teaspoon of some fresh watermelon juice that Brie ordered, and has had mild stomach problems for several days since... Everyone else is ok. Perhaps it wasn't the watermelon juice, but that's the only difference between what Kim ate and what Joe ate in the 24 hrs. immediately preceding the onset of her difficulties.
So, back to your real question about the food. It resembles other food from the general area: hummus, tahini, felafel, baba ganoush, kabobs, etc. The felafel are made with fava beans or white beans, not chick peas, and are generally very good. We've eaten lots of vegetarian pizza. In general, it has been good, but not great. There have been some very good soft cheeses like feta. The foul (smashed beans) that they eat at breakfast are sometimes good, especially if you dump in the accoutrements such as yogurt and various spices. It seems that the more smashed the beans, the better it tastes.
Kim & Joe have resorted to eating some "grocery store meals" of factory-packed food to minimize contact with flies & storage/handling problems.
The beer has generally been like generic American beer (we've only been drinking Egyptian & Jordanian beer), but we found a couple that stand out. Petra beer was excellent--very flavorful. At 10%, we knew that we had had a beer :-). We just drank Luxor beer last night, which was also good--unfiltered, with a very nice flavor.
Perhaps we're being overly cautious, but I don't think so. If you have a strong digestive system with acquired immunity to 3rd world bugs, you can probably follow in Brie's & Mark's footsteps and enjoy the local food.
4 comments:
Kim, Joe, with what your telling me about the food it's making me reconsider driving there next week. carl
eating food that flies have landed on is disgusting! how could you stand it!elliott
We were brave last night and tried a seafood restaurant recommended by two different locals: Sea Breeze. It was out of the tourist area. The fish was on display and looked good -- cold, no flies, good eyes, texture, no smells, etc. So we decided to brave it.
We selected 1 kilo of large prawns and 1/2 kilo of calamari. We told them to grill the prawns and fry the calamari. We then walked upstairs to the dining room (on the roof). There were lots of large fans, such that the whole dining area had a strong breeze, which kept us cool and, more importantly, kept all flies away HOORAY!!
There is no menu -- they bring you starters of hummus, baba ganoush, several other similar things we didn't recognize, and fish broth, and fresh bread. Then they brought our sea food.
It tasted great! We gorged ourselves and couldn't quite finish it all. (Mark ate a huge late lunch by himself, so he didn't eat with us).
10 hours later and my stomach is still happy :-)
Elliott -- I agree with you...
That seafood sounds amazing! What to eat is always such a tough decision, since there are often things that look delicious but very risky. We decided to just go for it in Panama, and ate everything, including lot's of street food and even some tap water and luckily none of us caught anything. Hope you guys stay healthy, and keep trying new foods!
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