Egypt and the Levant


"The Bedouin are warm, hospitable, generous and entertaining hosts. The harsh desert environment has inspired traditions of providing food, drink and shelter to any passing stranger."  - World Food Cafe

James drew this map of Egypt using the instructions from Mapping the World with Art. 

This week our geography studies took us to Egypt ...

and the Levant, which today consists of the island of Cyprus, Israel, Jordan...
Lebanon, Syria, Palestine...and part of southern Turkey (the former Aleppo Vilayet). 
The term Levant, which appeared in English in 1497, originally meant the East in general or the Mediterranean lands east of Italy. It is borrowed from the French levant which speaks of the French involvement in the area. In French it means "rising", referring to the rising of the sun in the east, or the point where the sun rises. The populations of the Levant share not only the geographic position, but cuisine, some customs, and history.



"Bread plays an essential part in the diet of this region. Its Arabic name, aysh means 'life' and it is part of every meal, from the most basic street snack to he grandest Bedouin feast. All breads from this region are unleavened."  - World Food Cafe


We ate Ful medames, which is Egypt's national dish and several side salads for dinner, and for the meat-eaters, I suggested that we make chicken kabobs to eat in the pita bread. When James was preparing the meat, however, he decided just to cook the chicken in strips, without making them into kabobs. The Ful medames is made from fava beans, something we had never had before, but we found them to be not much different than Lima beans.

"Ful medames is served all across Egypt and Jordan by everyone from street vendors and small cafes to the smartest hotels...accompanied with fresh salads of beet, radishes, red onion, tomato, cucumber, carrot, plenty of parsley and cilantro leaves and of course pita bread." - World Food Cafe


Baba Ghanoush
Another day we had a lunch of Baba Ghanoush (an eggplant dip) and hummus, both served with warm pita bread. The Baba Ghanoush Steven and I loved, but the kids wouldn't touch. They enjoyed the hummus, however.



World Geography and Culture
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