Egyptian Hospitality

Day by Day
Orlando A


Egyptian hospitality is legendary, but modern ways of life competes with tradition not just in Luxor but in most places worldwide today. The tourist dollar drives the economy here and as a result tourists are eagerly sought after, especially after the last few years of global downturn and the Bush war years. As a result American tourists are a very pleasant site for locals because the dollar is still strong compared to the Egyptian pound and Americans tend to be more generous than many other tourist groups. That said, the touts of tea can often amount to little more than a plea for purchase. Even that must be respected, but rarely is, when you compare and contrast this way of business to that in a big city in America. Where can you have tea on the house (or Turkish coffee if you are smart), while you negotiate a bargain price on goods, or simply walk away?

While bargaining is a way of life, sometimes it is nice to just get away the hustle of the day and have a nice meal. Today we had just that when we had lunch which turned into dinner with our
friend A, who is indeed as he has claimed, a chef extraordinaire. We had both fried basa and basa prepared in a lemon butter sauce accompanied with rice and fresh picked arugala and
romaine lettuce salad. Accompanying the feast was tahini, which I couldn't touch because I was already stuffed from the other food, and breakfast. The tomatoes were so fresh the flavor
came alive in your mouth. Before eating he treated us to fresh guava juice and bottled water. After dinner we had tea and Turkish coffee. I remembered to take a photo, after we had eaten half of our feast, about as usual for me and delicious food like this. Me and fresh fruit juice, freshly picked organic vegetables and fish, please, that was just an invitation to eat.

The time we spent at dinner and the hospitality from our host augmented and showed as only precursor, the attempts at tea from merchants, this meal was true Egyptian hospitality. Not
that the other tea invites were unappreciated, just that genuine hospitality is always so much better, even if free Turkish is now going to be my mantra from merchants too, if not mint tea.

We started out the day debating on heading over to Luxor temple and maybe to extend our visa's. Instead we decided to hang out around the house and encourage the kids to work on
schoolwork. We had said that Candice and the kids were going to go over with A's kids and wife, so they could spend time together. However, A called at about 12:55 and reminded me that he was going to cook today and insisted that I come as well.

I had a headache but figured, I might as well go and get fresh air, even though I had eaten earlier. So when we arrived I told A, about my headache and he offered me the Egyptian
equivalent of stand-back, the powdered headache remedy, even though I was skeptical of its possible effectiveness. These headaches with me usually last for days and the American
stand-back, let alone aspirin usually doesn't work. I took some and before dinner was served my headache was gone.

The rest of the evening was conversation about the US and old times, places of note in Egypt and talk about family. We learned about the neighborhood, relative prices and the way things used
to be. All this on a balcony about a block away from the Nile, with a warm wind blowing over a picture perfect sky, settling into night. As we were wrapping up for the night, A, explained he did this because he wanted me to feel at home here, like this was my home. I explained, but I already do. This is Egypt. After that he asked each of us what our favorite food was, and he waited for each answer, contemplating the relative ease of preperation. He is after all a chef, a New York chef at that with a warchest of stories about famous New York chefs to go along, they await for another time.