Ful Medames

Ful medames, slow-cooked brown beans served with long-simmered hamine eggs, is often described as Egypt’s national dish and, while today offered at both lunch and dinner, it was originally eaten for breakfast. An ancient food recorded from the time of the pharaohs, it is traditionally cooked overnight in the damassa, a broad-bellied clay pot, surrounded by the hot ashes of the dying charcoal or wood fires still used in many Arab kitchens.

Once the staple diet of