Ful Medames

An Egyptian dish which has become ‘the’ national dish. Ful medames is pre-Ottoman and pre-Islamic, claimed by the Copts and probably as old as the Pharaohs. According to an Arab saying: ‘Beans have satisfied even the Pharaohs.’

Although basically a peasant dish, the rich and the middle classes also delight in these small dark beans.

Ful medames is eaten in the fields and in village mud houses, in luxury restaurants and on town terraces by masters and servants a