Book of Days Tales

Cleopatra, last pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt, died either on this date or on 10^th August 30 BCE – the sources are not entirely clear.  The common legend is that she allowed an asp (Egyptian cobra), smuggled into her guarded room by her maid in a basket of fruit, to bite her not long after her lover Mark Antony had killed himself following his defeat by Octavian, Julius Caesar’s adopted heir, and the future emperor Augustus. Other sources say she drank poison or injected a fatal toxin into her body.  Whatever the method, she killed herself, thus ending the Ptolemaic line of rulers in Egypt.  The end of an era.

Ful medames are a very common staple in Egypt and have been since antiquity. They are readily available in street stalls in Egypt to this day. They are cooked fava beans served with oil and cumin plus a wide variety of garnishes along with flatbread. You need the dried fava beans for this dish, not the fresh ones.

Ingredients

500 gm dried fava beans

2 tbsp red lentils (optional)

extra virgin olive oil

garnishes

(choice of) ground cumin, boiled eggs, lemon wedges, plain yoghurt, tahini, chopped parsley, chopped tomatoes, chopped cucumber, chopped scallions, feta cheese, finely chopped garlic, black olives

Instructions

Soak the fava beans overnight in cold water.

You don’t really need an exact recipe for this dish. All that making ful medames amounts to is putting a quantity of soaked, dried fava beans in a pot, covering them with unsalted water with a little olive oil, and then simmering slowly until very tender (usually around 3 hours). It’s generally the same process as for cooking any dried beans. Cooking them overnight in a crock pot is perfect. You want to be sure that the cooking liquid reduces to form a thick sauce, and to enhance the sauce it is customary to mash a few beans into the cooking liquid towards the end of the cooking process. You can also add a small amount of red lentils to cook with the beans. They quickly reduce to a mush and thicken the sauce.

Serve the ful in bowls with flatbread and with any, or all, of the following available for guests to add as they please: extra virgin olive oil, ground cumin, boiled eggs, lemon wedges, plain yoghurt, tahini, chopped parsley, chopped tomatoes, chopped cucumber, chopped scallions, feta cheese, finely chopped garlic, olives  . . . you name it. Olive oil, cumin, and boiled eggs are my favorites – very traditional.

Serves 4 to 6