Food in Egypt: what you will actually eat

Food is not a small thing when you move country. It is three decisions a day, it is most of your discretionary spending, and in the first difficult month it is often the thing that decides whether a place feels liveable.

The staples you will live on

Egyptian street and everyday food is inexpensive, filling and widely available. A few things will become part of your week almost immediately:

• Koshari — rice, lentils, pasta, chickpeas, fried onion and tomato sauce. Cheap, filling, and the default student meal.
• Ful medames — slow-cooked fava beans, usually eaten for breakfast with bread.
• Taameya — Egyptian falafel, made with fava beans rather than chickpeas.
• Baladi bread — the everyday flatbread, sold fresh and very cheaply.
• Molokhia — a green leafy stew that most West African students take to immediately.
• Grilled meat and shawarma, for when you want something more substantial.

Fresh produce is good and inexpensive at local markets. Learning to shop at a market rather than a supermarket is one of the fastest ways to bring your food costs down.

Halal food

Egypt is a majority-Muslim country and halal meat is the norm rather than something you have to seek out. For most Muslim students this simply is not a daily concern in the way it can be elsewhere.

What you will miss, and where to find it

You will miss specific things from home, and it will hit harder than you expect around month two. In the larger cities — Cairo especially — there are markets and shops serving the African and Sudanese communities where you can find ingredients that are otherwise hard to source. They are not everywhere, and imported goods are not cheap.

Practical advice from students who have done it: bring a small amount of a spice blend or seasoning you cannot live without, learn where the relevant market is in your city early, and cook with other students from home — it is cheaper, and it does more for homesickness than eating alone.

Eating well on a student budget

• Cook most days. The gap between cooking and eating out, over a year, is genuinely large.
• Shop at local markets rather than supermarkets for produce.
• Learn three or four dishes properly before you leave home.
• Cook with other students and share costs.
• Treat restaurants as occasional, not routine.
• Be careful with imported and tourist-area food, which is priced very differently.

Ramadan

Ramadan changes the rhythm of daily life substantially — opening hours shift, the city is quiet during the day and busy late into the night, and university timetables often change. Whether or not you are fasting, plan around it. For many students it is also the warmest, most sociable time of year, and iftar invitations are genuinely common.

Water and being sensible

Most students drink bottled or filtered water. Give your system time to adjust in the first couple of weeks — eat somewhere busy rather than somewhere empty, which is a reasonable rule for street food anywhere in the world. Keep basic medication for an upset stomach in your first-month supplies.

The honest version

You will eat well here, cheaply, and you will get tired of it around the same time you get tired of everything else in month two. Both pass. The students who settle fastest are the ones who learn to cook a few things, find their market, and eat with other people.