My Egyptian Savior

I had not slept for 48 hours. I was physically sick, mentally drained, and about to collapse. Yet the dish I tried in the midst of my downfall was the most sensational, carb-licious food I have ever tried. I no longer had any notion of my previous discomforts, for the flavor and zing of this dish took all the pain away. Mind you, I am the type of person that needs their 8 hours of sleep, 10,000 steps, and a gallon of water a day. My body is my temple, however since I had been up for 48 hours trying to get to Egypt, I think that makes my body my pyramid.

My plane experience for my arrival in Cairo was in a word, traumatizing. I was flying out of Dulles and had one connection flight in Stuttgart, Germany, before reaching Cairo. I was so excited when I arrived at the airport on December 31st of 2019. Once I had arrived at the airport, I pushed my acute sadness that I wouldn’t be able to spend New Years with friends and family aside due to a new overwhelming emotion: panic.

The flight to Egypt was my first time flying internationally alone. While I had travelled by plane before, I had never travelled without my family. However, I like to fancy myself as an adventurer, well that is the romanticized version of myself I have in my head anyways. I walked away from my mom after a warm hug with pep in my step. The minute I stepped in the airport though, that adventuring spirit and bounce in my gate vanished. My mind, body, and very soul all suffered incredible duress.

I won’t go into the medical details, yet I learned two things about my health and wellness on my flight that I now have to be mindful of every time I fly. These two medical issues are unrelated; one involves the bathroom, and one involves my ears, so let’s just say I was blocked up in more ways than one.

In the midst of asking people for help at the airport, I somehow made it to my gate and found someone in my group. I had never met these people before. The trip was for a short-term study abroad for international affairs, which happened to be my major long ago and far away before I fell in love with archaeology, which is partly due to my experience in Egypt.

Stuttgart airport will never be the same for me. I spent my 7-hour layover mostly in the bathroom, very upset and in pain. I had just met the people in my group, who all happened to be much older than I was, as I was a freshman and many of them were graduate students. The entire time I was in the bathroom I felt like they thought I was some sort of bathroom goblin or troll. I think I left breakfast alone 3 times to go to the bathroom. Every time I came back from the bathroom, the walk of shame back to the table where my uneaten croissant was waiting for me was harrowing.

Upon landing in Cairo, I was more ill than I could have imagined. I was exhausted from the near 16 hours in the air, I hadn’t eaten because I couldn’t keep anything down. All I wanted to do was crash in bed, yet there was so much more to be done before that could happen.

First, we had to get in a car and make it to the University of New Cairo, which was around 45 minutes away with traffic. Mind you, Cairo and New Cairo are different places, separated by about a 40 minute car drive on a good day. Speaking of driving, for someone with an upset stomach and general lack of a will to live, Egyptian driving may not be the best of ideas in my experience. There are no lanes. Which meant for me at least, incredible stress about crashing in an uber every 6 seconds while still wanting to go back to the bathroom.

Needless to say, getting out of the car made me feel a lot better. Or so I thought, for 5 minutes after I got out of the car and trotted to the campus with my fellow students, we couldn’t find where to go. We got there around 7pm, which meant everything was already dark. I should also mention that everything was decorated for Coptic Christmas, which is quite beautiful, however that also meant that all the students were on break, so there was no one to ask for directions.

After struggling to find any sign of where we were supposed to go, and having had pet many of the stray cats, we finally found our dorms where we could put all of our luggage.

Much to my dismay, the day still wasn’t over. A small group of us convened in a common area and had to wait for the others to arrive because they had bought us all dinner. This of course, was kind of them, however my group and I felt like dirt, and only wanted to be like an earthworm and wriggle into a warm, covered slumber.

The rest of the group arrived in the following hour and then they brought out the food.

When I say I had never salivated so fast in my entire life I mean it. The smell of this dish took me from nauseous, ill and wanting to become an earthworm, to being under the sweet spell of whatever was wafting into my nostrils. Okay, I might be exaggerating a little bit, yet the smell was enough to make me forget how ill and tired I felt, even if for a second.

Upon first inspection of the dish, I couldn’t make any sense of it. There was so much happening with it. Not to mention I couldn’t discern what I was smelling. I opened the package and got a good look, there seemed to be a variety of carbs. I could discern elbow macaroni, chickpeas, and rice. There was definitely more variety in the ingredients but there was a reddish-brown sauce on it that obscured my vision. The lack of sleep also did not help in my observational skills.

The forks were finally passed out, and the director of my program gave a little speech about everyone being together, and then after what seemed like another 48 hours, I heard the magic words “enjoy your koshary.”

Finally, the end of my suffering.

Words cannot describe my fondness for this dish. Egyptian koshary is entirely composed of different kinds of carbs, including lentils, rice, chickpeas, vermicelli noodles, elbow macaroni, tomato sauce, cumin sauce, and fried lentils, as well as lots of spices that make your tongue sweat.

The combination of a lack of sleep and the absolute pleasure of eating koshary lulled me into a small coma. I slept for 15 hours straight that night. I did not even notice the cat that had entered my door that I had apparently not completely shut, much to the dismay of my roommate.

I went on to eat koshary at least 3 times a week. Many of the people in my group would say things like “wow I’m so full” with a hand on their stomach, or “I’ll save the rest for later” when having finished half the dish. Oh no. Not me. All of it goes straight down and recharges my very being. Koshary became my elixir of life, my spicy carb jubilee that transformed me from a little worm into the bird that swoops from the skies, full of life and energy.

Since returning from Egypt, and especially during covid, I have tried to recreate koshary. I never thought a dish that my mother didn’t teach me at her hip as a child would become my comfort food. Whenever I am sick or exhausted, instead of chicken noodle soup, all I want is koshary. Yet unsurprisingly, I can never get it quite right.

I never get the spices in the right ratios. Either it is way too spicy, or it becomes baby food that tastes solely of tomato sauce. My lentils are never perfect, and my onions somehow are never as thing and crispy as I first tried them. I said before I like to romanticize my life, and I fully realize that I may be romanticizing this dish to an uncanny extent, but it deserves it.

Koshary has my heart, and although I may never get the spices quite right, or my lentils are a little mushy, I still like to eat it when I am ill and daydream of the day trek back to Cairo and ascend into carb heaven.