The Food: Kochary
The Place: Hilton Kochary
Location: Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt
From where I stood, the small, upstairs room visible through the windows appeared crowded. The ground floor entry area was
brightly lit and open to the street. To the left, behind a small counter, one man stood ladling food from a row of large bowls and opposite him, another man stood next to a small table with a register. A third energetic younger man wove a pattern between them and the second floor as he lifted large trays covered in plates up the stairs, then descended again bearing empty bowls. The constant flow of people – couples, families, young people and, importantly for me as a single, female diner in busy Cairo - groups of young women – was all the encouragement I needed. I stepped into the doorway and stood at the foot of the stairs. Everyone smiled and the man next to the table said, “Welcome.”
I held up one finger.
“Small or large?” Since I didn’t really know what I was in for, “Small,” I answered.
“To drink, Coca Cola?” I looked in the refrigerator case.
“Orange soda.” The man nodded me up the stairs.
No menu, no prices. I only knew that I was about to have kochary, the favorite food of the man who had been seated next to me on the airplane earlier in the day.
Until recently, I’ve taken the usual tactic of asking people I meet what their favorite restaurant is, in “such and such” place. Suddenly, one day, for no real reason, I began to ask, “what is your favorite food?” – just as one would ask a friend or acquaintance. The answers are much more interesting than restaurant recommendations. The reasons that people have favorite
foods always have stories: connections to meaningful life experiences; family, places. It’s also liberating. Rather than trying to track down a restaurant, perusing a menu and trying to decide what the best selection is for that one meal, chasing one dish can be done in so many more ways. In this case, I was on my first foray outside of the hotel since arriving, walking the busy streets of the main shopping area of Cairo at dinnertime. I had no idea what “kochary” was
except “lentils” – the immediate response to my question from a man returning home to Egypt for his father’s funeral. I didn’t even know how it would be written. Arabic is written without any vowels, so phonetically translated into English, has many possibilities. Ko-shah-REE; cocherie; kocherry; in this case, “kochary.” I happened to look up at a sign as I passed by earlier and thought, “Aha! Kochary!” but kept walking with an eye open to other possibilities, then came back past it as I retraced my steps toward the hotel. As I stepped off the street, I wasn’t concerned with what is was, or even how much it cost – knowing that the cost of living is comparatively low to the USA, it couldn’t be too overpriced or the place would not have been so popular.
Upstairs, the long, low-lit, narrow room held around twenty tables and was very warm. Especially warm since I was trying to fit in with conservative Muslim style and wore a long-sleeved, baggy, blouse over my T-shirt and ankle-length dress. All the other women were well covered from head to toe; I would remain so too.
I chose a table not far from the window overlooking the busy street, near a group of chattering young girls. A moment later, a flat, white, pasta-style bowl with a pyramid of steaming food was put in front of me, along with another small bowl containing about one cup of a red sauce. I looked at it closely.
The pyramid turned out to be short macaroni tubes, chopped vermicelli, garlic, white rice, brown lentils, chickpeas, and fried onion, unmixed and dished out in layers. On the side of the bowl sat a couple of wedges of the small, round daq lemons – similar to Meyer lemons – commonly found in Egypt, and as I would later find out, garnishing the side of every plate served.
I tasted the bowl of sauce – it was a tasty tomato sauce, a little tangy and a little spicy. Then I tasted the contents of the two condiment bottles on the table – hot chili sauce and garlic-infused vinegar. I looked at the tables nearby for clues from the other diners as to what to do next.
Some made a small well, poured in the sauce and mixed. Others mixed just a bit with a spoonful of sauce, one mouthful at a time. I chose to emulate the big man at the table next to me who mixed up the whole bowl, shook a little hot pepper into the tomato sauce, poured the entire bowl of sauce into the big bowl, squeezed on a little lemon and mixed again. He impressively hoovered down the entire large-sized bowl in about eight minutes and left.
But I ate slowly, enjoying the simple flavors – almost like a bowl of spaghetti - but more toothsome with a mix of shapes and textures; dense lentils and chickpeas, crunchy fried onions, chewy rice and macaroni, the tartness of the tomato sauce and the hint of garlic and spice. Nothing shocking or particularly foreign, just satisfying and very, very filling. I’d be ready to go out and plow an entire field after this carbohydrate feast!
I walked downstairs and stopped to pay at the register.
“Five pounds,” said the man behind the register.
I took out my Egyptian money and paid with a ten-pound note. I understood now why kochary is so popular. Delicious, fast, and no-fuss: the filling meal, including a can of orange soda, cost the equivalent of ninety cents, a good deal even by local standards.
The inevitable question followed as I received my change: “Is this your first time in Egypt?” (No, my fourth.) Emboldened by my new status as a paying customer, I walked over to the counter where the bowls of ingredients were being dished up – a spoonful of each into a deep bowl then turned over into the flat bowl it was served in and garnished with the fried onions. I pointed to each and asked what it was, to make sure I hadn’t missed something from the recipe.
I stepped back out onto the street satisfied, fortified and feeling a sense of accomplishment for my new discovery, I thought of the guy sitting next to me on the airplane, coming home and having kochary.
- Elaine Chu
Elaine Chu has spent the past 25 years traveling to over 79 countries, eating her way through cities and villages, from La Tour d’Argent in Paris to single-table street kitchens on the banks of the Yangtze River. In addition to just outright enjoying food, Elaine connects to real life and people through native cuisine and its associated traditions.
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