Welcome to my kitchen! Ok, part of my kitchen. This photo was taken when I moved here and it looks about the same with some additions and a bird cage. This is the area of my home that is my personal jihad (struggle). I hate cooking! I really lack all the domestic characteristics of a female. Sad, but true. The kitchen for Egyptian women is not a big deal, and many of them...My mother-in-laws (MIL) age spend the bulk of their day there. Our homes here in Egypt are not centrally cooled or heated. Most affluent Egyptians have air conditioners located in each room, BUT the kitchen and the bathrooms traditionally are not cooled or heated. My kitchen is on the south side of the building and it is in the sun all day. Folks, it can get pretty darn hot in there in the summer.
A normal schedule for me puts me cooking here...mmm...every other day. Most affluent Egyptian women do not have to do such menial labor. My sister's-in-law-(SIL) have full time maids and normally these maids do all the cooking and cleaning while my (SIL's) supervise their activities. I am sure I would be classed in the same standard as a more affluent Egyptian household, but I CANNOT stand someone in my house 24 hours a day, nor do I want to eat their cooking as these maids are not really clean themselves. I prefer to eat my own dirtiness!! hehehe In the summer I start cooking as soon as I wake up. Cooking in Egypt is a project. First of all, you have to clean the kitchen before you can begin cooking. Cairo is very dirty so you must clean daily. This is one of the reasons why so many households have full time maids. Once I clean the kitchen, then I spray an aerosol spray on the floor to combat the flies that are attracted to the food and body sweat. Once all of this is done, then I have to clean the food I wish to prepare for the day. Fruits and vegetables here have to be cleaned CAREFULLY to avoid getting sick. I scrub all my fruits and vegetables several times. Meat needs to be cleaned and washed as well. I usually wash all my chicken in a sea salt and flour mixture, making sure to scrub well to remove leftover feathers and other yucky things before freezing or cooking it. Meat is cleaned and rinsed well, too. Rice has to be washed and cleaned prior to cooking to remove rocks and other unmentionable debris. As you can see, just the preparation for cooking is a job. It is very humid in the mornings in Cairo, and so cooking is an undesirable burden. One sweats continually while working and I usually go around with a paper towel stuck to my forehead! :) I have a maid that comes twice a week to clean my home from top to bottom and everyone is telling me get a full-time maid to do all of this. The man power here in Egypt is very cheap. You can have a full time maid for $60 to $80 US dollars per month. She will cook, clean, wait on you, whatever you like, for this amount of money. Again, you have to supervise every thing she does and they are not clean. It is easier for me to do this myself, as I have become accustomed to the life here.
I hope you have enjoyed learning about my personal Jihad in the kitchen! :) Perhaps next time I will share some of our Egyptian recipes with you and you can try them at home!
Until then,
A Woman of Egypt