page_title: Egyptian cuisine
section_title: Cheeses
hierarchical_section_title: Egyptian cuisine / Cheeses
caption_attribution_description: By Kelsey Wiens
context_page_description: Egyptian cuisine makes heavy use of legumes, vegetables and fruit from Egypt's rich Nile Valley and Delta. It shares similarities with the food of the Eastern Mediterranean region, such as rice-stuffed vegetables, grape leaves, shawerma, kebab and kofta. Examples of Egyptian dishes include ful medames, mashed fava beans; kushari, lentils and pasta; and molokhiya, bush okra stew.
  Pita bread, known locally as eish baladi is a staple of Egyptian cuisine, and cheesemaking in Egypt dates back to the First Dynasty of Egypt, with domty being the most popular type of cheese consumed today.
  Common meats in Egyptian cuisine are pigeon, chicken, and lamb. Lamb and beef are frequently used for grilling. Offal is a popular fast food in cities, and foie gras is a delicacy that has been prepared in the region since at least 2500 BCE. Fish and seafood are common in Egypt's coastal regions. A significant amount of Egyptian cuisine is vegetarian, due to both the historically high price of meat and the needs of the Coptic Christian community, whose religious restrictions require essentially vegan diets for much of the year.
context_section_description: Cheese is thought to have originated in the Middle East. Two alabaster jars found at Saqqara, dating from the First Dynasty of Egypt, contained cheese. These were placed in the tomb about 3,000 BC. They were likely fresh cheeses coagulated with acid or a combination of acid and heat. An earlier tomb, that of King Hor-Aha may also have contained cheese which, based on the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the two jars, appears to be from Upper and Lower Egypt. The pots are similar to those used today when preparing mish.
  Although many rural people still make their own cheese, notably the fermented mish, mass-produced cheeses are becoming more common. Cheese is often served with breakfast, it is included in several traditional dishes, and even in some desserts. Cheeses include domiati (دمياطي), the most widely-eaten in Egypt; areesh (قريش) made from laban rayeb; rumi (رومي);, a hard, salty, ripened variety of cheese that belongs to the same family as Pecorino Romano and Manchego.
caption: Rumi cheese
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot SD780 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2010:01:19 11:56:02", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Tag 0x1001": "4000", "Image Tag 0x1002": "3000", "Image ExifOffset": "326", "Image CustomRendered": "Normal", "Image ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "Image WhiteBalance": "Manual", "Image DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "Image SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "3376", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5064", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/500", "EXIF FNumber": "9", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:01:19 11:56:02", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:01:19 11:56:02", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "287/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "203/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "107/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "59/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3000", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1000000/61", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1000000/61", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera"}