Camel liver, brains, and a really spicy pepper

Egypt’s food situation isn’t too terribly exciting. The common dishes are totally adequate and a definite improvement on Mauritanian cuisine, but for an aspiring foodie, Egypt leaves something to be desired. Even expensive restaurants in Cairo aren’t that impressive. I stopped trying after discovering that one of the “best” Italian joints in town really just served bland-ish pasta. Common foods here: Tameyya – felafel’s less-flavorful and more stringy cousin, stuffed in a bland pita; foul – refried fava beans, also stuffed in a bland pita; koshary – plan pasta and rice with a dash of tomato sause and a spattering of lentils. Again, these foods are totally adequate and a definite step up from sandy couscous. But sometimes one just craves something that will entertain the taste buds.

I like trying new food. Over the years I have gotten to try some fun stuff: chicken hearts in Brazil (turns out they're delicious), intestines in Argentina (though I must admit I never really “loved” those), really spicy food in Ethiopia and India, raw meat in Minneapolis, “ass butter” in RIM (milk fermented and then turned into butter – it never spoils, but always smells like the maker forgot to wash her hands after using the bathroom)... Heck, up until about four years ago, I didn’t even really like wine, olives, or tomatoes. Now they are staples of my diet.

When Egyptians feel adventurous with their consumption patterns, occasionally they venture into liver. I really like liver. Last night a friend asked if I had ever tried camel liver, ostensibly the “best” liver in the world. I figured his bias had more to do with the Arab’s love of all things camel than with the actual quality of camel liver. I mean, I get it: camels were the primary status symbol, and they were great pack animals, for thousands of years. Linguistically, Arab's love of camels is reflected in several hilarious verbs, likely millions. Why yes, actually, I DO need a single word to describe having tied my camel up at a rival tribe’s watering hole so that it could go into labor and then getting in a fight with the local tribe over who owned the baby camel. Really, it’s useful vocabulary.

In Mauritania, camels were similarly revered. Camel milk was considered “better” than its bovine counterpart, its meat a symbol of wealth. Heck, even dowry’s are paid in camels.

So when my friend asked if I had tried camel liver, and he subsequently raved about how amazing it was, I figured I should take his praises with a grain of salt. I was sure it was probably fine, but worth the adulation usually reserved for wines too expensive to justify? Surely not. But then he asked if I had tried “brains.” Hmm. “Nope.” My immediate impulse was to say, “And I don’t really want to.” But thinking back to delicious chicken hearts, I inquired further: were they stringy? rubbery? Nope, very “soft.” They’re cooked, right? "Of course!"

I was going to try brains. A wave of jitters and excitement took hold of me when walking to the restaurant. My thoughts ranged from, “I wonder if I’ll like them” to “Gosh I hope I don’t get some weird disease and die.”

Camel liver was unsurprisingly underwhelming. It’s flavorful, sure, but it’s also the toughest and most rubbery liver I’ve ever encountered.

Watching the cooks bring out fresh brains, bread them in front of me, and then drop them in a vat of boiling oil, was pretty exciting. Sure enough, brains are really “soft.” A better word might be “gooey.” They aren’t quite chicken hearts, but they were fun to try.

The highlight of the night though was when my sitemate, Nick, decided to eat a plate full of veggies covered in crushed red pepper. “They aren’t bad.” Sure enough, the tomatoes and cucumbers weren’t nearly as spicy as they should have been considering the layer of spice smothering them. A minute later, the server brought out a medium-sized pepper sliced into strips. Much as I like spicy food, I get scared of random peppers that are set in front of me, especially in foreign countries. Nick unhesitatingly grabbed the biggest piece of pepper on the plate and stuck nearly the whole thing in his mouth. I tried to squeak in before it was too late: “Dude – is that a hot pepper?” He was already chewing. “Nah…” And then, something almost cartoon-like happened. After about 5 seconds of confidently chewing and rubbing those little seeds all over his tongue, he gasped, “Oh no…” His face became red (and perhaps a little swollen), tears welled in his eyes, and he was nearly hyperventilating. Everyone in the restaurant thought it was pretty funny (I might have too...). The restaurant owners were very accommodating – they brought him bread and milk, chuckling at the American who actually ate the spicy pepper.

We decided on the walk home that from a utilitarian perspective, his five minutes of extreme suffering were likely outweighed by the joy that it brought everyone in the restaurant, myself included. I promptly offered to douse all his food in random spices, and he politely declined.

What the Egyptian food scene lacks in flavor, it makes up for in stories like this one.