Ful Medames
Encyclopedia
Fūl medammis or simply fūl, is an Egyptian
dish of cooked and mashed fava beans
served with olive oil
, chopped parsley
, onion
, garlic
, and lemon
juice. A staple meal in Egypt
, it is popular in the cuisine
s of the Levant
, Somalia
, Eritrea
, Ethiopia, Sudan
and Saudi Arabia.
texts and the Bible
. Ramses III of Egypt is known to have offered 11,998 jars of beans to the god of the Nile
.
Some writers have suggested that beans were not commonly cultivated in Ancient Egypt
, and Herodotus
in the fifth century B.C., mentions the fact that the Egyptians "never sow beans, and even if any happen to grow wild, they will not eat them, either raw or boiled."
Some believe that the word medammis was originally Coptic
, meaning "buried," and its use here might mean that the beans are buried in the pot. This cooking method is mentioned in the Talmud Yerushalmi, indicating that the method was used in Middle Eastern countries since the fourth century. Although there are countless ways of embellishing fūl, the basic recipe remains the same. Once the fūl is cooked it is salted and eaten plain or accompanied by olive oil
, corn oil, butter, clarified butter, buffalo milk, béchamel sauce
, basturma, fried or boiled eggs, tomato sauce
, garlic sauce, tahini
, fresh lemon juice, or other ingredients.
In the Middle Ages, the making of fūl was monopolized by the people living around the Princess Baths, a public bath in a tiny compound near today's public fountain of Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha
, a block north of the two elegant minarets of the Mosque of Sultan Mu’ayyad Shaykh above the eleventh-century Bab Zuwaylah gate. During the day, bath-attendants stoked the fires heating the qidras, huge pots of bath water. Wood was scarce, so garbage was used as fuel and eventually a dump grew around the baths. When the baths closed, the red embers of the fires continued to burn. To take advantage of these precious fires, huge qidras were filled with fava beans, and these cauldrons were kept simmering all night, and eventually all day too, to provide breakfast for Cairo's population. Cookshops throughout Cairo
would send their minions to the Princess Baths to buy their wholesale fūl.
Fūl is prepared from the small, round bean known in Egypt as fūl ḥammām. The beans are cooked until very soft. Other kinds of fava beans used by Egyptian cooks are fūl rūmī, large kidney-shaped fava beans, and fūl baladī, country beans, of middling size. Fūl nābit (or nābid) is fava bean sprouts, fūl akhḍar ('green fūl') is fresh fava beans, and fūl madshūsh is crushed fava beans.
, particularly the Levant
, Somalia
, Eritrea
, and Sudan
.
, especially in Aleppo
. The fava beans are left simmering in large copper jars throughout the night, to be served from the next morning on; the beans swim in tahini and olive oil, completed with a hint of red pepper paste over the top.
flatbread and mitmita
powder.
ful bit-tewm (beans with garlic) is usually associated with fasting
during Lent
and Good Friday
. The beans are soaked overnight, cooked with garlic and fresh or dried mint and dressed with oil and vinegar before serving.
Egyptian cuisine
Egyptian cuisine consists of the local culinary traditions of Egypt. Egyptian cuisine makes heavy use of legumes and vegetables, as Egypt's rich Nile Valley and Delta produce large quantities of high-quality crops.- History and characteristics :...
dish of cooked and mashed fava beans
Vicia faba
This article refers to the Broad Bean plant. For Broadbean the company, see Broadbean, Inc.Vicia faba, the Broad Bean, Fava Bean, Field Bean, Bell Bean or Tic Bean, is a species of bean native to north Africa and southwest Asia, and extensively cultivated elsewhere. A variety is provisionally...
served with olive oil
Olive oil
Olive oil is an oil obtained from the olive , a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps...
, chopped parsley
Parsley
Parsley is a species of Petroselinum in the family Apiaceae, native to the central Mediterranean region , naturalized elsewhere in Europe, and widely cultivated as an herb, a spice and a vegetable.- Description :Garden parsley is a bright green hairless biennial herbaceous plant in temperate...
, onion
Onion
The onion , also known as the bulb onion, common onion and garden onion, is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium. The genus Allium also contains a number of other species variously referred to as onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion The onion...
, garlic
Garlic
Allium sativum, commonly known as garlic, is a species in the onion genus, Allium. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, and rakkyo. Dating back over 6,000 years, garlic is native to central Asia, and has long been a staple in the Mediterranean region, as well as a frequent...
, and lemon
Lemon
The lemon is both a small evergreen tree native to Asia, and the tree's ellipsoidal yellow fruit. The fruit is used for culinary and non-culinary purposes throughout the world – primarily for its juice, though the pulp and rind are also used, mainly in cooking and baking...
juice. A staple meal in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, it is popular in the cuisine
Cuisine
Cuisine is a characteristic style of cooking practices and traditions, often associated with a specific culture. Cuisines are often named after the geographic areas or regions that they originate from...
s of the Levant
Levantine cuisine
Levantine cuisine is the traditional cuisine of the Levant, known in Arabic as the Bilad ash-Sham. This region shared many culinary traditions under the Ottoman Empire which continue to be influential today...
, Somalia
Somali cuisine
Somali cuisine varies from region to region and is a mixture of native Somali, Ethiopian, Yemeni, Persian, Turkish, Indian and Italian influences. It is the product of Somalia's tradition of trade and commerce. All food is halal.- Breakfast :...
, Eritrea
Eritrean cuisine
Eritrean cuisine is a fusion of Eritrea's native culinary traditions, and the area's long history of trade and social interchanges with other regions and cultures.-Overview:...
, Ethiopia, Sudan
Sudanese cuisine
Sudanese cuisine is varied by region, and greatly affected by the cross-cultural influences upon Sudan throughout history. In addition to the influences of the indigenous African peoples, the cuisine was influenced by Arab traders and settlers during the Ottoman Empire, who introduced spices such...
and Saudi Arabia.
History
The roots of fūl medammis can be traced to Pharaonic Egypt. Quantities of beans have been found in Twelfth Dynasty tombs (1991-1786 BC). Fava beans were also mentioned in HittiteHittite language
Hittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centred on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
texts and the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
. Ramses III of Egypt is known to have offered 11,998 jars of beans to the god of the Nile
Nile
The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...
.
Some writers have suggested that beans were not commonly cultivated in Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
, and Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
in the fifth century B.C., mentions the fact that the Egyptians "never sow beans, and even if any happen to grow wild, they will not eat them, either raw or boiled."
Some believe that the word medammis was originally Coptic
Coptic language
Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century...
, meaning "buried," and its use here might mean that the beans are buried in the pot. This cooking method is mentioned in the Talmud Yerushalmi, indicating that the method was used in Middle Eastern countries since the fourth century. Although there are countless ways of embellishing fūl, the basic recipe remains the same. Once the fūl is cooked it is salted and eaten plain or accompanied by olive oil
Olive oil
Olive oil is an oil obtained from the olive , a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps...
, corn oil, butter, clarified butter, buffalo milk, béchamel sauce
Béchamel sauce
Béchamel sauce , also known as white sauce, is one of the mother sauces of French cuisine and is used in many recipes of Italian cuisine, for example lasagne. It is used as the base for other sauces . It is traditionally made by whisking scalded milk gradually into a white roux...
, basturma, fried or boiled eggs, tomato sauce
Tomato sauce
A tomato sauce is any of a very large number of sauces made primarily from tomatoes, usually to be served as part of a dish...
, garlic sauce, tahini
Tahini
Tahini or sesame paste , is a paste of ground sesame seeds used in cooking. North African, Greek and West Asian tahini is made of hulled, lightly roasted seeds. East Asian sesame paste is made of unhulled seeds. The Arabic word tahin simply means flour.Tahini is a major component of hummus and...
, fresh lemon juice, or other ingredients.
Muhammad Ali of Egypt
Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha was a commander in the Ottoman army, who became Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan...
, a block north of the two elegant minarets of the Mosque of Sultan Mu’ayyad Shaykh above the eleventh-century Bab Zuwaylah gate. During the day, bath-attendants stoked the fires heating the qidras, huge pots of bath water. Wood was scarce, so garbage was used as fuel and eventually a dump grew around the baths. When the baths closed, the red embers of the fires continued to burn. To take advantage of these precious fires, huge qidras were filled with fava beans, and these cauldrons were kept simmering all night, and eventually all day too, to provide breakfast for Cairo's population. Cookshops throughout Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
would send their minions to the Princess Baths to buy their wholesale fūl.
Fūl is prepared from the small, round bean known in Egypt as fūl ḥammām. The beans are cooked until very soft. Other kinds of fava beans used by Egyptian cooks are fūl rūmī, large kidney-shaped fava beans, and fūl baladī, country beans, of middling size. Fūl nābit (or nābid) is fava bean sprouts, fūl akhḍar ('green fūl') is fresh fava beans, and fūl madshūsh is crushed fava beans.
Fūl medammis outside of Egypt
Fūl medammis was exported from Egypt to other parts of the Arab worldArab world
The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...
, particularly the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
, Somalia
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
, Eritrea
Eritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
, and Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
.
Syria
Fūl medammis, in its own different style, also enjoys considerable popularity as a breakfast meal in SyriaSyria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, especially in Aleppo
Aleppo
Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...
. The fava beans are left simmering in large copper jars throughout the night, to be served from the next morning on; the beans swim in tahini and olive oil, completed with a hint of red pepper paste over the top.
Horn of Africa
In northern Somalia, ful is eaten with a pancake-like bread called laxoox. It is also part of Ethiopian cuisine, where it is served with injeraInjera
Injera is a yeast-risen flatbread with a unique, slightly spongy texture. Traditionally made out of teff flour, it is a national dish in Ethiopia and Eritrea...
flatbread and mitmita
Mitmita
Mitmita is a spicy powdered seasoning used in the cuisine of Ethiopia. It is orange-red in color and contains ground African birdseye chili peppers, cardamom seed, cloves, salt, and occasionally other spices including, but not limited to, cinnamon, cumin, or ginger. It is used to season the raw...
powder.
Malta
In MaltaMalta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
ful bit-tewm (beans with garlic) is usually associated with fasting
Fasting and Abstinence in the Roman Catholic Church
For Roman Catholics, fasting is the reduction of one's intake of food to one full meal a day. This may or may not be accompanied by abstinence from meat when eating....
during Lent
Lent
In the Christian tradition, Lent is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer – through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial – for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and...
and Good Friday
Good Friday
Good Friday , is a religious holiday observed primarily by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. The holiday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and may coincide with the Jewish observance of...
. The beans are soaked overnight, cooked with garlic and fresh or dried mint and dressed with oil and vinegar before serving.
Nutritional information
A typical recipe of ful medames has the following nutrition facts per serving (around 200g):- Calories: 342
- Total fat (g): 27
- Saturated fat (g): 4
- Cholesterol (mg): 0
- Carbohydrates (g): 20
- Protein (g): 7
External links
- Step-by-step guide
- Ottolenghi, Yotam. "The perfect hummus debate", The Guardian, June 29, 2010.
- Cuisine and Culture: A History of Food and People by Linda Civitello