Throughout their history, the Egyptians knew many types of bread, to the point that they began to call it “Aish” due to the heavy reliance on it in daily living and various occasions. So they made Aish, Bataw, Shamsi, and Marrah, each of which had characteristics and formal features that differed from the others depending on where you turned your face, towards Upper Egypt in the south or in the direction of the Delta in the north.
With the Ottoman conquest, the Egyptians tested a new type of bread, very similar to the one that came from the Levant, accompanied by its name and identifying nationality, “Syrian bread.” The Egyptian tortillas were the same as the Ottoman and Syrian dough, based on flour, salt and water only, but while the Turks and Syrians used it as food bread, the Egyptians used it as an essential item on the Eid al-Adha table, whether it was dipped in milk, or immersed in meat and broth.
Egyptian weather that has not changed over time
In the eight days preceding the Day of Arafat, Egyptians prepare to welcome the Eid, not only by sacrificing or buying the necessary meat, but everyone is racing to prepare or buy “Eid tortillas.”
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Tortillas, which were an important ritual for welcoming Eid al-Adha, and women shared in preparing them at home and preparing them on “Ruqag Saturday,” have now become a ritual that requires time and effort that most women cannot afford. However, tortillas were not absent from the Eid al-Adha table, as a basic breakfast “ragged with milk” or at the lunch table “ragged with minced meat.” In all cases, “Umm Shahd” was the most famous tortilla baker in Gamaleya. She is credited with continuing to be on the table of dozens of homes in Fatimid Cairo.
On the corner of Umm Al-Ghulam Street in Al-Gamaleya, the “Umm Shahd” restaurant has been waiting for customers since ten in the morning every day, a daily table waiting for those arriving in search of homemade food. Umm Shahad prepares her dishes of stuffed meat, molokhiya, pasta with béchamel, goulash, and fried chicken, all of the various types for which the fifty-year-old woman has become known, ever since her situation changed from a housewife who knew nothing about life except preparing food for her husband and children in her small kitchen to a woman who never stopped dreaming of her children graduating and getting them to safety, after the sudden departure of their father 7 years ago.
Umm Shahd’s journey
Many memories do not leave Umm Shahad’s memory, since the night she went into her room to sleep, leaving her husband with her children. She woke up to his sudden screams due to a heart attack. Fate did not give him long time after that to say goodbye to his wife and children, and within an hour everything was over. Since the burial of her husband’s body, she began the journey of searching for work, as those like her late husband, who work as day laborers, do not leave an inheritance or pension to their families after their departure.
With a smile of satisfaction, Umm Shahd tells of her attempts to search for work. The attempts began with a sewing machine. She sewed bedsheets and bridal mattresses and sold them in front of her children’s school in installments to parents. Then Corona attacked her, losing her capital and ending her project. She also tried to work in a clothing factory. The owner turned off the lights and asked her to hang up the cloth. She could not see and the lady did not give her light. She left the factory and the world was dark around her. She went to bed crying and asking questions. May God not leave her and her children to ask people, and the answer came to her presently. Her sister came to her: “We do not know anything except cooking… We will start a cooking project and I will help you for free.”
Rigag is an alternative to stuffed dishes during Eid
Sister Mona was not the only one who supported Umm Shahd, but all of her brothers did, and the woman started her project, first with a Facebook page, then she rented a shop and moved out next to the Umm al-Ghulam shrine and the al-Adawi Mosque. She made a pledge to herself not to turn away anyone who asks and to feed all the deprived, and in every season she distributes to God more than what she leaves for herself and her children, and in the Eid al-Adha season this year, after the demand for stuffed and molokhiya dishes decreased, she decided Umm Shahad wants to add to her project the “tortillas” industry.
As usual, the idea came to Mona, “the mine of ideas,” as Umm Shahd called her. She follows the trending topics on Facebook and knows what’s going on outside the narrow lanes in Al-Jamaliyya. Quickly, an oven was purchased to bake tortillas, and it was connected to the restaurant’s pipe. The wheel turned and the bags of tortillas began to line up in front of the store, waiting for buyers. “The first 5 kilograms we baked, we were happy with them, and I stacked them in front of the store, and the wind and the next person kept seeing the sweetness of the tortillas, and suddenly an Arab I hit them and they were all broken,” Umm Shahad says while laughing: “By God, I did not accept any compensation for what was broken, so God compensated me many times over in the following days.”
Whole grain tortillas are gripping aesthetically
This season’s tortillas are different from those in previous years. With the uproar caused by the Tayibat regime, whole wheat flour has become a daily trend on social media, and when someone came asking about the possibility of making tortillas with whole grain flour, the Qalyubia daughter did not understand, but when he returned with wheat flour without separating the flour, Umm Shahad recognized it quickly. “All our lives we knead and bake with it in the country, and it turns out even better than regular flour.”
Umm Shahad divided the tortilla dough into two parts: one with regular flour, and another part that she started baking at night with whole grain flour, which Al-Gamaleya learned late. “Whole-grain tortillas also turn out to be sweeter than regular tortillas, lighter, and tastier, but the price is the same value.”
Umm Shahad buys special flour from the Bab al-Sharia area. There, its price has not increased as it does in most areas. That is why she has not changed the price of healthy tortillas from their regular counterpart. Umm Shahd intends to continue baking bread and pies with whole grains after the end of the Eid and tortillas season. “The season ends on the day of Arafat… and we will rest for two weeks after the Eid and return again to stuffed meat, molokhiya, and whole grain.”
