I love eating fish so much, but when I traveled outside of Egypt, I was shocked by the lack of the same tasty fish I used to have in Egypt.

Egyptian families have a tradition of eating fish on Fridays for the main meal. They usually eat البوري  (similar to tilapia) or البلطي (similar to mullet) baked in flour. People living in coastal cities such as Alexandria and Port Said naturally consume more fish and have more diverse recipes.

In our family, we preferred grilled بوري. We buy the fish raw at the market and grill it in special traditional ovens at the same market. The oven, called البلاطة is made of heat-resistant bricks and uses logs of wood and straw as traditional sources of fuel. The person who grills the fish may be the vendor or a different person. Most of them are women who remove the scales, clean the grills, and cover the fish with الردة wheat bran. When done, the skin is black and burnt, not usually eaten, but the white flesh inside is super delicious—it’s to die for, literally. To this grilled fish, we add onion rice and green salad. This meal is meant to be eaten with extended family members.

Fish was also a favorite meal for our ancient ancestors. Fish were a staple of the ancient Egyptian cuisine, and they excelled in preparing and curing it. They used it in offerings for their neters and extracted many medicinal ingredients from fish. They even mummified it as part of the meal buried with the dead to help them cross to the West for their eternal life.

(The picture: Mummified fish from the era of Queen Hatshepsut stand as a testament to this tradition.)