The Egyptian meal is not divided into starter-main-dessert: everything is laid out together on a single tablecloth or low tray (the sofra), and everyone picks from shared dishes using flatbread (eish baladi) as both spoon and plate. The morning begins with foul; refreshing drinks like karkadé punctuate the day; and on feast days, large fatta dishes gather the whole household around the same pot. The fellah's (peasant's) frugality and the generosity of sharing coexist on the same sofra.

Dried fava beans, simmered for hours in a narrow-necked pot (idra) until dawn, are the soul of the popular Egyptian table. They are finished with a shower of roasted cumin, garlic, lemon, and a drizzle of oil—an aromatic trio as old as the Delta villages from which Sadat came.