Heading South by Tim Richards

Author:Tim Richards [Richards, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Transportation, Railroads, General, Travel, Australia & Oceania
ISBN: 9781760990015
Google: mKdGzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Fremantle Press
Published: 2021-08-03T23:32:29.705989+00:00

‘You can tell this is taamia, not falafel,’ said Narrelle. ‘It doesn’t taste the same.’

‘It’s made from fava beans, I think.’ I’d recently written an article on African food in Melbourne, and had been looking up falafel variants in Egypt and other North African countries.

After leaving Moonee Ponds I’d met Narrelle at a new Egyptian restaurant in Northcote, an inner-city neighbourhood which had run the gamut from working-class district to hipster hub to overpriced real estate in recent years. High Street was the kind of shopping strip on which you’d find former retail shops that have been transformed in cafes or bars, while retaining their original names (the bar ‘Joe’s Shoe Store’ being the prime exemplar).

The restaurant, Pharaoh, was tastefully outfitted with a vaguely Art Deco look. What was catching our attention was the bowl of crunchy strips of Egypt’s answer to falafel, which reminded us of the two years we’d spent teaching English in Cairo in the 1990s. Back then we’d bought taamia sandwiches from a street stall. The bean patties had been served within flatbread, with salad and pickled vegetables and a tahini sauce. They cost about twenty-five cents each.

The food at Pharaoh was upmarket Egyptian street food, and completely vegetarian. The table was scattered with dips, bread and baked dishes that reminded us of the down-to-earth versions we’d eaten in Egypt at a fraction of the price. Koshary was the cheapest of the cheap food in the Egyptian capital, a mess of carbs: lentils, pasta and rice cooked with tomato sauce and onion, with sauces splashed on top. The Northcote take on the dish was much the same, but with much higher quality ingredients and the addition of haloumi.

Our two years in Cairo had been formative. We’d moved there specifically to teach English, but more broadly to have an adventure. There was nothing like living in a culture so different from your own to stimulate your ability to comprehend and adapt. Those years had consolidated my love of travel, and its capacity to shock the traveller out of complacency. It hadn’t been an entirely happy time, but we’d survived it and grown from it. Travel wasn’t after all about happiness, but stimulation. Egypt had been endlessly stimulating. I wanted to return, but I had no idea when that might happen. For now, this food-inspired nostalgia would have to do.

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