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Nubian Foodways in Egypt

Community

⚠ FILED UNDER THE EXISTING NUBIAN ROOT, because Nubia is a country that the Egypt-Sudan border runs through and not an Egyptian region. Nubians speak NOBIIN and KENUZI-DONGOLA — Nilo-Saharan languages unrelated to Arabic — and their homeland is the Nile between the first and fourth cataracts. ⚠ AND IT IS UNDER WATER. The Aswan High Dam flooded Nubia between 1963 and 1964; some forty-four villages were submerged and roughly fifty thousand Egyptian Nubians were resettled at Kom Ombo, far from the river, onto land that did not grow what they grew. That is a food-system fact before it is anything else: the date palms, the riverbank plots and the saqia irrigation were lost, and the return to Nubia is a live political demand. The foodway: DATES above all, and Nubian date varieties; sorghum and millet; fava and lentil; WEIKA, dried powdered okra; KABED and the flat sorghum breads; dried and salted river fish; goat; karkade; and a documented coffee tradition with ginger. ⚠ CEREMONIAL AND WEDDING FOODS ARE RECORDED AS EXISTING; their content is the community’s to publish.

Atlas — where and when

Where in the world

Communities and languages

  • Nubians community documented

Languages: Nobiin, Kenuzi-Dongola, Egyptian Arabic

What is recorded

  • Egyptian Nubia is flooded by Lake Nasser; some forty-four villages are submerged and roughly fifty thousand Nubians are resettled at Kom Ombo, away from the river. documented
  • Nubians speak Nobiin and Kenuzi-Dongola, Nilo-Saharan languages unrelated to Arabic, and their homeland lies along the Nile across the modern Egypt-Sudan border. The Aswan High Dam flooded Egyptian Nubia in 1963-64; some forty-four villages were submerged and approximately fifty thousand people were resettled at Kom Ombo away from the river, losing date palms, riverbank plots and saqia irrigation. Return to Nubia remains a live political demand. Ceremonial and wedding foods are recorded as existing without publication of their content. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

  • part of Nubian Foodways documented

    ⚠ Nubia is a country the Egypt-Sudan border runs through, not an Egyptian region.

  • related to Sudanese Cuisine documented

    Nubia spans the border; karkade and the sorghum breads are shared.

Recipes

No recipes are filed under this cuisine yet.