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Western Desert Oasis Foodways

Desert

Five inhabited depressions in the Western Desert, each fed by artesian water and each its own food world: SIWA, BAHARIYA, FARAFRA, DAKHLA and KHARGA, with Fayoum a sixth of a different kind. DATES and OLIVES are the oasis crops — Siwa’s dates and its olive oil are documented specialities and the basis of its economy — with wheat, barley, alfalfa, rice at Dakhla, apricot, fig and pomegranate under the palms in a layered garden. Preservation is the technique the desert demands: dates pressed and dried, meat dried, ghee stored. ⚠ SIWA IS NOT ARABIC-SPEAKING IN ORIGIN: its language is SIWI, the easternmost Berber language, spoken some seven hundred kilometres from any other Amazigh community, and Siwan food, marriage custom and architecture are correspondingly distinct from the Nile Valley’s. That is the single most important thing on this row and the reason Siwa gets its own treatment rather than being filed as a Matruh locality.

Atlas — where and when

Where in the world

Communities and languages

  • Siwans community documented

Languages: Siwi, Egyptian Arabic

What is recorded

  • Siwa’s language is Siwi, the easternmost Berber language, spoken some seven hundred kilometres from any other Amazigh community; Siwan food, marriage custom and architecture are documented as distinct from the Nile Valley. Siwan dates and olive oil are documented specialities. Oasis agriculture is recorded as layered gardens under date palms fed by artesian water. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

  • related to Amazigh Foodways documented

    ⚠ SIWI IS THE EASTERNMOST BERBER LANGUAGE, spoken some seven hundred kilometres from any other Amazigh community. Siwa is not Arabic-speaking in origin.

Recorded as relating to this foodway

  • related to Amazigh Foodways of Morocco documented

    Siwi is the easternmost Berber language; the Amazigh world runs from the Atlantic to that oasis.

Recipes

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