© Brid Beeler. All rights reserved.
On tour in the desert, the early morning is one of my favorite times. The sun is slowly rising, the desert air is crisp and morning dew is visible on the desert flowers. Nothing is more welcoming than the aroma of ful medames cooking on the stove, awaiting hungry guests to emerge from their tents after a good night’s sleep.
Ful medames (or simply Ful, pronounced ‘fool’) is a spicy bean dish popular throughout the Middle East. It is said that its roots lie in Egypt, dating back as far as Pharaonic times. My history with it does not go back that far. My husband introduced me to ful medames in Riyadh. He often mentioned the ful that his Saudi colleagues would bring in for breakfast or send out for mid-morning from one of the nearby shops. Apparently, these office breakfasts were quite useful (no pun intended) social occasions, as it is tradition in the Arab world not to eat alone.
One day my husband brought some home and insisted I try it. With huge trepidation, I did... and I could not believe the flavors! I wanted more! The spoonful I got that evening brought about a whole new appreciation for the humble bean.
The Arab world has embraced ful, each country devising their own take on how it should be served and eaten. From Egypt to Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Yemen, these dishes are bursting with their unique flavors. Somewhat like spaghetti or linguini in Italy, where each region has its own distinctive flavors and cooking method.
© Brid Beeler. All rights reserved.
My least favorite bean is actually the large style fava bean, usually served whole in Egypt as opposed to mashed. However, in Egypt you also can find Ful baladi (country beans) and ful Hammam (bath beans – the name is derived from the Princess Baths) and these blend more easily with the spices and make for a more flavorful dish than the larger fava bean. Basically, it comes down to personal taste.
© Brid Beeler. All rights reserved.
The smaller and rounder beans are tastier, and they mash more easily, like in Yemen where a small dark brown shaped bean is used. You also find it widely used in Jeddah. Iraq has its own distinctive brown bean, which is larger in size.
© Brid Beeler. All rights reserved.
© Brid Beeler. All rights reserved.
The beans are soaked overnight, with a sprinkling of baking soda that helps to take some of the starch off the beans. Also, the water should be changed a couple of times. Rinsed and washed, the beans are then cooked for a very long time in special, amphora shaped metal pots, called qidra, allowing the beans to meld into a bean type paste. These days a gas fire is used. In olden times, these pots would have been buried in embers overnight, which would be stoked throughout the night to reach the right consistency by morning for the workers awaiting their morning fix of ful medames.
Completing the dish are sliced onions sautéed in olive oil, chopped tomatoes, fresh green chili and cumin. Cooked separately, the beans are added to the sauteed dish and allowed to cook slowly with all the flavors blending to perfection. Freshly chopped red onion, diced tomato, green chili, chopped parsley, tahina, and a lemon wedge often accompany the dish as condiments.
Spooned onto your plate, you can add a pinch of these toppings and finish off by pouring a generous splash of olive oil. The completed dish is eaten with khubz, the thin bread readily available throughout the Middle East. It all makes for a delicious and very hearty breakfast.
Long ago, my friend Carolyn and I often fantasized about having our own ful cafe and how unique it would be for two women to be proprietors of such an enterprise. Given how rapidly the Saudi food scene is changing, I expect you may soon see women doing just that. In any case, ful is bound to sustain many generations yet to come.
About the Author: Brid Beeler first went to live in Saudi Arabia in 1989 and stayed for a decade. Her career then led her to live and work in Yemen and Oman and work for some of the world’s top travel companies. She currently heads Brid Beeler Travel (www.bridbeelertravel.com) and travels in and out of the Kingdom regularly on tour or collaborating on programs. She has traversed every corner of Arabia and is never happier than delving into the culture and treasures of the peninsula.
Brid began taking American travelers to Saudi Arabia in 1998 and, in addition to operating tours, she has trained guides, worked on award-winning documentaries, and written extensively on the region. In 2015, she was the Tour Director for the Smithsonian tour to Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar, which followed their internationally acclaimed Roads of Arabia exhibit.
She has presented papers on eco-tourism in the Middle East region and was one of only a handful of women invited by the National Commission for Wildlife Conservation & Development and the Supreme Commission for Tourism to speak at the first International Conference on Eco-Tourism in Saudi Arabia in 2002. She has written for Foreign Affairs and the Arab British Chamber of Commerce. In addition, she has published travel articles in Middle Eastern newspapers and spoken on Middle Eastern travel at embassy functions in Washington DC. A strong proponent of Middle Eastern art, culture and traditions, she has spoken on the ethnic silver jewelry of the Arabian Peninsula at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle.
Back home in Ireland, Brid enjoys walks on the beach with her latest saluki, Rishan.