Authentic eats

For George Abraham, Folklorama is a year-round event.

The culinary chair of the Egyptian Pavilion has been mulling the menu for the 2024 event since the end of last year’s cultural festival.

The last 365 days have been filled, specifically, with visions of falafel.

“We didn’t add lots of food to the menu, every year we’ve added just one (dish) and this year it’s going to be Egyptian falafel, made with fava beans. The original falafel, history-wise is two main things: fava beans and leeks,” he says.

To the centuries-old recipe he also adds onion, garlic, parsley, dill and coriander. Abraham is happy with flavour, but figuring out how to serve the deep-fried bean balls to a steady stream of visitors has been an added hurdle.

“It’s very challenging to have fresh, crispy falafel for 1,000 people at the same time. The rest of the food we prepare to put it in a warmer and it’s easy, this one has to be on the go,” he says.

Abraham is a realtor by trade with a passion for food. He’s been overseeing the cuisine at the Egyptian Pavilion since its Folklorama debut in 2019.

“He’s the chef in the family as well — he feeds us all,” says pavilion co-ordinator and Abraham’s sister Hala Salama, who has enjoyed being a taste tester during rounds of recipe development for various menu items over the years.

Abraham often stops by House of Taste — an Egyptian restaurant on Grant Avenue owned by his friend Mamdouh Hanna — for inspiration.

The restaurant’s menu includes many of the same dishes found at the pavilion. Both ventures focus on popular foods found at roadside vendors in Cairo, Alexandria and other major urban centres in the country.

“It has to be street food,” Abraham says, when explaining his decision-making process for bringing new menu items into the pavilion. “Because the experience for anybody when you go to the Egyptian Pavilion, they want to see what Egyptians really eat and drink, so (street food) is my main focus.”

He describes the country’s cuisine as simple and healthy with a blend of culinary touch points.

“Egypt is between so many places. We have a lot of influences from Greece, from Levant, from Turkey,” Abraham says.

In addition to falafel, festivalgoers will also find beef and chicken shawarma and rice pilaf; as well as traditionally vegan dishes, such as ful, a slow-cooked fava bean stew, and koshary, a mixture of lentils, legumes and rice served with a citrusy tomato sauce.

Desserts include baklava, konafa (a creamy dish made with fried fine pastry) and mango pudding.

During the pavilion, which runs the second week of Folklorama beginning on Aug. 11, Abraham spends all day — from 9 a.m. to midnight — in the kitchen prepping ingredients to serve to visitors of as many as four daily performances.

It’s a busy stretch, but one organizers have been preparing for since last August.

“Things are going really well,” co-ordinator Salama says, 10 days out from the event. “It has been a journey of planning and getting some surprises — some of them are good, some of them are challenging — but at the end of the day everything works out.”

The pavilion also features performances by world-renowned dancers and musicians and an educational display about the Grand Egyptian Museum.

“We’re pumped, we’re ready to go,” says Omneya Khalifa, the pavilion’s co-co-ordinator. “We’ve built a great team over the years, so many people have come together. We’ve become like an extended family.”

That sense of collegiality extends to other Folklorama organizers as well. The Egyptian Pavilion returns to the RBC Convention Centre this year alongside the Brazilian, Hungary-Pannonia and Latin American pavilions.

“There’s lots of collaboration,” Salama says “We work in the same kitchen, we share fridges and space and we share expertise.”

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

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Eva Wasney
Reporter

Eva Wasney has been a reporter with the Free Press Arts & Life department since 2019. Read more about Eva.

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