Egypt Food Tour!! Africa’s Worst Country for Shooting!! (Police!) (Full Documentary)

we just got done with the police what they told us is that the footage that we shot wasn't beautiful it wasn't pretty enough it didn't meet their standard i told you to delete it suddenly these guys are documentary filmmakers i don't get it [Music] egypt a country famous for its history the river nile the vast sahara desert and its ancient pyramids it's also a country i'll never return to again we're trying to keep a low profile and soon you'll know why you shouldn't go either keep rolling but be less obvious there's a very dark very real side to this country few travel shows and travel hosts are willing to expose but let me back up and zoom out for a second egypt is one of africa's 54 countries yes egypt is in africa and egyptians are africans but many also consider them middle eastern the language arabic the main religion is islam which becomes immediately apparent as you hear calls for prayer blaring from surrounding mosque speakers [Music] more than 95 of the country is dry arid desert which means the nile is a vital lifeline to this country of 100 million cairo is one of the biggest cities in africa with a population of over 10 million after we landed in cairo that's when everything started going wrong [Music] soon after arriving in the country and pulling up at our hotel our bags were x-rayed then opened then searched then the police came from around 4 30 a.m to 10 a.m we were outside the lobby in the cold and more and more police coming asking us all types of questions treating us like criminals suspecting us of something but i don't know what for four hours we were interrogated by authorities wondering who we are and what we're doing here in the end they confiscated our lights hard drives batteries and cameras what i couldn't figure out then was what were these guys so paranoid about and then i read about egypt's revolution the arab spring spreads to egypt with a day of rain demanded the resignation of then-president hussein they were scenes that gripped the world's attention in december 2010 this so-called democratic republic faced mass demonstrations the people were challenging authorities over poverty corruption and political repression many of these protests were held in cairo in the city center incredibly close to the hotel where they just confiscated our gear over a period of weeks demonstrations reached a climactic and tragic head on january 25th on that date the people made their voices heard by demanding president murabak to stand down the murabak regime responded with violence in the end he did step down but future leaders never forgot the impact and power the people had [Music] now even years later there's a paranoia that envelops the city especially leading up to january 25th we landed here on january 16th i regret this immediately oh i just had a good idea without camera come take a look at this beauty my team and i have decided to shoot this series using iphones still our problems are just beginning right now the van is at a police station they've gone through the shots on my phone don't know what's going to happen next even with just phones even though we have a valid shooting permit it's not exactly a laws here cairo's overzealous paranoid police are on top of us they don't even wear uniforms stopping us asking us to delete shots they don't find beautiful this guy behind me he can be poised but probably not in this series you're gonna witness the real egypt a straightforward documentation of what it's really like to be a filmmaker in africa's worst country for shooting along the way we're watching our backs and ducking into alleyways all to capture the most delicious oh my gosh unique food flavors you'll find anywhere i was not expecting this from bustling cairo this place is wild it's mad it's very busy sorry am i on your way see you see what i'm saying let me do a spin move right here boom we're good to chaotic camel market we've almost literally effing run over about five times now when you're here you need to watch your back and your friends back to the center of the sahara desert far far from police here it's completely peaceful and there's something really interesting like when everyone's quiet it's real silence you'll see the food they're eating about one sheep every two weeks that's like 25 a year that's a lot but you'll also see the people kind locals completely unlike the boorish authorities who run this place this is the boss of the camel bladder from another mother i came to egypt to introduce an audience of over 8 million to this country's heartwarming cuisine and friendly locals instead i have no choice but to be honest and transparent laws here are unclear and people just kind of do what they want to do in this four video series you will see food are people eating this yes you will experience culture and i will reveal the dark realities of being a traveler in a country that treats its tourists like criminals it all starts here as the first rays of light pierced through the trees and old dust-caked buildings of cairo a small window of peace gradually fades away replaced by the hustle and bustle of city life cars motorbikes bicycles and the occasional horse or donkey populate the streets crowds are massive and move like schools of fish with a beautiful chaos like no place i've seen before [Music] let me be clear i like this city it has character on camera it looks amazing however i don't like and i don't respect the people who run it day one location one our conniving and mostly useless local producer has brought us here a small street side eatery on a quiet road low traffic means a lower chance of suspicious police or quickly forming mobs sounds great but what's on the menu [Music] we are in the kitchen of our first location and i'm excited because i don't know what people in egypt eat for breakfast but right now i'm getting a little bit of a hint behind me he is frying french fries and he just made falafel too the falafel here is made with fava beets and then fried until they look like little honky puffs for now i'm going to go to the serving area where they have so much food and i'm going to decide what we're going to eat officially for breakfast today let's go this is a restaurant named after its owner mr assad specializes in dishes that use fava beets fava beans are a common breakfast here in cairo with over 40 years of experience sod can mix and match flavors in over 50 ways hello sir good morning he's really busy right now here he has about 15 different dishes and tons of flavor combinations so people come they step up they order and then he's kind of the main guy making it happen someone just ordered a chip sandwich another chip sandwich i should get one of those oh so now he's not busy hey we connected after all oh my god see it just takes persistence so right now he's going to make me a chip sandwich he's got the soft bread here puts in the chips some salt and then this is a white sauce i'm not sure what that is yet he puts in some salad some greens carrots a little bit of cabbage in there can this be the plate please yes yes and he won't give it to me at all i promise i'll pay [Music] crunchy there's something delectable about putting a soft carbohydrate with a crunchy chips i don't know if you guys were poor like me but when i grew up i would just make a potato chip sandwich with ketchup or with butter and so it takes me back to those days to the days of my impoverished youth most flavor is coming from the salt he added and the tahini tahini is kind of new for me i don't know if i've had that before tahini it's an arabic condiment made from toasted ground hold sesame seeds made into a paste here you'll see it join most meals the tahini it's saltine a bit of sweet sourness i don't know i need to try that more to kind of pin it down the bread is excellent it's soft it's chewy it's a great little treat before you eat your actual breakfast which we're gonna do next aside from chip sandwiches they have something called the food is something that is eaten commonly for breakfast here all throughout the city of cairo and what it is it's fava beans [Applause] fava beans are one of the oldest cultivated plants with evidence of their incorporation into egyptian diets dating back to at least 6000 bc now in present day they're a staple in egypt used in dishes like food and falafel a soupy dish made with stewed fava beans salt and pepper corn oil tahini and chili sauce it kind of looks like refried beans in a way but it probably tastes different because it has spices in there too falafel a bean cake made with fava beans spices garlic and herbs roll it into balls and deep fry this is a kind of a typical egyptian breakfast something you might expect to see in the morning here in cairo and it's beautiful there's a huge selection people probably wouldn't order as many things but i have let's take a look at these i mentioned french fries for breakfast i can't say that this is rare i'm looking around i see almost everybody here has ordered the french fries here this is falafel i'm gonna break that open oh very nice looking extra crispy fried and delicious as far as i know it's something to be eaten with anything i'm just gonna try plain like this let's go for it super crunchy and pretty airy too falafel's not always my favorite sometimes i find falafel can be really dry but here this is one of my top falafels i've ever had i think because they're using a different type of bean it's much more airy and light and it's not just like a thick big chunk of fried stuff the main reason i came here is for this this is called full and this is a very common breakfast that you'll see in cairo you can't really eat it with your hands it's not really a spoon provided you kind of lap it up with the bread right here this bread is super famous here in cairo it's called egyptian bread and i want to go right now to see how it's made and then we get teleported behind me now an egyptian bread bakery you can see from the front the fresh bread coming out people buying it over here but we're gonna go into the back and see what few people have seen before let's go here it's a very tight fit it's enough space for the ingredients and the oven that's basically all that's here in the back room you can see they're making the flour they're making the dough made with a simple recipe this is the backbone of egyptian cuisine hearty thick gluten rich round and flat it's consumed with almost all egyptian meals eaten fresh daily streetside bakeries like this are found on every block with delivery men nimbly balancing racks of fresh bread on their heads [Music] way in the back room tucked away from the daylight you see where the process begins he's already made the dough and then he portions it into these perfect little balls and it goes on top of this powder this powder is like a wheat flour that's been baked its only purpose is to make the dough not stick to the sheet and look at how he moves of these big old pieces of wood gets about 15 to 20 on there now this is gonna hang out here in this room for about 20 minutes to an hour during that time it's gonna flatten out naturally and then it's gonna be ready to go into the oven that's the next step but here i just want to appreciate the skill i mean look at this it's like an optical illusion how is he doing it nice thank you boom boom [Music] we are now at the roasting station so this is where it's going to go from dough to something beautiful he's gently peeling it off of this dust it's like a wheat dust that everything rests on and the way he flips it in his hand it kind of helps expand the dough and then that gets plopped onto here this is a conveyor belt it's super hot hundreds of degrees you can hear the fire underneath heating it up so they bake hundreds of these at a time load them up on the conveyor belt and that just moves and moves continuously and on the other end let me tell you my hubby b that is magical [Music] the bread is completely done and they lay it out here so people are coming every minute every second ordering big bags of this bread and sometimes you see people they'll grab these big pallets of bread put it on their head and they'll even ride a bike while carrying the bread and delivering it to different restaurants or different families they're bringing a fresh one here right now oh and i'm like yes yes look at this oh it is like a choo choo train it's full of steam it's hot it's toasty on the top you can see the different textures the bottom texture has been affected by sitting in that wheat dust it's a bit rough and coarse and then on this side of course you can see how it's been toasted by the flame that is beautiful and it's so hot [Music] oh it's so delicious it's warm it's stretchy it's soft it's a little bit toasty since it's so fresh this bread plays a huge part in egyptian life not only incorporating calorie-dense carbohydrates into the local diet for thousands of years but it can also be used as a utensil pick up food scoop up some sauce or wrap it around anything you like so that's how you make egyptian bread so i'm going to break off a piece i'm going to dip it in the food i want to really mix the contents mainly that bean but there's other flavor enhancers in here too there's chili powder tons of tahini try it out it's got a lot of flavor i mean it's really starchy from the bean that's the main thing i noticed the tahini is very unique because it almost acts like a yogurt the way it's mixed with different dishes but it's not dairy at all it's crushed sesame seed that have been cured down into this thick sauce i'm feeling it not super bold flavors but it's hearty it's savory and it kind of gives you a lot of energy for starting your day the last thing i want to try is this right here so this is the one called mish mish is a traditional and pungent egyptian dish made by fermenting salty cheese for several months or even years that is intense super salty kind of pungent and then the tomatoes offer some relief because it's just so powerful it almost has a fermented quality to it but i like it it seems like a good food to mix and match with everything else you're getting some new flavors and then you can move back over to the pool so this is it a beautiful way to start your day a ton of foods here and actually all of this for under five dollars you can't do much better than that so that's breakfast we have a lot more food to see today let's go [Music] we are on our way to our next location but first i saw a gentleman making street food i like his style he's a hustler he drove here on his motorcycle he brought all these ingredients that he's making sandwiches and this reminds me of these long thin bun meats they have in vietnam so right here you see a long thin baguette bread so he just takes an egg he cuts it into slices he puts salt pepper and then he puts something they call here turkey cheese the cost is about under a dollar i'm gonna oh i don't feel weird eating long objects like this on the internet i don't want you guys to photoshop anything in my hand hold on i'm just gonna block your view [Music] wrong is this the best thing in the world no it's cheap it's quick it's easy it tastes good there's soft bread here and there's cheese oh cheese is very good the cheese has a very sharp almost delightfully stinky smell to it what i like most is just the story of what's going on here more than anything else i like people who hustle and work their ass off that's what he's doing here sir hello oh the wrong head [Music] located in the heart of downtown cairo's hectic car mechanics district our next treat is inside here a local hot spot offering one of egypt's national dishes people don't just line up for the flavors but to take in the gravity-defying display [Music] welcome to one of the busiest street food locations in all of cairo this place is wild it's mad it's very busy sorry am i on your way see you see what i'm saying let me do a spin move right here boom we're good behind me they're making a food called koshori they have an assembly line full of gentlemen who are one by one adding ingredients that add up to this really famous dish i'm going to go back there now and maybe get kicked out i didn't ask permission let's go kosheri a type of mixed rice dish originated during the mid-19th century this dish combines italian and arab culinary elements me thank you as you move down you see this is where the action really happens so many raw ingredients is beautiful [Applause] so they have the rice they have pasta two different types of pasta there's a spaghetti and kind of like a cut up elbow noodle then there's some meat and right here these are my favorite part the fried onions he flips it in and he really gives it some style can we see him boom there it is flip flip flip i gotta say his accuracy is not 100 about half of the fried onions are actually getting into the container but it's a great show and all the people they're looking up at us here they can't see all the onions being chopped on the floor after the onions it gets the tomato it gets the chickpeas but that's just if you're getting it for takeo if you're eating here like i am they build the rest of the dish at your table let's go see what that looks like now all right all right everything's separated right now on this sauce they put salt and pepper a little bit of vinegar something spicy oh yes squeeze of lime or lemon and then they put that on top of the beast right here that looks incredible look at this i'm no expert but when you come to places like this you have to look around and see what other people are doing and i see that no one just eats it from the top to bottom they mix it all up and they get it all layered so all the flavors are in each bite let me grab a big spoonful that looks beautiful [Music] wow it's like a spaghetti so it's like a spaghetti but then you have the fried onions which adds an interesting dimension of savoriness and then you've got chickpeas in there they're almost soggy but it adds a very different texture to everything there is some meat on here but it's not super easy to taste amongst everything else a lot of this series is about me trying to figure out what egyptian food even is because it's something i've never experienced before now i'm in the heart of the country i'm trying really authentically pure egyptian food can i put my finger on exactly what egyptian food is yet no but i need to keep trying i need to keep eating [Music] just after filming kosheri the police stopped us and made our production van drive to the nearby police station they caught us in the sinful act of filming bread on the sidewalk right now the fan is at a police station all the local people have been taken out of the van they've gone through the shots on my phone and we don't know what's going to happen next it's possible they'll try to delete the footage luckily we've already just airdropped the footage to a decoy phone so it doesn't matter but hopefully it doesn't get to that anyways but this is what it's like to shoot here all we were doing is shooting with phones on the street at a bakery and that was enough to have our whole vehicle have to be pulled into here to speak to the police and to justify our actions even though we have a permit to shoot doesn't matter so i'm not sure what's going to happen we're going to find out pretty soon [Music] so we just got done with the police we're at our next location now get this they told us to delete our footage why no reason do we have a permit yup do we break a lot no as far as i can understand it all depends on how the people at the top are feeling on that particular day what they told us is that the footage of the bakery we shot wasn't beautiful it wasn't pretty enough it didn't meet their standard they told us to delete it suddenly these guys are documentary filmmakers i don't get it so did we actually delete it absolutely none while we were waiting we airdropped all the footage to an extra phone that's the phone i showed them and that's the footage i deleted they don't even know how the phones work it's all the footage is in my delete bin right now i can just restore it at any time so that's fortunate but literally every minute we're shooting in the city we're looking over our shoulders we're constantly paranoid and uh i don't really like it it's not that fun to be honest but we have a job to do the mission must go on i actually really like this next food we're doing so i'm going to get to it oshie [Music] oh my god when it comes to egyptian street food hawashi is a big top contender and when it comes to hawashi well you must come here the perfect place to film street food while being shielded from the view of the police this place is called hawashi al-rafai they're known for their unique recipes and a wide-ranging menu with tons of variations like hiroshi with cheese or other various meats now the question that must be answered what the heck is a hawashi this is one of my favorite foods i've tried so far i'm sorry i tried this one without you guys sometimes i eat on my own time and it's one of my favorites so here's how it starts first of all this is just like the egyptian bread my man here he cuts the edges off so it can be opened up easily and over here they're weighing out some minced lamb meat that lamb meat is spiced it's delicious and it gets spread kind of smeared by hand within this bread disc hoboshi is a typical egyptian sandwich what makes this place stand out are the secret spices they put into the meat once a batch of hawashi is stopped they bring him to the grilling station here he puts it on this very hot griddle the meat's gonna cook through the bread didn't get crispy and all of it is gonna be absolutely delicious i've had this before but i've never had it with cheese it's steaming up there's spices there's lamb there's cheese it smells incredible let me show you really quick i love this oh yes ooey gooey cheese on the inside oh as he cuts it you can see the cheese squirting out that looks so good aside from this we also have pickled vegetables and we have tatini here now i've tried tahini a couple times today i still don't quite know what it tastes like because i haven't tried it alone interesting to me it's similar to a hummus it's a little bit different feeling in your mouth because it's not made with chickpeas it's made with sesame seeds but with the spice the salt the texture it's a little hummusing i'm gonna try some of these pickled vegetables right here we've got tomato eggplant i'm gonna grab some of the carrot wow okay pickle overload i think that is the palette clencher but i need to clench my palette from that with the pepsi i've noticed in this country the pickles are on another level they're super salty sour and spicy too it's kind of addictive though it's such a powerful flavor it punches you in the face like eating raw garlic but then after a while it goes away it dissipates and you want another hit this is why we're here oh beautiful cheese pull we'll try it out [Music] there's so many things to love the texture is so crunchy the bread by itself is amazing the meat is beautifully seasoned almost a little bit like eating a seed kebab with all the spices and flavors and just a very fine mince take a look at this here you can see when i peel the top layer off the cheese is still picky not too liquidy not too solid give it a little bit of a dip is this what people do i'm assuming it's there as a dip like ranch [Music] i don't know if i can say it's improving it it is adding a different level different dimension it's like dipping something that's already very delicious and putting it into hummus it doesn't need anything extra it's beautiful just how it is just like your wife girlfriend whoever you're sleeping with i keep telling them that they love that stuff i believe if it's not too late we've got one more spot to go let's do it if the police don't stop us in my head [Music] say that summer is dead our first day of shooting in cairo was quite a mixed bag the police took our cameras our local egyptian producer turned out to be completely incompetent and even more police told us to delete our footage i got to hang out with some really cool kind people i ate some fantastic food my favorite thing we've tried today and i get to visit one of the seven man-made wonders of the world [Music] we are right outside the pyramids right now we're going to ride the camels because that's what you do when you come here i've been told the first thing i should do is find a camel that speaks to me [Music] this one just farted it has gas that's how i know it's my spirit animal all right this is a camel for me this series and my experience in egypt they're both complicated [Music] i have nothing against the people of egypt i just think in a country that makes 12 percent of its gdp from tourism the police the authorities and those who run this place might want to stop treating their tourists like spies and criminals next time on day two against my better judgment i'll be going for another round in cairo let's hope it goes better than today [Music] right now we're in old cairo so here they have a lot of really cool street food and markets like this behind me what's on the menu i'm not sure yet we're gonna go place to place doll to stall and see who's gonna let us come in and shoot some videos today i'm on a mission to discover this city's most unique street food and then you eat the meat that was a donkey food i never expected to find here it is so tender it is wild from sheepheads my tongue will meet this tongue let's go all the way to pitches oh my god it's happening this place is full of exotic surprises oh guys what is going on in here hopefully we won't have another surprise police encounter this guy behind me can give me boys but i guess i'll have to find out but probably not right after breakfast off the main roads if you duck into the right alleyways you'll find clumps of street food vendors like here next to an intersection in a residential area meat sellers capitalize on the constant foot traffic customers are lured in by the heavy wafts of grilled and fried beef boom we've come to our first destination behind me we've got sausages liver but look at this this is my favorite it's a big cow head it looks like it's been dried or maybe a witch put a spell on it i don't know let's go find out more and then this is where the magic happens so it looks like everything here is beef oriented that is sausage intestine sausage hall liver tongue it's just beefy there's no real seasonings in it and it tastes like it's been braised for like four or five hours but this should be in something this beet is eaten in a sandwich various beef cuts are sliced and tossed into a pan called a holla there was something like this i saw in mexico but literally the opposite this is concave that was convex the fried beef bits are tossed into some traditional egyptian bread along with fried onions [Music] this is our first meal of the day this is breakfast a bunch of random cow parts i gotta say i love that unique frying creation where it has a little pit for frying and then a big beach around it for all the food to hang out and dry off really cool they have all types of different cow parts here including the esophagus right here we have the brazen station you can see they have everything in there i mean what is that oh okay so that is the esophagus it looks so bizarre it's like something from aliens i didn't know how to order it it looked like they're still cooking it so uh maybe next time for the esophagus but here inside of this bread we've got onions liver sausage and then i think they put a little bit of face oh take a look at this this looks real good let's go for it oh i have no idea what body part that is it's quite good actually but super oily but they have a nice salad on the side here here we got onions tomatoes chilies and a little bit of cucumber it's kind of like a uh arabic pico de gallo so i'm gonna use my bread just to pick up some of that try that out so this is pretty good it's spicy refreshing i like it i like it a lot on this side here that i believe is tahini tahini a sort of hummus made of sesame seeds it's found alongside most meals here i'm gonna just dip a little bit of my meat in there it's a bit nutty but it's not my favorite it's like a salt bomb in your mouth but here beautiful seasoned beef sausage with onions on top let's try it out it's super rich super fatty but quite delicious i think what they do here is they got the bread i'm gonna put the sausage in there some onion i'm throwing some of this on there and then i'm gonna put all that in a little bit of the tahini that's delicious it's a lot of powerful flavors but when you mix them together it's quite delicious this is a good breakfast [Music] egypt is a muslim-majority country which means most follow a strict halal diet this means no pork no reptiles or other animals some might consider extreme meats but when it comes to the animals they do eat like lamb while people here eat everything including the head and face behind me a very popular street food stall here it's all about all the off cuts from the sheep so you're going to see head stomach organs sausage i saw sausage too the sausage is gigantic by the way i was very impressed by it not jealous just impressed oh my god come take a look so right here we have just an inordinate amount of different sheep parts here these lamb heads are boiled in local spices for hours until the meat and fats break down and become incredibly tender i have a big plate with the sheep head everything everything although this meat may seem exotic to some here it's no big deal oh he just cut me off a little piece of sausage here that looks awesome there's tons of rice in there let's try it out it's spicy and very tomatoey and full of rice and some animal fat too that's good [Music] this is my plate here he's finishing it right now oh he's put some salt on it some pepper oh yes take a look at this so many different foods time to sit down and eat let's do it so far so good no one really seems to give a crap what we're doing right now and most of the vendors we've gone to have been pretty nice this guy was a little impatient at first until i dropped a hundred pounds just like six dollars and 30 cents and i said hey fill up a plate that's what he did and he's been very happy to accommodate any of our requests ever since here we have a broth this reminds me of meat that i've had in mexico where they braise the meat forever and they take the juice because when you braise it for a long time a lot of the fat flavor is going to go out of the meat and then into the broth so we have that we have some bread and there always seems to be some kind of a little bit of a salad on the side too all right let's get into it first this is the tongue i'm gonna rip the tongue off of here and then i'm gonna hit it with the lime and try it out so i mean yet satisfying there's something about it it's got personality very nice all right next let's try the brain here you can see all the ridges in the brain you know they say the more ridges you have the smarter you are so maybe the sheep knew several languages it was probably a polyglot i'm gonna put this on the bread and treat it like a topping for the bread all right this is my little brain taco let's try it out i can't do like an old that's so delicious yummy face like i just say delicious scallop or something it is brains it is creamy it's bold i probably put too much of it on there if you're looking to get gout so you can get disability leave i recommend eating this every day i'm going to try this broth now oh wow that is muttony you are not a mutton fan i mean that is pure mutton distilled down into a juice electrolytes all right let's see what else they have in here oh right here this was in probably the inside of the cheek somewhere so i'm going to try that super rich soft tender the thing is nothing has a ton of flavor here this is some actual salt you can see all the fingerprints like a crime scene in there i think people usually put a bit of that salt onto the meat try it out this is a tough food for tourists because if you come here and you don't know the lay of the land you might walk away a little bit disappointed or you might even say this didn't have enough flavor but there's other flavor enhancers all around it so you need to mix and match until you get the right blend of flavors these are skills that people here have grown up with they see their parents how they're mixing and matching food that's what you gotta do [Music] this restaurant brings a whole new meaning to the word slow and low this place is called nepha named after the dish they sell el nagaji named after the owner who cooks a lamb so mouth-watering it sells out each day we have come to our next destination i'm with the chef right now and take a look at this this is something completely magical sheep that's been cooked underground he's pulling the bones out now and it's so soft it looks so delicious look at that that's like a shoulder blade or something can i have that i'm gonna pull this meat right off of the bone oh that looks so juicy take a look at this this here is the nephi it's been around for more than 100 years a lamb cooked in an underground oven without any spices or seasonings the flavors come from the high quality wood and fresh meat it's cooked low and slow until every cut is fall off the bone soft i'm gonna try it out out wow that is delicious soft sticky tender oh he said it melts in your mouth he said you only have to bite you need to squeeze it with your tongue against the roof of your mouth it is that soft can i order uh one kilogram okay please this looks incredible a huge platter full of different mutton parts and i have to say this reminds me so much of mexico right now there's a few parallels between this and barbacoa the barbacoa in mexico they also cook it underground and they also are famous for kind of cooking it with no seasonings at all and that's the same thing they've done here beyond that in mexico you eat everything with a tortilla here you eat everything with egyptian bread it's a very different part of the world but kind of a similar recipe i can't wait to try it out there's so many yummy looking pieces here right in the middle take a look this is a bunch of different types of meat but that is still steaming hot it's shiny it looks like it put on some baby oil and went to the beach let's try it out that is so good and so rich so incredibly heavy that's why they have this here this is a salad and it cuts through the heaviness a little bit but they also have this here this is called salad dressing water some people also call it egyptian whiskey the fact is it is zero percent alcohol which is unfortunate but i'll try it anyways [Music] oh it might as well get you drunk it's basically like vinegar chili powder chilies maybe salt is really tense tense and intense then we have right here the bread i'm gonna make myself a little bit of an egyptian barbacoa taco i'm gonna open this up and i'm gonna start layering in some meat throw some herbs on there that the tahini here we go and you're like oh man this is one of my favorite things i've eaten so far in this country super soft bread really flavorful natural tasting lamb and then maybe adding a touch of salt from the tahini and that is perfection i love it before we move on there's one more dish the chef insists i try boiled lamb testicles this is what the owner calls viagra it's funny right because you come to an arabic country you think maybe people are very conservative um not always oh they feel really gooey and fatty he said i toss it back and i'll be like a young virile man again here we go one shot of full sheet testicle it really just tastes like testicle soup do you think i was gonna say chicken no it's nothing like chicken not at all it's patting gooey savory it's like kind of soupy a bit i'm worried about having two maybe i'll have too much power my wife's not here she's gonna get a visa [Music] right now we're going to the very top of a building a rooftop here in cairo there's not a lot of space but they've got rooftops and here they keep something very special let me show you [Music] oh my gosh i regret this immediately oh i just had a good idea allow me to introduce you to the cairo craft of bird keeping in here there must be 50 or so pigeons it's a crapload of pigeons and actually speaking of a crapload look down here it's a load of crap in this city it's not uncommon to see men standing on rooftops waving a flag and corralling their pigeons that's because around once a day the birds are released and allowed to fly freely to get some exercise oh my god it's happening yeah go go go wow this is wild to communicate with the pigeons the bird keeper uses a complex series of whistles and gestures signaling whether they should fly higher or come home amazingly they always return [Music] sometimes the bird keepers will have one bird less and sometimes one bird more as you can see people here really love their pigeons whether they look like this or like this [Music] right here we are on the side of the street to be honest i don't know where we are at all we're somewhere in cairo somewhere where we've not been caught can you believe this guys we've shot almost a whole day i don't want to jinx it but i'm feeling pretty good about it here in this alleyway there's a special shop selling a delicacy here in egypt pigeon these pigeons are filled with the heavily and heavenly spiced based stuffing then deep fried until they're crispy i've been told you can actually eat everything these bones seem thick and hard i don't know how that's possible let's see what happens oh that's super yummy it tastes like buttery rice with fried chicken skin on the outside oh man that's really nice i'm gonna kind of rip this spine back someone told me i could eat this let's see if i break my teeth hold on it's working i'm eating a pigeon sponge and to be careful there's some bone shards you don't want to kill yourself on accident while eating this and that's something i advise with most foods here i'm going to wash it down with this can you guess what it is is it coffee no it's pigeon soup let's try it out oh wow oh my god like pure fat i think if this got to room temperature it would turn solid like butter wow that's just pure richness so far i haven't really tried any of the pigeon meat just its spine and their stuffing inside most of the meat is in the pigeon breast i'm gonna try to rip it off and see if i can show you so that right there is a little bit of rice and the breasts it better be a lot of bang for the buck let's go very beautiful like mediterranean spices soft juicy breast amazing buttery rice i love it next time you're walking through new york or chicago and you see hordes of pigeons collecting together don't be disgusted think hey that's delicious food i bet maybe collect one for yourself and bring it to an egyptian guy don't do that maybe i'll try it out for our final stop we have something really special a restaurant with a complex of cooking stations serving endless meat options but we're here for their signature soup that comes with its own show welcome to our next restaurant this place is egyptian meat heaven let me give you a little bit of a tour right here sausage so right now he's cooking up literally thousands of little bitty sausages oh thank you all right take a look it's burning my fingers off but it's worth it let's try it out oh oh i can't put my finger on all the meats that are inside but man that is good right here we have another meat but this is much more like beef that's been shaved it's very thin steak he's just putting it back and forth making sure it doesn't burn that looks super good too let's keep going this way wow everything here is on such a big scale they just must have so many customers coming in each day here also it looks like beef and that's just hitting the flat top we're not done this is hawashi this is something we did get to try yesterday but here they're doing the same thing large scale cooking just dozens of them at a time looks awesome still there's more i don't even know what this is this looks like some kind of organ meat is this liver yeah all right we got liver meat is this where your liver is i'm not sure i should feel for what hurts because i drink too much yeah it's right here oh yeah it's tender it's been doing a lot of work lately i've come here for the malachi and if you thought being sung happy birthday at an applebee's was embarrassing wait until you see this this is the melody he's talking to me oh my god [Laughter] i was not expecting it don't get into my eyeballs i'm scared malakaya is known as the food of kings a traditional egyptian soup made from jute leaves a sort of egyptian spinach this soup is so intense it used to be outlawed in egypt for its alleged aphrodisiac effects [Music] okay and just like that it's over here we have a whole table full of food let's do a little bit of a tour we got some of the classics the bread the salad the tahini and then here this is what they just poured out this is the malachaya i think i'm saying it right maybe i need to put in some more but i'll work on that later here this is what i'm going to start with right here this is hoof soup start by chopping down cow hooves and ankles into smaller pieces those are boiled and added to a clay pot where they're soaked in a beef broth and cooked with allspice nutmeg cardamom cinnamon ginger and cloves it just goes really with the theme for today which has been really super rich foods come take a look these are all the little bits and do dads that hold the legs together and make it move oh gosh look at that that's just a piece of tendon oh this is one of my favorite things to eat in vietnam we'll see how it compares here very rich that's like the word of the dame it's like i don't even need chapstick now it has oiled up my lips oh let me get some of that broth it looks like something exxon would be responsible for oh it's so just greasy but i love it here we have the green one that we talked about already we saw it almost scolded me and went into my eyeballs earlier i'm not gonna try that yet because it's meant to be tried with this this is tomato on top of rice it's almost like a chunky marinara this white rice is supposed to mix with the green stuff here let's see how this goes because this is borderline slimy it looks like shrek's toilet so we've got our rice a little tomato a little of the malachi i just like saying it makes me feel like i know arabic try it out that's really good it reminds me a lot of spinach like if you've got spinach that's been seared in oil until it's really like broken down and become kind of greasy because if you look at the top of this that's just pure oil i know you're thinking oh so like olive oil no it's just cooking oil the one vegetable i've seen all day it is just full of oil it is delicious it has a very unique super savory spinachy type taste to it but man that is heavy i think i might explode if i take one more bite of anything i can tell that people here in egypt at least in cairo they love heavy food and they love their meat tons of mutton tons of beef there's chicken out there too but we didn't have that today otherwise that is a pretty successful day too i can't complain we went to six places and honestly no police how's it possible maybe we're gonna get through this series after all fingers crossed let's see after being in cairo for two days my god and after being stopped by multiple police who asked us to delete our footage i think it's time to leave but i'm not leaving agent oh no we're jumping in a van leaving cairo and driving to one of this country's most out of this world sites we've almost literally effing run over about five times now when you're here you need to watch your back and your friends back today i'm on a mission to buy and cook an entire camel are people eating this yes it sounds straightforward but more threats of police at any moment police could stop us and literal threats from our own local producer make this day much more than i bargained for i know in the end i hope to experience one of egypt's most unique delicacies has he cooked this before oh [Music] he [Music] 20 miles northwest of cairo about a one hour drive will bring you to a small village just on the edge of the delta's cultivated land but gosh home of egypt's most grand camel market fridays are the best days full of action camels proudly displayed and plenty of commerce and all that ends by 11am so we better hurry up before arriving our local producer tells us to proceed with caution so as to not create suspicion among the local police a quick word about our local producer his name is ahmed siddique he was hired solely for the purpose of preparing and executing our egypt production in all my years of hiring producers and doing this show i've never come across someone who's more incompetent he's conniving and paranoid so when he says we have to be careful for police i have no choice but to be paranoid too all right we are heading into the camel market right now there are camels everywhere we're trying to keep a low profile so yeah of course we have my mic we're gonna head [Music] men smoke shisha some drink tea and some are taking a break after a day of brokering undulates this is a rare moment of peace in a place that's made up of pure chaos [Music] i suggest leaving your kids at home for this one prakash camel market if you don't keep your head on a swivel you will get trampled [Music] cash has been trading hands for camels for over 700 years on this very ground generation after generation families all the way from sudan ethiopia and somalia brought their best in show here right now we're in the camel market i feel like i've traveled back in time 100 years maybe a thousand years it is wild here it's pure chaos there's loads of camels people they're shuffling them around sometimes they're beating them with sticks to get them to move it's nothing like i've ever seen before our ultimate mission here is to go buy a camel so we're headed to a vendor right now who is going to provide us with the camel we're going to negotiate i've heard the price of something like 1 500 so we're gonna go we're gonna try to get a camel and then see how much of the market we can explore before we absolutely have to get out of here now you guys know what's going on let's go [Music] [Music] [Music] in spite of the pandemonium no authority figures seem to really care that we're here i was the steady camera maybe ahmed was paranoid you want camel or maybe we're just lucky so far it's not working out camels are grouped according to who they belong to the guy who looks like he owns them probably does there are about 2 000 camels brought and sold here every week they're marked with arabic words so the gucci camels don't get mixed up with the carhartts traded for cash or other livestock these desert dwellers will be used for farming riding and for food are people eating this yes you eat the big one yes how much is this so two to three thousand dollars for an entire camel plus the camel deals 50 000 pounds wow to demonstrate the health of their camels merchants cut them loose the result spontaneous stampedes by creatures that can weigh over 900 pounds following close behind in hot pursuit the merchant with their whacking stick shoots attempting to subdue the animal once more all right so this is what you see all over this place there's camels running around freely and then there's people trying to corral them by beating them with a stick they grab them by the lip and then when they have them kind of subdued they're able to pull the leg back tie it up and then that restricts their movement enough so that they don't run away everywhere so that's why this place is chaotic now that i know the lay of the land it's time to do some shopping of my own [Music] it takes years of experience to know which camels are worthy of your investment skilled buyers focus on their feet teeth eyes skin and hair color if you're as naive as me well there's some really young ones back here you leave it up to your local producer to negotiate and when he comes back with a price tag of 1400 you just hope you're not being ripped off we have to buy one of these camels i'm told that this is the one you're just a year or two old to be fair i didn't choose a camel it was chosen for me relatively pretty soon we're gonna load it up we're gonna put it in the back of a truck well i have no idea how this works all right that's how you do camel shopping in egypt uh a first for me it's a lot different than whole foods i'll tell you that [Applause] [Music] [Music] like the pyramids camels are a point of pride though that's not always clearly demonstrated the handlers even show a little respect for the sacred animal reciting bismillah before shoving their full weight into the hapless creature [Applause] [Music] i wish this was the end of my transaction but instead it's the start of a new problem ahmet our local producer has failed to properly negotiate with the locals now he's quite literally being chased down liz do you know what's going on everyone's now that we're ready to go some folks don't want us to leave until they get a little something for themselves so right now we have our camel we're trying to leave they won't let us leave they're chasing down our local producer everybody wants money everyone wants to get paid that's how it is everywhere it's all smiles in the beginning until you leave there's always something else ahmed circles to the back of the truck where cameraman kai and i are already rolling in his flustered state ahmed turns his attention from the crowd to the camera then to me if you don't include something that you have to worry about if you couldn't hear that clearly after walking into my shot ahmed warns me that if he appears on camera there will be a price to pay and that he doesn't mean a financial price very nice when you're in a new chaotic and near-lawless country generally it'd be the local producer's job to create a sense of security if you lose that too then you're on your own this is not how a production is supposed to go all i care about now is getting my team out of this market in one piece we have our camel now this is a narrow escape this is the camel market of egypt a once in a lifetime experience and once in a lifetime because i will never come back here again holy cow no no no no all right even this guy this guy right now he's asking for money he's asking for money from me this is kind of how it works here it always starts with smiles and it ends with a hands out and sometimes chasing sometimes a little bit of intimidation i have the camera it's definitely time to leave [Applause] [Music] wow the camel is on the way to its final destination that's about four hours away we're in the van we're going there too in the meantime we stopped here at a camel restaurant it's a restaurant and a butchery let's take a look at what's going on here first of all all this camel parts if you look inside here there's liver meat it's part of the trachea or a heart beyond that when you come here can anybody guess what this is oh i like it they're gonna unwrap it i hope they don't think i'm gonna buy it i just bought a whole camel for a lot of money wow this is a whole camel leg right here and a tail so i'm gonna guess this uh back leg so this is the raw meat i'm gonna see if they can cook something up something like camel liver camel liver is a pretty common breakfast and treat in this area so i'm gonna see if i can get that the camel liver is sliced into bite-sized chunks then it's stir-fried with olive oil chopped green chilies and tomato then season with a seven spice blend including pepper cumin and cardamom this is great it looks incredible here is a bread this is what you eat it with i've had camel but i've never had camel liver cut it nice and thin and it looks quite tender i'm gonna try it just plain to begin with oh delicious the seasonings they put on there it's super savory a little bit spicy there's some chilies in here what stands out most to me is the texture the texture of liver can usually be kind of like almost mushy it can like make your mouth dry while you're eating it but here it's really snappy so i'm gonna break some of the bread off i'm gonna grab some pieces and that looks real nice really unique texture this is fascinating because you know my camel they can go months without drinking water i mean i do believe the liver is part of that as well as their hump they've got nice humps [Applause] [Music] egypt is predominantly desert seriously like 96 most of it looks like this infertile sandy dry not surprisingly all the life in egypt human and otherwise springs up near water especially around the nile river but dotted throughout the land you can find these welcome to the oasis a fertile spot within a vast wasteland 250 miles from cairo we hit baharia oasis home to about 27 000 [Applause] [Music] we have traveled four to five hours outside of cairo right now we're in the middle of the desert and it is freezing but these steps must go on we must proceed the next steps we've come to a small community the plan is to prepare the camel tonight marinate it let it sit and then tomorrow it's going to be cooked and many people from the community will enjoy together but the first step is to slaughter it an arabic word that means the people of the oasis here the majority are muslim that means the slaughter must be carried out in the appropriate ritual manner the animal must be alive healthy and well fed until the time comes after invoking the name of god there's one quick cut and then we wait this platform you're watching now centers videos based on western norms only but around the world a site like this is not shocking nor sensational it's a part of life that at least in this culture no one is too young to witness [Music] what we're in the presence of here right now is real men and they are making quick work on this camel it is freezing out here you can see my breath see what i'm saying after slaughtering it they skin it they hang it up and they kind of debone it they go joint by joint they're getting all the muscle off and as big of pieces as possible and they're putting that in these buckets over here to the side and then that is what's going to be cooked tomorrow right now it is 8 18. i'll say it's 10 p.m so people think i'm tough too right now it's 10 p.m very late but it's worth it we're gonna stay up late to make sure this gets done properly marinated with olive oil cumin coriander garlic cayenne salt and pepper soon this camel meat will be made into mandi an ancient style of underground cooking prepared by the bedouins a nomadic desert people who span across many countries [Music] day two with our camel prepared and ready to cook we're heading out of the oasis and 110 miles southwest into the white desert far from civilization far from modern conveniences but also far from modern inconveniences like the egyptian police [Music] here just beyond these mountains we're headed to a place where we're going to be cooking all that camel from yesterday here in the desert so i'm excited it's gonna be a good day we have a lot of food and a lot to see let's get going [Music] upon arriving to our tented desert camp instead of meeting bedouin people we're introduced to local tour guides who we abruptly find out have never taken on a cooking challenge like this before now we'll see local tour guides who have never cooked anything more than chicken attempt to cook an entire camel this is gonna be interesting [Music] mandy is a barbecue style meal very popular in the arab world in maundy the meat must be arranged on a rack and slow cooked underground here's how they do it they've already dug two holes and buried steel barrels in the ground load those holes with fiery wood until they burn down to embers he has all the meat from last night it's been marinating and he's putting it on this grill this apparatus that's gonna soon descend into a barrel and get cooked from below with a bunch of cinders cinders embers you know what i mean the way they slaughter the camel is really quite unique because they've almost like just deboned it and taken off the biggest chunks of meat possible so it's not like little bitty sirloins or steaks like these are big chunks of meat going on here all right this is a big moment we've been waiting for the gentlemen have all the meat stacked up here this has got to be something like 40 pounds 45 pounds of meat just huge camel chunks we're bringing it to a barrel this is the most important part it's gonna go descend into the pit these arms are gonna catch the sides so it's not touching the fire all the meat will essentially cook and steam inside the blanket goes on trapping in even more of the heat and it's almost like they're going to seal it around the edges using the water so now they take the sand they bury it they go around the periphery in the end the goal here is to make it really sealed in there we want the heat to stay in there long enough for all that meat to cook through it's a lot of meat it's something like 40 45 pounds of meat that's gonna have to cook before they remove it in a couple of hours while the main course cooks other dishes are being prepared rice egyptian bread salad stewed vegetables and braised camel heart oh yes take a look at that big beautiful chunks of camel heart just bubbling away in the pressure cooker camel hearts have to be huge camels are so tall they have to pump blood all the way to the top of their freaking head which is also very tall i'm gonna try it right now [Music] whoa good yeah all the organs of the camel tastes a little bit different the heart tastes like liver it's very livery it has a beautiful texture it's kind of softened up it's got that beautiful dense meat oh it's so satisfying it's very nice it's interesting because out here as soon as you get in the shade it's very cool so it's not that hot it's just that you get baked by the sun so being under here having some nice warm bubbling hot heart is quite satisfying love it back to the meat pits three hours has elapsed all right the moment has finally come there's no thermometer there's no way to like check it and put it back in there's no way to pop open the oven door here we just have to dig it up we got one shot if it's still raw it's ruined [Music] under this sand is our dinner has this team pulled it off oh you can see the steam billowing out from the hole will the meat be cooked through all that remains is the lid to be popped off and we're gonna see the meat we're about to find out oh my gosh the meat looks completely different from before you can see it's really cooked down from the heat oh yes this looks incredible the next move put it on the platter this was once a lid and then now this is where the meat is going to sit can i pull some off wait really yeah the meat has become so soft the fat is tender juicy and rendered down look at that slow cooked beautiful steamed smoky you take some you take some i'll take some cheers oh man that is awesome all right please they'll continue their backs are breaking that is awesome fatty tender smoky delicious juicy camel meat straight out of a freaking hole in the sahara desert it doesn't get better than that well done my man wow [Music] gentlemen thank you so much for this opportunity it's a pleasure to be here hanging out with you you are with us thank you this is great so first of all the camel looks amazing this is an incredible meal we have all the camel here how do we start in bahrain is first we can eat vegetables and salad and after we can eat it rice with the meat oh literally taking all of my willpower to not dig into the meat that's right in front of me it's like a delicious coleslaw oh so this is potatoes some other vegetables in here oh and there's some zucchini [Music] it's steamed it's got salt it's got tomatoes to add a little bit of acid it's really good which one you choose to eat from here oh i can pick let's go with this one oh no knife or anything we're really ripping apart this meat just this one big chunk of meat is probably enough for all of us to eat this is incredible there's fatty bits there's protein all of it's getting mixed with the rice that looks gorgeous try it out oh delicious incredible i've had camel before but never like this man the taste they're so delightfully smoky and there's some subtle spices it's such a unique kind of meat would you compare camel to beef to goat to sheep no this is different different from everything yeah yeah i agree it's hard to pinpoint it the texture is kind of like beef but it doesn't taste beefy i'm amazed like every bite is a little bit different and i love that since they're cooking in these huge chunks of meat it really retains a lot of its moisture i mean this is like one whole big chunk of camel i don't know which part this is from here the shoulder really yeah you know so i think that's the key to this unique style of cooking it's like keeping it all in one piece like this so that when you steam it for a long time inside you've got something that looks incredibly juicy oh yeah so you guys usually do chicken you do smaller animals today you took on a whole camel that's outrageous that's wild i thought leaving cairo would be the perfect way to put our problems behind us in the end i was introduced to a whole list of new ones but i'll take local squabbles over police interactions any day i'm thinking as long as we're in egypt it's probably best to stay in the countryside far from police gentlemen i want to say thank you again this is a great experience for me i can see why people like coming out here i mean places like cairo it's busy it's loud it's noisy it's chaotic and i like that too but sometimes you need a break and then here it's completely peaceful and there's something really interesting like when everyone's quiet it's real silence [Music] [Applause] leaving the bustling cityscape of cairo and heading into the desert with one of the best choices i've ever made this is a place in arabic i can't pronounce it but in english it means difficult place a name that can be used for all of egypt leaving the country would be even better but that will come soon we still have one more day here can you like write it guys you don't have to learn other languages you just figure it out today i'm joining a couple villagers so i can walk a day in their shoes this is something they do often here i want to see how they live and of course how they eat i have no idea what that is this is my last chance to squeeze some good moments out of egypt it smells good yeah it all starts here today is our fourth day shooting here in egypt what we figured out so far is a place to shoot is actually not cairo even though we have proper permits even though the press office of egypt has said it's okay for us to shoot almost every time we've come up against the authorities or police they have tried to either stop us or make us delete our footage so we're trying to be extra careful that's why we're here this is an oasis a place in the middle of the desert about a five hour drive from cairo that has so many different natural water springs that a huge population is able to survive out here today we're spending the entire day with an egyptian farmer we're gonna see how he lives what he eats and hopefully no police we'll see [Music] we are here we're inside the farm this is one of his compounds a place where he cooks and hangs out during the day this is the gentleman himself oh he said welcome meet ahmed a villager who's dedicated his life to the sun wind and sands of the desert this is fantastic i'm so excited to be here because we're going to see a very unique way of life and it starts here with his breakfast render down lamb fat in a blazing hot wood fire then add tomato then green bell pepper season with salt pepper cumin and cook until the sauce forms that is dish one in the second dish he has the same vegetables but he adds one ingredient i've never seen before come take a look this round shaped biscuit is called kish an egyptian ethnic food that's been eaten for thousands of years this is super hard it's basically a fermented wheat milk mixture that's been sun dried until it's dehydrated and hard [Music] it's so interesting it's super hard grainy but it has a cheesy taste to it too have you ever left cheddar cheese out on the counter for too long and it's dried out a little bit but you ate it anyways because you're an animal like me it tastes a little bit like that and so of course he doesn't eat it like this he mixes it in with these other vegetables it's going to kind of rehydrate it bring it back to life and we're going to see what that tastes like pretty soon i'm excited break the kishk into smaller chunks then cook with tomato and green bell pepper season with salt pepper sugar and cumin now a third dish is being prepared by ibrahim i am here with ibrahim he's also making some breakfast too this is fool oh he wants to feed me already all right thank you oh that's good yeah tasty that's this is what we saw i think one of the first places we went to in cairo what's interesting is when you start having the same type of food in different places or regions everyone can make it a little bit differently the one we had was more of a paste with kind of crushed up mashed fava beans and this is kind of a combination it's got the fava bean paste with whole beans in there too there's tomato there's green bell pepper and there's spices i think i like this style more good morning this looks incredible this is just breakfast and it's so many different items this is called sun bread i'm told this bread is kind of cooked half in the sun and half in the oven just like with the egyptian bread they use that as the utensil i'm gonna start with that how do you say delicious i'm going to work my way up to the kishke but this one is come out the mountain that's outstanding it's like the world's best marinara sauce the sun bread is awesome it's like half stale half crispy but it's the perfect vehicle for all these foods what's your favorite thing here all the gifts from god are good good answer this is the one i've been wanting to try the kishk it tastes a little bit cheesy when i had it it's raw form let's try it out now [Music] oh that's awesome this is so good i try to put my finger on it though i mean it has the tomato some fresh vegetables oh god how do you explain that the texture is like a coarse oatmeal but the flavor is just something completely unique there's some acid from the tomato and then a lot of richness from the milk in that bread it's confusing but it's really good is this a normal breakfast is this how you usually start out your day so i notice there's no meat here do you have a meal where you usually eat meat lunch which animals do you eat the sheep how often are you eating the sheep quite often because we prefer to eat our own food we don't want to get from anywhere else far from modern conveniences or really modern anything life out here is all about self-sufficiency so farming and raising cattle are essential traits for farmers out here what is the most lucrative endeavor he said both the balance is important otherwise this imbalance will force you to need things from other places and so on these men don't actually live here their homes are further into the village this is a separate space for their cattle this is the farm behind me now almost all the animals are kept within these brick walls let's go inside and check it out [Music] first what we see the cows why i want to pet you they don't want to be pet it turns out cows are used for agricultural work like tilling irrigating and carting oh no we have a situation they also provide the usual meat and milk i may have to give up on this whole petting thing it doesn't look like it's working out and their waste helps to fertilize this already stubborn sandy soil i'm an unruly bowl is it a bowl hold on let me look underneath it's a bull horses and donkeys carry freight goods or supplies one of my favorites donkeys actually you'll still see them being used in the streets of cairo one of africa's biggest cities can you like right in that's incredible wait me uh [Music] i think i might be a little too heavy then there's the sheep one of the most commonly eaten proteins in the country fun and games are over we are heading into the sheep pen right now and our butcher is here he's gonna do his best to catch one oh my gosh he made quick work of that i was told earlier they're eating about one sheep every two weeks that's like 25 a year that's a lot he's taking the lamb to the slaughter point now and then you guys know what happens next here in this muslim majority country it is the belief of those following islam that all living creatures were made by their god [Music] animals exist for the benefit of human beings and they must be treated with kindness and compassion [Music] when it comes to taking an animal's life for the purpose of sustaining your own the slaughter must be carried out in the appropriate ritual manner the name of god is invoked in order to emphasize the sanctity of life and that the animal is being killed for food with god's consent after all that's blood drains it's time for butchering here aside from the blood which is never eaten nothing else goes to waste this skin is skillfully peeled off and will later be used for leather production the organs and meat will soon be cooked up into several dishes dish one the grilled lamb meat the meat is chopped down to small chunks ribs tenderloin sirloin shoulder front and hind quarters all of it together marinating with onion salt lemon and black pepper that gets grilled on an open fire i'm here with ibrahimovic we're making a few different dishes out of this sheep it's going first on this crowd oh yes you get all the onions up in there [Music] the cooking style here is a balance between speed and flavor it's practical efficient and these cooking methods can be done pretty much anywhere at the same time it's given just enough love with seasonings and spices so it tastes great too that's really good really delicious crisped up a little bit almost dried out just on the edges home once you kind of crunch through the surface area it's all super juicy inside the main course has just started and this is something special a dish made of rice and meat well known in arab cuisine but each country makes it a little bit differently this is how they do it here [Applause] they boil meat in a big pot along with tomato and green bell pepper then season with salt and black pepper and let it simmer for an hour right now we're making our main dish this is called kapsa this smells good yeah now he's going to put in the rice please it's got kind of like an orangey broth i think from the meat itself plus the spices together the tomato the onion the rice is gonna be flavored and then as you're eating it there's gonna be big chunks of meat inside wait how long about 20 minutes and that's gonna be ready thank you while waiting for the kapsa to be cooked ibrahim brings me to his fields for a surprise so this here is the power of the oasis a huge vegetable garden of ibrahim here he's growing all types of plants he's going to show me some of his giant vegetables despite the arid climate farming isn't impossible in the oasis as long as you have water here in ibrahim's field he's growing tomatoes onions and these oh take a look at this that is crazy look at this this is a giant turnip he fed this the ooze from tmnt2 he's gonna pick one of these and we're gonna have this with our dinner it's crazy because it's already almost out of the ground what i've seen turnips maybe this size this is 10 times bigger than anything i've seen before this one's even bigger okay that is the record breaker right there that's legit 20 pound turn up here freaking huge so we have our veggies i think we have to get back to the meat and uh hopefully we can incorporate this too this is an incredible spread we have here the culmination of many people's effort coming together in one big meal all right i love these guys usually when we do a scene with people it's like no you can need to be natural everyone here is looking forward to it they're taking bites and they're not holding back at all that's what i love to see here the world's biggest turnip they've just been chopped into pieces here and served raw i'm gonna try one of these [Music] not bad it's interesting because it's not as crisp and it is a bit woody i heard when they get really big they can be kind of woody tasting this is the grilled lamb we saw earlier and then this is kapsa this beautiful blend of rice and meat together it looks like a lamb shank this is incredible [Music] wow that is delicious the lamb itself is super tender juicy protein it's just falling off the bone you really get the full flavor of the actual lamb mix that with some rice the only thing you have to watch out for is bone fragments because they absolutely pulverized the sheep as they were kind of cutting it down to size when is the last time you had kapsa i'm better for this last night really and you're not sick of it no never beautiful it's very delicious between the grilled lamb and this kind of more boiled lamb it's like you cover all your texture bases one is kind of smoky and crunchy the other one's super soft and tender so you kind of get every beautiful aspect of the lamb i want to try this one raised organs and meat in a mixture of onion and tomato seasoned with salt cumin and black pepper that's too hot this is the spleen okay sheep spleen super mineraly bungee savory this is a beautiful taste skinny the kidney oh wow that's a small kidney that was good i'm loving all these organs the throat this is interesting this is the esophagus and this is something i didn't know that people ate ever except i had it about a week and a half ago in zimbabwe for the first time ever [Music] here i am in egypt and i'm being offered esophagus once again what is it you like about this it's crunchy very crunchy [Music] this is a beautiful meal it's super delicious satisfying i really appreciate it for you or for any of you what do you love egypt if about and if you've watched this whole series you may have noticed that i don't really like it now as my trip draws to a close i'm grasping for something positive about this place that i can take home with me one at a time one at a time history civilization nature open air excellent weather and those who come to east and drink from the nile will always egypt is mentioned several times in the quran so in the quran god says enter egypt in peace so it's the safest place on the planet from another mother that was a donkey what's its name mickey mouse oh my god it's happening i'm easy hi he called me i don't need to fall in love with every place i go every minute we're shooting in the city we're looking over our shoulders i don't really like it and my point of view even though it echoes from a large platform it's still one among millionaires rolling but be less obvious people in egypt have gone through a lot especially in the last 10 years awesome if things are gonna indeed change for the best it's gonna take time and when it happens or if it happens i won't be here to see it today's gonna be brutal i have no idea what to expect it's gonna be bittersweet it's sweet because we're getting out of cairo and i can't wait to be literally anywhere else but egypt but it's bitter because it is uncertain whether we're gonna get back the roughly ten to twelve thousand dollars worth of gear that the government officials here thought it was appropriate to take from me [Music] in the end after one more hellish series of interactions with airport authorities i'm finally giving back my hard drives batteries lights and cameras that they took from me on the first day in true egyptian fashion they treated me like a criminal to the very end walking to my gate and ensuring i didn't open any bags before entering the plane [Music] when the airplane wheels finally lifted off well that was one of the best moments hot experience since i got here [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Best Ever Food Review Show

Views: 7,751,604

Keywords: best ever food review show, befrs team, sonny side, egypt, africa, african country, cairo, worst place to shoot, Egypt traditional food, Egypt food tour, street food in cairo, Eating camel, Camel meat, Bedouin, Islam country, Muslim country, Egyptian police, Egypt revolution, caught by police, Desert food, Life in oasis, where to eat in Egypt, what to do in Cairo, shooting in egypt

Id: u-PgumHXWVo

Length: 82min 50sec (4970 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 20 2022