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Ful medames also Foul Mudammas (Arabic: ??? ???? ful mudammas) is one of the national dish
National dish

A national dish is a recipe, food or a drink that represents a particular country, nation or region. It is usually something that is naturally made or popular in that country....
es of Egypt
Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
, often eaten at breakfast. It consists of brown fava beans, partially or completely mashed, which are slow-cooked and served with olive oil, chopped parsley
Parsley

Parsley is a bright green, biennial plant herb, also used as spice. It is very common in Middle Eastern cuisine, European cuisine, and American cuisine cooking....
, onion
Onion

Onion is a term used for many plants in the genus Allium. They are known by the common name "onion" but, used without qualifiers, it usually refers to Allium cepa....
, garlic, and lemon
Lemon

The lemon is the common name for Citrus limon. The reproductive tissue surrounds the seed of the angiosperm lemon tree. The lemon is used for culinary and nonculinary purposes throughout the world....
 juice.






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Ful
Ful medames also Foul Mudammas (Arabic: ??? ???? ful mudammas) is one of the national dish
National dish

A national dish is a recipe, food or a drink that represents a particular country, nation or region. It is usually something that is naturally made or popular in that country....
es of Egypt
Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
, often eaten at breakfast. It consists of brown fava beans, partially or completely mashed, which are slow-cooked and served with olive oil, chopped parsley
Parsley

Parsley is a bright green, biennial plant herb, also used as spice. It is very common in Middle Eastern cuisine, European cuisine, and American cuisine cooking....
, onion
Onion

Onion is a term used for many plants in the genus Allium. They are known by the common name "onion" but, used without qualifiers, it usually refers to Allium cepa....
, garlic, and lemon
Lemon

The lemon is the common name for Citrus limon. The reproductive tissue surrounds the seed of the angiosperm lemon tree. The lemon is used for culinary and nonculinary purposes throughout the world....
 juice. Ful medames is typically eaten with Egyptian bread (eish masri).

History

Fava beans, which originated in west or central Asia, are mentioned in Hittite
Hittite

Hittite may refer to:*Hittites, ancient Anatolian people*Neo-Hittite states, Iron Age successors to the Hittite people located in modern Turkey and Syria...
 texts and the Bible
Bible

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity. The exact Books of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations....
. Ramses II of Egypt is known to have offered 11,998 jars of beans to the god of the Nile.

Though originally a peasant food, ful medames has long been part of the daily Egyptian diet
Egyptian cuisine

Egyptian cuisine consists of the local culinary traditions of Egypt. Egyptian cuisine makes heavy use of legumes and vegetables, as Egypt's rich Nile Valley and Nile Delta produce large quantities of high-quality crops....
. It is particularly renowned for being a very filling dish, with many describing it as being 'like a stone in the stomach'. This has led to it being consumed by many in the Middle East in the early morning meal to prepare for a day of fasting during Ramadan
Ramadan

Rama?an is an Islamic religious observance that takes place during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar; the month in which the Qur'an was revealed to the Prophet of Islam Muhammad....
.

The dish's name derives from the Egyptian language
Egyptian language

Egyptian is a branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages language family along with the Chadic languages, Berber languages, Semitic languages, Cushitic languages and possibly Omotic languages languages....
: ful is the Egyptian word for fava beans, and medames is a Coptic
Coptic language

Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the final stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic languages language spoken in Egypt until at least the seventeenth century....
 word meaning "buried." The second word hints at the original cooking method, which involved burying a sealed pot of water and beans under hot coals. This cooking method for beans is mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud
Jerusalem Talmud

The Jerusalem Talmud or Talmud Yerushalmi , often the Yerushalmi for short, is a collection of rabbi notes about the Jewish Oral law as detailed in the 2nd-century Mishnah....
, indicating that it has been used in the Middle East
Middle East

File:GreaterMiddleEast1.pngThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, western Asia, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East....
 at least since the 4th century.

Ful medames was exported from Egypt to the Arab World
Arab world

The Arab World refers to Arabic-speaking countries stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean in the southeast....
, particularly the Levant
Levant

The Levant describes, traditionally, the Eastern Mediterranean at large, but can be used as a geographical term that denotes a large area in Western Asia formed by the lands bordering the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean, roughly bounded on the north by the Taurus Mountains, on the south by the Arabian Desert, and on the west by the M...
, Sudan
Sudan

Sudan is a country in northeastern Africa. It is the largest in the African continent and the Arab World, and List of countries and outlying territories by total area by area....
 and Somalia
Somalia

Somalia , officially the Republic of Somalia and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic, is a country located in the Horn of Africa....
. Ful medames came to the Horn of Africa
Horn of Africa

The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts for hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea, and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden....
 when the Egyptians captured Zeila
Zeila

Zeila is a port city on the Gulf of Aden coast and is located in the Awdal region of Somalia near the Djibouti border.It is located at , surrounded on three sides by the sea; landward the country is unbroken desert for some fifty miles....
 in the beginning of the 19th century. From there, it spread to other regions. In northern Somalia, ful is eaten with a pancake-like bread called laxoox
Laxoox

Laxoox or Canjeero is a pancake-like bread eaten in Somalia, Djibouti, and Yemen. It was also brought to the Israeli cuisine by Yemenite Jews....
. Ful is also part of Ethiopian cuisine, where it is served with flatbread and mitmita
Mitmita

Mitmita is a spicy powdered seasoning used in the Cuisine of Ethiopia. It is orange-red in color and contains ground piri piri chili peppers, cardamom seed, cloves, cinnamon, cumin, ginger and salt....
 powder.

Serving variations

The combination of ful and hummus
Hummus

Hummus is a Levantine cuisine dip or spread made from cooked, mashed chickpeas, blended with tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic....
 is popular in Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
, Syria
Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is an Arab-majority country in Southwest Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north....
 and Lebanon
Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of Lebanon or Lebanese Republic , is a country in Western Asia, on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea....
. A typical hummus-ful dish consists of a layer of hummus topped with a serving of ful, accompanied by a quartered egg
Egg (food)

An egg is a round or oval body laid by the female of many animals, consisting of an ovum surrounded by layers of membranes and an outer casing, which acts to nourish and protect a developing embryo and its nutrient reserves....
.

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