One of my earliest memories of Egypt was the donkey-drawn cart that delivered foul (stewed fava beans) every morning. These are simmered gently in huge heavy pots overnight and then every housewife has her own secret seasonings for them. The donkeys are amazing. They learn the route in no time at all and stop automatically at the various homes that are customers.
Friday, September 24, 2010
The Bean Cart
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8 comments:
Very clever they are. I can't remember ever seeing a donkey in Sweden.
The unmanned donkey stops, itself, at the houses? That's amazing!
Is this a breakfast meal?
Foul is often eaten for breakfast but is good any time of the day. As a complex carbohydrate it has terrific staying power and you don't get hungry for hours.
The human part of the team (probably that man sitting on the chair behind) goes to the house to collect a dish into which he puts the beans, returns the full dish and collects his money. Meanwhile the donkey has usually moved on to the next house and stopped to wait. I watched this for half an hour once in Alex and decided that donkeys are truly awesome.
Love the donkeys. Thanks so much for this (and all your posts). There are a few park-ranches scattered all over Italy dedicated to preserving the local donkeys, once so helpful for work and companionship, now often superseded, though local terrain too harsh for motorized vehicles sometimes continues to encourage their use.
and then they take their driver home along the roads, while he takes a nap in the cart.
- The Equestrian Vagabond
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