Sayed Darwish

  سيد درويش

Sheikh Sayed Darwish

Sayed Darwish was born in Kôm el-Dikka Alexandria on 17 March 1892. During his childhood his family could not afford to pay for his education, so he was sent to a religious school where he mastered the cantillating of the Quran. After graduating from the religious school and gaining the title "Sheikh Sayed Darwish", he studied for two years at al-Azhar, one of the most renowned religious universities in the world. He left his studies to devote his life to music composition and singing, then entered a music school where his music teacher, Sami Efendi, admired his talents and encouraged Darwish to press onward in the music field.

DARWISH The MUSICIAN

Darwish at that time was also trained to be a munshid (cantor). He worked as a bricklayer in order to support his family, and it so happened that the manager of a theatrical troupe, the Syrian Attalah Brothers, overheard him singing for his fellows and hired him on the spot. While touring in Syria, he had the opportunity to gain a musical education, short of finding success. He returned to Egypt before the start of the Great War, and won limited recognition by singing in the cafés and on various stages while he learned repertoire of the great composers of the 19th century, to which he added ”adwār” (musical modes) and “muwashshaḥāt” (Arabic poetic-form compositions) of his own. In spite of the cleverness of his compositions, he was not to find public acclaim, disadvantaged by his mediocre stage presence in comparison with such stars of his time as Saleh 'Abd al-Hayy or Zaki Murad.

After too many failures in singing cafés, he decided in 1918 to follow the path of Shaykh Salama Higazi, the pioneer of Arabic lyric theater and launched into an operatic career. He settled in Cairo and got acquainted with the main companies, particularly Nagib al-Rihani's (1891–1949), for whom he composed seven operettas that  the gifted comedian had invented, with the playwright and poet Badie Khayri, the laughable character of Kish Kish Bey, a rich provincial mayor squandering his fortune in Cairo with ill-reputed women... The apparition of social matters and the allusions to the political situation of colonial Egypt (the 1919 "revolution") were to boost the success of the trio's operettas, such as "al-'Ashara al-Tayyiba" (The Ten of Diamonds, 1920) a nationalistic adaptation of “Bluebeard".

Musical instrument Oud

Sayed also worked for Rihani's rival troupe, 'Ali al-Kassar's, and eventually collaborated with the Queen of Stages, singer and actress Munira al-Mahdiyya (1884–1965), for whom he composed comic operettas such as "kullaha yawmayn" ("All of two days", 1920) and started an opera, "Cleopatra and Mark Anthony", which was to be played in 1927 with Muhammad 'Abd al-Wahab in the leading role. In the early twenties, all the companies sought his help. He then decided to start his own company, acting at last on stage in a lead part. His two creations ("Shahrazad' and "al-Barooka", 1921) were not as successful as planned, and he was again forced to compose for other companies from 1922 until his premature death on 15 September 1923.

OLD ARABIC TAKHT

Darwish's stage production is often clearly westernized: the traditional takht is replaced by a European ensemble, conducted by il Signore Casio, Darwish's maestro. Most of his operetta tunes use musical modes compatible with the piano, even if some vocal sections use other intervals, and the singing techniques employed in those compositions reveal a fascination for Italian opera, naively imitated in a cascade of oriental melismas. The light ditties of the comic plays are, from the modern point of view, much more interesting than the great opera-style arias. A number of those light melodies originally composed for al-Rihani or al-Kassar are now part of the Egyptian folklore. Such songs as "Salma ya Salama”, "Zuruni koll-e sana marra” or “EI helwa di qamet " are known by all Middle-Easterners and have been sung by modern singers, as the Lebanese Fayruz or Syrian Sabah Fakhri, in re-orchestrated versions. Aside from this light production, Sayed Darwish didn't neglect the learned repertoire; he composed about twenty muwashshahat, often played by modern conservatories and sung by Fayruz. But his major contribution to the turn-of-the-century learned music is better understood through the ten adwar (long metric composition in colloquial Arabic) he composed.

CAFE DARWISH

Whereas in the traditional aesthetics defined in the second part of the 19th century, the "dor" was built as a semi-composition, a canvas upon which a creative interpreter had to develop a personal rendition, Darwish was the first Egyptian composer to reduce drastically the extemporizing task left to the singer and the instrumental cast. Even the "ahat", this traditionally improvised section of sighs, were composed by Darwish in an interesting attempt of figuralism. Anecdotic arpeggios and chromaticism were for his contemporaries a token of modernism, but could be more severely judged nowadays.

Sayed Darwish was personally recorded by three companies: Mechian, a small local record company founded by an Armenian immigrant, which engraved the Shaykh's voice between 1914 and 1920; Odeon, the German company, which recorded extensively his light theatrical repertoire in 1922; Baidaphon, which recorded three adwâr around 1922. His works sung by other voices are to be found on numerous records made by all the companies operating in early 20th-century Egypt.

Musical instrument Kanoon

Darwish believed that genuine art must be derived from people's aspirations and feelings. In his music and songs, he truly expressed the yearnings and moods of the masses, as well as recording the events that took place during his lifetime. He dealt with the aroused national feeling against the British occupiers, the passion of the people, and social justice, and he often criticized the negative aspects of Egyptian society.

Gramophne 78 disc Record (1925) Cairo

His works, blending Western instruments and harmony with classical Arab forms and Egyptian folklore, gained immense popularity due to their social and patriotic subjects. Darwish's many nationalistic melodies reflect his close ties to the national leaders who were guiding the struggle against the British occupiers. 
His music and songs knew no class and were enjoyed by both the poor and the affluent.

In his musical plays, catchy music and popular themes were combined in an attractive way. To some extent, Darwish liberated Arab music from its classical style, modernizing it and opening the door for future development.

Gazl El Banat original poster

Besides composing 260 songs, he wrote 26 operettas, replacing the slow, repetitive, and ornamented old style of classical Arab music with a new light and expressive flair. Some of Darwish's most popular works in this field were El Ashara'l Tayyiba, Shahrazad, and El-Barooka. These operettas, like Darwish's other compositions, were strongly reminiscent of Egyptian folk music and gained great popularity due to their social and patriotic themes.

Even though Darwish became a master of the new theater music, he remained an authority on the old forms. He composed 10 “dawr” and 21 “muwashshat” which became classics in the world of Arab music. His composition "Bilaadi! Bilaadi!" (My Country! My Country!), that became Egypt's national anthem, and many of his other works are as popular today as when he was alive. Sayed Darwish was highly influenced by his teacher, the great Iraqi musician and singer Othman Al-Mosuli (1854–1923), and it has been established that his most famous songs "Zuruni kul Sana Marra", "Talaat Ya Mahla Noura" and "Albint Alshalabiya" among many others were adaptations from well known works of Othman Al-Musoli's, who is considered to be the greatest musician and singer in the modern Middle East. This has cast serious doubt about "Biladi Biladi" in terms of origin as it has been suggested that Othman also composed it. It is well known that Sayed Darwish tried his best to show that everything he played was the result of his own creativity and never admitted to plagiarism.

Sayed Darwish died on 10 September 1923 at the age of 31. The cause of his death is unknown. Some say he was poisoned and died from cardiac arrest, others suggest a cocaine overdose. He now rests in the "Garden of the Immortals" in Alexandria.

Legacy

At the age of 30, Darwish was hailed as the father of the new Egyptian music and the hero of the renaissance of Arab music. He is still very much alive in his works. His belief that music was not merely for entertainment but an expression of human aspiration imparted meaning to life. He is a legendary composer remembered in street names, statues, a commemorative stamp, an Opera house, and a feature film. He dedicated his melodies to the Egyptian and pan-Arab struggle and, in the process, enriched Arab 

music in its entirety.

The Palestinian singer and musicologist, Reem Kelani, examined the role of Sayed Darwish and his songs in her program for BBC Radio Four entitled "Songs for Tahrir" about her experiences of music in the uprising in Egypt in 2011.

Sayed Darwish put music to the Egyptian national anthem, Bilady, Bilady, Bilady, the words of which were adapted from a famous speech by Mustafa Kamel.

Coincidentally, on the day of his death, the national Egyptian leader Saad Zaghloul returned from exile; the Egyptians sang Darwish's new song "Mesrona watanna Saaduha Amalna", another national song by Sayed Darwish that was attributed to "Saad" and made especially to celebrate his return.

Click on this link  SALAM YA SALAMA  to hear the original song

Sung by Sayed Darwish

Article from various sources

Edited and presented by Mike

Badia Masabny

Star Maker of Cairo

BADIA MASABNY

In 1926 a woman of Levantine origin named Badia Masabny opened a nightclub in Cairo in the fashion of European cabarets. This nightclub, known as “Casino Badia”, and another club later established by Masabny, “Casino Opera”, was to have a profound influence on Middle Eastern Dance as we know it today. Many dancers have perhaps never even heard the name of this woman to whom we owe so much. Who was Badia Masabny?

According to her autobiography, which appeared in the book “Bauchtanz” by Dietlinde Karkutli, Badia Masabny was born in Damascus in 1894. At age of seven, Badia was raped by a cafe owner. After serving only 4 weeks in jail, the man’s life returned to normal. Badia's life, however, was changed forever, as she was no longer a virgin. To avoid the gossip and shame of it all, the Masabny family immigrated to Argentina. In school there, Badia was happy and discovered her love for acting, singing and dancing.

People 3000 years back already danced

The Masabny’s moved back to Syria when Badia was in her teens, and therefore of marriageable age, the events of the past were, however, not forgotten and the family had a hard time finding a husband for her. When Badia finally did get engaged, the neighbor informed the groom’s family about the rape and the groom broke off the engagement.

Feeling she had no chance in a place where everyone knew of her past, Badia decided to run away to Beirut. On the train, she met a nice woman who offered to take her in. Only in Beirut did Badia realize that this "nice woman" was the madam of a brothel! At this time, even women in the West had few opportunities for employment and so much the less in the Middle East. With no one to support her and no real skills, Badia tried to think of something she could do without having to sell her body. She turned to the two things she most loved: singing and dancing. When her mother arrived in Beirut to take her home, Badia persuaded her to accompany her to Cairo instead.

BADIA

Even then, Cairo was already famous for its culture, music and theatre. Badia found work playing small roles with the famous George Abiad Theatre Ensemble. She lied to her mother, telling her she had a night job as a seamstress. When the ensemble’s summer break arrived, Badia was offered a bigger role with a traveling theater troupe that was leaving for Said, Upper Egypt. When Badia’s mother learned the truth about her daughter’s employment, she insisted they return home to Syria. As the train that was to take them to Alexandria, where they would board a ship for Beirut, pulled into the station, Badia jumped to the other side of the tracks and ran away as fast as she could. She caught up with the traveling theater troupe just the day before they went on tour.

In 1914 Masabny went to Beirut to perform in the well-known theater of Madame Jeanette, a French woman who employed exclusively European artists to perform for a mostly upper-class Lebanese clientele. Badia convinced Madam Jeanette to let her sing and dance in Arabic. For her debut on September 14, 1914, accompanied by two Austrian women playing oud and qanoon, Badia performed a Syrian folksong, singing, dancing and playing cymbals all at the same time! At this time the female entertainers called Awalim were expected to be able to sing, dance, recite poetry and play musical instruments. Masabny continued this tradition and the audience was delighted. Badia was a big hit and became the feature act.

Summer Casino & Cabaret Badia

Masabny continued to work in Lebanon and Syria. While performing in Damascus, she was attacked and almost killed by her brother who believed he was defending the family honour. Badia eventually began working with the Egyptian comedian, actor, playwright and director, Nagib El Rihany, and his ensemble. Returning with them to Cairo in 1921, she became the star of the company. A passionate, but turbulent love story developed between Masabny and El Rihany and they eventually married. Although it was a troubled marriage, Badia was able to learn a lot about the theatre from her husband. After numerous breakups and reconciliations, Badia left him in 1926 and opened her own nightclub, called Casino Badia, on Emad El Din Street. (It should be noted that the term “cabaret” was never used in the Middle East except to describe a very low class establishment.  Nightclubs were at that time known as "sala".)

Naguib El Rihany

The nightclub was a huge success. Masabny created a program with both European and Arab artists performing short acts that appealed to European and upper class Egyptian tastes. Badia danced and sang several numbers herself. She and El Rihany got back together for a brief time, but then split again, this time for good. Badia moved her nightclub to a better location and named it "Casino Badia".

A diverse entertainment program featured local dancers, singers, musicians and comedians, as well as various European acts. There was even a matinee in the afternoon for women only. It was at this time that the traditional "Raqs Baladi" began to undergo significant changes.

The term Raqs Sharqi first came about when Egypt was occupied by foreign powers. "Raqs Sharqi", which actually translates as "Oriental Dance” or “Eastern Dance”, was used to distinguish the dance from European, or western, dances. ("Orient” as opposed to “occident”.) In the same way, “Raqs Baladi” was used to differentiate between "native" or "local" dance and foreign dances. At the time of Badia Masabny, the nightclub version of these dances was referred to as "Raqs El Hawanim" or "Dance of the Ladies". The late master instructor Nelly Mazloom once described “Raqs el Hawanim” as being the style that upper class women danced when amongst themselves at weddings and other gatherings.

She went on to describe how young girls sought the attention of potential mothers-in-law by dancing at weddings that were at that time still segregated. The girl sought to dance gracefully and elegantly while appearing refined and modest. Due to the fact that Masabny’s clientele were upper class Egyptians as well as foreigners, dancers deliberately tried to imitate the style of the upper class women. For this reason the dancing appears to be very restrained and subtle.

Old Casino Badia in Opera square - Cairo

Up to the 1920’s, dancers had performed mostly in private homes, in coffee houses or at outdoor religious festivals known as "mawalid" (plural of "mulid").Originally characterized by mostly hip and torso movements, the dance had usually been performed in small spaces. The dance, therefore, had to be adapted for the stage. Masabny employed western choreographers such as Isaac Dixon, Robbie Robinson and Christo, who added elements from other dance traditions, for example, the turns and traveling steps from western dance forms such as ballet and ballroom dance. The late master instructor and choreograph Ibrahim Akif, who also worked with Masabny, identified “shimmies”, undulating movements (including what we sometimes refer to as “camals”), circles and “eights”, as well as various hip thrusts and drops as being the original “Sharqi” or oriental movements. Ibrahim Akef also told me personally that, although the group dances were choreographed, most of the solo artists improvised. According to him, it was his first cousin, the dancer and actress Naima Akef, who was the first to completely choreograph her solo performances. As we all know, choreographing the opening number later on became a stand practice among the better-known Egyptian dancers.

The two-piece costume with beads and sequins, which we now associate inseparably with Oriental Dance, first appeared during this period, inspired by Hollywood films and European nightclubs such as the "Moulin Rouge". It might be added that the costumes were partially created to suit the tastes of European colonists, who didn’t find the original costumes revealing enough!

All went well, both professionally and privately, until Badia's nephew, Antoine, who had become her theater director and was married to her adoptive daughter, Julia, fell in love with Beba Azzadine, a dancer in Badia's ensemble. He and Beba left to open their own nightclub in the same style as "Casino Badia". In spite of this setback, Badia remained successful, constantly working to improve her program and always recruiting new talents.

Badia Masabny was a tough woman. According to Karin van Nieuwkerk in her book, "A Trade Like any Other", journalists wrote that Badia had no need for a bodyguard as she herself was one, even going so far as to threaten intrusive journalists with a gun. Perhaps her childhood had forced her to become tough.

Tahea Carrioca

In 1937 Masabny invested and lost all her money in a film project that flopped. She declared bankruptcy and left Cairo to tour Upper Egypt with her troupe. A young Tahia Carioca, still in her teens, was part of the entourage. In debt, Badia borrowed money to open up her biggest project yet: a nightclub with a movie theater, restaurant, cafe and an American-style bar. "Casino Opera" opened in 1940 and was extremely successful. World War II had broken out and the streets of Cairo were filled with English and French soldiers wanting to be entertained. This, of course, was a great opportunity for “Casino Opera" and the program was adapted to suit the soldiers’ tastes.

Due to the performance of a Hitler parody, however, Masabny was placed on Hitler's list of people to be executed once he took over Egypt. Fortunately, the Germans never made it to Cairo!

Farid El Atrash

The Egyptian film industry was flourishing at this time, producing countless musicals requiring singers and dancers. Many of the nightclub scenes in the films of this era were actually filmed in "Casino Opera" and many dancers were discovered there. The program in both "Casino Badia" and "Casino Opera" featured group dances. The more talented dancers were allowed to dance in front of the others and, if one of them went over well with the public, she earned the chance to be featured as a solo artist. Many dancers who started out as chorus girls ended up as soloists and many soloists ended up in films. Through exposure in these films, as well as in Masabny’s nightclubs, dancers achieved a celebrity status that could never have been achieved in the past.  

Naima Akef

The most famous of these dancers were Tahia Carioca and Samia Gamal, who became popular movie stars in Egypt, and Nadia Gamal, who later became a star in Lebanon. All these dancers and many others, including Ketty, Hoda Shamsadine, Hagar Hamdy and Naima Akef (although, according to Ibrahim Akef, Naima actually started in the nightclub of Masabny’s rival, Beba Azzadine), credited Masabny for helping them get started and for teaching them what they needed to know in the beginning of their careers. According to an interview with Nadia Gamal in Arabesque magazine, Masabny trained her dancers every afternoon at the Casino. She was an expert at "zaggat" (finger cymbals) and played them herself on stage. Not only dancers, but also many well-known singers and musicians, including Farid El Atrache and Mohamad Abdel Wahab, got their start with Masabny.

Nagwa Fouad

 Badia Masabny earned good money during the war years and Casino Opera continued to prosper after the war as well. In 1951 the Egyptian government demanded that Masabny pay £74,000 (Egyptian pounds) in back-taxes. It was impossible for her to come up with such a large sum of money without being ruined financially. She escaped from Egypt in a private jet and returned to Lebanon. There she bought a small farm in the north, where she, by her own account, lived the rest of her days in peace and tranquility. Badia Masabny passed away in 1975. Very similar details of her life are told in a 1975 film called “Badia Masabny”.

Samia Gamal

Samia Gamal While no one denies that Badia Masabny had a profound influence in the development of modern Raqs Sharqi, not everyone agrees if this influence was positive or negative. One school of thought maintains that her changes elevated the dance to a performing art for the stage. The other maintains that she degraded the original dance form by making the dance more sexually suggestive and by moving the dance into a nightclub setting to begin with. In any case, one can hardly imagine how the dance might have evolved without Badia Masabny!

Article written by Jalilah on Gilded Serpent.

 Edited and presented by Mike

Kushary

Among the inexplicable amalgam of sights, smells, and sounds that are modern Cairo is the extraordinarily simple taste of a workingman’s lunch called Kushary.

Hearty plate of Kushary

Kushary is sold in countless hole-in-the-wall cook shops scattered throughout the medieval warrens crowded with Cairo’s fourteen million people. Itinerant Kushary cooks also sell this rice, lentil, and macaroni dish from colourful hand-painted donkey-pulled carts throughout the working-class neighborhood of the city. Bicycles fitted with wooden boxes also crisscross the streets selling Kushary in plastic containers. However Koshari has it own fancy restaurants full of marble, brass utensils and shiny mirrors.

Kushari, also koshari (Egyptian Arabic: كشرى‎‎), is an Egyptian dish believed to be originally made in the 19th century, made of rice, macaroni and lentils mixed together, topped with a spiced tomato sauce, and garlic vinegar; garnished with chickpeas and crispy fried onions. A sprinkling of garlic juice, or garlic vinegar, and hot sauce are optional.

The first written mention of Kushary is found in the diaries of the famed Muslim traveler of the fourteenth century, Ibn Battuta. In the mid-nineteenth century the famous British traveler and translator of Thousand and One Nights, Richard Burton, identifies Kushary in “the Suez”. Given Kushary’s relationship to mujaddara, a dish with roots in the tenth century, its history may be older and more Arab  than admitted.

Serving Koshary

  

The other more plausible interpretation is that Kushary originated in the mid 19th century, during a time when Egypt was a multi-cultural country in the middle of an economic boom.

The lower classes' usually limited pantry became full with a myriad of ingredients: lentils, rice, macaroni, chickpeas, tomato sauce, onions, garlic, oil, vinegar, etc. At the end of the month, families would usually have the entire collection of ingredients as leftovers, so families would quickly finish their supply in one dish.

Serving Kushary

More sources state that the dish originated from India and Italy, in 1914 when Indians attempted to make lentil and rice Khichdi, Italians added macaroni to the dish, over time the dish has progressed and evolved into the current dish through Egyptian soldiers, then Egyptian citizens. Kushary used to be sold on food carts in it's early years, and was introduced to restaurants in later years.

Koshari is widely popular among workers and laborers. It may be prepared at home, and is also served at roadside stalls and restaurants all over Egypt; some restaurants specialize in Kushary to the exclusion of other dishes, while others feature it as one item among many. As traditionally prepared Kushary does not contain any animal products, it can be considered vegan so long as all frying uses vegetable oil.

Kushary Cart Vendor

Clifford Wright (a famous Food critic) own history with Kushary was a bit convoluted. He was determined to have some Kushary in Cairo, but was often warned away from street food by those in the know, and not unwisely. Still, he had a strong craving for a bowl of this hearty-looking dish that he saw Cairenes eating with such gusto and which was described by the distinguished professor of botany Charles B. Heiser, Jr. as a nearly perfect food for protein enrichment. Finally throwing caution to the wind, he sauntered into a cook shop that would not have met Western hygienic standards, but seemed clean enough to him relative to the countless other less clean places in Cairo. In any case, the food preparation area was clean.

    The cook and his helper, standing behind a counter, were quite delighted to see him, a Westerner, walking into their shop on the Suq al-Tafikiya half way down from the Shari’ Ramses, near the national telecommunications building, far off the beaten tourist path. The name of their place was in Arabic, Kushary Magdi and Sons.

A plate of Kushary and sauce

The Kushary plate was assembled in front of him by spooning into a bowl broken pieces of cooked spaghetti and tubetti that are kept warm in a large pan, a cross between a wok and a tub. In another large pan a mixture of cooked rice and lentils is warmed separately and then tossed on top of the pasta, about three parts rice to one part lentils, flavoured by being sautéed first in samna (clarified butter). In a third, smaller bowl are very brown, slightly crispy, and thinly sliced onions, also cooked in samna.

First the cook’s helper tosses the macaroni into the bowl with a large serving ladle, on top goes the rice and lentils with a little hot liquidly tomato sauce, dim’a musabika (thick tomato sauce cooked to perfection), and then the caramelized onions on top of that.

Clifford sat down at a rickety table to eat with a spoon and considered the two condiments on the table. One was a pitcher of chili pepper-based tomato sauce and the other was a bowl of powdered wheat bran.

He finally admitted that the Kushary was absolutely delicious --- 

a very basic staple street food that really hits the spot and he would recommend it heartily.

Kunāfah

Kanafah (Arabic: كنافة‎‎ kunāfah, Turkish: künefe, Azerbaijani: ریشته ختایی riştə xətayi, Greek: κανταΐφι kadaïfi/kataïfi, Hebrew: כנאפה‎‎ knafeh), also spelled kunafeh or kunafah is a Middle Eastern cheese pastry soaked in sweet, sugar-based syrup, typical of the regions belonging to the former Ottoman Empire. It is a specialty of the Levant and adjoining areas of Egypt and Turkey.

Appetizing presentation

Main ingredients are dough in filaments, sugar, cheese, pistachio, rose water, kaymak (cream)

Kanafeh pastry comes in three types:

khishnah coarse (Arabic خشنه): crust made from long thin noodle threads

na'ama (Arabic ناعمة) (fine): semolina dough

kunafa with semolina

mhayara (Arabic محيرة) (mixed): a mixture of khishnah and na'ama

dough ready to spread

The pastry is heated in butter, margarine, palm oil, or traditionally semneh and then spread with soft white cheese, such as Nabulsi cheese, and topped with more pastry. In khishnah kanafeh the cheese is rolled in the pastry. A thick syrup of sugar, water, and a few drops of rose water or orange blossom water is poured on the pastry during the final minutes of cooking. Often the top layer of pastry shops is tinted with red food coloring (a modern shortcut, instead of baking it for long periods of time). Crushed pistachios are sprinkled on top as a garnish.

Knafeh in Nablus

Variation with kunafa

Kanafeh was first mentioned in the 10th century.

It is generally believed to have originated in the Palestinian city of Nablus hence the name Nabulsieh. Nablus is still renowned for its kanafeh, which consists of mild white cheese and shredded wheat surface, which is covered by sugar syrup. In the Levant, this variant of kanafeh is the most common. The largest plate of kanafeh was made in Nablus. in an attempt to win a Palestinian citation in the Guinness World Records. It measured 75×2 meters and weighed 1,350 kilograms.

Turkish künefe and Turkish tea (çay)

The Turkish variant of the pastry kanafeh is called künefe and the wire shreds are called tel kadayıf. A semi-soft cheese such as Urfa peyniri (cheese of Urfa, or Hatay peyniri, cheese of Hatay), made of raw milk, is used in the filling. In making the künefe, the kadayıf is not rolled around the cheese; instead, cheese is put in between two layers of wiry kadayıf. It is cooked in small copper plates, and then served very hot in syrup with clotted cream (kaymak) and topped with pistachios or walnuts. In the Turkish cuisine, there is also yassı kadayıf and ekmek kadayıfı, none of which is made of wirey shreds.

making of the dough wires

Riştə Xətayi

This type of Azerbaijani variant is prepared in Tabriz, Iran. «Riştə Xətayi» is called to mesh shreds that are cooked typically in Ramadan in the world's biggest covered Bazaar of Tabriz. It is made of chopped walnuts, cinnamon, ginger, powder of rose, sugar, water, rose water, olive oil.

Kadaif

In this variant, called also καταΐφι or κανταΐφι in Greek (kataïfi or kadaïfi), the threads are used to make pastries of various forms (tubes or nests), often with a filling of chopped nuts as in baklava.

A Bosnian style kadaif pastry is made by putting down a layer of wire kadaif, then a layer of a filling of chopped nuts, then another layer of wire kadaif. The pastries are painted with melted butter, baked until golden brown and then drenched in sugar or honey syrup.

The dessert is usually made with long, thin strands of shredded phyllo dough known as kataifi. In fact, the word, kunafa is used interchangeably to describe both the dessert and the dough. The dough is usually fried or baked with butter or oil until it is crisp. In some variations, the kunafa is made with rich, cake-like semolina dough instead.

Kunafa mabruma

The Abbasid Caliphate cooks during the 9^th century  made a “crepe-like” pastry called qata’if wrapped around almond cream and drizzled with honey. Still know today under the same name.

robin nest kunafa

By the 10th century, Middle Eastern cooks began to bake “thinly sliced … qata’if and tossed the shreds with honey,” perfected later by Nablus cooks to become the kunafa of today, much later was the qata’if batter poured “into thin lines onto a hot metal sheet.” to form the uncooked dough. 

This new method of cooking the dough became the norms for the kunafa we see today.

data collected from internet

Eid el Ghutas

Eid el Ghutas: Celebrated on 19 January, it supposedly marks the end of the Christmas season begun on the 7th of the same month, and commemorates the baptism of Christ. The word “ghutas” meaning total immersion, usually in water, also describes the act of baptism of Coptic babies whereby the body is totally immersed in the holy font.

Christ Baptism

Food served during this feast is invariably the same in most homes, though the origin of the traditional meal remains contested, but some interesting explanations challenge the imagination. The main dish is taro stew served with rice, followed by tangerines and knuckles of sugar cane to chew on, in lieu of dessert.

Taro / Colcas

Taro leaves, whose scientific name is Madumbes, but more relevantly to our present purpose, also called Colocasia Esculenta, and in Arabic Colcas, are said to derive their name from Mount Golgotha, aka Calvary. A name attributed to the mount for a variety of reasons, none especially definitive, but the etymology of the word remains the same: “the place for skulls”, since the skull of Adam according to one version is buried there, and to another because the place looks like one. Further on, through the Aramaic Gulgalta, the word mutated into what we now know as colocasia, and ol'as. Ol’as, in Arabic, also rhymes with rass, meaning head, in reference to the skulls with which the word is connected (it is also said that if you don’t eat ol’as on ghutas, you will wake up without a rass. And yet others will say you will wake up without knickers, which in Arabic also rhymes with rass).

Taro (Colcas)

1 kg taro, peeled and cubed

Dices Taro

Chicken or beef broth

4 garlic cloves, mashed

2 tbsp butter

1 bunch green coriander, chopped

1 bunch Swiss chard, chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Wash taro well in running tap water.

Place taro in a pot and cover with broth. Bring to the boil then lower heat and simmer until tender.

In a skillet, sauté garlic until golden then add coriander and Swiss chard and sauté for 2 more minutes.

Pour onto taro, bring to the boil then remove from heat

Mount Golgotha

This said, the reason ol'as and sugar cane are eaten on the occasion of an immersion, or the celebration of the baptism of Christ differs in relation to the skepticism of each account. According to some, the head of the taro resembles a bare skull and hence the justification of celebrating what may have taken place on Mount Golgotha, and the crucifixion of Christ. With the sugar cane left unaccounted for, we get another justification: mainly that Colocasia (in which case, the name and shape are immaterial) is a root vegetable that grows in moist sites and wetland found next to Golgotha; a water retentive plant tolerant of water logging, a characteristic it shares with another crop in particular: the sugar cane.

Taro in Soup

Little more need be said to explain the cult of water immersion and the association with those two highly moisture oriented plants. A different account, however, more secular and sceptical, told by no less practicing Copts is that given the date of the feast and the time of month, taro being a very nutritive plant and sugar cane with its high glycemic index would provide an exemplary diet of high calories to meet the cold. The pragmatic view would also hold that tangerines are the fruit of the season, and would explain away a whole traditional meal in the stark light of the market place.

Variation on Taro

Folklore also has it that one of the Alexandrian “nawwa's” (storms) occurs around that time of year to wash, or possibly irrigate the colocasia even more, since it bears the name “ghutas” following the same theme. As for the tangerines, no more in season than say, oranges and bananas, are probably chosen because their peel lends itself easily to making little incisions, and so children can slit them at the top making them into tiny basket shapes where a candle will be placed and lit. That the basket is meant to evoke the infant Jesus, is only speculation, but remains a possibility to ponder, and a tradition to add color to a feast with which not too many non Copts are as familiar as with the Coptic Christmas, now a national holiday, though with a distinctly less traditional meal.

 

Jesus with St-John the Baptist 

 Information from the internet