Luxor4u

Keith Floyd’s dated, rollicking, jaundiced and unromantic view of Egyptian tourism, pollution, local food and wine.


and on Luxor

after 1996 with a well-informed view on the agricultural reforms after 1952.

Not much has changed, except he might be imprisoned in Egypt nowadays for his frank descriptions/spreading ‘false news’ of those ‘better times’. One of his cooking scenes has a soldier with a machine gun and a bullet-proof vest standing along side him whilst he cooks. Maybe it was always thus.

What has changed is our tolerance of butter. In one ‘Egyptian’ soup he uses over 1 pound.

Where would he get a drink or ten at the moment?

Keith states that a palm tree extract makes a very high alcohol beer.

Looks like the UK PC Police, nutters with nothing better to do than post confected outrage, want to dig him up and prosecute him for historical offences against Ostriches. http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/satu ... th-9715287.

Egypt isn’t the only place where you can get attacked for being a bit odd by people who are easily offended.

Well done Hafiz! Fascinating stuff I've never seen before. How life has changed...and perhaps not for the better.

The first episode - Cairo, train to Aswan and cruise to Luxor - contains some memorable moments.

We were talking on here about mint tea recently. Someone should have told Keith to puff on his shisha rather like a cigar...i.e.not swallow too much smoke!

Inevitably, Hawass enters the scene - possibly compulsorily even then...blah blahing about how HE did this, and HE discovered that. All pretty typical. I wonder how he felt about being referred to as the "mad professor". Nice one Keith

I must give that Egyptian paella a go.

We were also discussing Nile cruises on here recently and, like me, Keith seemed to be a Nile cruise virgin. His verdict.....well....polite . He found the wine a bit rough...and the food ok-ish. it's what I would have expected...maybe it's better nowadays.

The second episode features Luxor & Alexandria, I thought the village visit and cooking of lunch for his goggle-eyed audience quite charming.

I wonder if the land holdings have changed over the last 20 years. I suspect many of the small holdings have aggregated....moving back towards the time of huge farms owned by the pashas....now by the army or big companies/investors I suppose.

Alexandria was interesting. Carefully selecting your own prime vegetables in the souk is easier said than done....well, in my experience in Hurghada. Live chickens, rabbits etc are also a rarity where I live. I wouldn't enjoy strangling live birds or rabbits.

The sight of live turtles was distressing.... illegally taken even then. Apparently the police wouldn't let Keith buy and release them as it wouldn't look good. Some things haven't changed then. His visit to Alexandria's "best" fish restaurant was a disappointment Dirty - and fish far from fresh. Sounds like he was lured there by the owner's cousin maybe? I suspect we've all fallen for that one at one time or another.

I'm not overly keen on Egyptian fish...too many bones...but his kebabs I might try. The green soup was also interesting. Not molokhia as far as I could tell (one of the few dishes I would pass on).

The very visible presence of police and soldiers was no doubt testimony to this programme being filmed only a couple of years after the Hatshepsut temple massacre.

I think the soup did include Molokhia, ugh, enjoyed the programme very much.

I've finally got round to watching these videos. Hmm well some of part one but all of part two. For me the Alexandria portion was the best as he ventured into shopping for food and told it how it really is.

I'm one of those odd folks who does like Molokhia, but I was surprised to have a whole bowl of it served to me as a soup, along with all the other goodies on offer, when having a meal with friends in Alexandria. Up until then I'd only ever had it as part of the communal offerings to dip my bread in to along with all and sundry gathered. I can't remember the name of the other 'green' dish that is often served, the gloopy one, but I can only tolerate that in small doses.

I'm told its called Bammiea, but do not know the correct spelling. Sometimes also called Okra.

Thanks Dusak. Yes that's the one with okra. I can eat okra cooked in other forms but in its gloopy soupy form I can only take a few polite dips with my bread ( and sometimes dip and hope no one notices I've not got any gloop on my bread!)

Okra? Yuk yuk yuk In no shape or form. EVER!! Called bamya here, but nothing like green gloop as far as I'm aware. I'm shuddering just thinking about it

I always associate "green gloop" with molokhaya...it's the rather slimy texture of this thick green soup that puts me off. It's made with leaves...nowt to do with okra.

Okra...Ladies' Fingers...I quite like.....usually in some sort of tomato sauce.

I don't find mollakhya slimy. It's the bammaya (I'm sure it will have .any spellings) that I find like a watered down wall paper paste or frogspawn jelly. Both can be very tasteless too unless lots of garlic is added.

Yildez wrote:Okra? Yuk yuk yuk In no shape or form. EVER!! Called bamya here, but nothing like green gloop as far as I'm aware. I'm shuddering just thinking about it

Double double Yuk, Yuk, Yuk, absolutely vile stuff

I'm with Horus here,

I think some call it 'Ladies Fingers', but I reckon it looks more like slimey 'corpse' fingers, eeew! horrible

Interesting programme, i wonder have i been putting the plastic tip on the shisha pipe upside down all these years? And never ever have i been served anything as remotely unappetizing as the slop he had on his plate