Cypriot vs Egyptian food & cuisine

Cyprus shares many flavors with its neighbors, but its cuisine has a character of its own. Meals often revolve around meze, small dishes served all at once, fresh local ingredients, plenty of mint and olive oil, and a fondness for slow-cooked food. Bread, sausages, and halloumi cheese show up everywhere, from breakfast to dinner.

Egyptian food is all about grains, veggies, fruits, and legumes – plant-based stuff makes up 84% of what people eat there, putting Egypt (along with Morocco) at the top for plant-heavy diets in the Mediterranean. Since meat’s relatively expensive, it’s mostly used to build flavor in stews and broths, with big chunks saved for special occasions rather than daily meals. The real staples are slow-cooked vegetarian stews served with bread and rice. But in the cities, as populations grow, people are shifting toward quicker, less vegetable-oriented meals; street food has become a go-to option for the urban population, offering cheap, quick bites along the way.

Wheat dominates, as it does across the Mediterranean, but Cyprus uses a wider mix of grains, including barley, corn, and rice. Wheat remains essential for pita, a thick, oval, oven-baked bread eaten daily.

The rich and fertile soil of the Nile Valley provided the Egyptians with cereals and pulses for centuries. Wheat bread is a staple in every meal and is called eish. Food eaten with bread can be as simple as a mix of salt, cumin, sesame seeds, an onion, white radish leaves, and some white cheese. Or a complete meal of cooked vegetables or legumes, but bread is still central. Bread is a utensil used to scoop sauce, dips, and stews, as well as to wrap kebabs and falafel.

Cypriot cooking leans heavily on vegetables, but meat, dairy, and grains often balance or even outweigh them. Vegetables show up in salads, stews, and alongside grilled foods, usually dressed with lemon and olive oil. A typical summer salad mixes celery leaves and stalks, parsley, coriander, tomatoes, and cucumber. Purslane and wild dandelion greens are also popular.

Pulses are absolutely fundamental to Egyptian cuisine – they’re among the most important food groups in culinary tradition and daily diet. Egyptians typically cook pulses until very tender, often mashing or pureeing them, and season heavily with garlic, cumin, coriander, and tahini. They’re served with flatbread, pickles, and fresh vegetables. One of the most ancient Egyptian dishes still eaten today is fava beans ful medames. 

Livestock farming has long shaped Cypriot agriculture and diet. Many villages lie inland, sometimes far from the coast, and this distance from the sea historically tied people to animal husbandry. Pork became the dominant meat, prepared through charcoal grilling, sausages, and preservation with smoke and wine. Red wine, in fact, defines much of the island’s charcuterie.

Quantity-wise, Egyptian dishes do not feature large portions of meat. No pork is consumed, but when it comes to animals that are allowed, like beef, lamb and mutton, they are eaten head to toe. Alongside the usual Middle Eastern grilled koftas, kebabs, and shawarmas, there is a variety of offal dishes cooked in endless ways: chopped and grilled, slow-simmered, deep-fried, boiled, and dried.

As for the island on the Mediterranean Sea, the traditional cuisine must include seafood – and it does. Locals grill octopus, squid, sea bream, and red mullet, then finish them with lemon and sea salt. Grilling is common, though locals also prepare seafood soups and stews. Cypriot meze is often ocean-focused, offering fish roe salad, squid, and small fried fish.

Fish eating in Egypt depends on the location. People along the coast – around Alexandria, the Mediterranean, and the Red Sea – get to enjoy seafood, Nile Delta, and Valley stick mostly to freshwater fish. If you’re living in the interior or desert areas, you’re probably not eating much fish at all since it’s hard to get fresh and even harder to keep it from spoiling.

Milk and dairy play an important role in Cypriot cooking. It’s striking that such a small island produced a cheese as widely known as halloumi. This semi-hard, unripened, brined cheese, from goat’s and sheep’s milk, has been part of local life for centuries.  Anari is another key cheese. Soft and similar to ricotta, it works in both savory and sweet dishes and is often served with honey. Yogurt is a staple, used in cooking and served alongside rich meats.

Milk and dairy play a secondary role. Milk production requires water resources and suitable climatic conditions for raising dairy cattle. Egypt’s arid climate and water scarcity limit large quantities of milk production domestically, while imported milk is less affordable. Fermented milk products, such as zabadi (yogurt), labneh (strained yogurt product), kishk (yogurt stone), and cheeses, are consumed more.

Olive oil is a primary source of fat for salads, grilled veggies, meats, and bread dippings. Some seed oils are also used, like sunflower oil, but to a lesser extent.

Many Cypriot desserts rely on semolina or flour, sugar or honey, almonds, walnuts, sometimes fruit, rose-water, or mastic. These give sweets a warm, aromatic,  nutty or floral flavour — not overly rich, but comforting. You’ll find desserts that are crunchy outside and soft inside, flaky and nutty, dense and chewy, or silky and light.

The Egyptian diet is low in saturated fats, and oil is preferred for cooking rather than butter. Deep-frying has become quite popular. Most vital oils in Egypt are soybean, sunflower and olive oil. Clarified butter, also known as ghee, is essential for many classic recipes.