But the community most famous for its omelettes is Spain. Made with potatoes, it is called Spanish Omelette, Tortilla Espanola, or Tortilla de Patatas. There are variations on the omelette, and it can be thin or thick, medium or well done. But the one constant is that it is made with potatoes. In Alexandria, the housewife usually tosses in whatever vegetables she has, and calls the mixture Spanish Omelette! Three items are a must on the Spanish table: olive oil (which is even eaten with cheese, instead of butter), wine (a glass a day is good for the heart), and bread, thick and crunchy, which is eaten with everything, even pasta. Even though the Spaniards love bread as much as the Egyptians, when they pose for a picture they don’t say “cheese” or “bread”: they say PATATAS.

Today there aren’t many Spaniards in Alexandria. Most are teachers at the Cervantes Center, or employees at the Spanish Gas Company. When they are taken to Saber’s to try the rice pudding, they are surprised, for the famous Roz bel Laban is none other than their Arroz con Leche back home, which they eat with cinnamon sprinkled on top, and which in both tongues translates as “rice with milk”. So did Arroz con Leche originate in the Arab world and make its way to Spain when the Arabs lived in Andalusia for hundreds of years? Or is Roz bel Laban originally Spanish and it arrived at Alexandria with Abou el Abbas el Morsi when he came from Murcia?

By contrast, there are still many Armenians in Alexandria, perhaps around 1,500 – the remains of the third largest community which would have numbered tens of thousands in the 1930s. Fleeing from Turkey in the wake of World War I, they peaked in the 1920s and 30s, but Armenians had been seeking safety from persecution as well as wealth from as early as the 18th century. In 1805, when Mohamed Ali became Wali of Egypt, he encouraged Armenians along with other foreigners to settle in Egypt. Among them was Boghos Bey Youssoufian the banker who contributed much to business in Egypt, and his nephew Nubar Pasha who was Egypt’s first prime minister. Armenians were skilled workers and artisans, as well as merchants and professionals. However, when they first came from Armenia they were mainly poor migrants escaping poverty and persecution. They were used to battling the severe cold and ate to survive, not to linger over an elaborate dish. Alcohol was drunk to keep warm, and eating was often a communal activity, more a necessity for livelihood than an epicure or cultural phenomenon. Thus fish is not a great favorite:  too lean, and too soon digested. By contrast, filling meals dishes and pastries such as cheureg (eaten sweet or savory) and mante are almost national dishes, and when meat is not available, the patty would be made of lentils instead of minced meat – lentil keufte. Though Armenians still eat what they always did, with little outside interference (it is said that every village has its own distinct cuisine), they do eat molokheyya and ful, like the other foreign communities, (ful on Fridays), occasionally have to substitute Armenian ingredients with local ones. Béchamel has been introduced to their cuisine, and some Turkish recipes. However, if they do not take easily to other foods, their pastrami (dried meat covered with a garlic and fenugreek paste) has been appropriated by Egyptians and is one of the greatest dinner favorites. Staple Armenian ingredients are starch (to combat the cold), bulgar wheat, dough, chickpeas, red pepper, and, of course, the ever popular yoghurt (yes, tradition can overcome politics, and they will share their love for yoghurt with the Turks). Yoghurt is also drunk, beaten, with salt added, and is called Ayran, which the Syrians also drink, and also call Ayrani. In very hot weather, Ayran is served with ice cubes in a pitcher. There are other similarities with Syrian (Belad el Sham) foods, for Armenians eat chickeufte, which is like the raw kebbeh (kebbeh nayye eaten in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine): raw minced meat pounded with crushed bulgar wheat and parsley. They will also eat tabbouleh on the first day of fasting in Lent, ideally outdoors in gardens. On feast days and certain occasions, there are specialties that are vastly different from what other communities eat on that particular day. Armenian Christmas is neither 25 December nor 7 January but 5 January, for reasons of calendar difference, and it is a big do in Alexandria, with the Governor attending the celebrations. On Christmas Eve rice (denoting snow, in the absence of the real thing in Alexandria) is served with fish and a sprinkling of raisins on top. Valentine is in February, but is on the 10th and is called Serkis Day. On that day, the fiancé would offer his betrothed a platter of sweets, not much different from the moulid sweets served on Islamic feasts, but the Armenian will add a red apple in the middle of the sweets. In wakes, they serve fatta, and on New Year’s Eve it is a soup made from seven beans. In Easter it is customary to eat a special omelette made from a batter of whisked eggs added to boiled and strained green beans, or omelette panée, breaded and fried. These will always be accompanied by cheureg.

The Armenian cuisine is removed from ours in concept, and they kept their taste buds to themselves, sharing but not imposing. It was a cuisine born of necessity for nourishment and survival of hot and cold, war and strife. Their culinary tastes were an attempt at forging and defending an identity at odds with fate, using cheap ingredients, no sophistication, but in the end nourishing and diverse. It might well be the Mediterranean diet par excellence!

Perhaps one of the smallest communities in Alexandria was the Swiss. They were formally established as a community in 1858, with only 32 founding members. They would soon grow to form a dynamic community with school, clubs, industry and diverse activities, though it never became a large community and counted only around a thousand members at the time of the World War II. Both in Cairo and Alexandria they were successful at hotel management, with the Beau Rivage in Ramleh run by the Bolens family. Like the other communities they had balls and events, at which King Farouk was often seen. Esther Zimmerli remembers shopping with her mother at the Ibrahimieh market, where they bought poultry, vegetables and fruits. Meat was bought from the Swiss butcher in town. After a day at the beach, they would shop for things to snack on in the evening:

On our way home in the evening we would stop off in our neighborhood, Camp César, to buy a delicious freshly baked flat bread: a specialty of the Arab baker’s. Opposite, at the Greek grocer’s Papayannakis’ shop, we would buy some mortadella and a semi-circular tin of Norwegian soft Primula cheese. Finally, we would also buy a few bottles of the reputed local Stella beer for our guests. … This overwhelming desire for a cold beer in heat of battle has been vividly described in Ice Cold in Alex. Before putting our purchases in the car, we would cross the road to stroll among the different stalls. We were always faced with an impossible choice between on the one hand the thirst-quenching batikhas, watermelons with a red, juicy flesh and black seeds, and the other, the shamams, sweet honey tasting melons with a pale green flesh and yellow seeds. Other delicious fruits on offer included mountains of dark blue figs, sweet seedless grapes, and fresh, shiny dark brown dates, as well as pyramid shaped mounds of gleaming red pomegranates and of pale yellow gawafas, the perfumed guavas resembling quince. (From Camp Caesar to Cleopatra’s Pool, p. 49)

Today all these fruits are still arranged in appetizing mounds in the fruit markets and stalls. But the Greek grocer has gone, and the Swiss community has shrunk considerably, becoming once more about 30 members.

It isn’t only the Swiss community that has decreased. The cosmopolitan population of Alexandria has all but disappeared, leaving only a trace of the lively mosaic of races, languages and cuisines that had once characterized this Mediterranean city. Nevertheless, many eating habits have survived, even if their origin is forgotten. Here and there a meal will find its way to the table, or a dip to eat with a cat’s ear, and we will not stop to remember how we learned to eat this particular dish. The foreigners will continue to delight in ful and molokheya on Fridays and Sundays, and the Egyptians will continue to think that dolma, moussaka, pastrami and kebabs are national Egyptian dishes. Alexandrians will still take pride in kebda Iskandarani and consider their cuisine the best in Egypt, for is it not a blending of many communities and the distinctive cosmopolitan flavor of the city?

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