Updated October 10, 2026 at 6:00 AM EDT
Marwa Ezzat and Maha Daqaq enjoyed breakfast at Nasser Al Fayoumi — an unassuming food cart and small shop in downtown Cairo with metal chairs and tables on the street. Their breakfast of choice: taamiya. They're crunchy donut hole-sized bites that are nearly identical to falafel — except these are made of fava beans, not chickpeas.
For millions of Egyptians, taamiya is a staple food that pairs with ful medames, a mashed fava bean dish.
This classic duo — one creamy and zesty, the other dry and crispy — is known locally as ful wi taamiya.
Fava beans have been in Egypt for millennia. A version of these beans were depicted being served in symbolic offerings to Ancient Egyptian gods some three thousand years ago.
These days, 21-year-old Yousef Ahmed mashes up fava beans into a paste of herbs and spices — cilantro, dill, cumin — to make taamiya at the food cart. Presiding over a cauldron of oil, he makes more than 4,000 of these golden fried-balls a day.
At Ahmed's cart, one order of ful wi taamiya costs 10 Egyptian pounds — that's 20 cents. With a third of Egyptians living in poverty, on just a few dollars a day, this is a breakfast to fuel the people.
Dhanika Pineda adapted this story for the web.
Copyright 2026 NPR
