Fish, Milk, Tamarind

GOURMAND AWARD WINNER 2023, BEST ILLUSTRATED

A delightfully illustrated selection of 100 commonly used Egyptian food expressions

Can you guess what Egyptians mean when they say that something is “a peeled banana” or that someone is “sleeping in honey” or has "turned the sea to tahini"? You may find the answers quite unexpected when you open the pages of this delightful giftbook featuring some one hundred popular food-inflected phrases and sayings used by native speakers of Egyptian Arabic.

Idiomatic expressions lend color, dynamism, and humor to everyday speech, and convey complex ideas and beliefs with an economy of words that also tell us something about the culture from which they spring. Each expression in Fish, Milk, Tamarind is given in Arabic script and English transliteration followed by its literal and intended meanings, while humorous color illustrations throughout help readers visualize and remember the expressions. Learners and native speakers of Arabic, as well as Egypt enthusiasts and language lovers will find much in this book to teach, entertain, and enthrall them.