DISPATCHES: Dahab, Egypt

It is true that the world has undoubtedly changed after the pandemic. People are more concerned with health-related issues and diets, which led many to Plant-based diets. Living in a small town that is overlooking the sea in Egypt has effectively revealed a lot of the changes concerning both diet and animals.

Vegans who are new in town have helped a lot in creating a demand for vegan food, so more restaurants now are offering more vegan items.

In Dahab, the town where I live, many people escaped from big cities and others crossed seas to have a breathable life by the sea. A lot of them have developed healthier lifestyles than before by eating more vegetables and sticking to a plant based diet. Apparently, people can relate to pandemics and eating animals.

Ethically, marine life has inspired dozens of people to have a second thought of how animals are exploited.

Sea animals are incredibly smart, yet their sensibility was always doubted and nobody thought of them feeling empathy for each other. But now people are finally paying attention to the fact that humanity evolved from whales, so more articles are shared on social media that approach sea creatures’ intelligence, which surprisingly revealed how some of them have the skills of solving puzzles and using tools. Consequently , land and sea animals both gained empathy.

On one hand, vegans who are new in town have helped a lot in creating a demand for vegan food, so more restaurants now are offering more vegan items. Moreover, business owners started hosting more vegan chefs in order to meet the demand. On the other hand, vegans in Dahab are attempting to offer vegan homemade food and it is filling the gap for vegans and encouraging people who used to eat meat before to have a prospect for veganism.

Most people now go for a salad as a main lunch dish due to summer’s heat in most places.

The Lebanese cuisine is rich in nourishing salad recipes, yet my favorite one is the Monk’s Salad, for this one you need:

• 1 roasted eggplant

• Juice of 2 lemons

• 2 tbsp parsley/coriander, chopped

• 1 Tbsp walnuts, chopped

• 1/8 cup onions, chopped

• 1 medium tomato, chopped

• 1 clove garlic, grated

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• salt

In a bowl, mix tomatoes, onion, garlic and walnuts. In another bowl, mix the olive oil with the lemon juice and salt, then add it to the salad bowl. Finish with the eggplant dices and the coriander. It is said that this salad is named after a monk who lived in one of the monasteries in the mountains of Lebanon. For those monks, they always combined whatever vegetables were available to eat; on the contrary, this one monk, he remained nameless, but his salad is fairly favoured.

By Jenna Kamal