Eating Egypt

My apologies for a long break in writing - graduate school applications have (necessarily) been a time-sucker. In the midst of the contagion effect of middle eastern countries calling their autocratic leaders to authority, my friends at Epicurious's Epi-Log wrote this excellent analysis of how the uprising is impacting Egypt's food.

Eating Egypt
by Michael Y. Park
on 02/03/11 at 09:02 AM

The history of Egypt is the history of food, and this current crisis is no exception. In Roman times, Egypt served as the granary of the empire, and could throw around its political clout by holding the Eternal City for ransom by withholding food shipments. In modern times, the shoe's on the other foot: Egypt, with its exploding population concentrated in a narrow strip of land, may be the world's biggest importer of wheat, importing 40 percent of its food and 60 percent of its wheat.

Today, in Cairo, it will be interesting to see what happens with the distribution of food to the Egyptian people. The Mubarak government has absorbed much of the cost of the global increase in food prices. It is, after all, a country where one in five people lives on less than $1 a day. Some 14.2 million poor receive subsidized bread.

In the midst of the protests, food stores are among the only retail outlets that remain open. Warehouses are full of food staples, but there are reports that it's difficult to impossible to get them to the people. The bread factories that feed the millions simply can't get the flour, oil, and other products they need to keep running.

Not surprisingly, prices have soared for the food that is available, at least while the streets are still filled with protesters and counter-protesters. One woman described a 20-percent increase in the price of bread, with the cheaper options simply off the table for now.

And with the looting, major food retailers have shuttered their doors. Carrefour, for example, has closed all of its seven locations in the Cairo area.
All around, it's a volatile situation that won't necesssarily resolve itself with Mubarak's fall from power.


Read More http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/blogs/editor/2011/02/eating-egypt.html#ixzz1CzphJWl0