A traditional favourite of Egyptians, fuul is a dish that can also make for a thriving business.
In almost every street corner in Egypt, there’s a reddish- colour cart, a two-tyre wooden semi-vehicle with neither an engine nor a horse to pull it.
That huge round thing in its center is not Budddha, and the people crowding around are not his followers. It is in fact the well known fuul cart, topped by the kedra (a huge pot).
Fuul is the local name for cooked fava beans, the most favored food of Egyptians, whether rich or poor. It’s the Egyptian morning ritual, and sometimes a ritual at night as well.
Fuul is the business of the poor, supposedly for the poor. But the rich enjoy it as well, and sometimes a couple of those poor businessmen get rich too.
It’s not a matter of complicated management and proper book-keeping, or the nonsense taught at business schools or among poverty alleviation academia. It’s all about the spirit and flavour of fuul.
According to the Egyptian Chambre of Commerce, Egyptians consume around 2.5 million tons of fuul a year—200,000 tons a month, with a 30% increase during the holy month of Ramadan, when it’s eaten as a must-have sohour meal (late dinner before the day’s fasting begins).
Ziko is one of those Fuul vendors. He works in Ein Shams, northern Cairo, a lower –middle income area with a population of more than a million. On a corner at Mansheyet El-Tahrir Street he runs his clearly very successful business.
It’s 2 AM, sohour time before the dawn comes, Ziko is extremely busy serving fuul to his customers. At least four coffee shops in the area are packed with guests ordering, in a rather help-yourself fashion, meals for about LE3. They find a seat to eat the meal and wrap up with a drink for LE1-2.
Ziko does not engage in conversation with his customers. He just smiles continually, ignoring the irritating repetition of “Ziko yalla yalla!” ( Hurry up Ziko!) from the more than ten customers who are all waiting to be served her dish of fuul, before joining the hundreds who are already enjoying their beans seated at the neighboring coffee shops—which are almost certainly happy to have Ziko plying his trade nearby.
It’s impossible to get any information from Ziko, the Ein Shams monument. He reacts the same with everyone: gazing back at them with a smile. But it’s worth seeing him in action as an example of how such a business can be amazingly successful.
Another hugely successful example is Mahrous in Garden City, closer to Downtown. Mahrous himself seems to be invisible: He’s never to be found nearby his business. His success might be a phenomenon on its own. Unfortunately, he doesn’t communicate with the media, according to members of his sizeable teams who were all fearful of talking with a journalist.
Mahrous’ fuul place has become a local touristic destination which foreign residents of Cairo sometimes love to share. Rumours has is it that Adel Imam, the iconic comedian/film star is a customer there. No one so far has seen him at Mahrous’ place, but at least the fuul is great and the crazy scene entertaining.
The street Mahrous is located in and streets leading to it are packed with a terrible traffic jam every Ramadan night for sohour, and to a lesser extent on regular night—Mahrous’s fuul place never works during the daytime.
Mercedes S Classes, Jeep Cherokees, Hummers and other automobile brands are parked all around. Upper-class teenage boys and girls who look like models wanting to hang out among the poor are here—but they’re in the wrong place, as there are no real poor. Mahrous’ meals cost LE15 on average, including obligatory salad and fries. These upper-class boys and girls consider the price cheap of course, but maybe they don’t know that just five minutes away there is another place that charges a maximum of LE5 to order all available dishes.
A less packed fuul cart belonging to Kamel El-Bassiouny can be found in Downtown. El-Bassiouny explains his own observations of clients, saying, “You can be anyone, regardless of your ‘class’ and come have my LE3 meal – even if you’re a millionaire. My foul is addictive.”
“But at noon, it’s the time of only the poor, the people who I’m one of. They cannot afford a meat meal sir. People are suffering. Thank God, and ask him to keep the fuul for us,” El- Bassiouny adds, and laughs loudly.
A fuul project can be about 200 percent profitable, and sometimes much more. Each kedra holds from eight to ten kilograms of beans. The locally planted beans cost LE6 per kilo, while an imported variety costs LE3.5 or LE4.
Alongside a variety of salads, pickles, and sometimes sandwiches-to-go, an average fuul vendors—not of Ziko’s class—would make an average of LE300 net profit per day using one kedra.
This can be much less on weekends though, as the fuul carts mainly target people on their way to work. That’s why many of the fuul carts disappear on weekends.
A couple of block away from El-Bassiouny, another young fuul vendor has a story to tell. Shehata Asran, a 28 years-old upper Egyptian, came to cairo from the south after he lost hope of finding a job.
Asran is a graduate of Assiut University with a bachelor’s degree in education. He dreamed of becoming a teacher and taking after one teacher in particular who inspired him. But his idol failed to warn him that teaching is not the right occupation to survive, financially, in Egypt. “I was unemployed for three years after graduation. Finally, I found a place at a public school. To my surprise, my salary was LE115 a month, with a temporary contract,” says Asran.
After working as a teacher for a whole year Asran relaised that he had wasted his efforts on the wrong dream for the wrong country. He moved to Cairo and worked in many different low-skilled jobs for a couple of years, until the brilliant fuul cart idea sparked in his head.
“Now, thank God, I’m doing very well. I’m living the happiest days of my life. I’m even getting married very soon, after the feast,” Asran says.
Trying to identify his recipe for success in the fuul business, Asran explains, “It’s all in God’s hand! All you need to do is work hard and leave it to him.”
More practically, he adds, “Everyone has his own flavour and secret mix. It’s not magic, it comes with practice. The most important thing is cleanliness. And on the top of all of that, a jovial face with a sweet tongue.”
Kareem Adel, a salesman who is apparently a regular client at Asran’s cart, is having sohour with his friends. It’s about 2:30 AM. Adel provides another explaination for Asran’s success formula.
“In the regular days [not Ramadan] I can’t start my day without having my fuul at Shehata’s, my tea from the next coffee shop, and a Cleopatra cigarette [a cheap, locally-produced brand]. If I don’t see Asran and follow this routine, my day will go wrong.”
This article is originally published by Al Borsa