A huge part of the Egyptians cultural daily life activities is dedicated to food. As an inseparable part of their inherited legacy, the Egyptian table is full of rich meals with essential dishes that are irreplaceable. After the high jumps in prices, which started affecting all commodities in Egypt, including food, Egyptians wouldn t stop their craving for food; however, their food preferences were affected. Analyzing people s food cravings and preferences indicates a lot about people s lifestyles.
In a series of info graphs published by Elmenus, an online food-discovery platform, about Egyptians food preferences in 2016, the affect of the jumping prices clearly reflected the bad economic state Egyptians suffer from.
Egyptian cuisine took over foreign kitchens in 2016. According to the survey, koshary, feteer, and kebda (chicken liver) were among the most searched food on the website, as people craved them the most, along with pizza, pasta, and shawerma.
The opening of new Egyptian cuisine restaurants in 2016 indicates people s increasing craving for oriental food, as well as their lost interest in foreign dishes. That is explained due to the huge increase of prices, which have at least doubled in the last three years, as the info graphs shows.
104 Egyptian oriental food restaurants opened their doors for customers for the first time in 2016, a number that is the highest in the last four years, compared to 87 restaurants in 2015 and 59 in 2014. 50% of total Egyptian restaurants since 2011 opened in 2016 only.
Spanish, Argentinean, Greek, and Australian restaurants in Egypt are struggling to survive, with a high decrease in people ordering from them. Shisha lounges join the list for the first time as well and loose the competition against koshary, pasta, and seafood restaurants, which climbed to the top of the list. Only Turkish restaurants managed to survive the rarely-ordered-from restaurants and joined the other list.
Despite that, Elmenus predicts that with the rapid price increases, most Egyptians will eventually not be able to afford buying processed food by the end of 2019.
