Snack · Salt-Cured
Termes (Salted Lupini Beans)
Photo: Mona Abo-Abda / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Raw lupini beans are mildly toxic until they've been soaked and rinsed in changes of water for several days straight — the entire snack exists because of that multi-day process.
Termes vendors sell yellow lupini beans by the paper cone or small plate, scooped from buckets of brine along the Nile corniche and outside cinemas and parks. Egyptians pop the beans from their skins with their teeth and eat them lightly salted, one by one, as a slow evening snack.
Why it's made this way: Because raw lupini is bitter and mildly toxic, generations of vendors perfected the days-long soak-and-rinse process needed to make it safely edible, turning a laborious preparation into a beloved, cheap night-time ritual.
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Part of World of Street Food — 3248 dishes from 118 countries.
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