Fermented Fish · Spring Festival
Feseekh (Fermented Grey Mullet)
Photo: Ashashyou / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
The Delta town of Nabaroh is known as the capital of feseekh, its streets lined with stalls giving off the fish's famously pungent aroma every spring.
Grey mullet is salted and left to ferment for weeks or months until it turns soft and intensely pungent, then served raw with onion, oil, and lemon. Delta towns along the Nile branches, especially Nabaroh, sell it from dedicated feseekh stalls in the run-up to Egypt's spring festival.
Why it's made this way: It's the centerpiece of Sham el-Nessim, an ancient spring holiday whose name means 'smelling the breeze,' with roots going back to techniques ancient Egyptians used to preserve fish for workers building the pyramids.
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