I'll Take the Fruit Plate!

We had picked up some good strawberries yesterday, so I had a fruit plate for breakfast.


You will encounter a fruit vendor on just about any major street in Cairo.  While there is fruit available in the supermarkets, most people buy from these vendors.  This one has long "owned" the corner where Ragab Brothers market now resides.

 



Bananas are currently selling for 5 Egyptian Pounds per Kilo.  That works out to about 35 cents per pound.  Here is a kilo, or 76 cents worth.


Fresh fruit here is a pretty good deal.  That is not an orange on the plate at the top of this post, by the way.  It is a Mediterranean Mandarin known locally as a Yousef Effendi.  According to this website:

Yusuf Effendi al-Armani, bought and brought with him mandarin saplings from the Island of Malta, and planted it in Muhammed Ali’s orchard. The fruit became popular and its production was so lucrative that it was named Yusuf Effendi after the enterprising Armenian who introduced it.