On Damascus Street in Heliopolis, the crowds of people are already getting ready for the spring feast, known in Egypt as Sham El-Nessim. The gait of the pedestrians walking on the street seems to accelerate as the holiday approaches.
Crowds of cars surrounded the nearby St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Church. Workers from the church were setting up carved palms to be distributed on Coptic Easter, days before the actual holiday of Sham El-Nessim. Coptic hymns were echoing into the street as devoted church-goers fill the wooden pews inside.
Though Sham El-Nessim is the day right after Coptic Easter, it is a national holiday that both Muslims and Christians celebrate. The origins of the holiday date back to the times of ancient Egypt.
Mohammed Abdel Zaher, who along with his three brothers run a fish market on the same street, is already hard at work preparing the traditional dish of the season, fiseekh, a salted dried fish.
“Fiseekh is something that our ancient Egyptian ancestors used to eat, said Abdel Zaher. “People have already started to order fiseekh even 10 days before the holiday.
Abdel Zaher seemed to be impressed by the ability of heavily salted fish to resist decay. “The ancient Egyptians didn’t have refrigerators, so they used to salt food to preserve it, he said smiling. “They were so advanced.
His store, Fasayekh El-A’ilat (“fiseekh for the families ), has been on the same street for 60 years.
“I have been working in this industry my whole life, said Abdel Zaher. “My father was the one who started the business.
Abdel Zaher’s father, Mussalim, is an elderly man who sits near the door to make sure his sons are doing everything right. He is obviously a man of tradition having two green birds tattooed on opposite sides of his forehead, a style in Upper Egypt that is believed to bring good luck.
It was almost 11 pm and people were still crowding the small fish market ordering fiseekh.
Egyptians have reason to be obsessed with fiseekh. Egyptologists have now traced the origin of the concept of eating fiseekh and found that the tradition has a much more theological slant.
According to Ahmed Seddik, an Egyptology lecturer at the American University in Cairo, fiseekh is not only a dish, but is also considered by some traditional Egyptians to be an adequate substitute for fertility treatment.
He recounts the story of Ancient Egyptian deity Osiris who was chopped up into pieces and thrown into the Nile. “The fertility myth, he explains, “originates from the idea that the fiseekh fish ate the [male reproductive organ] of the god Osiris, he said.
Among Egyptian men, the consumption of fiseekh was also believed to be a potential aphrodisiac.
Sham El-Nessim features several delicious foods that the ancients believed had other benefits. Onions were believed to have certain spiritual elements that may be beneficial to the soul according to pagan beliefs.
“It was thought that it had properties that would ward off the evil spirits, said Seddik. “[They believed] it indicated eternity.
Eggs were thought of as symbolic of creation. “The ancient Egyptians believed that gods used to originate from an egg.
However, food isn’t the only special part of the festivities. Sham El-Nessim was also a celebration of the beginning of the harvesting season. Seddik explains that the Egyptian calendar had three seasons, including akhet (period of Nile floods), peret (the period of growth), and shemu (the period of harvest).
However, some Egyptology scholars said that the tradition is linked with the idea of death and rebirth. The concept of rebirth is thus associated with the harvesting of fresh crops during the spring.
Edward Lane, a 19th century English explorer in Egypt, accurately recorded the practices of modern Egyptian culture 150 years ago in his book “Manners and Customs.
Lane’s explanation of the word ‘sham’ was that it was the Arabic word for smelling and thus was associated with the practice of ‘Smelling the Zephyr’ among Egyptian peasants. This practice also referred to as the ‘smelling of the onion’ which was done to celebrate the blooming of fresh crops.
“The word shemu evolved into the word sham and hence Sham El-Nessim, said Seddik.
