The first time I made ful was on a cold, rainy afternoon during my last semester of college. And by made, I mean dumped a can of ful, a fava bean stew, into a small saucepan. As I stirred the beans, I found myself grateful that the week before I rescued the can out from underneath the coriander, fenugreek and other assorted spices filling my parents’ pantry before heading back to school two-and-a-half hours away.
I sat down at the long, laminated-wood table, placing the warm bowl of ful in front of me, along with a just-microwaved flour tortilla that burned my fingertips as I tore off pieces. I grabbed a shred of the tortilla, swirling the almost-pita bread in the small pockets of oil settling on the surface.
It didn’t taste exactly like how it did in my family’s home kitchen, served in a large, glass platter placed at the center of a cluttered countertop—the meeting point of half a dozen pita bread-armed hands. This time there was only one hand—my own.
I reached for my phone and snapped a quick photo. “Having ful!!!” I wrote in our family group chat. “Eating it with a tortilla :( ”
My dad texted back: thumbs-up emoji.
It wasn’t the same, but it was still good, still familiar. Comforting.
It took me back to the first time I visited Sudan in 2008, where I shared ful with the cousins, aunts and uncles that up until that trip, I had only heard about in stories. My parents were born and raised in northern Sudan before moving to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, in the 1980s, and eventually Alexandria in 2001, towing along me and my two sisters. The first stop in our new country: Comfort Inn.
My dad has a specific store where he buys dried fava beans needed to make ful. These canned ones weren’t from the local Mediterranean grocery store that he swears by, nor were they soaked the night before and slow-cooked for hours in our well-loved crockpot. There was no salty feta cheese or freshly baked pita bread from the nearby Lebanese deli. No dark, fragrant sesame oil as garnish. No freshly ground cumin. No crispy falafel or soft-boiled eggs on the side.
Even in the absence of these things, somehow, each bite took me back to our weekly Saturday morning breakfasts, with my dad shouting in Arabic “Danya! Come downstairs! Breakfast!” We would all gather around the granite kitchen island to share a bowl of the thick, warm bean dish.
Although we didn’t talk much, it was during these weekly breakfasts that I learned about my parents’ lives in Sudan before immigrating to Alexandria and the bits and pieces of Sudanese culture that they brought along with them, like this very meal. Ful, he says, is “the food of the people; it’s a reminder of Sudan.” And to me, it’s family.
Where Danya AbdelHameid’s family sources ful ingredients:
Fava beans
DNS Family Market: 5820-G Seminary Road, Falls Church; dnsfamilymarketfallschurch.com
Pita bread
Mediterranean Bakery: 352 S. Pickett St., Alexandria; 703-751-0030
Afghan Mini Market: 6566 Backlick Road, Springfield; 703-644-0186
Feta cheese
Fair Price International Supermarket, 5703 Edsall Road, Alexandria; 703-751-0786
Sesame oil
Fair Price International Supermarket, 5703 Edsall Road, Alexandria; 703-751-0786
See the full Comfort Food feature from the January issue here.
