From palm to plate
Soft, succulent and rich, agwa is to die for. Lina Mahmoud and photographer Sawsan Amer trace the treat's production
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(HOLDING ON TO TRADITION: (Clockwise from top) A farmer climbs a palm tree; harvesting dates; al-tansim; sorting the bounty
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Palm trees have been planted in Egypt since the dawn of history. They are mentioned in The Book of the Dead. Palm trees were named Bnr or Bnrt in the Hieroglyphic language. The word means sweet and the liquor made from the palm trees was called the liquor of life.
--Palm Trees in Egypt by Thomas William Braun and Mohamed Bahgat.
Deep in the villages of Giza -- the governorate home to an estimated 414,400 palm trees -- amongst forests of date-laden palms, is the hidden industry of agwa.
The most famous of agwa producing villages is Al-Marazeek, whose name means "those who are lucky in finding work and money". The life of the village is directly linked to that of its trees. In addition to dates and agwa, the village also produces furniture from palm fronds. Camels carrying palm products from one side of the village to the other is a common sight.
Typical of the village is the Sayed Said family, who own a small gheit (a garden of palm trees) of 20 palms. Said sat making vegetable crates from palm fronds that sell for 75 piastres, explaining that he has "done all sorts of jobs related to palm trees. When it is time for pollination I climb the trees to pollinate them. When it is time for harvesting the dates I climb them again. And later on in the season I make vegetable crates with the discarded stems of trimmed palms."
We spoke as the village was immersed in the production of agwa -- the first batch of which hit the market this month. The coincidence of the agwa season and the Eid Al-Fitr which follows the month of Ramadan, and whose hallmark is cookies filled with the soft and chewy agwa, could not be better.
It all starts in September and October, when the men tie themselves to the palm trees with sturdy ropes and hoist themselves to where the ripe dates await harvesting. The dates are dropped into a large iron plate tied to the lower part of the tree, where another man waits. After this process is completed, both men pick the dates apart from their sobata (stems), and transfer them to ginab (round hand-woven containers).
The next step is usually done by women "because they are more patient", according to the villagers. The women sort the dates on long hassayer (mats) and leave them in the sun to dry. Though the process takes a whole day it does not get the women off the hook from their daily chores. They continue their routine of drawing water through hand pumps and carrying it to their husbands in the fields and to home, in addition to cooking and cleaning.
Palm trees typically live for 200 to 300 years. They are spread mainly in the Western Desert and Giza. Though Egypt is the sixth largest cultivator of palm trees in the world, their number has been declining since the early 20th century when the first Aswan dam was built. With the construction of the dam, the number of palms decreased from about 12 million to about five million.
source: Palm Trees in Egypt by Braun and Bahgat.
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The dates are then left in the sun for a week to 10 days, collected and again put in ginab. In the next step, called al-tansim, water is poured over the dates before villagers squash them by foot. Most villagers believe Nile water must be used in this step -- tradition has it that potable water will render the dates rotten. Men stand in the ginab and stomp their feet on the dates, adding more water when necessary. They insist the procedure is sanitary. "We wash our feet before undertaking the job," they tell Al-Ahram Weekly.
After the dates are pressed, the baskets are covered and knit shut. Large holes are then dug for entombing the ginab. Two weeks later the agwa is ready for its final processing.
The ginab are hauled to a small, rudimentary factory nearby. After women pull off the date caps the dates go through a machine that separates the pits from the flesh. The last stage is a machine that chops the dates. This end of the production process takes place in generally unclean conditions. The factory was full of flies and large bags of rotten looking agwa on the ground.
Factory employee Nasser Ahmed is nevertheless proud to point out that companies like Bisco Misr, a leading cookie company, is among their customers. He explains that an qentar (126 kilogrammes) is sold by the factory to companies and wholesalers for LE130 in the winter and LE180 in the summer.
Ahmed then describes the taxonomy of agwa, differentiating its various types by production method and the kind of raw date used. "The standard agwa is made of one kind of Siwi date and goes through all the above-mentioned steps. There is another agwa that goes through two steps only -- taking off the cap and removing the pits. And there is agwa that is made out of several kinds of dates such as Siwi and Amhat. These are mashed with the pits and the caps. This is the cheapest agwa," he says.
"Agwa is the food of the poor," says Amr El-Shazli, an agwa dealer in Bab Al-Bahr, a low-income district in Cairo famous for its sweets factories. El-Shazli laments the increase in prices of agwa, wondering "what the poor will eat if the price of everything increases crazily".
Magdi Shawki has a grocery shop in Al-Gamaliya and sells agwa for three pounds per kilo. "I used to sell agwa for LE1.50 or LE1.80 last year. Agwa is an Egyptian product. I'm not convinced that the increase in the value of the dollar has anything to do with me," says Shawki furiously. When he asked his distributors why prices had risen he was told that the factories must now pay more to the villagers who own the palm trees. "People declined to buy nuts because they are very expensive this year. And now they are declining to buy agwa. I have lost a lot of money in this trade," he laments.
Despite the prices, Gihan Arafa, a young housewife, is out buying agwa. Every year she gets agwa to put in cookies or serve with butter. "I know it may be dirty -- I find sand sometimes in what I buy," she says. "And this year it may be a bit more expensive. But I can't resist buying it."
