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My Egypt

Michael Mina Reconnects with His Roots in My Egypt

10 Minute read

Craft and Memory

For Mina, the most powerful discoveries came not from flavor alone, but from technique. He recalls watching women in Egypt hand-pull feteer meshaltet dough into gossamer-thin sheets the size of a dining table. “It reminded me of laminated pastry,” he says. “It’s incredibly technical—and humbling to watch.”

That sense of reverence and curiosity animates every page of My Egypt, which blends foundational recipes with thoughtful adaptations designed for the modern kitchen. It’s not about reproducing his mother’s exact dishes, Mina says. It’s about honoring the spirit behind them while pushing their possibilities forward.

Even the act of writing the book became a form of personal restoration. “After I moved out of my parents’ house, I stopped speaking Arabic. I lost that connection for a while,” Mina says. “This was a way to bring it back.”

The Future of Egyptian Cuisine

While Mina has woven dishes from My Egypt into his restaurant menus—particularly at Orla—he’s hesitant to label any one concept as strictly Egyptian. “A lot of Egyptian food is street food,” he explains. “And while I love it, I’ve always wanted to show what happens when you take those flavors and apply technique, structure, and storytelling to them.”

Still, he sees a bright future for modern Egyptian cuisine—especially if it’s allowed to evolve, hybridize, and find its place within the broader Eastern Mediterranean context. “The region has so many crosscurrents,” he says. “Sicilian, Greek, Lebanese, Palestinian, Turkish—you see all of it in Egypt’s food. It tells the story of how many cultures have come through.”

Above all, Mina hopes readers will see My Egypt as an invitation: to explore new flavors, to rethink familiar ones, and to embrace the complex histories behind what we cook and eat.

“I just wanted to open people’s eyes,” he says. “To Egypt, to our food, to the idea that heritage can be both sacred and flexible.”

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