How This Artist Brings Egyptian Culture and Food Together Through Her Illustrations

Have you ever wondered how traditional Egyptian idioms came to be? In all honesty, we never have until we realised that most of them are very much influenced by food or are based on food. This is where Egyptian artist Mai El Naga comes in.

El Naga recently took an interest towards illustrating idioms, and let us tell you that the results were absolutely gripping. In the picture above, she has a man with a watermelon in his tummy that perfectly conveys when people say "put a watermelon in your tummy;" a popular phrase Egyptians use to reassure someone, asking them to relax or stop worrying.

"As Egyptians, food represents a very large part of our culture. We tend to integrate it in almost all aspects of our lives, to the point where it has even found its way to our language," she tells us. "Overhearing a conversation once at a local Egyptian cafè, it suddenly hit me how big of an influence food has on the choice of idioms we use! That’s where my inspiration came from." 

Check out her Instagram to see more of her work.