Location
New York City, New York
School
American University
Expertise
Egyptian cuisine, History of fast food menus, Food as cultural memory
- After a two-week stay in Cairo to visit family led to a permanent residence, he became enamored with experiencing the city's food scene, from its ful carts to luxury dining on the Nile River.
- When he returns to the West Coast, his first stop is A's Burger, the family-run fast-food shop where he worked summers during high school. It was there that he first became interested in the history of menus—a curiosity that has since turned into a mild obsession with how certain specialties become fixtures of a place over time.
- Growing up in a Greek-American household, he's fascinated by food as a cultural memory and how recipes shared among the diaspora have preserved identity for generations.
Experience
Costa is a freelance writer with experience highlighting the culinary and cultural spheres in the United States, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. After moving to Cairo, he became a staff writer at the MO4 Network, where he covered Egypt's food scene from pop-up restaurants on the Mediterranean Sea to the best dining spots to gossip in Cairo. He's spent the past few years taking cooking classes on koshary making and learning Arabic through trips to the spice markets. Costa believes food is a tool for building community and preserving cultural identity. His writing can be found in the Los Angeles Times, ELLE, Scene Eats, and Business Insider.
Education
Costa earned a bachelor's degree in journalism with a minor in English from American University.
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