Balady is a Middle Eastern unleavened sourdough flatbread, especially popular in Egypt, where it is the everyday bread of millions. Traditionally made from wholemeal wheat flour and naturally fermented, it is baked hot and fast so it puffs into a pocketed round eaten with nearly every meal. Its wholegrain character and natural fermentation give it a tangy flavour, better keeping quality, and improved mineral availability compared with many flatbreads. Subsidised and widely available, balady is as much a social staple as a food, and its production in high-throughput bakeries demands consistent flour quality and fermentation control to keep this humble bread reliable at enormous scale.