In addition to the basic bread or grain ration most families were able to increase their food supplies by hunting, trapping and fishing, while even those living in the crowded towns and cities were able to rear a few fowl, sheep or a goat to eat up scraps of waste food and produce a daily supply of eggs, milk and cheese. The larger estates of the wealthy were practically self-supporting, maintaining their own granaries, bakeries and farms and staffed by their own servants. Those thrifty householders who were able to accumulate an excess of one product, perhaps by growing their own vegetables or by making extra bread, were able to barter their surplus at the market and buy in an even greater variety of food. Thus, while the menus of the poor and less enterprising usually involved a fairly dull and rather flatulent rotation of bread, onions, lettuce, radish and pulses, the more successful were able to tuck into mouthwatering mounds of succulent meat, poultry and fish, served with a selection of fresh fruits and vegetables and accompanied by bread and cakes.
Do not eat bread while another stands by, without offering your portion to him. Food is always here. It is man who does not last.
Advice offered by Scribe Any
Bread was by far and away the most important food prepared by the Egyptian housewife. In the absence of other high-carbohydrate foods such as potatoes, pasta, rice and bananas, bread was the staple component of the diet, doubly important as the major ingredient in the popular home-brewed beer. Bread was consumed in vast quantities, enjoyed by rich and poor alike, and frequently presented as a desirable offering to both the gods and the dead. To the Egyptians bread stood as a symbol representing all foods, and to be without bread either in this life or the next was simply unthinkable. It is not surprising that baking was a motif featured time and time again in tombs, either in the form of painted scenes or small model bakeries, while the importance of having enough bread to eat was constantly stressed in folk tales and proverbs.
Without the convenience of shop-bought milled flour daily breadmaking was a relatively hard grind. It was necessary to process all the household flour by hand on a stone saddle quern; in a household of five or six adults with the healthy appetites of manual workers this must have been a daunting task. Once ground and passed through a sieve, the rather gritty flour was mixed with water and salt to make an unleavened chapati or pitta-type bread which could be quickly cooked on a flat stone placed either within the oven or on an open fire. Leavened loaves were made by kneading the flour with yeast and water to form a stiff dough. Spices, salt or flavourings could be added before baking to improve the taste, while the addition of fat, eggs and sweet dates made the basic loaf into a tasty cake. The bread was either shaped by hand or pressed into a mould and then allowed to rise before baking within the oven. Not surprisingly, many different varieties and shapes of loaf were produced. There were over fifteen words used to differentiate between the different types of bread baked during the Old Kingdom, and over forty New Kingdom words for bread and cakes. The most popular breads were semi-circular loaves shaped by hand and tall pointed loaves which were baked in distinctive conical moulds, but more elaborate breads baked into the shape of animals or even female figures were eaten on special occasions.
Better is bread with a happy heart than wealth with vexation.
New Kingdom proverb
In contrast to bread, meat, especially beef, was a very highly prized food but one which was not enjoyed by the majority of the population with any degree of frequency. It was theoretically possible for anyone to purchase the cuts of beef which represented the distribution of surplus meat from the temples, but meat was always a luxury commodity eaten only by the rich. Considering the lack of refrigeration and the prevalence of flies and dirt the beef would probably not have appeared particularly tempting to modern eyes; indeed, no one from the western plastic-wrapped and hygiene-obsessed supermarket culture who has seen a modern open-air Egyptian butcher’s shop is likely to forget the sight in a hurry. Some prosperous individuals did own one or more cows but it was only the most wealthy or the larger temple estates who could afford to maintain a herd of non-working cattle as a food source. These food-cattle were fattened up by force-feeding on balls of bread, and were slaughtered only when they were almost too obese to walk, yielding a tender and fatty meat. Less wealthy cattle owners made the best use that they could of their investments by exploiting their cows primarily for their milk and dung and even using them in ploughing and threshing. Only at the end of its working life was a privately owned cow slaughtered, and the resulting meat must have been flavoursome but rather stringy and tough. Once a cow had been killed no part of the animal was ever wasted; brains, entrails, ears, tongue and feet were all consumed with relish and even the blood was saved to make a tasty black pudding. The fat had a multitude of uses, and ‘ox grease’ was a commonly used ingredient in patent medicines. The upper classes, less concerned about waste, are depicted eating only the prime cuts of beef.