Daughters of Isis - Joyce Tyldesley Read online

  One very real problem shared by both the Roman and the

  Fig. 15 Two New Kingdom ladies attended by a servant at a banquet

  Egyptian cooks was the hot weather; without refrigeration no food could be kept for any length of time and, although grain and some fruit and vegetables could be stockpiled for future use, meat and fish had to be dried or pickled before they could be stored, while milk and dairy products needed to be kept as cool as possible in damp earthenware pots. The problem of valuable meat going bad before it could be eaten was to a certain extent solved by the practice of slaughtering animals immediately before cooking, while the gregarious Egyptian habit of redistributing food by means of a dinner party also ensured that there was little leftover meat to go to waste. As polite guests would naturally extend reciprocal invitations to their hosts this system ensured that the net consumption of prestige foods by each individual remained constant. In contrast, there was no effective means of keeping bread fresh and, though its low fat-content meant that the bread could be kept for a day or so, it would almost certainly have been necessary to do a minimal amount of baking every two or three days. This cooking probably took place in the morning as the main meal of the day was a long and leisurely occasion enjoyed indoors while the fierce heat of the noon sun made outside work unattractive. The only other meals which had to be prepared were a light breakfast taken early in the morning and perhaps a small supper or snack to be eaten before retiring to bed.

  Unfortunately, we have no ancient Egyptian recipe books to allow us to re-create the dishes served to the pharaohs. However, we do have a surprising collection of ready-cooked foods. The Egyptians, with their uniquely practical approach to death, tried to ensure that the deceased would not pass hungry into the Afterlife by providing food, wherever possible, to be enjoyed within the tomb. Indeed, during the Old Kingdom whole meals were often interred with the body; the best-preserved example of this is the 2nd Dynasty tomb of an elderly woman buried at Sakkara which included a full dinner carefully set out on the floor.4 The menu was as follows:

  Loaf of bread

  Barley porridge

  Roast fish

  Pigeon stew

  Roast quail

  Cooked kidneys

  Leg and ribs of beef

  Stewed figs

  Fresh berries

  Honey cakes

  Cheese

  Grape wine

  The excavator of this tomb, Professor Emery, noted with interest that the deceased lady, whose body was substantially less well-preserved than her picnic, had suffered from an unfortunate jaw disability and, while alive, would certainly have been unable to eat such a demanding meal since she would only have been able to chew on one side of her mouth. Her menu is strikingly similar to the banquet served to mourners at the interment of King Tutankhamen over one thousand years later, when the eight guests were presented with nine ducks, four geese, sundry cuts of beef and mutton, bread, a selection of fruit and vegetables and wine. These dishes were all served together and, as in modern Egypt, the guests helped themselves to the foods which they preferred. There was no particular emphasis placed on eating food hot from the kitchen as there is in many colder western cultures.

  Make a great offering of bread and beer, large and small cattle, fowl, wine, fruit, incense and all kinds of good herbs on the day of founding Akhetaten…

  Extract from the Amarna Boundary Stela

  The exact quantity, quality and variety of food available to the individual chef naturally differed from household to household. The primary source of food for most was the daily ration earned by those members of the family who were literally ‘breadwinners’. In the absence of an official currency all workers were paid in kind in the form of rations; the composition of the ration varied from period to period but it invariably included either grain or beer and bread. The minimum daily ration seems to have been ten standard-sized loaves, and a Middle Kingdom story confirms this by telling us that the daily ration allotted by the Eloquent Peasant to feed his wife and family were ten loaves of bread and two jugs of beer. Those with more prestigious employment naturally received far more than this basic allowance, with daily payments of hundreds of loaves being made to the senior bureaucrats who then subdivided their portion between their household and their estate workers. The most generous rations of all were those sacrificed to the gods; offerings of one thousand loaves or a whole oxen were not unusual and, since these were then redistributed among the priests and temple workers, the Egyptian clergy became some of the best-fed people in the land. As Herodotus noted with more than a twinge of envy:

  They consume none of their own property and are at no expense for anything. Every day bread is baked for them of the sacred corn and a plentiful supply of beef and goose flesh is assigned to each.

  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.

  ‘Small cattle’ – that is, sheep, goats and to a lesser extent pigs – were fairly widely kept and consequently far more easily available to ordinary families. Hearty and nourishing meals of boiled mutton or goat stew were particularly enjoyed by the prosperous middle classes, although there is some indication that sheep may have been avoided by the conspicuously devout members of the upper classes in cities such as Thebes where the ram was venerated as a god. Sheep and goats were particularly important as a source of fresh milk, a great delicacy which was enjoyed as a hot drink and frequently used in cooking and which was, of course, vital for the production of cheese and clarified butter. Just as in many parts of the world today, pork was the subject of a more widespread religious taboo and was theoretically not acceptable as a food. However, archaeological evidence suggests that this ritual avoidance was not strictly observed. Herds of swine were clearly depicted on tomb walls, and the rubbish dumps of both Amarna and Deir el-Medina included quantities of pig bones suggestive of widespread pork consumption. Pigs are certainly very efficient animals as they eat up and re-cycle the waste food which would otherwise spoil in the hot climate, and they have the additional fringe benefit of providing a free street- and house-cleaning service.5

  The Nile contains every variety of fish and in numbers beyond belief; for it supplies all the natives not only with abundant subsistence from the fish freshly caught but it also yields an unfailing multitude of fish for salting.

  Diodorus Siculus

  Fish, a highly nutritious and tasty food full of protein and minerals, was enjoyed by all levels of society, and undoubtedly made a very important contribution to the diet of the very poor who might otherwise have experienced protein deficiency. Although harpoon-fishing was a favourite hobby of upper-class men, and the professional fishermen employed an impressive variety of lines, nets and traps to earn their livelihood, it was not actually necessary to own any tackle to go fishing in Egypt, and many enterprising food gatherers simply waited until the swollen waters of the inundation dropped and then picked up the dead and dying fish left stranded high and relatively dry in the muddy fields. Once caught the fish could either be grilled and eaten fresh or preserved by wind-drying, smoking, salting or pickling in oil before storing.

  Birds were another important and easily accessible source of food for the less wealthy. Although chickens were unknown until the very end of the New Kingdom, ducks and geese were widely available and could easily be raised within even the smallest home, while domesticated doves and pigeons were bred in purpose-built cotes. The ever-present waterfowl could be either trapped or netted as desired; hunting scenes do show wildfowlers earnestly stalking relatively small birds with large and aggressive-looking spears and throwing sticks, but these rather over-the-top methods were probably regarded as enjoyable sport rather than serious hunting techniques. Once caught the birds were housed in wooden cages and fattened up on grain before consumption. This system had the great advantage of providing a source of fresh meat without any need to worry about pickling or drying. The bird was simply kept alive until needed and then killed – by having its neck broken – just before cooking, as is still the custom in Egypt today, where it is common for almost all kitchens to be home to one or two live birds. The eggs produced by the captives made a useful addition to the household diet and could be supplemented by the eggs of wild birds.

  Fresh fruit and beans, pulses and vegetables also played a major nutritional role in the daily diet. The Egyptians were famous throughout the ancient world for their excessive consumption of raw vegetables, particularly onions, garlic and leeks, while melons and cucumbers enjoyed such widespread popularity that even the Children of Israel, freed at last from vile bondage in Egypt, could only lament:

  Will no one give us meat? Think of it. In Egypt we had fish for the asking, cucumbers and watermelons, leeks and onions and garlic. Now our throats are parched; there is nothing wherever we look except this manna.

  Manna, the so-called ‘bread of heaven’, was probably the secretion of the small insects which live on tamarisk twigs; this delicacy is still collected and eaten by the present-day Bedouin, who regard it as a tasty treat. The Egyptian onions, which were small and round, probably tasted far sweeter than the larger European onion which is eaten today. They were enjoyed at almost every meal, and even had a degree of religious symbolism – the Sokar festival held at Memphis to celebrate the winter solstice required priests to don a wreath of onions and to sniff bunches of onions while walking in the sacred procession. Egyptian garlic was also smaller than its modern counterpart, and may not have been as strongly flavoured.

  Beans, which are highly nutritious, were consumed in vast quantities by the poor. Chickpeas, broad beans, brown beans (ful medames) and lentils were all grown from the Predynastic period onwards and must have made appetizing and filling dishes when boiled, mashed with garlic and oil and stuffed inside a flap of unleavened bread. More adventurous bean recipes could have included chopped onion, egg, and even fried balls of bean mixture similar to the filafil still served in Egypt today.

  The tradition of generous hospitality which prompts modern Egyptians to share their meals with the strangers of a few minutes’ acquaintance has its roots in the gregarious customs of Dynastic Egypt. Semi-formal banquets were an important aspect of Egyptian social life and, as there were no restaurants or cafés, these were always held at home. In the absence of theatres, cinemas and night clubs, these dinner parties formed the main entertainment for the upper classes, and were hugely enjoyed by all. It is perhaps fortunate that those who were rich enough to throw such lavish parties were also rich enough to employ servants to cook the food and clean up the resultant mess. Unfortunately we have no written description of the progress of a banquet, and our information is therefore derived from the painted feasts recorded on tomb walls. These scenes suggest that, although there was every likelihood that a formal banquet would eventually dissolve into a drunken orgy of overeating, it always started with an ostentatious display of good manners and prim behaviour. As correct etiquette was universally regarded as a mark of good breeding the Old Kingdom sage Ptahotep provided a useful guideline for the socially inept:

  If you are one of the guests at the table of one who is greater than you, take what is g
iven as it is set before you. Look at who is sitting before you, and don’t shoot many glances at him as molesting him offends the Ka. Don’t speak to him until he speaks to you – you don’t know what may displease him. Speak only when he has addressed you, then your words will please his heart.

  On arrival the party guests were greeted by scantily dressed young serving-women who presented them with a fragment garland of exotic flowers and a heavily perfumed wax cone to be worn on the head. There was no formal segregation of married men and women, and the servants led the most important couples to the places of honour: low chairs or stools placed next to individual tables groaning under heaps of delicious food. Those of lesser importance were happy to sit or squat on mats spread on the floor, and helped themselves to the same food as their social superiors. Throughout the meal extra food and wine were circulated by the servants, and the feasters were entertained by a spectacular succession of nubile girl dancers, acrobats and musicians singing rather mournful songs intended to encourage a proper appreciation of life. The injection of a potentially rather depressing note into the proceedings in no way deterred the cheerful feasters, and Herodotus tells us that all banquets routinely ended with a rather abrupt reminder of death; a small model mummy being exhibited to the revellers by a gloomy servant who warned the revellers to ‘drink and be merry, for when you die you will be just like this’. This anecdote possibly tells us more about Herodotus’ gullibility than Egyptian dining customs.