Food


Beer:
The ancient Egyptian method of producing it was similar to the one still in use in the Sudan today: Wheat, barley or millet was coarsely ground. One quarter of the grain was soaked and left in the sun for a while; the rest was formed into loaves of bread and lightly baked in order not to destroy the enzymes. The loaves were crumbled and mixed with the soaked grain, which had fermented. Then water and some beer were added and the mixture was left to ferment. The fermentation complete, the liquid was strained.
This process has been depicted since 2500 BCE, when the loaves were baked in little moulds, as ovens came into use only after 2000 BCE. Beer production was a royal monopoly. Eight brands of beer were known, but the use of barley became common in Hellenistic times. Temples had their own breweries, while brewing in towns and villages was farmed out.
Milk
The Egyptians kept cattle, goats and sheep. Their milk was kept in egg-shaped earthen jars, plugged with grass as protection against insect and was either drunk or, due to the warm climate, processed into quark or yoghurt-like labaneh.
Wine
Wine was known to the Egyptians before 3000 BCE, and the Egyptian word for it, irep, predates any known word for vine, which suggests, that wine may have been imported before it was produced locally. The vines were probably brought to Egypt by the Phoenicians. Wine became an important consumer good. Wine was drunk by everyone on festive occasions, such as the yearly Hathor Celebrations at Bubastis, Hathor being the goddess of love, joy and drunkenness. Every temple had vineyards to supply the wine necessary for the rituals, though most of the wine was produced in the Delta.
Staple food.
The staple food was bread and beer , supplemented by onions or other vegetables and dried fish. Meat wasn't eaten often by the fellaheen. Growing domesticated animals for the sole purpose of meat production is quite expensive. They sometimes supplemented their diet by hunting and fowling.

While the food of the common people was rather basic at best, and during the recurring corn dearths sadly lacking, the affluent certainly knew how to live it up: Meat, water fowls, vegetables, fruit and wine were part of their diet, as was the ubiquitous bread in one of its many guises.
Oils:
Olive oil was used for lighting, but one may surmise it was used in the preparation of food as well. The common people, both men and women anointed themselves with the oil of the kikki (castor-berry).Apples, olives and pomegranates were brought to Egypt during the reign of the Hyksos. The early agricultural landscape of ancient Egypt was one of natural irrigation. Drainage was not required in order for the Valley to become livable. With the natural flooding and draining of the floodplain, the annual flood permitted a single crop season over up to two-thirds of the alluvial ground.The total amount of grain harvested depended on the surface covered by the flooding Nile, between 45,000 and 110,000 square kilometers. Famines were frequent (some even estimate that only every third year would there have been sufficient grain), though often Egypt had surpluses of grain which it exported. The harvest generally took place shortly before the beginning of the next flooding, about in May or June, at times in April. The whole population took part and on big estates journeying harvesting teams were employed. These itinerant reapers began the season in the southern part of the country and followed the ripening crops downriver.
Field Crops:

Important field crops were emmer (wheat) and barley, used for baking bread and brewing beer, flax for the production of cloth and ropes, sesame, beans and chickpeas, lettuce, onions, leeks, dill, grapes, melons and gourds, the naturally occurring papyrus reeds (now extinct in Egypt), used for paper, boats, ropes, mats and many other things and the castor oil plant , from which oil for many purposes (among others as a sort of money) was pressed.
Domestic Animals:
Sheep, goats, cattle, pigs and geese were raised from earliest times and supplied milk, wool, meat, eggs, leather, skins, horn and fat. Even the dung had its uses. There is no evidence that mutton was consumed, while pork was eaten regularly but had no place in religious ceremonies. Goat meat on the other hand was acceptable even to upper class Egyptians. Goat skins served as water containers and floating devices. The Egyptians grew a number of cattle varieties such as Oxen, wild long horned cattle etc. The first evidence of horses in Egypt dates from the 13th dynasty. But the Hyksos introduced them on a large scale. They were neither ridden nor used for ploughing. For war and hunt alike they were harnessed to chariots until the 19th dynasty. The ferret was domesticated and used to keep granaries free from rats and mice. Vervet monkeys were kept as pets, as were dogs, cats, ducks and geese. Some people grew hoopoes, doves and falcons. Cats seems to have been domesticated during the Middle Kingdom from the wild cats in the Delta or the Western Desert. They spread all over the Near East in spite of a ban on their export. Dogs, while often depicted as hunting companions or as watch dogs, are never shown as an animal to be petted

Music
Egyptian musical instruments were well developed and varied. They included string instruments such as harps, lyres, lutes, and percussion instruments like drums, rattles and cymbals, wind instruments like trumpets, flutes and oboes. Harps, used since the Old Kingdom like the flute, were triangle or arc shaped. Harps were played at parties, social gatherings, and ceremonial events, often in conjunction with other instruments, such as double pipes and rattles. The lute consisted of a small oblong sounding box, flat on both sides, with six or eight holes, and a long neck, often decorated with ribbons, from which four strings were strung. Dancing girls were often selected from the harem of the nobleman in whose house the banquet was held. Slow erotic dance steps may have alternated with wild acrobatic movements.

House and Gardens:
Since 3800 BCE rectangular houses of about 100 to 125 mē have been built with sun dried bricks. Mud, dredged from the bottom of the Nile and chaff were well mixed, shaped with wooden forms and the soft bricks were dried in the sun becoming nearly as hard as rock. In the hot, almost rainless climate of Egypt adobe (from tube - brick) houses were the most energy and labor efficient buildings. The town houses of the common people were usually two to three stories high. The ground floor was often reserved for businesses, while the upper floors provided living space for the family. Many people slept on the flat roof during the summer to keep cool. Cooking was also often done on the roof. Gardens were very popular in Egypt. From an enclosed yard with a few fruit trees to botanical and zoological gardens with exotic trees, ponds, often stocked with fish, and caged animals and birds, gardens are depicted in many tombs. Trees and shrubs were planted for shade and for their fruit: date and other palm trees, sycamore fig, pomegranate, nut trees and jujube. But willows, acacia and tamarisk also found favor; about eighteen kinds of trees were grown by the Egyptians. Flowers such as daisies, cornflowers, mandrakes, roses, irises, myrtle, jasmine, mignonettes, convolvulus, celosia, narcissus, ivy, lychnis, sweet marjoram, henna, bay laurel, small yellow hrysanthemums, and poppies grew among the trees, papyrus and lotus in the pond. Grapes and other vines were often planted.
Clothes:
The Egyptian climate with its hot summers and mild winters favored light clothing made from plant fibers, predominantly linen and more rarely cotton. Wool was used as well, but seldom by Egyptians proper. Small amounts of silk were traded to the eastern Mediterranean possibly as early as the second half of the second millennium BCE and traces of silk have been found in Egyptian tombs. The clothes were generally made of linen and kept simple: a short loincloth resembling a kilt for men, a dress with straps for women. Tutankhamen's tomb yielded many pieces of clothing: tunics, shirts, kilts and sashes, socks, head-dresses, caps, scarves and gloves, some of them fine linen linings, others with separate index and middle fingers and a hole for the thumb. Underwear in the form of a triangular loincloth was also found.Women's dresses could be ornamented with beads or pleated and covered their breasts most of the time, though there were times when fashion left them bare. Shawls were ometimes worn during the New Kingdom. Slave girls wore at times little more than skimpy panties.
Men doing physical labor wore a loin cloth or wide galabiyeh like robes, and women short skirts. Children usually ran around nude during the summer months, while in winter wraps and cloaks were worn.



Created by Sushaen Rai Mahajan and Ravish Amin for the Thinkquest Internet Challenge