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 Eg
ypt
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 lik
e
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, gar
dens
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.