ABSTRACT
In ancient Egypt food stufs, especially beer and bread, were accorded great prominence. Beer was the ‘national drink’: “It was a vitamin-and proteinrich, caloric staple—quite unlike the filtered and pasteurized, modern, commercial product—and safer to drink than river, canal, and pond water” (Geller, 1992: 20). Bread was also central to subsistence and, as indicated in previous chapters, it was used as a standard form of payment. Beer and bread were important to both the living and the dead: “The frequency with which well-furnished tombs were provided with bread loaves and jars of beer, and the many artistic scenes of baking and brewing in tombs, demonstrate how the ancient Egyptians aimed for an equally abundant supply in the after-life (see Chapter 5). No meal was complete without bread and beer, and every ancient Egyptian “from Pharaoh to labouring peasant” partook of them (Samuel, 2000: 537). As Egyptian beer and bread were made from grain, Mills (1992: 28-29) notes, “Not only was grain the central focus of agricultural production, but in its basic forms as bread and beer, it served as standard measures for the valuation of labor and the basis for exchange.”
