ABSTRACT
Information on eating and drinking is especially frequent in private letters and household and travelling accounts. Up to the late twentieth century, digging in Egypt was concentrated on finding papyri; other finds, such as bones or grains, were usually neglected. In pharaonic Egypt husked emmer was the most common grain. The most common drink was of course water, which was sometimes sold in the cities and in the quarries. There were two alcoholic beverages; beer and wine. On the whole, Egyptians were beer drinkers and Greeks drank wine. Beer and wine could be drunk at home or in a pub, but an important occasion for drinking were the meetings of social clubs; rules of associations are preserved both in Greek and in demotic. Olives form the third item in the “Mediterranean triad,” alongside wheat and vines. As in modern Mediterranean cooking, oil is used to moisten bread and to prepare meat and vegetables.
