Food: A Cultural Culinary History

developed court culture surrounding the pharaoh, which means

highly developed artistic traditions, including the culinary arts,

although there are no actual recipes from pharaonic times.

 The geography of Egypt makes a nice contrast to Mesopotamia.

The Tigris and Euphrates are unpredictable rivers. Water was

channeled and used to irrigate Sumer, but after many centuries, the

soil became increasingly salinized, which made the land less fertile

over the years and eventually caused the whole civilization to fall

apart—the fi rst ecological disaster in human history.

 In contrast, the Nile fl oods very predictably each year from upper

to lower Egypt and into the delta, bringing tons of silt and rich soil

with it, which means that Egypt remains extremely fertile along the

fl ood plain.

 Egyptians didn’t have a standing army for most of their history,

partly because of their extremely rigid and hierarchical social

Food and wine priestesses are often depicted in ancient Egyptian wall paintings.

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