Bread, the Staff of Life
Barley, emmer and pre-eminently wheat were used.
The emmer (an old
kind of Eurasian wheat with bearded ears and spikelets that each contain two
grains) was taken from a silo in which it had been stored after threshing
and winnowing. The spikelets were moistened and pounded by men in
mortars in order to separate the chaff from the grain. The bran was
removed and probably used as animal feed.
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| Grinding |
The grinding was mostly women's work and took hours
of hard labour kneeling down every day, often causing disability. Only the
amount of meal used each day was prepared. They fought tedium by singing chants
such as "May the gods give my master strength and health" (or
that is what their master, who left the record of these words, would have liked
them to sing.)
Until the Middle Kingdom mills were placed on the
floor, later they were raised onto workbenches, rendering the milling process
somewhat less tiresome. The mill was a simple trough with two compartments. The
grain was poured into the top compartment and by rubbing and crushing it with a
grindstone, moved into the lower partition. Since the Roman Period rotary mills
have been known.
After sieving, the larger particles were poured
back into the top for further grinding. The sieves made from rushes and the
like, were not very efficient and allowed grains of sand and little flakes of
stone to remain in the flour, especially when soft mill stones were used.
This way of preparing the flour caused severe abrasion of the
teeth above all of those who depended upon bread as their main
source of nourishment. But it affected all classes: Amenhotep III for
instance suffered badly from his teeth.
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| kneading bread |
The dough was made of flour, water and leaven -
either some sour dough left over from the previous day or some leaven from the
last brewing of beer - and was left to rise in warm moulds and then baked
in closed ovens. During the New Kingdom ovens big enough to bake several loaves
simultaneously came into use. These ovens often had ceramic steps on the inside
and their outside was covered with clay. Round imprints made with jar openings
prevented cracks forming in this outer layer.
Sesame seeds, honey, fruit such as dates, butter,
eggs, oil and herbs were often added to the dough to flavour the bread. In the
first millennium BCE yeast came into use, replacing the sourdough. Over forty
varieties of bread and cake were made in the New Kingdom.
The following satirical description of baking dates
from the New Kingdom - by this time ovens were generally accessed through an
opening at the top:
The baker kneads incessantly and puts the loaves in
the fire. His head is in the middle of the fireplace. His son holds him by his
legs. Should they slip out of his hands, the father would fall into the fire.
According to this description the dough may have
been formed into flat round disks which were stuck to the hot inner surface of
the oven (in the manner pitta bread is still baked in Arabic countries) or
tall, thin bread moulds standing upright in the fire
were still used, as they had been during the Middle Kingdom.
Hand formed bread was baked on a clay disk covered
by a lid. Later, a vaulted copper or iron sheet was used. The bread dough was
baked on its convex part, while, turned upside down, the concave part served as
a sort of kettle for cooking liquid foods.
When no oven was available, the Egyptians baked
wafer thin bread on the hot sand, as desert dwellers have done since time
immemorial (The bread is called “Shamsy” or Solar) and is still used in upper
Egypt until today.
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| The making of Solar bread |
Bread was often used as a synonym for food and
hospitality. The New Kingdom scribe “Anny” exhorted his readers Do not eat
bread while another stands by without extending your hand to him. The rich,
hoping that good deeds would count in their favour in the afterlife often
mentioned their generosity.
Sheshi,
Harkhu and many others made such claims, using
formulaic language which inspires little faith in the trustworthiness of their
protestations:
I gave bread to the hungry, clothes to the naked.
Original text by: André Dollinger
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