[MUSIC PLAYING] The ancient Egyptians
dominated the Mediterranean for 3,000 years, from
roughly 3,500 BCE until the arrival of
Alexander the Great in 332 BC. The wonders of ancient Egypt
included enormous pyramids, stunning temples, and
the mighty Sphinx. But if you also wonder what the
people who built all that stuff were eating, well, good news. Today, we're going
to take a look at what the ancient
Egyptians actually ate. But before we get started, be
sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel, and let us
know in the comments below what other historical cuisines
you would like to hear about. OK, 1/4 of what you
eat keeps you alive. The other 3/4 keeps
your doctor alive. For people who lived
in ancient times, honey was probably nothing
short of a miracle. It can sweeten anything, moisten
any dish that it's baked with, and it never goes bad, even
when completely unpreserved. As for the ancient
Egyptians, they saw honey as nothing short of sacred. Honey and the bees
who made it actually played a huge role in the
religious and political life of ancient Egypt. In fact, the bee was
the official symbol of the king of the
lower Egyptian empire. But it wasn't just for the rich. Even the lower classes
had some access to honey, which tells us
that the Egyptians must have produced tons of honey. The ancient Egyptians knew
that beer is an intoxicant, but to them, it was also
a source of nutrition and an essential part of
everyone's diet, even children. It was also prescribed
for dozens of ailments, as it was believed
to confuse and expel the evil spirits that caused
disease in a person's body. But nothing demonstrates the
central place beer occupied in ancient Egyptian
life quite like the fact that laborers were often
paid for their work in beer. In fact, one of the reasons we
know that the pyramids were not built solely by
enslaved people is through records that show how
much beer the laborers were being paid. Workers on the Giza
Plateau, for example, were given three rations of
beer every day as compensation for their efforts. Like many wealthy
civilizations, Egypt had access to the best the
ancient world had to offer. Back then, that meant
luxury products like spices. The Egyptians made
wide use of spices, such as cumin,
coriander, and cinnamon. As were their other
foods, each spice had a cultural or medical
significance as well. Coriander, for example,
represented romantic love and was considered to be
something of an aphrodisiac. Cumin, on the other
hand, was a digestive aid that was considered a
sign of faithfulness. Cinnamon was used in
the embalming process because it was believed
to aid in preservation. It was also one of the
most expensive spices. Though there's no
conclusive evidence that proves the origins of
wine in ancient Egypt, historians believe the
product was being imported to the kingdom before 3,000
BCE and quickly became a major agricultural product. While some wine was brought in
from communities in Mesopotamia and Canaan, the
ancient Egyptians also produced a wide
variety of their own wines, each with specific qualities. According to ancient
Roman writers, the white Mareotic from
the Alexandrine region was pleasant,
fragrant, and diuretic. The pale and somewhat
oily Taniotic was aromatic, superior
to the Mareotic, and mildly astringent. [INAUDIBLE] was said
to be easily digested and suitable for fever patients,
while [INAUDIBLE],, which was blended from
various kinds of grapes, was known as a laxative. Once the basic process of
making wine was discovered, the Egyptians dove
into winemaking with a lot of enthusiasm. From there, it wasn't
difficult to figure out how to make wine out of any
fruit with sufficient sugar or starch. Palm wine, for example, was
made from the fermented sap of palm trees. Apparently, the stuff was good
for more than just drinking, as it was also
used as a cleanser during the embalming process. The ancient Egyptian
fascination with wines didn't stop there, though,
or anywhere, really. Pomegranates, poppy
seeds, carob trees, and the fruit of
the [INAUDIBLE] tree were all fermented and
used to produce wine. The ancient Egyptian
moral universe was similar to many
of today's religions in that it was
premised on the idea that good deeds would be
rewarded in an afterlife. Many wealthier
Egyptians would even make public displays
of their charity, often by giving away
bread to the poor. The bread was understood to
be a symbol of hospitality in terms of both charity
and spiritual offerings. Upon death, an
ancient Egyptian's ka, which is roughly similar to
the modern notion of the soul, continued on to the afterlife. To ensure its continued
existence and ease of passage, regular food offerings
would be made at the tombs of the departed. In the case of the
pharaohs, these offerings would be directed to the statues
and monuments they had erected. This was all taken so seriously
that offerings were prohibited for lawbreakers and sinners
as a form of legal punishment. The ancient Egyptians
considered pigs to be unclean. But that didn't stop
them from raising them. Poorer classes would eat
pig fairly regularly. And during the era
of the new kingdom, they were quite common. Records even show
some local officials of the time owned as many
as 1,500 pigs at once. That's a pigsty. Why exactly pigs were
considered unclean is a matter of some debate. One possible explanation
is that the pig was one of the forms
taken by the god Set who was the god of chaos
and the slayer of Osiris. As Egyptian theology
developed, Set took on a more and
more evil identity. And pigs were judged harshly
on account of the association. On the other hand,
it's also possible that pigs were considered
unclean because they roll around in muck and dirt. As with most ancient
societies, in Egypt, meat was a luxury, most
enjoyed by the rich. While the lush Nile Delta
had its fair share of game, most of the meat eaten
by the ancient Egyptians was from various forms of
domesticated livestock, including sheep, goat,
cow, and oryx antelopes. Meat was also used
as an offering at temples and services. If it wasn't to be
served immediately, meat could be preserved in
a wide variety of manners, including brining,
drying, salting, smoking, and making it into
a fat and protein mixture known as pemmican. It's difficult to summarize the
attitudes of ancient Egyptians on any one subject because
their history lasted for so long and was divided into so
many periods and dynasties. The empire consisted of
many different people and vast geographical areas,
and each had their own religious and cultural attitudes. Nowhere is this more evident
than in the ancient Egyptians' view of fish. The Nile has a vast
array of aquatic life, but due to various
religious connections between certain species
of fish and certain gods, things could get complicated. For example, some
fish were considered to be holy or unholy, clean or
unclean, fit for the wealthy or fit only for the poor. From the Greek
historian Herodotus, we know that the
eel was considered sacred in the late kingdom,
as were carp, tilapia, and some species of perch. The most common form of poultry
in ancient Egypt was the goose. They were domesticated and
traded in all major cities and formed an essential
part of the Egyptian diet. Duck was commonly served
to both rich and poor. While they were
considerably less common, there are also
records that confirm the domestication of pheasants,
pigeons, and even ostriches. The chicken arrived
relatively late to the scene in ancient Egypt. They didn't give those
until the Ptolemaic dynasty. Onions have a rich and diverse
history, both as a food and as a metaphor in
literary and spiritual texts. To the ancient Egyptians,
the onion was sacred. While it was traded and
consumed as a foodstuff, it was also seen as
an important metaphor, with its concentric
rings symbolizing the infinite circles
of eternal life. This being the case,
it's not surprising that onions were also involved
in numerous religious and funerary rituals. They were painted on the inner
walls of the pyramids, left on altars of the perished,
and there's even evidence that the entombed Pharaoh
Ramesses IV had onions placed into his eye sockets as
symbols of his eternal life. Onions in the eyes-- that'll make you cry. In ancient Egypt, it
was customary to paint the best parts of a person's
life on their tombs. These depictions have provided
a great deal of evidence as to the kinds of
parties wealthy Egyptians liked to have. And those folks, they
knew how to throw a rager. While it's hard to know
precisely what those parties were like, we do know
that there was typically lavish entertainment in the
forms of music, dancing, and, sometimes, even acrobatics. And of course, there
was always food. According to Tour
Egypt, these parties might serve rich dishes of
butter and cheese, fat and fowl and beef, flavored with
rosemary, cumin, garlic, parsley, cinnamon, and mustard,
and sweetened with honey, figs, and other fruits. The controversial practice
of force feeding geese to make the delicious
delicacy known as foie gras may have started
in ancient Egypt. Actually, it's unlikely
the ancient Egyptians were attempting to make some old
world equivalent of foie gras. They force fed cattle,
as well as hyenas. And most historians believe
that they were merely trying to stimulate the
production of animal fat. The practice spread from Egypt
to Greece, then from Greece to Rome, and has remained
part of European cooking to this very day. While we don't know for sure
whether the Egyptians consumed the goose liver the way
modern foie gras eaters do, force feeding geese
was important enough to be depicted on
numerous wall reliefs over the course of
the kingdom's history. Historians and archaeologists
generally cite the transition from hunting and
gathering to agriculture as one of the earliest
major turning points in the history of
human civilization. If early humans succeeded
because of this transition, then it follows that the
culture with the best access to agriculture would
have an advantage when it came to building the
most influential empire. The Nile Delta, with
its incredible amounts of fish, game, fruits,
and vegetables, provided the nutrition
the ancient Egyptians required to build large
population dense cities. This, in turn, might have led
to increased specialization and then to the
scientific, cultural, and architectural breakthroughs
for which ancient Egypt is known today. So what do you think? What Egyptian food
sounds good to you? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from our Weird History.
