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The Pharaohs Kitchen: Recipes From Ancient Egypt's Enduring Food Traditions
Judging from the evidence available from depictions of daily life on tombs and in historical texts, the ancient Egyptians were just as enthusiastic about good food and generous hospitality as are their descendants today. Magda Mehdawy and Amr Hussein have done extensive research on the cultivation, gathering, preparation, and presentation of food in ancient Egypt and have developed nearly a hundred recipes that will be perfectly recognizable to anyone familiar with modern Egyptian food.
Beautifully illustrated with scenes from tomb reliefs, objects and artifacts in museum exhibits, and modern photographs, the recipes are accompanied by explanatory material that describes the ancient home and kitchen, cooking vessels and methods, table manners and etiquette, banquets, beverages, and ingredients. Traditional feasts and religious occasions with their own culinary traditions are described, including some that are still celebrated today. A glossary of ingredients and place names provides a useful guide to unfamiliar terms.
Beautifully illustrated with scenes from tomb reliefs, objects and artifacts in museum exhibits, and modern photographs, the recipes are accompanied by explanatory material that describes the ancient home and kitchen, cooking vessels and methods, table manners and etiquette, banquets, beverages, and ingredients. Traditional feasts and religious occasions with their own culinary traditions are described, including some that are still celebrated today. A glossary of ingredients and place names provides a useful guide to unfamiliar terms.
176 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2010
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97 people want to read
About the author
Magda Mehdawy
5 books2 followersMagda Mehdawy holds a degree in Archaeology from the University of Alexandria. She is the author of My Egyptian Grandmother’s Kitchen (AUC Press, 2006), which received the Al-Ahram Appreciation Prize for the original Arabic edition in 2004. She lives in Alexandria.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 27, 2023
I tried to look up for the authors’ credentials and found nothing that indicates that they have any expertise in Egyptology, just broad archeology, especially for the female co-author who doesn't have any other published works in Egyptology, or even a portfolio in any university, except for like a 2-line bio in American University in Cairo Press. Not promising.
Then I went to the bibliography of the book to see what resources they are relying on. They are too few and very general. Out of the two and a half pages of this small bibliography, only like 4-5 of them are directly related to ancient Egyptian cooking, but also there is little to no reference to the pages or chapters from which they got the relevant info, because some books may be on Egyptian diet (what foodstuffs they ate) not what recipes they made, so even these 'direct' sources on ancient Egyptian cooking are not that relevant to the recipes.
The authors don't tell us from where they get these recipes, like what is the evidence that ancient Egyptians made them, did they find them written on papyrus? Were their steps clarified in a wall painting? Was there any remains or embalmed samples of the recipe?
No, they get straight to the recipe without mentioning where they got it from, for example, they mention that masboob bread was known in the time of the 2nd dynasty.
Of course, no reference to the source behind this claim was made. The authors themselves admit that there were no recipes recorded in ancient Egypt, and most of the wall paintings depicting food processing are related to activities not meant to show us the preparation steps of a recipe or its ingredients, but for fishing, baking, grinding...etc. So where did they get the masboob recipe from? How did they know that there is an ancient batter made of flour and water, cooked in a pan, and then sprinkled with honey and nuts? How did they know it was similar to masboob bread in terms of texture, taste, and ingredients?
In fact, this kind of cooked batter is not specifically Egyptian, it's a very ancient way of cooking, because we know from paleolithic to neolithic times, that humans cooked liquid batter on hot, greased stones, and added fruits, vegetables and nuts to it.
In his book on the history of pancakes, Ken Albala never mentions an ancient recipe or a reference to pancake from any ancient civilization before the Greeks. Simply because there isn't any.
That doesn't mean they weren't known to them, but the roots of such recipes aren't specific to any civilization, they are of Paleolithic-neolithic origin. They developed independently in many places in the world.
And this absence of comparative studying makes the authors commit a lot of mistakes, like assuming that ancient Egyptians knew bread only since the 1st dynasty, which is not true at all.
This holds to many recipes in book, where simple dishes of roasted animals and vegetables are made, which is a very ancient way of cooking, never specific to Egypt. And there is no way to make sure how they tasted and what ingredients were used.
They also mention a recipe of stuffed poultry. However, in her book "Cooking in Ancient Civilizations" Cathy K. Kaufman makes it clear that there is NO historical indication of any kind of stuffing in ancient Egypt, and she hypothizes about a duck stuffed with dates and old bread crumbs.
Cathy Kaufman also makes it clear that we have no idea on how food was spiced in ancient Egypt, so to make "ancient Egyptian" food recipes and tell us how to spice them, is quite the stretch.
The book relies on Upper Egyptian and Nubian food as a proxy for Pharaonic cooking because they where "isolated" which is not justified or proven in the book either. In fact these areas had extensive contact with Arab and Berber tribes, who not only carried their own heritage but also the heritage of other cultures (Persian, Roman, Greek, Mesopotamian...etc). There is also evidence of Canaanites in Upper Egypt since the Middle Kingdom, which even makes a genetic shift in the Egyptian Genome and introduces so many linguistic features to the ancient Egyptian language in the New kingdom (Semitic Words in Egyptians texts) and even religious influence on Upper Egyptians by the Canaanites is attested.
There is a reason for why Upper Egypt doesn't speak ancient Egyptian anymore, or worship ancient Egyptian dieties.. So of course their culture was heavily influenced by the outside, including their cooking.
The book also mentions a lot of recipes with ingredients that weren't known in ancient Egypt, like tomato, pepper, and corn. The authors make up for this fact by saying that they altered the recipes to suit modern taste. However, this makes the recipes completely unauthentic and ahistorical, and in many of the recipes these modern ingredients are a primary ingredient and thus can't be omitted, which makes me 100% sure that such recipes were not made in ancient Egypt.
The book is merely a representation of modern Egyptian/Nubian cooking with zero historical justification or proof behind their inclusion as ancient Egyptian. Not enough references, not enough and specific resources, not direct proof from ancient Egyptian artifacts. The only use of it is to learn about the ways of life, food collection and processing in ancient Egypt, but not recipes.
Then I went to the bibliography of the book to see what resources they are relying on. They are too few and very general. Out of the two and a half pages of this small bibliography, only like 4-5 of them are directly related to ancient Egyptian cooking, but also there is little to no reference to the pages or chapters from which they got the relevant info, because some books may be on Egyptian diet (what foodstuffs they ate) not what recipes they made, so even these 'direct' sources on ancient Egyptian cooking are not that relevant to the recipes.
The authors don't tell us from where they get these recipes, like what is the evidence that ancient Egyptians made them, did they find them written on papyrus? Were their steps clarified in a wall painting? Was there any remains or embalmed samples of the recipe?
No, they get straight to the recipe without mentioning where they got it from, for example, they mention that masboob bread was known in the time of the 2nd dynasty.
Of course, no reference to the source behind this claim was made. The authors themselves admit that there were no recipes recorded in ancient Egypt, and most of the wall paintings depicting food processing are related to activities not meant to show us the preparation steps of a recipe or its ingredients, but for fishing, baking, grinding...etc. So where did they get the masboob recipe from? How did they know that there is an ancient batter made of flour and water, cooked in a pan, and then sprinkled with honey and nuts? How did they know it was similar to masboob bread in terms of texture, taste, and ingredients?
In fact, this kind of cooked batter is not specifically Egyptian, it's a very ancient way of cooking, because we know from paleolithic to neolithic times, that humans cooked liquid batter on hot, greased stones, and added fruits, vegetables and nuts to it.
In his book on the history of pancakes, Ken Albala never mentions an ancient recipe or a reference to pancake from any ancient civilization before the Greeks. Simply because there isn't any.
That doesn't mean they weren't known to them, but the roots of such recipes aren't specific to any civilization, they are of Paleolithic-neolithic origin. They developed independently in many places in the world.
And this absence of comparative studying makes the authors commit a lot of mistakes, like assuming that ancient Egyptians knew bread only since the 1st dynasty, which is not true at all.
This holds to many recipes in book, where simple dishes of roasted animals and vegetables are made, which is a very ancient way of cooking, never specific to Egypt. And there is no way to make sure how they tasted and what ingredients were used.
They also mention a recipe of stuffed poultry. However, in her book "Cooking in Ancient Civilizations" Cathy K. Kaufman makes it clear that there is NO historical indication of any kind of stuffing in ancient Egypt, and she hypothizes about a duck stuffed with dates and old bread crumbs.
Cathy Kaufman also makes it clear that we have no idea on how food was spiced in ancient Egypt, so to make "ancient Egyptian" food recipes and tell us how to spice them, is quite the stretch.
The book relies on Upper Egyptian and Nubian food as a proxy for Pharaonic cooking because they where "isolated" which is not justified or proven in the book either. In fact these areas had extensive contact with Arab and Berber tribes, who not only carried their own heritage but also the heritage of other cultures (Persian, Roman, Greek, Mesopotamian...etc). There is also evidence of Canaanites in Upper Egypt since the Middle Kingdom, which even makes a genetic shift in the Egyptian Genome and introduces so many linguistic features to the ancient Egyptian language in the New kingdom (Semitic Words in Egyptians texts) and even religious influence on Upper Egyptians by the Canaanites is attested.
There is a reason for why Upper Egypt doesn't speak ancient Egyptian anymore, or worship ancient Egyptian dieties.. So of course their culture was heavily influenced by the outside, including their cooking.
The book also mentions a lot of recipes with ingredients that weren't known in ancient Egypt, like tomato, pepper, and corn. The authors make up for this fact by saying that they altered the recipes to suit modern taste. However, this makes the recipes completely unauthentic and ahistorical, and in many of the recipes these modern ingredients are a primary ingredient and thus can't be omitted, which makes me 100% sure that such recipes were not made in ancient Egypt.
The book is merely a representation of modern Egyptian/Nubian cooking with zero historical justification or proof behind their inclusion as ancient Egyptian. Not enough references, not enough and specific resources, not direct proof from ancient Egyptian artifacts. The only use of it is to learn about the ways of life, food collection and processing in ancient Egypt, but not recipes.
February 19, 2019
Excellent Sourcebook
I was looking for a book that would give information on the sort of cooking done in Pharaonic times. (I was researching the subject for a piece of writing). While I had information on the sort of ingredients available during that time, I wanted to know how things were made. I came upon this book and another, and I bought both.
The other was a modern, accessible compilation of recipes by a caterer that would allow a modern westerner (western hemisphere, I mean - not Asia, Africa or the middle east) to cook food similar to that served in Egypt. It was nice, but not what I wanted. This book arrived, and it was perfect for me. Methods, ingredients, and informatioan about how the writers (impeccably credentialed) were provided.
This is a research book, not a practical cookbook, though some recipes - egga, for example, or ful medames - would be accessible to one of us.
If you want a cookbook, get the slim volume put out by the British Museum. If you are a researcher, get this one.
I was looking for a book that would give information on the sort of cooking done in Pharaonic times. (I was researching the subject for a piece of writing). While I had information on the sort of ingredients available during that time, I wanted to know how things were made. I came upon this book and another, and I bought both.
The other was a modern, accessible compilation of recipes by a caterer that would allow a modern westerner (western hemisphere, I mean - not Asia, Africa or the middle east) to cook food similar to that served in Egypt. It was nice, but not what I wanted. This book arrived, and it was perfect for me. Methods, ingredients, and informatioan about how the writers (impeccably credentialed) were provided.
This is a research book, not a practical cookbook, though some recipes - egga, for example, or ful medames - would be accessible to one of us.
If you want a cookbook, get the slim volume put out by the British Museum. If you are a researcher, get this one.
June 18, 2017
Interesting information on the eating and cooking habits of the ancient Egyptians, but the recipes are relatively limited and not very good
January 23, 2019
Quite interesting, I skipped over most of the recipes. Some good general information which I wish had been expanded on a bit more.
More of a “popular” read for me.
More of a “popular” read for me.
June 6, 2025
I really liked that it included a lot of historical context and a variety of recipes. However, I hated that it also featured modern recipes. It’s not that I have anything against present-day Egypt, but I was expecting the book to focus solely on ancient Egyptian cuisine.
Still, the book is short and entertaining, so in the end, it wasn’t a big deal.
Still, the book is short and entertaining, so in the end, it wasn’t a big deal.
June 12, 2016
The general information about Ancient Egyptian food & drink is interesting, but not extensive. Then when it comes to recipes, they are almost all contemporary (and not extensive or impressive by contemporary standards), except for bread and a short menu in the beginning.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews