Recreating Recipes from Egyptian History

Recreating historical recipes engages our senses in an exploration of the past and allows us to immerse ourselves in imaginary ancient kitchens. But are the aromas and flavours we savour exactly what our ancestors experienced? Very often, ancient recipes are vague: ‘Prepare chicken as usual’ is the start of many a medieval recipe, leaving the modern reader to wonder at what was considered ‘usual’ in the 10th c. The quantities and ingredient ratios are either left to our imagination or stated in unfamiliar measures. Cooking times are often vague and may involve labour- or time-intensive steps such as fermenting for days! Many of the ingredients are difficult to decipher: foods might not be known to us or might long since have disappeared. With all these variables, how can we ever be sure that the dishes taste the same?

Historians like to follow recipes to the letter—even if the details are not there. We rely on ancient tools and pots, for example, and perform chemical analyses to try to understand food, plant and animal remains. This allows us to better understand the cooking process, the time and labour needed, and hopefully achieves a result close to the original.

For Rawi magazine’s issue on Egypt's culinary history, we collaborated with a team of historians, archaeologists, and modern-day chefs to recreate several recipes from Egypt’s 7000 years of culinary history. Our aim was to stay as true to the original as possible while also adapting the recipes to modern-day ingredients and techniques for today’s adventurous cooks.