You may know how to walk like an Egyptian, but do you know how to eat like one?
The ancient Egyptians may have lived thousands of years ago, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t eat well. I mean, you can’t really live off beer and bread alone.
You may not even realize it, but you eat some of the same things they did in ancient Egypt.
What fruits did the ancient Egyptians eat?
Unlike vegetables, which were grown year-round, fruit was more seasonal in ancient Egypt. The most common fruits were dates, grapes, and figs. Figs were popular because they were high in sugar and protein, while grapes could be dried and preserved as raisins.
Dates were consumed fresh and/or used to ferment wine or as sweeteners. Yes, they also had honey as a sweetener, but it was more expensive, while dates were more accessible to everyone.
There were also nabk berries and certain species of Mimusops. Nnabk berries are the edible berries that come from the Zizyphys Lotus, a tree that grows in Northern Africa.
Mimusops is more like a tropical fruit tree. Some call it a Monkey’s apple. We know about the Mimusops in ancient Egypt because we were able to find it in some ancient Egyptian tombs.
The fruit is an oval yellow berry. The wood of the tree is light brown to pale yellow. Here is an Egyptian gilded mummy mask is from 100 BC to 50 BC, which was carved from Mimusops laurifolia wood.
They also ate melons and a sweet watermelon, similar to that which we enjoy today. They were elongated in shape, with a white flesh much like what is still grown to this day in Sudan.
The ancient Egyptians also ate prickly pears, or as some call them, a cactus pear. They could also make juice and jam from them.
Coconuts were an imported luxury item, but only the wealthy could afford them.
While not as popular as beer and wine, the ancient Egyptians also enjoyed fruit juice.
Citrus fruits, which had a sweet taste, were primarily used for fruit juice. The most popular were grapes and figs, which the Egyptians would press until every drop of juice was drained out of them. They also made syrup from unfermented grape juice and other fruits such as raisins, dates, figs, carob, and even the root of the chuba, a plant growing in the delta marshes, which had a sweet flavor and was also used for sweetening.
Did the ancient Egyptians have apples? Yes. Apple, olive, and pomegranate trees were brought to Egypt around the reign of the Hyksos, about 1700 to 1900 BC.
As far as we can tell, oranges, lemons, bananas, cherries, regular pears, and peaches were unknown to the ancient Egyptians.
