History of Quantity Cooking, The Early Empires: Part 1

Now let us trace history to see how kitchens and cuisines became what they are today. Quantity cooking is as old as the feasts of Kings and Emperors of ancient Egypt, Assyria, Persia and Israel.

The foods the Egyptians ate in 4,000 B.C. were mostly the same foods we eat. They ate fruits, vegetables and meats. They drank beer and wine. They ate pomegranates, figs, dates, grapes, and melons. At Egyptian parties, slaves served baskets of fruit. They trained baboons to pick the figs for them. The Egyptians enjoyed leeks, beans, radishes, cabbages, onions, cucumbers, lettuces, and asparagus too. Usually the kings or pharaohs had a vegetable garden. They also raised lots of animals like pigs, donkeys, oxen, sheep, goats, geese, and gazelles. They tied the animals' legs together, slit its throat open, cut up the meat, and cooked it. The meat was roasted or baked over an open fire. The most popular drink in Ancient Egypt was beer. It was made by crumbling bread in warm water. It was left to ferment. Then it went through a chemical process and became beer. Adults and kids older than four could drink beer. Wine was another drink that wealthy people drank. It was made by men stomping on grapes taken off vines. They took the juice and put it in jars with mud stoppers. They let it ferment and it became wine.

Egyptians usually cooked outdoors over an open fire. Bread was made by grinding flour between two rocks. A small amount of water was added to the ground flour and baked over an open fire in clay dishes. Sand was often added to the flour to help grind it. Although we don't taste sand in our bread, or cook over an open fire, we did learn and improve on Egyptian cooking. Eating figs and the meat from donkeys may seem unusual for today's people.

Guests for the Banquets in those days often numbered 1,000 or more and sometimes whole herds of cattle were slaughtered for one feast. Large households ate food in quantity every day. King Solomon's household had over 1,000 people in it. "Seven Hundred Wives, three hundred Concubines and numerous Retainers required a large food supply. Thirty measures of fine flour, threescore measures of meal, ten large oxen and twenty medium oxen out of the pasture, 100 sheep, harts, roebucks, fallow deer and fatted fowl," according to the Bible.

When the Romans built their empire they helped themselves to the foods, the cooks and the culinary gifts of the people they vanquished. Julius Caesar broke one of the records for quantity food service when he

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