Up the Nile with Bread & Beer

Up the Nile with Bread and Beer

by ULRIKE LEMMIN-WOOLFREY

Sailing on the SS Sudan , the last steamship still operational on the Nile, the one Agatha Christie herself cruised on, I not only managed to find the perfect means for connecting the ancient dots along this historic river, but also to do it in style. Along the way, there even awaited some surprises to delight a gastronome like me.

On day two of my six-day journey to Aswan from Luxor, I toured the temples of Abydos and Dendera, which are dedicated to Hathor, the Goddess of Celebration and Drunkenness. There, my guide, Saber Hamad, an Egyptologist accompanying the cruise, enthused about a carved image. “This is a picture of a vessel used for brewing beer,” he said, explaining that, just recently, the world’s oldest beer factory had been discovered in Abydos, dating back 5,000 years.

It seems that beer was once a staple food, payment for workers, and vital for sacrificial rites. The ancient brew was made by crumbling emmer wheat bread and yeast into earthenware vessels filled with water, then allowing the mixture to ferment. Saber assured me that the result would have been very palatable, and a sustainable way of getting both food and drink out of the locally grown wheat.

Instead of beer, Saber then presented me with bread purchased from a roadside baker who used a stone oven that would not have looked out of place in Pharaonic times. Baked with a recipe barely changed in thousands of years, the bread was simple and so good.

As the tour continued, references to beer and bread kept cropping up. In Valley of the Kings, there were symbols indicating grain harvesting on Tutankhamun’s tomb. Similar scenes were etched into the crypts of the artisans who had painted the royal tombs. All highlighted the importance of wheat, which sustained the Egyptian people then as it does tourists today.

Back aboard the steamship, my fellow passengers and I toasted the sunset with glasses of modern, local beer and set our sights on our final destination: the temple of Philae in Aswan, appropriately dedicated to Hathor who, as a fellow lover of food and drink, was much cherished aboard the SS Sudan .

Make plans for a Nile River food cruise with your travel advisor today.