To the peoples who lived to the East and West of Egypt, the civilization of the Nile was a gourmet's paradise. 'Think of it!' complained the hungry Israelites travelling in the wilderness after the Biblical Exodus, 'In Egypt, we had fish for the asking, cucumbers and watermelons, leeks and onions and garlic.' "Would to God that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the Land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots and when we did eat bread to the full, for you have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." Exodus 16, vrs 3.

Indeed in Egypt, the fields bordering the great river, the groves of trees bearing fruits, and the river itself all yielded a wealth of foodstuffs. There are many surviving representations of Egyptians preparing and enjoying the fruits of their labour. Throughout the land of Kemet we see images of Egyptian kitchens, notably in the Sixth Dynasty tomb of Ti at Saqqara, the tomb models of Meket-Re from the Eleventh Dynasty and the Twentieth Dynasty tomb of Ramesses III. From these it seems that throughout the Dynastic age, the standard equipment and the basic cooking techniques employed changed very little.

Most household cooking was done in the open air or in courtyards partly roofed with matting or thatch palm to allow the escape of smoke. Those with homes on different levels cooked on their roof so preventing cooking smells invading the living quarters. Enticing aromas drifted through the streets of Egyptian towns at meal times... the evening air spiced with delicious cumin, garlic and coriander, aniseed, cinnamon, dill, fennel, fenugreek, marjoram, mustard and thyme, freshly baked breads and roasting meats. The good Kemetian cook used honey for a sweetener, but was probably too expensive for the poor. Common people used various fruits as sweeteners, though the most popular seems to have been dates. Farmed geese, pigeons and water fowl such as the pelican all supplied eggs and meats along with meats from hunted gazelle, antelope added to the variety of ingredients a cook could choose from. In a land where wood was scarce, tamarisk and acacia were valued as fuel. Otherwise people burned dried papyrus stalks, palm leaves and animal dung.

Fires were lit using a bow drill and a wooden block and when sparks ignited the kindling, flames were fanned with palm or papyrus fans. The domestic stove was cylindrical and fashioned from clay. With its arched stoke-hole at the top the shape was so familiar it was used as the heiroglyph for the constanant G. Smaller braziers were used with the fire being lit in a clay bowl while the cooking pot stood above held within a ring stand. Joints of meat, fish and fowl, when not stewed boiled or fried, were sometimes spitted and roasted over charcoal. The butchery model from Meket-Re's tomb includes a stove with a crenellated top which allowed smoke to escape from the edges of the pan resting atop it. Frying pans were wok-shaped with lug or loop handles. Pots for braising or preparing dishes such as porridge curved inward at the top to avoid loss through evaporation. Large stew pans, often depicted full of meat joints had straight sides and flat bases. In ordinary household kitchens of all periods, cooking pots were made from unfired Nile clay, sometimes with a burnished slip coating. Wealthier households used the same, with the added addition of copper vessels and in later periods, bronze.