Flat bread in Old Kingdom of Egypt

The Egyptians ate a great variety of breads, usually made from barley. These included hollow rolls filled with vegetables, flatbread cakes, round crusty breads and heavy unleavened bread.

Flat breads have been known to humans for over the last 6000 years. In the old kingdom of Egypt, as long ago as 2500 BC, hot ashes or heated stone slabs were used to bake flat bread.

Some 15 different kinds of bread were made in the Old Kingdom, while by the New Kingdom, that number had risen to somewhere between 30 and 50.

Flatbreads can range from 1 mm to a few centimeters in thickness and they are generally made with wheat flour, although flour from corn, rye, rice or barley is also used. For ordinary flatbread, the dough was simply formed into flat cakes to be baked in a pan, or in embers.

The simplest and oldest way of baking bread, but one still used in Old Kingdom Egypt, was to place a flat, had-formed loaf into the embers of a fire. When the bread was done, the ash was wiped off and the bread was eaten.

These were the Egyptians who passed their bread-making skills, including fermentation to the Greeks and Romans.
Flat bread in Old Kingdom of Egypt