Unfortunately the biggest and most famous the ancient Royal Library of Alexandria did not survive. All of more than half a million papyrus scrolls have been burnt in 48 B.C. during Julius Caesar's Civil War. It can be assumed that recipes were also available in the Library collection. Therefore all we know about the culinary culture of ancient Egypt, we own archaeological discoveries, intensively conducted since the nineteenth century. Moreover researchers still encounter new details expanding our knowledge of this interesting civilization. One of the most interesting sources are The Pyramid Texts. They come from the pyramids of the pharaohs, where survived both rich illustrations and hieroglyphic texts as well as numerous offerings, including food needed on the way to the afterlife. In addition there were also found images of food that could last forever and figurines of women who have had to prepare this food (Texts, 2006). Similar, but much modest sources were found in the tombs of wealthy Egyptians, known as The Coffin Texts. For this part of society who could afford to pay a writer, there were made Book of the Dead, which we know from numerous surviving papyri. On the basis of these and other documents, including archives expelled to the dustbin, scholars analyze the culture of ancient Egypt. It is not a simple task. Reading hieroglyphics is still difficult, despite finding a key to them by Jean-François Champolion in a quarter-century after finding Rosetta Stone by the Napoleonic Captain Bouchard. The reason is the use of numerous shortcuts and relatively few experts in this field.

Food had an important place in the Egyptians life. It can be seen on the numerous illustrations which play a role of instruction for the illiterate. There are many illustration presenting plowing fields, animal husbandry, food production. Sometimes there are a entire pictorial stories describing the various stages of work on the fields and presenting the division of work in the family: a man cuts down corn, woman and child collect it. Such illustrations from the fourth century BC have been discovered on the priest Petosiris’ tombstone (Lefebvre 1924). And the recipe for baking bread was discovered in one of the tombs of Luxor (Wilson, 2013). Illustrated instructions of baking bread at the court of Pharaoh Ramses III is shown on his tombstone. It is published in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt and cited in numerous sources, including The Historical Cooking Project, in the section on ancient Egypt: www.historicalcookingproject.com/2014/12/guest-post-ancient-egyptian-bread-by.html . Also wine production was a topic of number illustration so we can see the scene of gathering grapes and wine making process.

Unfortunately, until now the meal recipes are still unknown, most probably they have not been discovered yet, because of a small number of specialists skilled in decryption of hieroglyphics. Although it may be presumed that, if there were found recipes for hangover (Owen, 2015), and more recently, recipe for toothpaste discovered in the National Library in Vienna (Catchpoole 2004), the recipes for meals will also be discovered in the ancient collections. There are some mentions that the ancient cookbooks recommended preparation of dishes in new clay pots, and that those glazed were able to serve up to five times. Cooking skills were passed down from generation to generation, and the value of chefs was very high. Cookbooks emphasized the need to maintain the purity of both jobs and persons involved in the preparation of food. For the meat dishes, it was important to remove all the bones, to wash meat in cold water and remove all traces of blood. It was also recommended to wash the dishes after each use, as well as to wash the knife after slicing onions, leek and carrots, so as not to spoil the taste (Rosenberger, 1995, p. 212). However we could not identify such cookbooks, and the author himself does not indicate specific examples.

It is known however how an Egyptian kitchen looked like and what products there were used. Above all it was well planned. In the kitchen was a bread oven heated with charcoal or dried manure, quern-stones for grinding grain, mortars, water jugs, baskets, dishes and sometimes metal pots. In wealthier homes there were larger kitchens with more ovens, including one for heating food. In palaces kitchen occupied an entire wing of the building with spacious courtyards allowing the preparation of meals for more people. In the homes of simple Egyptians kitchen was placed on the roof to not spread at home smoke and smells associated with the preparation of meals. The main food were wheat and barley, used for porridge, but above all the bread in 40 different versions. Bakeries were often linked with breweries. Archaeological research has shown that the Egyptians drank milk, often "straight from the cow", and they produced cheese (Kaufman, p. 46). With scenes of tombstones (probably a brewer) we know how a brewery and beer production looked like. From the other texts we learn that in use was a sweet beer, the most popular red beer, and dark beer, which was probably an alcoholic beer (Bresciani p. 40).

We learn about the favorite or just basic dishes Egyptians from the wishes of the book of the dead such as "may they have bread and beer, birds and beef". List of food found in the tomb of women in Saqqara dated on approx. 3700 BC is very long and contains virtually almost all products known today, including imported from Cyprus olives, various varieties of oil from Babylon and Syria, the Palestinian wine and beer from Syria (Brescia, pp. 38-39).

To sum up, we can expect that soon researchers will find even more accurate food recipes from Egypt, which will enrich the little-known story of cookbook in ancient Egypt.