text: Because Egypt was very dry, and relied mostly on the Nile River to water the crops, the Egyptians could only grow certain kinds of food. Mainly they grew wheat and barley. \n\nThe Egyptians made the wheat into bread and into soup and porridge, and they also added hops to make the barley into beer. In fact, some people think the real reason that the Egyptians first began growing grain was to make beer. This is an Egyptian model of beer jars (from the Louvre), which the Egyptians made to put in your grave when you died so you would have beer in the next world.\n\n(from the Louvre, Paris, France)\nThe Egyptians also ate meat. You could go to a butcher shop and buy meat there, just as people do today. Only because it rarely rains in Egypt, they could have the meat outside in the courtyard of the store instead of inside. Here is a model of a butcher shop, also from somebody's grave. Can you see the different cuts of meat all laid out? At the very bottom there is a whole leg of mutton.\nBut the Egyptians would not eat pigs (bacon or ham or pork or salami) because they thought pigs carried leprosy. They ate beef and mutton and duck and goose. \nFor dessert, the Egyptians liked to eat dates. This is a picture of some real Egyptian dates which were put into somebody's grave for them to eat in the next world, and which were preserved in the dry climate for three thousand years until archaeologists dug them up again.\nArchaeologists have also found seeds which show that the Egyptians grew watermelons, and other kinds of melon.