In ancient Egypt, a meal was not thought of as starter-main-dessert but as an "offering table" (âabet) presented to the gods and the dead, enumerated by the formula hetep-di-nesu: bread (ta), beer (henket), poultry and beef (iouâ, apdou), fruits and honey. Around Apophis, this table doubles: one sets out food to nourish Ra and order (Maât), and one also shapes figures of dough or wax destined for destruction, to symbolically annihilate the serpent of chaos every night.

Without cane or refined sugar, Egypt sweetens everything with honey from the hives of the Fayoum and dates from the date palm. This is the gourmet signature of offerings: they coat breads with it, perfume beer with it, stuff fat geese with it. Honey, incorruptible, also symbolizes the permanence of order against the creeping chaos of Apophis.