For the Sumerians and Akkadians, the meal (naptanu) revolved around two pillars: barley or emmer bread (baked as flatbread or dense loaf) and barley beer (kaš), drunk through a straw from a shared jar. Alongside were porridge or barley soup, onions, garlic, dates, sesame, and on feast days, grilled or boiled meat. No starter-main-dessert: everything was shared at once, from the simplest (soaked bread) to the richest (mutton stew), with beer flowing from start to finish.

Barley is the soul of the Mesopotamian table. Turned into bread (as bappir, a sourdough loaf also used for brewing) and then into beer, it embodies the passage from wild to civilized — exactly the destiny of Enkidu, who becomes human the day he tastes bread and drinks the beer of Shamhat.