In Sumer, meals are not divided into starter-main course-dessert. Everything revolves around two pillars: barley bread (the base broken at every bite) and barley beer (kash), drunk through a straw from a shared jar. Around these come stews (tuh'u) simmered in the pot, fish from the two rivers, and date sweets reserved for the gods and festivals. One eats with the fingers, using bread as a spoon, and the order is free: dip, scoop, share.

Two markers of Mesopotamian cuisine: barley (two-row barley, base of bread and beer) and siqqu — a fermented brine of fish or locusts, distant ancestor of garum, which gave its salty-umami base to stews. With garlic, onion, leek, coriander, and cumin, they sketch a forgotten taste attested by clay tablets.