In the Metropolitan's excavation house, meals were not served French-style in courses of starter, main, dessert: instead, they shared the sufra, a large copper tray or common mat where everything arrives at once. Everyone dips into the center with aïch (flatbread) used as a spoon: a pot of fava beans, a bowl of pickled vegetables, dates, steaming tea or karkadé. The meal is not a succession of courses but a circle of equality where Egyptian workers and American scholars break the same bread. The feast (stuffed pigeon) marks the end of the campaign; the rest is the patient daily fare of the desert.

Toasted cumin and clarified butter (samna) are the fragrant soul of Upper Egyptian cuisine: they season the morning fava beans as well as the festive poultry, and their warm scent permeates the entire excavation house from dawn.