During Sudan’s Kushite Kingdom some 3,000 - 4,000 years ago, sorghum, millet and barley were the main staple foods in Sudan while wheat flour bread was mostly native to Egypt. The ancient Kushites had close cultural and trading ties with Egypt, which had a well-documented tradition of wheat bread making going back to at least 3000 BCE. Wheat flour bread is known all around Sudan and there are multiple documents and poems stating that bread was baked and sold in the 1900s even though it is likely that it was consumed before then. This is why up until post colonial times, types of wheat flour bread, especially baked bread, was only dominant in northern Sudan where wheat grain is grown. This does not mean that wheat, both wild and farm grown, did not grow elsewhere in central Sudan and Al-Jazira and is eaten, not as bread, but as other types of food. However, due to cultural influences and a changing lifestyles, baked wheat flour bread has become an important staple food all around Sudan especially in cities, indeed so important that the increase of bread prices sparked the nation-wide revolution that erupted in 2018. The introduction of bread has also influenced eating habits. Sudanese people have always eaten food collectively but now instead of a single dish of stew eaten with flat bread loaves,  multiple dishes are served at the same time and people have the option to dip their hand-held pieces of bread into whatever dishes take their fancy .  

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This photo gallery explores the trip wheat takes from the ground until it reaches the table

Cover picture © Issam Ahmed Abdelhafiez

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