A Questionable Comestible.

Could somebody please tell me what ancient grains are? It’s just that Sainsbury’s has recently introduced a new line of sliced bread which boasts that it contains ‘sprouted and ancient grains.’ I bought one today.

You see, I thought ancient grains were something which archaeologists painstakingly picked from the abdomens of 5,000-year-old mummies. So now I can’t help entertaining the sliver of a suspicion – however absurd and unlikely – that sarcophagi have become grain mines for the benefit of the Egyptian economy, and that what I’m eating comes not from the bowels of the earth but the bowels of some desiccated pharaoh of the 5th Dynasty. And that takes the edge off my houmous and cucumber sandwich a bit.