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DIET IN ANCIENT GREECE
Greek banqueter
Scientists have been able to figure out a great deal about what ancient people ate by doing various kinds of analysis of amphorae, jars and cooking pots sitting in museum storerooms around the world and examining the teeth of skeletons.
Luxurious living, which was downplayed at Sparta and to a lesser extent Athens, but this was not necessarily the case in other Greek states, such as Thessaly, and in particular Sicily and Magna Graecia. In these places the gastronomic art was cultivated to a high degree, and there were books in which the various kinds of joints and ragouts, fishes and sweets, etc., were enumerated in verse, sometimes in a comic manner and sometimes with due seriousness. The Boeotians, on the other hand, had a bad name for consuming great quantities of food, and this of a coarse description. At Athens, in the classic period, meals were, as a rule, simple and modest. In the various descriptions of banquets handed down to us by different writers, no mention is ever made of the cooking, and the simplicity of Plato’s meals may be inferred from the somewhat malicious remark commonly made that those who had dined with Plato would be in excellent health next morning. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]
Vegetarianism was practiced and promoted by the Pythagoreans. The Pythagoreans believed in a general prohibition against eating animals on the grounds of “having a right to live in common with mankind.” It was said that Pythagoras was one of the first people to become a vegetarian for health and philosophical reasons. He ate bread and honey for his meals, with vegetables for desert, and he even abstained from eating eggs and beans. He didn’t eat meat because he believed that animals had souls. His belief about beans had nothing to do with farts. Instead it based on the belief that beans were the first offspring of the Earth. See Pythagoreans Under Philosophy
According to researchers at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, pre-Mycenaean-age ancient Greeks fed mostly on acorns. Later, in the Mycenaean Age, bread became part daily meals and grain was the most important source of proteins and carbohydrates for both people and animals. Homer wrote that the main food sources in his time were bread, meat and wine. He mentions nothing about vegetables, despite the fact he often included details of the ancient Greek nutrition in his writings. Olive oil was known in Homer’s Greece. It was used in ancient Greek rituals and by Olympic Games athletes to anoint their body before entering the arena. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus reports that Athens was a center of olive cultivation. Scientists estimate that every adult Athenian consumed, on average, 55 litres of olive oil per year. [Source: greekreporter.com, Ancientfoods, May 11, 2012]
The very poor subsisted largely on pulses (chickpeas, fava beans, and others similar foods), green vegetables, and roots and fruits (and maybe snails) gathered from the wild. In famine years, many citizens were reduced to such a diet. [Source: Andrew Dalby, Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, Encyclopedia.com]
Ancient Ideas About Digestion
Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: Claire Bubb, a medical historian at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at NYU, told that most ancient theories of digestion relied on the concept of heat and the individual capacity to produce it. “Aristotle, in whose theories heat plays a critical role in general, leans particularly hard into this correlation. Heat for him is unambiguously what turns ingested food into nourishment suitable for the body. Further, he believes that the degree of heat is variable in different individuals, but that some are closer to perfect than others.”[Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, June 1, 2019]
Because digestion is so individual, Bubb said, “It would not be hard for someone working within the Aristotelian tradition to take this claim to the next level and argue that a person with the most perfect degree of heat would be capable of most perfectly digesting his foods.” For anyone who subscribed to this system of thought the claim that Jesus never digested food wasn’t a denial of his humanity; it was an endorsement of his perfect body.
At the same time, not everyone agreed. Some people, Bubb said, thought that digestion was about crushing and grinding, not heat. The Roman era doctor Galen argued that “the quantity of waste products [depends on] the nature of foods consumed.” For Galen “radishes… are barely food at all and most of their substance is simply not suitable for assimilation, with the result that almost as much as is consumed must be excreted. Even a perfectly constructed body could not avoid this.” So you can see why other Christians would have disagreed with Valentinus and Epiphanius about the issue of excrement.
Of course modern theories of digestion are more Galenic than Aristotelian. If you want to say that Jesus was truly human, you have to admit that he used the bathroom. For the pragmatically minded there’s the issue of nutrition: Jesus lived on a high-fibre ancient Mediterranean diet; we have to imagine that life-long constipation was the least of his problems. Though Epiphanius doesn’t mention them, there were ancient Greeks who were also rumoured never to have gone to the bathroom. Dunderberg mentioned that two philosophers discussed in the ancient compilation Lives of the Philosophers never excreted solid waste either.
Appreciation of Food in Ancient Greece
olive oil extractor-juicer from Dion, Greece
Andrew Dalby wrote in the Encyclopedia of Food and Culture: The appreciation of food in ancient Greece — by those who had the time and money — marks the beginning of what is known today as gastronomy. Greek literary texts (especially comic plays) of around 350 B.C. present detailed discussions of which foods were consumed, how much they cost, and how they would be prepared. From the same period one can trace the beginnings of the idea that each city would have its own local food specialities and its own distinctive wine. Adherents of the medical tradition begun by Hippocrates were developing dietary theories and compiling handbooks that dealt with the contribution made by individual foodstuffs to human health.[Source: Andrew Dalby, Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, Encyclopedia.com]
Some later readers knew Archestratus's poem under the title Gastronomia (Rules for the stomach), the origin of our modern word "gastronomy." A stone inscription dating to the third century found in the small city of Acraephia, not far north of Athens, sets out an official market price for over twenty kinds of fish, a sign of the close interest that governments took in this trade.
An interest in food and wine is evident in the oldest Greek literature. Alcman, lyric poet of Sparta, in a surviving verse fragment, lists five fine wines of the southern Peloponnese; in another, hot bean soup is jokingly demanded as payment for poetry. Hesiod's Works and Days, a poem of farming and practical lore, tells of the hot June days when "goats are fattest and wine best and women lustiest and men weakest. . . . Then we need rocky shade and Bibline wine and creamy barley mash and the last milk of the goats, and the meat of a foraging cow that has not calved . . . and from an ever-flowing unpolluted spring to pour three of water and to make the fourth be wine".
Many of the focal events in the two great Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, take place around shared meals of roast meat and red wine. Odysseus's description of the palace of Phaeacia is a reminder that fruit was prized and seasonal varieties had been developed: "Outside the yard is a big orchard on both sides of the gates . . . where tall trees spread their leaves, pears and pomegranates and shiny-fruited apples and sweet figs and leafy olives; their fruit never fails or falls short, winter or summer, all the year, but the West Wind, blowing, fertilises some and ripens others" (Odyssey, Book 7, lines 112–119). These texts were written before 600 B.C., and they set the scene for later gastronomy. Most notably, they also highlight olives (for olive oil) and wine. Archaeology shows that these two products already had been important in Greece for well over a thousand years: they remained essential components of the Greek diet throughout ancient times and are still so today. From prehistoric sites, including the Minoan palace at Knossos in Crete, there are vats and plentiful storage jars for oil and wine. From Classical times there are many fine paintings on cups and wine jars showing the olive and grape harvests, the marketing of oil, and the joys of wine. The god Dionysus, with his train of drunken male satyrs and ecstatic female maenads, features in many such paintings, as if to remind the viewer that wine and its pleasures are a divine gift.
Eating Customs in Ancient Greece
Towards sunset, or in winter after sunset, they returned home for the principal meal, or else went to the house of some friend who had invited guests. In the latter case the meal was generally a good deal prolonged, and followed by drinking, which extended far into the night.Those who dined at home with their wives and children generally finished their meal very quickly, and as the custom of early rising prevailed, they were probably in the habit of retiring early, unless the cares of business, study, or other serious pursuits kept some of them awake by lamplight. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]
At banquets the guests had all lain down and washed their hands in bowls handed round for the purpose, the little three-legged dining tables were brought in, which were always a little lower than the sofas. On these the food was arranged in dishes or plates, and always cut up small, for forks were never used at table, but only in the kitchen by the cooks for carving the meat, whilst the guests made use, instead, of a spoon or sometimes of a piece of bread hollowed out, and very seldom used a knife. Table cloths and napkins were unknown; the place of the latter was taken by soft dough, on which the fingers were rubbed. At large banquets, sometimes towels and water for washing the hands were handed round between the courses, and this was always done at the end of a meal. The practice of using the fingers for eating made this indispensable.
At Athens, and probably throughout Greece — except, perhaps, at Sparta — the chief meal of the day was taken in the evening. This was not, however, the case in the Homeric period, when it was taken at mid-day, and the evening meal was of less importance. The customs of the heroic age differed in many respects from those of later times. In particular, the practice of sitting on chairs at meals then prevailed, and, in fact, there was no large common table used by all, but each guest had his own little table before him, on which the attendants placed the food which had been carved at a special board used for the purpose. Another difference is that, though the Homeric heroes, in accordance with the condition of their times, which laid special stress on the pleasures of the senses, cared a good deal for plentiful food and drink, and though full cups were continually circling at the meals, still the regular drinking parties which were common in later times, and which followed the meal itself, were quite unknown in the heroic age.
We know very little of the proceedings at these family dinners, and that only from works of art. On Greek reliefs on tombstones we often find, from the classical to the Imperial period, representations of the family meal, where the master of the house lies on his couch, his wife sitting on it at his feet, for it was not considered correct for women to lie down at meals as the men did, and when we see on works of art women lying down along with the men, we may be certain that these are hetaerae, who were not bound by the same rules of custom. The children of the house sat round the table on chairs. But as a rule, the wife and children only dined in the most intimate family circle; when guests were invited they dined alone in the women’s apartments, and only on some few occasions, especially weddings and family festivals, were the women allowed to appear before the men.
Meals in Ancient Greece
For ancient Greeks a proper meal should three components: 1) sitos (the staple: wheat bread or barley mash or one of the pulses); 2) opson (the relish: fish, meat, vegetable, cheese, or just olive oil) and 3) oinos (wine, the universal drink). Ancient Greek gourmets were largely opsophagoi, "relish-eaters". They ate a lot of fine fish and other relishes, but not so much simple, wholesome bread. The god Heracles and the north Aegean peoples (Macedonians, Thracians, and Greeks of Thessaly) were regarded as meat-eaters and excessive wine-drinkers. [Source: Andrew Dalby, Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, Encyclopedia.com]
Andrew Dalby wrote in the Encyclopedia of Food and Culture: In the Classical period, the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., Greeks ate two meals a day: a lighter ariston (break-fast) late in the morning and a fuller deipnon (dinner) in the evening. Breakfast called for bread and olive oil, perhaps with fresh or dried fruit, and red wine. Dinner was a more serious matter, and might well be followed by a symposion (symposium, drinking party). Typically dinner consisted of two courses. The first was a selection of tasty small dishes, some of them resembling modern Greek mezedes (appetizers): shellfish, such as oysters, mussels, and clams, other seafood, salads and cooked vegetables, and fresh fruit. The main course might have included fine fresh fish dishes, delicacies such as sliced salted tuna, and perhaps meat. No wine was taken with dinner. A libation of neat (or undiluted) wine (offered to the gods and tasted by humans) marked the beginning of the symposium, with dried fruits and nuts, cakes perhaps flavored with sesame and saffron and drenched in honey, and plenty more wine, always diluted with water: how much water was a matter for endless discussion.
Breakfast was generally light and often only consisted of unmixed wine and bread. When the mid-day the market was over; some men went home and took a slight repast, not by any means the chief meal of the day, but rather something between a snack and our lunch. This meal, of course, varied a good deal according to individual fancy; many people contented themselves with the remains of the previous day’s dinner, others had fresh warm dishes served them; and in Sicily and Magna Graecia, where great stress was laid on good and plentiful food, this often became a really substantial meal. Some people entirely omitted this lunch, and either took a late breakfast or an earlier dinner. Still, most well-to-do people seem to have taken some meal at the end of their morning’s business. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]
Banquets in Ancient Greece
In Athens and elsewhere in ancient Greece it seems large common banquets were relatively frequent among men and were different from the usual family meal. The custom of entertainments for men alone was far more common in antiquity than at the present day; for these banquets took the place not only of our parties and other social gatherings, but they also gave the men an opportunity, especially in the drinking which followed, while sitting together over their wine, to discuss at their leisure both serious and frivolous matters. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]
The usual course of proceedings at one of these banquets was as follows. The invited guests, who according to custom had previously attended the bath, first took their places sitting on the couches placed ready for them. The slaves of the host, or even of the guests, who often brought them to help wait at table, then took off their masters’ sandals or shoes, and as the dust of the street might have soiled their feet, which were but slightly protected by the soles, these were washed once more by the slaves, a proceeding which was the more necessary, as in lying down they often rested on couches covered with very valuable coverlets.
Hereupon they lay down, as a rule two guests on one sofa, but the monuments often show us three or even more persons on a single couch, and we cannot always determine with certainty whether the artist has adhered to the actual practice or introduced arbitrary changes of his own. In lying down they rested on their left elbow, or on numerous cushions at their back; the right arm was left free, in order to take the food from the table and reach it to the mouth; but plates, dishes, cups, etc., were also taken in the left hand.
See Separate Article: ENTERTAINMENT IN ANCIENT GREECE: BANQUETS, GAMES, GAMBLING, PETS europe.factsanddetails.com
Food Preparation and Consumption in Ancient Greece
crockery display
Food was usually cut into convenient pieces in the kitchen and eaten with the fingers. Silver table services were not common among the Greeks. There were was a a special plate for fish, made in Italy, which had a depression in the center for holding the sauce. These plates are decorated with interesting and surprisingly accurate drawings of fish.
In Greco-Roman times the rich ate and drank from gold plates, silver cups and glass bottles while commoners ate and drank from clay plates, hollowed ram's horns and hardwood jugs. Upper class Greeks used spoons of bronze and silver while poorer people used ones carved from wood. To clean themselves at mealtime the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans used towel-like napkins and finger bowls of water scented with thing like rose petals, herbs and rosemary.
Items found in ancient Greek and Roman kitchens included vessels for storing olive oil; bowls for mixing wine and water; bronze strainers for removing grape skins and seeds; and small bowls for salt and snacks. There were also ladles and large bowls for eating and serving food; mortars and pestles for grinding up food; and saucepans, baking pans and frying pans, all made out of bronze, for cooking food. Women and slaves both did the cooking. Women normally didn't fetch water, but when they did they sometimes carried the vessels sideways on their head to the well and upright on the way home. [Source: "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum]
Excavations of a 1st century B.C. Ptolemaic sites at Tell Timai in Egypt, revealed an unusually large number of baker’s ovens, indicating the building they were found in may have been an industrial-scale bakery or perhaps a tavern. In rubbish pits archaeologists found mammal, bird, fish and mollusc remains and determined that people there ate oysters that made their up the Nile from the Mediterranean. Shellfish assemblage from the former Red Sea port of Berenike, in contrast, indicate the people there ate mollusk species that came from the Red Sea.
Eating Customs in Ancient Greece
Andrew Dalby wrote in the Encyclopedia of Food and Culture: At both dinner and symposium the proper custom was to recline, a fashion that Greeks had learned from the Near East. At all meals at which guests might be present, men and women ate separately. At sacrifices and open-air meals they formed separate circles (but some religious ceremonies were for women only or for men only). At home only male diners used the andron (dining room), which literally means "men's room." [Source: Andrew Dalby, Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, Encyclopedia.com]
Conversation languished while the business of eating went forward. The symposium was the occasion for talk, both serious and lighthearted; it was also a time for composing and reciting poetry, and for music and dance performed by the participants or by hired artists (usually slaves), including the ubiquitous auletrides (flute-girls). These performers, along with other entertainers and hetairai (courtesans), breached the rule of separation of the sexes. Symposia might continue all night, drunkenness supervening slowly but surely, since one could not properly refuse to drink; inhibitions disappeared. While some symposia turned into orgies, others formed the backdrop for some of the greatest intellectual achievements of Greece. A symposium just like those described here is the setting for the philosophical discussion of love that is recorded in Plato's Symposium.
See Separate Article: SYMPOSIUM IN ANCIENT GREECE europe.factsanddetails.com
Homer’s Odyssey and Other Ancient Greek Sources on Food
Homer's “Odyssey”, believed to have been written around 750 B.C. about events that are supposed to have occurred around 1250 B.C., contains many references to food, particularly wine, cereals, olive oil, meat, fruits, and dairy products (milk and cheese). There is archaeological evidence that these food were consumed by the Ancient Greeks. [Source: Matthew Maher, University of Western Ontario, The Odyssey of Ancient Greek Diet, Totem: The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology, Volume 10, Issue 1, Article 3, June 19, 2011]
On grains and bread, Homer wrote in the “Odyssey,” the "housekeeper brought in the bread" and "there is wheat and millet here and white barley, wide grown." One olive oil, he wrote: in the “Odyssey,” "oozes the limpid olive' oil" and "the flourishing olive". On meat; "and sacrifIce our oxen and our sheep and our fat goats" and "where his herds of swine were penned in sacrificed them." On fruits and vegetables: "pear trees and pomegranate trees and apple trees" and "rows of greens, all kinds, and these are lush". On milk and dairy products: "baskets were there, heavy with cheeses" and “he sat down and milked his sheep". (Lattimore 1965:175, 604, 107, 116, 73-74, 115, 128, 219, 244).
World's Oldest Cookbook and Gourmet Magazine
for a food offering
The first known cookbook appeared in Sicily in the 5th century B.C. In work the 3rd century B.C. entitled “ Glossary Of Cooking Terms” Artemidorus wrote: "Let the meat includes organs and intestines and be chopped fine; add as condiments vinegar, toasted cheese, cumin, fresh and dried thyme, fresh and dried coriander, two kinds of onion of which one is to be roasted, poppy-head or raisins or honey, seeds or an acid pomegranate; fish may be substituted for meat." Renaissance Italians looked to ancient Greece and Rome for inspiration on food. Renaissance cooks brought back foods such as artichokes, asparagus shoots, garum (salted fish), capers, olives. and foie gras were all eaten by the ancients and resurrected by Renaissance and incorporated into Renaissance dishes.
The eight-volume “The Deipnosophists,” written by Egyptian author Athenaeus around A.D. 200, is an invaluable source on food in the ancient world. Ancient-food expert Louis Grivetti called it a bonus edition of “Gourmet” magazine circa A.D. 200. [Source: Ancientfoods, October 27, 2009; UC Davis News and Information, January 2004]
According to Ancientfoods.com: “The Deipnosophists is an important source of cookery recipes in classical Greek. It quotes the original text of one recipe from the lost cookbook by Mithaecus, the oldest in Greek and the oldest recipe by a named author in any language. Other authors quoted for their recipes include Glaucus of Locri, Dionysius, Epaenetus, Hegesippus of Tarentum, Erasistratus, Diocles of Carystus, Timachidas of Rhodes, Philistion of Locri, Euthydemus of Athens, Chrysippus of Tyana and Paxamus.
“Grivetti discovered that the most sublime olive oil was produced in the southern Italian town of Thurii, the most superior milk goats were raised on the Greek island of Scyros and the cuisine on Chios, an Aegean island off the coast of Turkey, “was best known for its dainty dishes.” “Back then it was the guidebook to the known world, from Iberia to central Europe to India and North Africa,” Grivetti says. The tastiest water and most original breads in the shapes of animals came from the district of Attica, which included Athens, while Sicily boasted the choicest cheese and Cyprus the sweetest pomegranates.
Spices in Ancient Greece and Rome
Salt was highly valued. Both the Greeks and Romans salted their sacrifices before their throats were cut and salt was so valuable Roman soldiers were paid a salarium (salary) to buy salt and productive workers were said to be "worth their salt." The Romans and Greeks regarded garlic and leeks as aphrodisiacs. Truffles, artichokes and oysters were also associated with sexuality. Anise-tasting fennel was popular with Greeks who thought it made a man strong. The Romans thought it improved eyesight.
Imported flavorings in ancient Greece included garos (fish sauce) from the Black Sea coasts; rous (sumach, from Syria); and silphion, a now-extinct spice and birth-control devise from North Africa. Garlic was consumed by the ancient Egyptians. The pyramid builders ate lot of it along with onions. . One of the first recorded strikes occurred when their garlic ration was reduced. A slave could be bought for seven kilograms of it. Garlic was also consumed by the ancient Greeks and Romans. The Romans regarded it as a food for the lower classes. Roman legions wore it on their bodies to ward off colds.An Ancient Greek spell on being able to eat garlic and not stink read:: Bake Beetroots and eat them. [Papyri Graecae Magicae VII.173]
Ginger was a popular spice in ancient Greece and Rome. Ginger shakers were often placed on the table along with ones for salt and pepper. The word "ginger" came to mean spices in general. Pliny believed that pepper was a stimulant. Ginger is one of the earliest spices known in Western Europe. It imported from India as far back as Greek times.
The ancient Egyptians chewed cardamom as a teeth cleaner. The Greeks and Romans used it as perfume. Vikings that traveled through Russia to Constantinople brought it back to Scandinavia, where it remains popular today. Arabs ascribed aphrodisiac qualities to it and was mentioned a number of times in “Arabian Nights” .
Cloves and nutmeg were seen by Romans as appetite stimulants. The ancient Greeks grew sage and used cumin, thyme, coriander and poppy seeds in their cooking. They considered parsley to be too sacred to eat and the Romans set the precedent of using it as garnish, so it could be used over and over. Cloves were delivered to the Romans from present-day Indonesia by Arab traders and prized as a medicament in medieval times.
Coriander, cumin, and many other native aromatics were grown locally. Mastic, native to the island of Chios, was used to aromatize bread and flavor wine and chewed like gum to freshen the breath. Evidence of herb and tree resin-flavored foods and drinks have been found the ancient world. A 2,400-year-old Greek shipwreck yielded a retsina-type wine, flavored and preserved with tree resin, and a salad-dressing-type oil that contained so much antioxidant-promoting oregano it mixture remained relatively unchanged when it was discovered. [Source: Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News, April 14,2009]
There were few sweets however. Things like sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and chocolate were not introduced to Europe until much later. Nor was there any coffee or tea. Honey was the primary sweetener.
Mycenaeans Used Grills and Non-Stick Pans To Make Souvlaki and Bread
fish plate
In 2014, researchers reported that ancient Mycenaeans used ceramic portable grill pits to make souvlaki and non-stick pans and griddel made of clay to make bread more than 3,000 years ago, It wasn’t clear how these types of pans were used, said Julie Hruby of Dartmouth College, presenting her research at the Archaeological Institute of America’s annual meeting. “We don’t have any recipes,” she told LiveScience. “What we do have are tablets that talk about provisions for feasts, so we have some idea of what the ingredients might have been, but in terms of understanding how people cooked, the cooking pots are really our best bet.” [Source:Megan Gannon, Live Science, January 08, 2014 ~~]
Megan Gannon wrote in Live Science: “The souvlaki trays were rectangular ceramic pans that sat underneath skewers of meat. Scientists weren’t sure whether these trays would have been placed directly over a fire, catching fat drippings from the meat, or if the pans would have held hot coals like a portable barbeque pit. The round griddles, meanwhile, had one smooth side and one side covered with tiny holes, and archaeologists have debated which side would have been facing up during cooking. To solve these culinary mysteries, Hruby and ceramicist Connie Podleski, of the Oregon College of Art and Craft, mixed American clays to mimic Mycenaean clay and created two griddles and two souvlaki trays in the ancient style. With their replica coarsewares, they tried to cook meat and bread. ~~
“Hruby and Podleski found that the souvlaki trays were too thick to transfer heat when placed over a fire pit, resulting in a pretty raw meal; placing the coals inside the tray was a much more effective cooking method. “We should probably envision these as portable cooking devices — perhaps used during Mycenaean picnics,” Hruby said. As for the griddles, bread was more likely to stick when it was cooked on the smooth side of the pan. The holes, however, seemed to be an ancient non-sticking technology, ensuring that oil spread quite evenly over the griddle. ~~
“Lowly cooking pots were often overlooked, or even thrown out, during early excavations at Mycenaean sites in the 20th century, but researchers are starting to pay more attention to these vessels to glean a full picture of ancient lifestyles. As for who was using the souvlaki trays and griddles, Hruby says it was likely chefs cooking for the Mycenaean ruling class.“They’re coming from elite structures, but I doubt very much that the elites were doing their own cooking,” Hruby told LiveScience. “There are cooks mentioned in the Linear B [a Mycenaean syllabic script] record who have that as a profession — that’s their job — so we should envision professional cooks using these.” ~~
Food and Meals in Sparta
The old Dorian custom of common meals was called Syssitia or Pheiditia. A Spartan took his meals, not with his family, but with other companions, usually connected by relationship. They were small parties of about fifteen men, who clubbed together for this purpose; each contributed his appointed share to the expenses of the meal, partly in kind (especially barley, wine, cheese, figs, or dates), partly in money for the purchase of meat. This last was, however, supplied in part by the frequent sacrifices, and also by hunting, for the custom prevailed of contributing additional gifts now and then, apart from the legal contribution: sometimes some game or wheaten bread, instead of the usual barley bread, or poultry, young cattle, fruits, etc., according to opportunity or season. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]
The notorious “black broth,” which played a great part at these meals, was not so much soup as a solid meat dish with broth, and though simple and easily prepared, was probably not as bad as it seemed to the dainty palates of the other Greeks. These common meals, though by no means luxurious, were not in any sense meagre; and though plentiful drinking after the meal was not as customary at Sparta as in other places, yet every guest had his cup beside him filled with mixed wine, and as soon as it was empty it was filled up again by the cup-bearer.
The intercourse among these men was cheerful and free; they discussed political and military matters, and also found time for merriment and even singing. Women dined alone at home with the smaller children and the daughters; the boys, as soon as they had outgrown their mother’s care, were taken by their fathers to the mess, and sat beside them there on low stools, receiving little portions of the dishes which were considered suitable for youth. When they grew older they dined together with their own mess.
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum
Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Canadian Museum of History, Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; MIT Classics Online classics.mit.edu ; Gutenberg.org, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Live Science, Discover magazine, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Encyclopædia Britannica, "The Discoverers" and "The Creators" by Daniel Boorstin. "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP and various books and other publications.
Last updated September 2024