Ancient Greek Cuisine
taken in part from Andrew Dalby, www.enotes.com/food-encyclopedia/greece-ancient, and http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/LX/IndexGreekLife.html

"Mediterranean Trio": Wheat, Olive Oil, and Wine

After reading about the great Greek heroes like Achilles and Hercules, and stories about the Trojan war, we often wonder how was the life of those people, or what kind food did they consume that gave them such strength and such physiques. Here, we have tried to shed some light on the ancient Greek foods that must have been prevalent then, which will also give us some clues to the type of lifestyle of ancient Greecians.

Agriculture was the foundation of the Ancient Greek economy. Nearly 80% of the population was involved in this activity. The cultivation of cereals. vines and olives has remained central to Greek agriculture since antiquity. Farmers grew grain on the few open plains. Olive trees grew on the sides of these plains. On lower slopes of hills, they planted grapevines. On land that was too rocky or didn't have fertile soil, sheep and goats grazed on the land.

The climate - broadly speaking, low annual rainfall, dry summers, mild winters - is typical of the Mediterranean. Harvesting of olives took place in autumn or early winter. The great festival in honor of Dionysus celebrated in late February the new wine, and the wine storage vessels were symbolically opened on the first day of the ceremonies. Barley and wheat were usually sown in autumn.

Archaeology shows that olive oil and wine 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. The olive was being grown on Crete in Minoan times, in 2500 BC. By 700 BC, olive groves were well established on the hills of Attica - the takeover of the olive tree in the hospitable calcareous soils of Greece being perhaps the first ever example of monoculture. In the 5th century BC, Herodotus described Athens as a vast centre of Greek olive culture.

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.

The Greeks could grow emmer wheat and barley, but those didn't make great bread. It is thought 90% of cereal production was barley. Barley and emmer could be used for soups, stews, and porridges. Bread was often barley cakes or flat bread. Barley cakes were called "maza." The Romans called the Greeks "barley eaters." The poor's barley bread would often even contain chaff in it, as the flour wouldn't have been finely sifted. Athenaeus lists 72 kinds of bread. Greece wasn't a great place to grow durum wheat, which is higher in gluten. It was imported. Consequently, wheat flour was very late to come along as a food item.

These core crops were augmented by vegetable gardens (cabbage, onion, garlic, lentils, chick pea, beans) and herb gardens (sage, mint, thyme, savory, oregano). Orchards included those of fig, almond, apple, and pear trees. Oil-seed plants such as linseed, sesame, and poppy were also grown.

Ancient Greek foods predominantly included vegetables that were grown on the rocky and mountainous terrain of the Greek islands and the peninsula. It must be noted that several vegetables like potatoes or grains, like rice, were never introduced in ancient Greece, till the age of exploration began in the 16th century. On the basis of available food facts, it can be concluded that the residents of Greece principally relied on bread, small amount of vegetables, wine and olives for their daily consumption. The Greeks often ate raw fruits and olives as side dishes with the regular meal.

At times, especially in the coastal settlements, fish was also used as a staple diet by many people. Such was the importance of sailing and fishing that fish was a major part of the local diet. Fish, shellfish, squid and eels were consumed in near any manner possible. The richer families may extend their diet to caviar, oysters and turtles. Smoked fish was even imported from as far a field as the Black Sea and Spain. Athenaeus gives some recipes from a prominent cook of the day by the name of Archestratus for tuna, parrot fish, mullet and eels.

Meat was a far less common dish. At home one would be more than happy to have sausages or hare. Any animal capable of producing food was valuable alive. Goats cheese, for example, could be happily produced in great volume. Sheep and goats were indispensible for their wool as well as their milk and meat. Meat and fish were cooked in spits and ovens.

The ancient Greeks had rather different ideas about their meals. All the meals in ancient Greece revolved around their religious beliefs and philosophical theories. The Greeks never consumed the meat of a domesticated animal, as they considered it to be barbaric. The only meat that was consumed was that of the animals that were either first sacrificed to god, or were hunted in the wild. The Greeks also never consumed milk in its raw form. The milk was first processed into normal cheese or cottage cheese and then consumed. It was said that the Greeks never consumed anything that was a part of the barbarian, nomads and the non-Greek diets.

Any kind of poultry, however, would not be out of place on a table. Pheasants, chickens, all were available.

The Ancient Greek Meal Components

In Greek terms any proper meal had three components, sitos (the staple: wheat bread or barley mash or one of the pulses), opson (the relish: fish, meat, vegetable, cheese, or just olive oil) and oinos (wine, the universal drink). Ancient Greek writers noted that the trouble with ancient Greek gourmets was that they were largely opsophagoi, "relish-eaters": they put too much emphasis on fine fish and other relishes, and not enough on simple, wholesome bread. Even worse were the frequent meat-eaters, like the greedy god Heracles and the north Aegean peoples (Macedonians, Thracians, and Greeks of Thessaly), or excessive wine-drinkers—a "barbaric" habit reputed by many Greeks to have killed Alexander of Macedon in 323 B.C.E. Macedonians did not add water to their wine, instead preferring to drink it 'neat' (undiluted).

Barley grew well in Greece, but it did not make good bread; nor did emmer, the wheat species that grew best locally. Broths, porridges, and mashes were made with these. Barley could be made into a paste from sprouted grain then mixed with flax seeds, coriander seeds and salt, other spices and herbs. Goat's milk and cheese, olives, vegetables, figs and other fruit and fish would augment the meal. Athens and some other cities imported bread wheat from Sicily, North Africa, and the northern Black Sea coasts, and the Athenian market became famous for its fine industrially baked bread.

"Greek pistores had mastered the art of giving their bread the most extravagant forms, shaping it like mushrooms, braids, crescents, and so on...thus illustrating in advance Careme's observation a thousand years later: "The fine arts are five in number, namely: painting, sculpture, poetry, music and architecture, the principal branch of the latter being pastry." And since it is not possible for us to discuss flour without dealing with cakes, the moment has come to pose the question of what pastry consisted of in antiquity, what it looked like and how it was made. The regrettable loss of the great Treatise on Baking, by Chrysippus of Tyranus, which included detailed reicpes for more than thirty cakes, each entirely different, leaves us somewhat short of information on this important subject. But various cross-checks (not to mention the consulation of Apicius) nonetheless give us a rather good idea of what the ancient Greeks and Romans confected in this domain...the makers of Greco-Roman pastry had no knowledge of the subleties of dough, and thus having nothing like our present-day babas, doughnuts, brioches, savarins, creampuffs, millefeuille pastry, pastry made from raised dough or shortbreads...as a general rule, Greek pastry closely resembled the sort that is still found today in North Africa, the Near East, and the Balkans: the basic mixture was honey, oil, and flour, plus various aromatic substances, notably pepper. The most frequent method of cooking was frying, but pastry was also cooked beneath coals. Other ingredients included pine nuts, walnuts, dates, almonds, and poppy seeds. This mixture was mainly baked in the form of thin round cakes and in the form of doughnuts and fritters...Roman pastry does not appear to have included many innovations over and above what the Greeks had already invented."
---Culture and Cuisine: A Journey Through the History of Food, Jean-Francois Revel [Doubleday:Garden City] 1979 (p. 68-9)

In Athens and many other Greek cities, fish was available at the market—expensive, as fine fish still is in Greece, but very fresh. Europe's first gourmet writer, Archestratus (c.350 B.C.E.), wrote extensively on the types of fish that should be sought in specific cities, during which season, at what price, and the manner in which it should be cooked. "The bonito, in autumn when the Pleiades set, you can prepare in any way you please. . . . But here is the very best way for you to deal with this fish. You need fig leaves and oregano (not very much), no cheese, no nonsense. Just wrap it up nicely in fig leaves fastened with string, then hide it under hot ashes and keep a watch on the time: don't overcook it. Get it from Byzantium, if you want it to be good. . . ." 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.

Fish and other seafoods were usually eaten with sour grapes, similar to our use of lemon with fish dishes today. Lemons were unknown to the ancient Greeks. Lemons, apricots and cherries were introduced to Rome around the A.D. 1st century.

Meat was a different matter—expensive, like fish, but in short supply. Livestock was not, and will never be, abundant in much of Greece, owing to the mountainous topography and the consequent shortage of good pasture land. In addition, animals could not simply be killed but needed to be sacrificed to a god. Meat was thus a relatively small part of the diet, a rarity enjoyed at city festivals (free to citizens), celebrations, family events (when participants spent as much as they could afford), and other special occasions. The sacrificial butcher-priest, the mageiros, who was always male, served also as cook on these occasions; the art of cookery was named for this profession, mageirike techne (sacrificer's art).

Imported flavorings included garos (fish sauce), from the Black Sea coasts; rous (sumach, from Syria); and silphion, a now-extinct spice from North Africa, similar to asafetida. Coriander, cumin, and many other native aromatics were in use. Mastic, native to the island of Chios, was used to aromatize bread and spiced wine, and also as a natural chewing gum to freshen the breath.

During the summer fruits and vegetables were readily available fresh. Fruits were eaten in all possible manners, while vegetables were preferable well dressed. However, for over the winter one was advised to dry out and preserve them. Apparently one manner of preserving a whole variety of fruits is to put them in honey, carefully ensuring that no one fruit touches another. To preserve green vegetables one need only put them in a receptacle treated with pitch.

Seasonings of all sorts were imported. Garlic, onions and mustard were highly popular. And, as with today, olive groves grew in abundance. They were quite capable of supplying far beyond the reaches of Greece itself even then. Wine, too, was readily available and cheap. Each area, as today, produced its own distinct flavour. The Aegean islands, especially Lesbos and Chios, were said to be the best. The wine was transported in amphorae and was then strained through fine cloth prior to use, relieving it of the bitty sediments left in during production.

The use of butter was regarded as a mark of the barbarian. In place of sugar, which was unknown, the Greeks used honey and dried figs.

The foods of ancient Greece did not include many that have become important parts of modern Greek cooking. For example, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and bananas didn't arrive in Greece until after the discovery of the Americas in the 15th century, because that's where those foods originated. Lemons, oranges, eggplant, and rice also arrived later.

A rich source of information on classical Greek food is The Deipnosophists (Professors at dinner), written by the scholar Athenaeus around 200 C.E.

How Did the Ancient Greek Cook Their Food?

The most common cooking methods used by Ancient Greeks were boiling, frying, simmering and stewing (over wood-burning fires), grilling, and baking (in wood burning ovens).

The earliest pots were made of clay, and similar pots (glazed and fired) are still used today in many areas.

In addition to cooking, they also preserved foods by smoking, drying, salting, and preserving in syrups and fat. Foods were often stored with a topping of oil to keep air out.

See Ancient Greek Kitchen and Cooking

Ancient Greek Meals

The eating pattern of the ancient Greeks was also a bit different. The first meal of the day was the breakfast, that was eaten early in the morning. Large amounts of bread, vegetables and soups were used in this meal. The second meal was an early lunch, where again bread and vegetables were occasionally accompanied by meat or fish. Cheese and olives were used in generous quantities in these meals. The supper that was relished in the evening itself, was the main meal of the day. A majority of times, the supper consisted of many different fruits, vegetables, wines and bread.

In the Classical period, the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E., 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. 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.

Another source claims that the Greeks had three to four meals a day. Breakfast (ἀκρατισμός akratismos) consisted of barley bread dipped in wine (ἄκρατος akratos), probably to soften it, sometimes complemented by figs or olives. A quick lunch (ἄριστον ariston) was taken around noon or early afternoon. Dinner (δεῖπνον deipnon), the most important meal of the day, was generally taken at nightfall. An additional light meal (ἑσπέρισμα hesperisma) was sometimes taken in the late afternoon. Ἀριστόδειπνον / aristodeipnon, literally "lunch-dinner", was served in the late afternoon instead of dinner.

At all meals at which guests might be present, men and women ate separately. When the house was too small, the men ate first, the women afterwards. Slaves waited at dinners. Aristotle notes that "the poor, having no slaves, must use their wives and children as servants". 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."

The Greeks normally ate while seated on chairs; benches were used for banquets. The tables, high for normal meals and low for banquets, were initially rectangular in shape. But by the 4th century BCE, the usual table was round, often with animal-shaped legs (for example lion's paws). Loaves of flat bread could be used as plates, but terra cotta bowls were more common. Dishes became more refined over time, and by the Roman period (146 BC – 324 AD) plates were sometimes made out of precious metals or glass.

Cutlery was not often used at table: The ancient Greeks did not use forks at their tables, people ate with their fingers. Lamb chops and other such cuts could be picked up by the end bone and eaten with the hands as we do today.The ancients usually took food with their fingers, which they later cleaned with a special dough or bread crumbs, since they did not use napkins.

Knives were used to cut the meat. When food was watery, as with soups and broths, they used spoons that they called “mostra” or “glossa”. A piece of bread crust, called a mystilli, could also be used as a spoon. Pieces of bread (ἀπομαγδαλία apomagdalia) could be used to scoop the food or as napkins, to wipe the fingers. If the reclining posture were to be maintained, the easiest tool to supplement the human hand was bread; and if the bread was to act as a kind of scoop, then a flat bread like modern pitta appears eminently suitable, while a raised bread might be better for absorbing soups.

Water, wine, as well as the kykeon, were drunk in kylix (cups), which were usually made of clay. They often used wooden or metal cups, while in rich banquets one could see silver or gold cups. The food dishes were called pinakia and the smaller dishes were called ‘batania’.

Social dining

As with modern dinner parties, the host could simply invite friends or family; but two other forms of social dining were central in ancient Greece: the entertainment of the all-male symposium, and the obligatory, regimental syssitia.

Symposium

The symposium (συμπόσιον symposion), traditionally translated as "banquet", but more literally "gathering of drinkers", was one of the preferred pastimes for the Greeks. At both dinner and symposium the proper custom was to recline, a fashion that Greeks had learned from the Near East. The symposium consisted of two parts: the first dedicated to food, generally rather simple, and a second part dedicated to drinking. However, wine was consumed with the food, and the beverages were accompanied by snacks (τραγήματα tragēmata) such as dried fruits and nuts, chestnuts, beans, toasted wheat, or cakes perhaps flavored with sesame and saffron and drenched in honey; all intended to absorb alcohol and extend the drinking spree.

The second part was inaugurated with a libation of neat (or undiluted) wine (offered to the gods and tasted by humans), most often in honor of Dionysus, followed by conversation or table games, such as kottabos. The guests would recline on couches (κλίναι klinai); low tables held the food or game boards. Dancers, acrobats, and musicians would entertain the wealthy banqueters. A "king of the banquet" was drawn by lots; he had the task of directing the slaves as to how strong to mix the wine.

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.

Were symposia only enjoyed by an elite? This question is controversial, and the meager evidence can be read in more than one way. Certainly there were great differences in access to food between the rich, who could spend time on eating and entertainment and could have as much meat and fine fish as they wanted, and the very poor, who subsisted largely on pulses (chickpeas, fava beans, and others less nourishing), green vegetables, and roots and fruits (and maybe snails) gathered from the wild. In famine years, many citizens were reduced to such a diet.

With the exception of Courtesans, the banquet was strictly reserved for men. It was an essential element of Greek social life. Great feasts could only be afforded by the rich; in most Greek homes, religious feasts or family events were the occasion of more modest banquets. The banquet became the setting of a specific genre of literature, giving birth to Plato's Symposium, Xenophon's work of the same name, the Table Talk of Plutarch's Moralia, and the Deipnosophists (Banquet of the Learned) of Athenaeus.

Syssitia

The syssitia (τὰ συσσίτια ta syssitia) were mandatory meals shared by social or religious groups for men and youths, especially in Crete and Sparta. They were referred to variously as hetairia, pheiditia, or andreia (literally, "belonging to men"). They both served as a kind of aristocratic club and as a military mess. Like the symposium, the syssitia was the exclusive domain of men — although some references have been found to all-female syssitia. Unlike the symposium, these meals were hallmarked by simplicity and temperance.