Ancient Greek Recipe & Food Sources

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.E. 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 specialties 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.

Ancient Greek Writings on Food

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" (Works and Days, lines 587–596).

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, fertilizes some and ripens others" (Odyssey, Book 7, lines 112–119). These texts were written before 600 B.C.E., and they set the scene for later gastronomy.

Mithaecus (in Greek, Mithaikos) was a cook and cookbook author of the late 5th century BC. A Greek-speaking native of Sicily at a time when the island was rich and highly civilized, Mithaecus is credited with having brought knowledge of Sicilian gastronomy to Greece. Specifically, according to sources of varying reliability, he worked in Sparta, from which he was expelled as a bad influence, and in Athens. He earned an unfavourable mention in Plato's dialogue Gorgias.

Mithaecus's cookbook was the first in Greek; he is the earliest cookbook author in any language whose name is known. One recipe survives from it, thanks to a quotation in the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus. It is in the Doric dialect of Greek (appropriate both to Greek Sicily and to Sparta) and describes, in one line, how to deal with the fish Cepola rubescens:

"Tainia: gut, discard the head, rinse and fillet; add cheese and olive oil."

The ribbon-like fish here called tainia is known in Italian as cepola and in modern Greek as kordella. The addition of cheese seems to have been a controversial matter; Archestratus is quoted as warning his readers that Syracusan cooks spoil good fish by adding cheese.

Problems with Translations

Translators of Greek and Roman texts sometime use misleading translations. Terms such as 'pumpkin,' 'marrow,' 'squash,' 'kidney bean,' 'French bean,' and costmary in spite of the accepted opinion that these species were unknown in the classical world. Archeologists carelessly describe terebinth fruits from the prehistoric Mediterranean as 'pistachio,' thus confusing the history of the Pistacia genus. Historians often translate the Greek kardamon as cardamom, for which the accurate translation is 'cress.' Other misleading translations: 'ripe cucumber' for sikyos pepon, 'melon.'

Then there is the problem of identification. Pending a fortunate archeological find we cannot be sure of the source of ancient cinnamon, or the species represented by amomum, because the ancient written evidence is contradictory or inconclusive. There is a real problem about when cucumber became known in the ancient Mediterranean. There are similar problems about chicken and sesame.

 

Timachidas of Rhodes (Greek: Τιμαχίδας ὁ Ῥόδιος) was an ancient Greek poet and grammarian from the island of Rhodes who lived in 2nd/1st century BC. He wrote a hexametric poem entitled Deipnon or "Dinner Party" in at least four books (Supplementum Hellenisticum 769–73 BC), a lexicographical work known as Glossai ("Glossary"), and commentaries on various authors and works (Aristophanes' Frogs, Euripides' Medea, Menander's Kolax, Eratosthenes' Hermes). He is often identified with the co-author of the so-called Lindian Chronicle, an inscription published in 99 BC containing a list of dedications to the temple of Athena on Lindos on the island of Rhodes. However, this identification is far from certain. The most recent edition of the fragments of Timachidas include 1 testimonium and 35 fragments, mostly derived from Athenaeus, the lexicographical tradition (Harpocration, Hesychius), and ancient scholia.

Other writers contributing to our knowledge of age-old recipes are Hegemon the Thasian (who many called Lentil Soup), Noumenios, Artemidoros, and Philoxenos. They all wrote elaborate cookbooks that gave us insight into the old method of eating and cooking.