Ancient Greek food

[Carlton Bach]

So would they have softened their bread with olive oil, or animal fat?
(Hmm, just remembered the suggestion that even bread may not have been plentiful - but where else would they get their carbohydrates?)

Bread would most likely have included olive oil, if any fat (amd most bread was probably made with nothing but grain, water, salt and sourdough cultures). We have some indications that there was a large range of specialty breads that included all manner of ingredients, but they were unlikely to have been common.

The source of carbohydrates for large parts of the population is often assumed to have been porridge. Bread is often mentioned in our sources, but these regularly refer to middle and upper class urban diets. Actual statistics are almost impossible to come by, but the economic realities of production (fuel consumption, time and effort required, facilities and tools) at least strongly suggest that porridge was the food of choice for the poor. We will probably never be able to answer this question fully, but I would at least warn against the assumption that bread-eating was universal in greece or Rome (we actually have references to 'porridge-eating ancestors' from the Romans).

As to cheese, the dairy production of all livestock at the time was lower, which means that there was less to go round. Again, upper class cuisine most likely made regular use of it (Archestratus often uses cheese with fish, and Cato adds it to all kinds of feast day fare sourced from greek cuisine), but I doubt the poor could often afford it, and even many smallholders must have been torn between eating or selling their production. We simply have to realise that the ancient diet was radically different from ours not only in the choice of foodstuffs but also in the variety and availability by class and location.