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Ancient Greek food
#1
I have a number of Ancient Greek recipes, but I'm interested in making a comparison between a typical Ancient Greek menu and a typical modern one.

The food I was offered on Crete (which was jolly nice, when it finally made it to the table!) contained a lot of tomatoes, which would be out, before the European re-discovery of the Americas. I seem to remember
avocados turning up quite frequently, too.

What about rice? When does that make it to Greece? I'd also like to know whether ancient Greek bread was like modern pitta or not. Were there several different kinds back then, as now? And this may seem obvious, but what about melons? Are they native or naturalised? How about cucumber?

Can anyone enlighten me, or offer a source of information, please?
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#2
Durinng the Olympic Games period (2004) a book was published.
It was named "Ancient Greek food and Drink".
It contained cooking and food processing equipment, eating utensils, recipies and photoes of the food served in the ancient way.
(Distillery device from the Bronce age excavated in Crete!!!)
Well many copies were given gifts to the "Olympic Immortals".
We will try to bring a copy if possible at Watford but I do not promish for sure.
It gave details about ancient sources of processe and recipies.
Kind regrds
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#3
What period was the distillery dated? Did the Greeks have a term that distinguished distilled alcohol from brewed/fermented alcohol? What is the earliest document that this term appears?
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#4
ΑΠΟΣΤΑΞΙΣ APOSTAKSIS = distilation
ΑΠΟΣΤΑΣΩ APOSTASO = to distill
ΑΠΟΣΤΑΓΜΑ APOSTAGMA = something distilled (ouzo, brandy, tzin, vodka are termes apostagmata-plural )
ΑΠΟΣΤΑΚΤΗΡIO APOSTAKTIRIO = distillery
ΑΠΟΣΤΑΚΤΗΡΑΣ apostaktiras the distilling device
When I get the book in my hands I will post location and date of the device in Crete. I need some time to see the apearence of thes terms.

Paul rice possibly would be availble to the Hellnistic Kings but in Greece was cultivated after 1890.
Greco Baktrian kingdoms knew it for certain.
Seleukidiks controlled part of the Silk Road. I do not know how early did rice cultivation came to Iran though. Any info someone please?

Kind regards
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#5
I was just eating some Greek olives and somethig ocurred to me. Most modern olives are preserved in an intensely salty brine. Salt wasn't as plentiful in the ancient world as now. How did they preserve olives back then? Were they as salty as modern olives? Did they stuff them with pimientos? Oh, forget tat last part.
Pecunia non olet
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#6
Why wasn't salt as plentiful? In Greece especially, seawater was easily available :-) ) I read somewhere that the romans sometimes preserved olives in honey..
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#7
To preserve you olives:
(Recipy from the bronze age!)
a) Collect before fully ripe.

b) Remove the bitterness
Leave them in eater that you change every 12 hours with water that contains wood ash and then again clear water. I tmight take a week.
To decrease the time it is a good idea to cut the olives with knife.

c) ash well and put them in salty water. Τhe oil coming from them will aid prservation. Idealy a combination of wine vinegar and salytwater is used.
Cannoisiers use vinegar, saltywater and oliveoil.

Kind regards

Stefanos
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#8
The book you want is Andrew Dalby: Siren Feasts (various publishers, numerous editions). He may well bne *the* leading expert on Ancient Greek food and has also published the undeservedly less popular Flavours of Byzsantium (Prospect Books, Totnes 2003) and a guide for modern cooks, The Ancient Cookbook, with Sally Grainger. You may want to look at a more archeology-heavy work to follow, he mostly works with literary sources.

As to sources, if you don't want to slog your way through the entire body of comedy, the best starting point still is Athenaeus' Deipnosophists. Prospect Books published a collection of just the Archestratus recipes from that collection in the late 90s, but I don't recall the translator and it's OOP, anyway, so the Loeb editio0n is your best bet. Some interesting insights can also be had from the late 4th century BC book by Theophrastus 'Peri Phyton' (translated as 'Inquiry into Plants' in the Loeb edition), where he describes culinary as well as dietetic and medical properties.

Generally speaking, there is a lot we do not know about ancient Greek cuisine, but it is quite likely that it relied much more on wild plants, used much less dairy, and was a lot more frugal with meat and fish. The basic setup was starchy foods with small tasty side dishes ('opson') and 'opsophagia' - the habit of eating only or mostly opson - was considered evidence of shocking decadence in 4th century Athens. There is also still some debate whether bread was a luxury food or not, how meat and fish compared in terms of social status, and how many vegetables were consumed, but this is the broad outline.
Der Kessel ist voll Bärks!

Volker Bach
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#9
Thanks, Volker, I must try to get hold of Dalby's book.

"..used muchless dairy..." I would assume that means less butter and, perhaps, cow's milk? Cheese is such a staple among subsistence agriculturalists.
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#10
Quote:Thanks, Volker, I must try to get hold of Dalby's book.

"..used muchless dairy..." I would assume that means less butter and, perhaps, cow's milk? Cheese is such a staple among subsistence agriculturalists.

THey most definitely used cheese, but not ion the quantities it is used in modern greek cuisine, and possibly no yoghurt at all. They also drank milk and ate a version of whipped cream, but these were most likely midlevel luxury foods, not daily staples (think steak - not caviar, but not toast and cheese, either). Butter is unlikely - at least I have never heard of it, and the Romans learned of it from the northern peoples.
Der Kessel ist voll Bärks!

Volker Bach
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#11
NO BUTTER?! That's astounding! Especially when you consider that you only need a mouse or a frog with a strong survival instinct to fall in your cream and the butter's made...

Are you actually including cheese in that group of "midlevel luxury foods"?
I've always thought of Ancient Greek peasants getting a bit of protein from goat's cheese.
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#12
Quote: Are you actually including cheese in that group of "midlevel luxury foods"?
I've always thought of Ancient Greek peasants getting a bit of protein from goat's cheese.

Depends of your locality. Perevoi who where between the Thessalians and the Ipirotes and had strike good deals with both and were not in easy raidable place (South Pindos mountains) might have got more cheese but less bread. Phokians might eat a more blanced diet but after their land was ravaged by the Delfic holy wars might have been reduced to eat forest fruits and roots.

Butter in Greek is called VOUTIRO (VOUS = ox TIROS= cheese).
Usually it might have been a luxury for the Thesallians and the Beotians or Evoians who had flat lands Not something that you get everyday.

Hope I helped.
Kind regards
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#13
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?)
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#14
ELAIARTOS, ELIOPSOMO = bread with olives in the dough
ELAIOARTOS, LADOPSOMO = bread with oil in the dough (used as offering to Athena)
KROMMYARTOS, KREMIDOPSOMO = bread with onions in the dough
STAFIDOPSOMO = bread with raisins in the dough (used as offering to Hekati)
MAKARONI also was known as SKOLIDONES (worms!!)
A number of pancakes (LALLAGIS or LALAGGIS) are mentioned.

Hope it helps
Kind regards
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#15
Quote: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.
Der Kessel ist voll Bärks!

Volker Bach
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