Marie-Claire Amouretti
Less is known about the Greek diet than about the Roman. We do, however, have a fairly good idea of what people ate in the cities of classical Greece, where classical civilization was born in the fifth century B.C.E.
The Agrarian Landscape
The Greek polis was a small state (ranging in size from roughly 40 to 4,000 square miles) with a city at its center. Although the ideal was perfect autarky, this was never achieved: some food always had to be imported. Normally the land belonged to the citizens of the polis, the basic political community, but there were different categories: communal land (koina), often used for pasture; public land (demosia), sometimes owned not by the whole community but by a smaller entity, such as the Attic deme; sacred land (hiera), attached to a temple; and, finally, private property (idia). When a colony was founded, its land was divided into lots under various juridical schemes. Established cities employed a variety of systems. In Sparta, for example, the land was owned by the city, which awarded lots to its citizens along with helots to cultivate the land. In actuality, however, these estates were hereditary, and the city could even cede ownership of part of its common land to an individual in recognition of some service. Only sacred land did not change hands, in theory at any rate. In fact, we know from holy wars that these lands were sometimes usurped.
The limited size of the city-state, together with the diversity of tenure, encouraged small farms. Some large estates encompassed a number of scattered farms, but even the largest remained small by our standards: Phainippos’ 106-acre estate in Attica, mentioned by Demosthenes, was considered exceptional. An estate of 64 acres passed for large.
Temples owned considerable land. From inscriptions of lease agreements, we know that these were subdivided into numerous farms.
Agriculture relied on natural rainfall. Irrigation was limited to the garden, or kepos, which was generally quite small. Considerable effort was invested in improvements to increase yield. Xenophon, in his dialogue Economics, composed in about 370 B.C.E., puts the following words in the mouth of a wealthy landowner, Ischomachus (who is actually expressing the ideas of the author): “No improvement is more dramatic than when a once unproductive field begins to yield a whole array of crops. Why, Socrates, I tell you that I myself have taken estates and multiplied their value a hundred times.”
Such progress did not come without effort. To obtain decent yields of grain, arid land had to be plowed frequently. Because livestock provided little manure, farmers made compost of grass, straw, and branches. Fields left fallow in alternate years were sometimes planted with legumes.
Although even relatively infertile land was used for grain cultivation, Greek agriculture really revolved around the grape and the olive. Leases carefully detailed the number of grapevines and olive trees to be tended. Despite the importance of these two fruits throughout Greece, cultivation was not intensive. Olive trees were often planted on the edges of fields and roads or scattered throughout fields. Some vineyards were more concentrated, as at Thasos and Chios. A third-century inscription from Rhodes tells us what arrangement of vines was believed to produce a superior grape. In flat territory, cereals and legumes were planted between rows of vines; almond and fig trees grew in many fields.
The landscape became extremely varied as regions developed specialties in certain crops. Sparta produced flax and millet, while varieties of peas were grown on the islands. Grapevines were supported in many different ways: on trellises on some windy islands, on beams protected by low walls on the Chersonese Peninsula, on crossed trellises in Crete, on trees elsewhere. The ancient Greek landscape bore little resemblance to what we see today. For example, the island of Delos, now deserted, was farmed in the classical period, and the plain of Amphissa below Delphi was not yet a green sea of olive trees. Archaeologists, moreover, have found that some Greek islands boasted terraced fields.
Our picture of this much-worked landscape would not be complete without some mention of the eschatiai, or “fringes” (that is, marginal land), which were more productive than one might think. Wild herbs grew in the forests. Valonia, saffron, and kermes, used in dyes, were collected by the poor on some islands and in Greek colonies in Asia Minor. Marshes and ponds supplied fish, and eels were taken from Lake Copais in Boeotia.
Rural people thus ate a more diverse diet than one might assume. Some peasants produced enough olives, grapes, fruits, and herbs that they could exchange the surplus for essential grains. But the whole food equation was complicated by the number of city dwellers and the diversity of landownership.
Who Produced the Food?
Recent research has shown that the people who tilled the soil of ancient Greece were a diverse group. In addition to slaves, helots attached to the land, and native laborers employed by Greek colonists, there were of course free farmers and small holders.
Athens was unusual in that it evolved considerably in the classical period. At the beginning of the Peloponnesian wars (431 B.C.E.), the majority of Athenians lived in the country. When Attica was invaded, Thucydides tells us, these rural people were obliged to leave their homes and seek refuge in the beleaguered city. By the fourth century, however, most of the Attic population appears to have been concentrated in Athens, which at that time had somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 residents. Many citizens were still small holders, however, and either farmed their own land or employed up to three slaves. The largest landowners hired a steward, who supervised the slaves on their land while they resided in the city. According to Plutarch, Pericles was one of the first to sell his farm’s produce for cash with which to buy necessary commodities in town. More commonly, to judge from the sources, urban landowners had food from their own farms shipped to town for their personal use.
We can learn a great deal about Greek eating from Hippocrates’ Diet. The text begins with a discussion of barley, a basic staple. This was consumed in the form of maza, a sort of cake made by heating the barley to remove chaff and then grinding it into a whole-grain flour known as alphita. Next, liquid was added: water, oil, honey, or milk, to taste, along with various condiments. Finally, this mixture was carefully kneaded. The resulting dough could either be eaten immediately or preserved. This technique has survived in a number of Mediterranean countries (the Tunisian bsisa, for example). The ancient Greeks consumed most of their cereal in this form. Some scholars argue that wheat bread began to replace barley cakes in the Greek diet. This did not happen in the period that concerns us here, however.
Barley flour and mint went into a drink known as cyceon. Not only was this was the sacred beverage of Eleusis, but country folk liked to drink it as a refreshment. In rural areas barleycorn was eaten green as well as hulled, boiled, and dried. In addition, ptisane, a decoction of hulled barleycorn, was recommended as a fever medication.
Wheat has been eaten since prehistoric times. It was used in flatbreads, leavened breads, and cakes. Hippocrates discusses several types of ovens, all fairly small in size. Bakers, who first appeared in Greek cities in the late fifth century, were veritable small businessmen who bought and sold wheat and ground their own flour in addition to baking.
Other cereals such as millet were also grown, as were legumes, which complemented grains in the Greek diet. Hippocrates mentions the fava bean, various kinds of chickpeas, lentils, and vetch, as well as seed plants such as flax, sesame, and poppies, which were prized for their nutritional value. This variety of crops compensated in part for the variability of the grain harvest. Several treatises recommended that city dwellers supplement their diet with these basically rural preparations in time of war.
Hippocrates next turns his attention to animals—not just cattle, pigs, and sheep but also dogs. The Greeks consumed the meat of all these species, but only after ritual sacrifice. They also ate game: boar, deer, hare, fox, and even hedgehog. Various fowl rounded out the meat portion of the Greek diet: ring dove, partridge, pigeon, cock, turtledove, and goose. Ducks and other marsh birds were also appreciated.
Both saltwater and freshwater fish and shellfish are also discussed. Cooked in various ways, these were served along with barley cakes as side dishes (opson). Sometimes they were preserved in brine. A bouillon of oyster is discussed. We learn that garum was first prepared in Corinth and Delos before being taken up in Carthage and Rome.
Cheese was another key food. Together with barley and figs, it formed the basis of the Spartan diet. Sometimes it was mixed with other ingredients, including honey, and formed into cakes. Honey was frequently used as both a preservative and a sweetener, and it is mentioned in countless recipes for pastries as well as an ingredient of various savory dishes.
Greens, garlic, and onions were also important parts of the Greek diet, as we know from Hippocrates and other sources. Hippocrates begins his list of vegetables with leek, colza, watercress, and turnip, along with several vegetables no longer familiar to us, such as purslane and orache. He also mentions spices such as pennyroyal, marjoram, and thyme. Greens were grown in vegetable gardens as well as fields or simply picked wild. Grains, seeds, and greens all went into soups (rophema). Crushed legumes were boiled to make etnos, whereas lekithos was a boiled mixture of milled seeds, although it is hard to know whether these were thick soups or purees. When times were hard, Greeks gathered squill and mallow, according to a technical treatise by Philo of Byzantium from the third century B.C.E.
As for fruit, melons, grapes, figs, pears, apples, quinces, sorb apples, medlars, pomegranates, and almonds were all eaten both fresh and dried.
The principal drink was wine: warm reds came from Thrace, Thasos, and Chios and light whites from Mende. The Greek lexicon of wine does not always translate readily into ours. The ancients appreciated wine for its color, or robe: dark reds (melas) were called purple or blood-colored. White wine (leukos) was actually somewhat yellow. A vintage might also be described as harsh (austeroi), dry (xeroi), mellow (malakoi), or sweet (glukeis). Wines with a good bouquet were called ozontes. Some wines were light (leptoi), others thick (pacheis). Some were said to be hot (thermos), others weak (asthenestreros). The most prized vintages were those that were dark, strong, fragrant, and old. Greek vintages should not be confused with Roman ones, which were mainly white. Many specialists hold that certain Greek reds had a high alcohol content: Salviat maintains that thasos had an alcohol content of 18 degrees, while Villard argues that it was no higher than 16. This was a slow-fermenting wine with a long maturation period. Well-corked, high-quality amphoras guaranteed a good aging process. Much later, in the third century C.E., the widespread replacement of the amphora by the barrel changed the conditions of aging. By the Middle Ages young wine was preferred to old, probably because few wines could withstand being aged in barrels. Hence the judgments of sixteenth-century authors with respect to ancient wines are misleading. Aging conditions had changed greatly since antiquity. Greek reds were not drunk by peasants, who contented themselves with second pressings or dilute vinegar. In this way, even those with small vineyards produced enough of a surplus to bring it to market.
Finally, although tallow is frequently mentioned as a medicine, we know from other sources that most cooking was done with olive oil. It was nothing like Greek cooking now, however. Cauldrons were used for boiling. Michel Bats has concluded from his study of Greek ceramics that little frying was done before the fifth century B.C.E. Before that, boiling and braising were the preferred cooking methods.
Rural and Urban Menus
Before looking at differences between rural and urban menus, let us first examine some of the general characteristics of the classic Greek diet. As we have seen, barley and wheat were both staples, barley consumed as maza, wheat as bread. The Romans, aware of Greek tastes, referred to the Greeks as “barley eaters.” This cereal diet was supplemented by legumes (ospria), especially vetch, lentils, and peas. Grapes not only provided wine but also figured as ingredients in many dishes. Wherever the Greeks established colonies, vines were planted, even where the natives did not drink wine.
Olive trees also spread with colonization. Olive oil was used by bathers and athletes as well as in cooking. Greek colonies imported oil if they could not produce enough locally. Marseilles, for example, long imported oil from Betica.
Finally, honey was also a staple, despite the vaunted austerity of the Greek diet. Indeed, the Greeks liked to say that they ate simply because they were poor but free, whereas the Persians paid for their sumptuous ways with their freedom. Witness Pausanias’ remarks after he defeated the Persians at Plataea in 479 B.C.E., as reported by Herodotus:
When Pausanias saw [Xerxes’ belongings], fitted out with gold and silver and embroidered hangings, he told Mardonius’ bakers and chefs to prepare the kind of meal they had made for Mardonius. They did so, and then, when he saw gold and silver couches with their fine coverings, the gold and silver tables, and the magnificent feast, he was amazed at all the good things spread out there and, for a joke, he told his own servants to prepare a typical Laconian meal. When the food was ready, Pausanias was amused to see the huge difference between the two meals, and he sent for the Greek commanders. Once they were all there, he pointed to the two meals and said, “Men of Greece, my purpose in asking you all here is to show you just how stupid the Persian king is. Look at the way he lives, and then consider that he invaded our country to rob us of our meagre portions!”
(Histories IX.82, trans. Robin Waterfield [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998])
COUNTRY FOOD Dwelling types were as diverse as forms of landownership and farm sizes. Fairly substantial villages comprised a number of dwelling units. Aristophanes rather regretfully evokes this rural life in his comedies. Although his verses are not directly descriptive and often have a double meaning, they are useful for comparative purposes. In The Acharnians, for example, the hero delivers this speech in the agora: “I dread the city and pine for my village, which never told me to buy charcoal or vinegar or oil, where the word ‘buy’ was unknown.”
In what respects did peasants eat differently from city folk? The two were often contrasted to comic effect. In The Clouds, for example, Aristophanes describes a peasant who marries a woman from the city: “I had such a nice country life, lolling about in the shade, sprawling amid the bees, the sheep, and the olives, and then I went and married the niece of Megacles, son of Megacles, me, a country yokel, married to a city girl, a lady with her nose in the air…. At my wedding feast, seated beside her, I could smell the cheap wine, the baskets of cheese, the wool—the plenty.”
In Peace Trygeus, a vine tender, evokes peaceful times in the following passage:
We do not love battles but love to sit with some drinking friends and comrades by the crackling fire, with dry wood, cut in the height of summer, burning brightly, roast chick peas and chestnuts and make love to the Thracian girl while my wife is having a bath!…Come wife, prepare three potfuls of beans, mix them with some wheat and bring us your choicest figs. You, Syra, call Manes here. He cannot attend to his vines today, neither can he hoe—the ground is soaked through. Let a servant go inside and bring out some bottled thrushes and those two chaffinches. We should also have some yoghourt in the house and four chunks of tasty preserved hare…. If you do find them, boy, bring three pieces to me and give one to father. Then go and ask Aeschinades for some myrtle—with berries on it, mind you—and on your way, shout for Charisades to come here and drink with us.” (1125–65)
The comic writers, city people, were struck by the survival of old recipes using such ingredients as green wheat, grilled chidra, kondros, ground seed, and pennyroyal, along with large quantities of milk and cheese. In the country, moreover, it was common for slaves, and probably for many free men of modest means, to drink marc rather than wine.
One of the most significant, and paradoxical, differences between the country and the city was that peasants used less grain than their urban counterparts. Comic writers poked fun at rural folk for eating soups of fava beans or chickpeas and herbs such as squill and mallow.
CITY FOOD During the fourth and fifth centuries B.C.E., cities took on increasing importance. The ideal was for each city to draw all its food supplies from the surrounding countryside, or chora. In reality, even Sparta, despite its vast territory, was sometimes obliged to import grain.
The grain market was relatively regulated. Barley and wheat were imported from as far away as Sicily and the Black Sea. Because milling was difficult and time-consuming, it became increasingly common in Athens to sell grain in processed form: barley flour for maza and wheat flour for bread. Elsewhere, milling was an activity that involved the whole family, although the Athenian practice began to be copied elsewhere. Middlemen bought grain in the marketplace and sold it to millers, bakers, and others. In the fifth century B.C.E. the baker Thearion was celebrated in Athens for the quality of his bread.
In the fourth century the gap between the diets of rich and poor widened. The agora became an important marketplace whose stalls featured not only Greek specialties, such as leeks from Megara and eels from Boeotia, but foods from the entire Mediterranean region.
The market infrastructure remained simple. At the port of Piraeus, baskets and goatskins filled with food and drink were loaded onto the backs of donkeys for transport to their destination. Bakeries were modest operations, with no more equipment than a mortar and pestle, a hand mill, and a small oven. Kitchen equipment remained light enough to be transported easily.
Despite this simple equipment, a fairly elaborate cuisine developed. In the late fifth century B.C.E., as the expansion of the Athenian empire led to greater diversity in the food supply, professional cooks appeared in Athens. These professionals maintained a vigilant watch on the quality of foodstuffs and condiments. They used many ingredients in their cooking, especially vinegar, of which the Greeks were particularly fond. Although they never developed tastes as sophisticated as those of wealthy Romans, they did appreciate variety and were willing to spend more for costly foreign items.
Several different grades of olive oil were used: extra virgin oil made from green olives, oil from the first pressing of black olives, and ordinary oil. Presses were everywhere—in the cities as well as the countryside. The earliest known rotary press, an ancestor of the trapetum of Pompeii, was found in the city of Olyntha. Olives were also used in preserves and purees.
Wine deserves a special place of its own. There were many local varieties, especially whites, like the one described by Galen at a later date:
A watery wine is appropriate for the treatment of fever. This should be white and highly refined. Such wine appears to have none of the qualities of other wines: it is neither dry, nor harsh, nor sweet, nor acidic, nor fragrant. Thus it is the only wine that avoids the harmful effects of both wine and water. Every nation has a few wines of this type. In Italy, for example, weak Sabine wine is given to fever patients.
…I myself have found wines of this type in Cilicia, Phoenicia, Palestine, Skyros, and Crete…. They are unknown outside the countries in which they are produced, however, for two reasons: small quantities of such wines are available everywhere, and they cannot survive long sea voyages, so that merchants are unable to export them to other places.
(“Commentary on Hipponates”)
The availability of imported wines was one benefit of living in the city. Among these were sweet wines, including vintages from Thasos and the biblinos of Maronea, made from very ripe, sun-dried grapes to which cooked grape juice, known as siraion (Latin defrutum), was sometimes added to increase the alcohol content (a process known as chaptalization).
Such luxuries were not within the reach of the poor, even in Athens, where the cost of living was relatively low. For people of limited means, it was more difficult to survive in the city than in the countryside. Aristophanes’ last two plays (written sometime between 390 and 380 B.C.E.) describe an impoverished milieu in which boiled fava was a luxury. Beggars ate “not bread of mallow shoots or maza but scrawny turnip leaves” (Plutos, 545). Not even the turnip—just the leaves! In times of scarcity, the urban poor were the most disadvantaged. In 329 B.C.E., for example, grain prices soared while workers’ wages stagnated, so the poor went without maza or bread.
Later, in the Hellenistic period, it became common for a wealthy benefactor to supply wheat for a city at a low price or to distribute grain free to the citizens. The political transformation consummated by the Alexandrian conquests actually began in the middle of the fourth century B.C.E. From the sources we know that Greeks were aware of an evolution in their culinary customs.
The comic poet Antiphanes contrasted the old cuisine with that current in his day: “Do you see what things have come to? Bread, garlic, cheese, maza—those are healthy foods, but not these salted fish, these lamb chops sprinkled with spices, these sweet confections, and these corrupting pot roasts. And by Zeus, if they aren’t simmering cabbage in olive oil and eating it with pureed peas!” (Apud Athenaeum, 370e).
It is not only old and new that are contrasted here but also country and city. The difference between the urban and rural diet was obviously greater in the fourth century than it was in Aristophanes’ day, during the Peloponnesian wars.
The classical Greek diet was thus both more complex and less static than was once believed. What the Greeks ate clearly contributed to their sense of identity. Although the peculiarities of the Greek diet sharpened the distinction between Greek and barbarian, a diversity of culinary customs gradually developed within Greece itself. Regional differences increased, as did the contrast between the urban and rural diets and the eating habits of rich and poor.
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