Meat was also cooked in an earth oven. A pit was dug
and lined with stone, and a fi re was then lit in the pit; at the
same time, another fi re was started next to it to heat more
stones. When the pit stones were red hot, the embers were re-
moved, and a large piece of meat would be put directly on top
of the stones; then the stones from the second fi re were placed
on top. Th is earth oven could be left for the rest of the day to
slowly cook the meat for the evening meal.
Th e spread of the Roman Empire by 133 b.c.e. brought
with it a wondrous array of exotic foods and spices to the
peoples of northern Europe. Root crops began to be cul-
tivated; in earlier days most wild root vegetables were very
small and bitter to the taste. New fruits and nuts, such as fi gs,
dates, apricots, almonds, and walnuts, were introduced, and
large, sweet apples and pears began to be grown in the Ro-
man colonies. Th e most prized new spice was black pepper
(Piper nigum), which enhanced the fl avor of any foods. Th e
introduction of these delicacies and Roman wine could have
been a deciding factor in the Romanization of the peoples of
Europe.
GREECE
BY CHRISTOPHER BLACKWELL
Th e diet of the ancient Greeks was in most ways similar to that
of Mediterranean peoples today, nutritious and healthy but
relatively limited in its staple components. Th e main source
of calories was bread or porridge made from grains. Einkorn
(triticum monococcum), emmer wheat (triticum dicoccum),
durum wheat (triticum durum), bread wheat (triticum aesti-
vum), and spelt (triticum spelta) were the most common va-
rieties. Th e advantage of bread wheat and emmer wheat was
that the husks of the grain could be removed by threshing
(striking and tossing the wheat over a hard fl oor), while the
other varieties required more diffi cult processes of toasting
and grinding to extract the edible grain. Th e other varieties,
on the other hand, were the grain of choice in many commu-
nities because they tended to produce more abundant crops.
In the earliest times grain was ground into fl our using
simple stone grinders, or querns, but by historical time more
sophisticated and productive rotary grinders, sometimes
driven by oxen or donkeys, ground wheat more effi ciently.
Bread was leavened with yeast and could be coarse or fi ne,
with the fi ner “white” bread being a luxury only the wealthy
could aff ord. Bread was such a central part of the diet that
the same Greek word sitos means “grain,” “ bread,” or “ food ”
almost interchangeably. Th e Greek writer Athenaeus, whose
quirky book Deipnosophistae (Learned Men at a Dinner
Party) contains much evidence for ancient Greek cookery,
describes a great variety of breads and cakes, some leavened
and some fl at, fl avored with various herbs or sweetened with
honey.
Th e main source of fat, and an additional valuable source
of calories, was oil, mainly the oil of the domesticated olive.
Ripe olives were shaken from trees onto nets, collected, and
pressed in mills to extract the oil. Olives were only rarely
eaten. Olive oil made the bread-based diet more palatable,
was easily stored and transported, and had a great number of
other uses—as soap, as a lubricant for machinery, as a fuel for
lamps, and as a medicinal salve. Cultivation of olive trees for
oil increased steadily throughout antiquity, reaching a peak
in the middle of the fi rst millennium of the Common Era,
with a devastating eff ect on the environment because olive
trees do little to prevent topsoil erosion.
Th e main source of protein in the ancient Greek diet was
the legume, particularly lentils, chickpeas, and fi eld peas.
Th ese were sometimes ground into fl our and incorporated
into bread or boiled into soup seasoned with onions, garlic,
or vinegar. For protein the ancient Greeks did eat meat and
fi sh, but relatively rarely. Th e Mediterranean is too salty and
too clear to support the variety of fi sh found in the Atlantic,
and fi shing was a dangerous activity yielding unpredictable
results.
But the ancient Greeks liked fi sh, and fi sh provided a wel-
come change of taste from the regular diet of bread, olive oil,
and beans. Because of its relative scarcity and the diffi culties
of transporting it fresh, fi sh was most oft en pickled and used
as a relish to enhance the taste of bread. Th e ancient Greek
word for “relish” is opson or opsarion, and the modern Greek
word for “fi sh,” psari, is derived from this word. Salted fi sh
was popular, too, because it was easy to transport and store. It
is likely that the salts and trace minerals in salted fi sh were as
important nutritionally as the protein in the fi sh.
Meat was rare and expensive, and the fact that the he-
roes in the Homeric epics seem to eat little else suggests that
a meat-rich diet was the stuff of fantasy and that meat was a
food fi t for the children of gods. Greeks raised pigs, sheep,
goats, and a few cows, but the rocky terrain did not lend itself
to animal husbandry on a large scale. Hunting also provided
meat from birds, hares, or deer, but only in small amounts.
For many ancient Greeks in cities, meat appeared in their diet
only during public festivals, when animals killed as sacrifi ces
to the gods were barbequed and served as a part of a public
feast.
While goats and sheep provided milk, milk was used
mainly for making cheeses, either salty cheeses like mod-
ern feta or sweeter ones like modern ricotta. Ancient Greeks
did not drink much milk and did not use butter. In Homer’s
Odyssey, the “lawless, outrageous” Cyclops enjoys a diet that
consists mostly of milk, when he is not eating human beings,
which may indicate a common view that milk was barbaric.
Onions, garlic, radishes, and cabbages were the main
vegetables, along with leeks, cucumbers, artichokes, and
celery. Th e tomato was unknown before the discovery of the
Americas, as was the potato. Wild herbs such as asafetida,
basil, and mint served as seasonings.
Rainwater was plentiful during the winter and could be
collected in barrels, pots, or underground cisterns, but wells
and natural springs were more reliable during the dry sum-
mer months. Because of uncertain water supplies and theirfood and diet: Greece 479