Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

142 Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
about when it was under siege. Plutarch (Life of Sulla 13.3) tells us
that, when the Roman general Sulla was besieging Athens in 87/6
b.c.e., the inhabitants subsisted in part on shoe leather and leather
oil flasks.
In summer, meals were prepared in the open over a wood fire or
charcoal grill, as is the case today in many rural parts of Greece. In
winter, cooking was done inside the house on a portable brazier,
which also provided the only source of heating. Boiling and roasting
were the most common ways of cooking, but much food was
served raw. Because chimneys were unknown, the only way that
the smoke could escape was through a hole in the roof. For this
reason, charcoal was the preferred source of fuel, because it creates
far less smoke than wood. Almost all cooking utensils were made
of unglazed or partly glazed clay. The most common were kettles,
saucepans on stands, shallow frying pans, casseroles, and grills.
Although such mundane objects are rarely put on display in museums,
they often have as much, if not more, to tell us about daily life
in ancient Greece as the most beautiful painted pottery.
The well-to-do ate reclining on couches, leaning on an elbow and
using their free hand to take food from a small table in front of
them. This had important consequences for the preparation of food,
which had to be served in small pieces. Although knives and possibly
spoons were commonplace, forks were unknown. Most Greeks,
however, probably made do with their fingers. A piece of flat bread
would also have conveniently served as a kind of spoon.
From the end of the fifth century b.c.e. , the Greeks began to
develop an interest in culinary art. The lead in this development
was taken by Sicily, a region famed for its luxury, where a number
of cookbooks were produced. Professors at Dinner, written by Athenaios,
a Greek from Egypt, around c.e. 200, culls numerous extracts
from these books and provides a vast storehouse of information on
the subject of dining. As in the modern world, the most celebrated
chefs tended to be men.
Cereals
Homer characterizes the human race as “bread-eating,” and bread
remained the basis of the Greek diet throughout antiquity. It has
been estimated that cereals provided 70 percent of the needed daily
caloric intake. The grain was separated from the chaff in a shallow
mortar by pushing a flat stone back and forth across the millstone.
The mortar was either made of baked clay or improvised from a