Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

Private Life 145
economy is indicated by the fact that the goddess Athene caused an
olive tree to spring up miraculously on the Acropolis when she was
competing with Poseidon for the guardianship of the land. The use
of butter was regarded as a mark of the barbarian. Cheese, which
was mainly produced from the milk of sheep and goats, did not
figure prominently in the Greek diet. Salt was used both as a preservative
and as a condiment. Silphium, sage, and rosemary also
were used as condiments. In place of sugar, which was unknown,
the Greeks used honey and dried figs. The honey that came from
Mount Hymettos in Attica was particularly prized in antiquity, just
as it is today. (Beehive pots were discovered in the Vari house.)
Notable absentees from the Greek diet included potatoes, rice,
tomatoes, citrus fruits, and bananas.
Wine
The favorite Greek drink was wine, which was almost invariably
served diluted and often artificially sweetened. The Greeks preferred
to drink in quantity only after they had finished eating. The
islands of Chios, Lesbos, Rhodes, and Samos had the reputation for
producing the best wine. Wine was transported in clay storage jars
called amphorae (see p. 219). The handles of these amphorae were
stamped with seals bearing the name of the merchant and that of
the city in which the wine was produced, rather like the label on a
modern bottle of wine. Beer was associated exclusively with barbarians.
Milk, though used in cooking, was not a common beverage.
It is thus a sign of savagery in The Odyssey that the Cyclops
Polyphemos drinks goat’s milk and has never tasted wine.
Athenaios describes the ideal meal as follows:
As you sip your wine, let these delicacies be brought to you, pig’s belly and sow’s
matrix, seasoned with cumin and vinegar and silphium, together with the tender
species of roasted birds, as each is in season. Pay no attention to those Syracusans
who drink like frogs and don’t eat anything. Don’t follow their example but eat
what I recommend. All other delicacies are a sign of abject poverty—I mean
boiled chickpeas, beans, apples, and dried figs. The flat cake made in Athens
deserves praise, though. If you can’t get hold of that, demand some Attic honey,
as that will set your cake off really well. This is the life of a freeman! Otherwise
one might as well go below the earth, even below the pit [into which condemned
criminals are cast] and Tartaros [the lowest region of Hades] and be buried measureless
fathoms underground! (Professors at Dinner 101c–e)