[Sca-cooks] Mediterranean Flavors In Antiquity - WOOP

[micaylah]

I reads this at the Kathemerini web site (Greece's English e-newspaper)
and thought I'd share it. It may not fall into our "period" but
definitely sheds some light (and argument) to the historical culinary
arts. The article can also be viewed at:
http://www.ekathimerini.com/news/content.asp?id=84373

Micaylah

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Mediterranean Flavors In Antiquity
Making ancient Greek and Roman food at home: The recipes recreated with
the help of archaeology

Harvesting olives. An Athenian amphora by the painter Antimenis, c. 520
BC (Trustees of the British Museum).
By Vivienne Nilan
Kathimerini English Edition

Readers of the Iliad might be forgiven for thinking that the cuisine of
ancient Greece was confined to beach barbecues. The heroes roast an ox
every few hundred lines, pour a couple of libations, and that seems to
be that. In contrast to this simplicity, Roman cuisine is popularly
thought of as luxurious dining, frequently taken to excess.

The truth about Mediterranean cuisine in antiquity is rather more
complex, but detailed information was not readily accessible to
non-specialist readers until Andrew Dalby and Sally Grainger wrote "The
Classical Cookbook" (The British Museum Company, 1996). Now Papadimas
Publishers have given Greek readers and gourmets a treat by issuing this
popular title in a Greek translation by Niki Zographou.

Dalby, a food historian and writer, and Grainger, a chef with a degree
in ancient history, discovered what the ancient Greeks and Romans ate
and drank from pictures, texts and archaeological finds. The book covers
the period 700-200 BC, and includes a thorough historical introduction.
Setting recipes alongside descriptions of home life and seasonal
celebrations from Mediterranean lands in antiquity, the book moves from
the Odyssey to food eaten by Romans visiting the baths. Each chapter
refers to a different social situation, presenting the widest possible
range of eating habits.

The Real Thing

Many descriptions of ancient food and meals survive, but there are few
recipes as such. Quantities are never mentioned, so there is room for
interpretation. The authors provide recipes that are as close as
possible to the real thing, adapted where necessary for modern use.
Though many ingredients are still familiar to us today, others are
unlikely to win approval from modern cooks, and the authors recommend
appropriate substitutes. A case in point is the ubiquitous "garos" or
liquamen sauce, used to flavor many dishes. A concentrated sauce made
from preserved fish, liquamen was apparently the only full-scale
industry in antiquity. Archaeological sites on the Black Sea and in
Spain indicate the presence of a liquamen industry as long ago as the
8th century BC. But liquamen was so pungent that its manufacture was
forbidden in residential areas.

Speaking at the book launching at Papadimas bookstore on May 15, noted
food writer Aglaia Kremezi suggested substituting liquamen with one of
the strong fish sauces used in Asia to give flavor to bland foods. As
recently as 1955, Estia published a fish cookery book "Psaromayeirevma,"
which contained a recipe for garos, says Kremezi.

Plus Ca Change

Although many dishes eaten in antiquity rely on a balance of sweet and
sour which is not typical of modern Greek cookery, Kremezi noted just
how similar many of the dishes in the book are to food eaten in Greece
up until the 1960s. Oil and olives, of course, have never lost their
popularity. But there are villages in the Dodecanese without running
water, Kremezi explained, where cheese is still made as it was 2,000
years ago; and some of the sweets in the book are still made the same
way at Easter on Santorini. Kremezi welcomed the book, wishing that it
had been available when she first embarked on writing about food and had
to do all her own research. She hopes it will prove an incentive to
Greek culinary writers.

Not Just For Eating

Formerly viewed as an area of minor significance by classical scholars,
food is now seen to be of central interest, as Professor Michalis
Kopidakis of Athens University explained. As an example of the vital
role food plays in philosophy and political science, he cited Plato's
dialogue with Glaucos, over what people were to eat in the ideal
society. Socrates proposes they should have bread and rusks, which
Glaucos thinks suitable only if the republic is to be for pigs. Socrates
develops the idea that the demand for fancier food leads to greed, and
eventually to expansionism.

In fact the poor in classical Greece and Rome did eat bread, pasta made
from wheat or barley, as well as wild fruit and vegetables, shellfish
and snails. The rich ate more elaborately on special occasions.

Those big beefy meals for he-men in the Iliad, says Kopidakis, provide
the protein warriors need. Meals in the Odyssey, while more elaborate,
nearly always end in tears. The Cyclops eats his guests, and Circe turns
her visitors into swine.

There were culinary excesses of a different order at times among mere
mortals, and Plautus satirizes the nouveaux riches who go overboard in
their pursuit of exotic flavors, "putting a whole meadow on their
plates," while Juvenal mocks those who boast of the delicacies provided
by their estates.

This book sensibly concentrates on affordable and available food, as the
following recipe served at a Macedonian wedding ca. 300 BC demonstrates.

Alexandrian Sweet

1 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup chopped mixed nuts (almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts)
3/4 cup of clear honey

Bake the sesame seeds and nuts at 180 C till they change color slightly.
Put the honey in a saucepan and boil it, remove the froth and let it
simmer for 7 minutes. Add the nuts and sesame to the honey while it is
still hot and stir well. Let it cool until you can touch it, then shape
into little balls. Wrap in paper and serve with fruit and nuts at the
end of a meal.

'Moretum'

The Roman poem "Moretum," sometimes attributed to Virgil, describes a
farmer making a cheese and garlic mix, using mortar and pestle to pound
garlic, celery, rue, coriander, water, salt and hard cheese. The
ingredients gradually change color and form a compact mass. As the
authors comment, this poem deserves to be better known, as it is the
first known source of the phrase "E pluribus unum."