First, I summarize the foods available to the Greeks and Romans (for details, Dalby 1996 and 2003). The cereal base of the diet was broadly barley in Greece and wheat in Italy, with local variations according to climate and altitude. For example, millets were grown in Italy, as well as in parts of the Black Sea, rye in the western Black Sea. In Asia Minor, and elsewhere, various primitive wheats were grown. Wheat was the cereal of choice, for its bread-making properties, but often primitive wheats and barley provided a more reliable crop. Varieties of bread wheat became more common, and over time bread became commercially available. There is evidence in Athens from the fourth century BC, in Rome from the second. Bread was normally made at home. Cereals were often made into flat-breads, cakes and porridges, with even wheat being boiled in water and served as a porridge. In a key passage (On the Powers of Foods 1.7), Galen notes peasants eating indigestible wheat porridge when their bread (made by the women) had run out. Manual workers could not necessarily wait for more of the preferred bread, even when wheat was available. Rich people, meanwhile, might prefer Cappadocian bread, according to Athenaeus 3.112c, 4.129e, or even certain barley breads (Archestratos fr. 5 Olson and Sens). The porridge-like mixtures of cereal with water (or milk) might be eaten immediately they were cooked, or dried in the sun and stored for later use in rehydrated form. Beans and pulses offered a valuable and necessary addition to cereals. Country people might go without cereals altogether, as occurred in Europe in later periods (Wilkins and Hill 2006). Staples were complemented with vegetables (such as gourds, beets, cabbage, lettuce, wild leaves, celery, onions, and garlic), fruits (such as pears, apples, figs, and later peaches), walnuts and other nuts, and numerous cakes for those who could afford the necessary cereals and honey. The majority of the population ate meat in small quantities and infrequently. All parts of the animal were eaten, with a particular liking for head, vital organs and feet, the parts which offered contrasting textures and strong flavors.
Taste is important here, since the characteristic flavors of Greek and Roman food were not those of the modern “Mediterranean” diet, such as tomatoes, peppers (“Columbian” foods from the Americas), and lemons (like rice, not widely introduced until later centuries), but the ranker flavors of sulphur and garlic found in the highly favored plant silphium and its cousin asafetida, and the fermented fish sauce garum (for which see p. 279 above) - flavors comparable to those of south-east Asia. These powerful flavors were used with salt, olive oil, herbs such as thyme and rosemary, and, for the rich, imported spices such as pepper and ginger.
World History
