food and diet: Greece Meat was also cooked in an earth oven A pit was dug and lined with stone, and a fire was then lit in the pit; at the same time, another fire was started next to it to heat more stones When the pit stones were red hot, the embers were removed, and a large piece of meat would be put directly on top of the stones; then the stones from the second fire were placed on top This earth oven could be left for the rest of the day to slowly cook the meat for the evening meal The 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 cultivated; in earlier days most wild root vegetables were very small and bitter to the taste New fruits and nuts, such as figs, dates, apricots, almonds, and walnuts, were introduced, and large, sweet apples and pears began to be grown in the Roman colonies The most prized new spice was black pepper (Piper nigum), which enhanced the flavor of any foods The 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 The 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 The 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 aestivum), and spelt (triticum spelta) were the most common varieties The 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 floor), while the other varieties required more difficult processes of toasting and grinding to extract the edible grain The other varieties, on the other hand, were the grain of choice in many communities because they tended to produce more abundant crops In the earliest times grain was ground into flour 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 efficiently Bread was leavened with yeast and could be coarse or fine, with the finer “white” bread being a luxury only the wealthy could afford Bread was such a central part of the diet that the same Greek word sitos means “grain,” “bread,” or “food” almost interchangeably The 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 flat, flavored with various herbs or sweetened with honey The 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 479 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 first millennium of the Common Era, with a devastating effect on the environment because olive trees little to prevent topsoil erosion The main source of protein in the ancient Greek diet was the legume, particularly lentils, chickpeas, and field peas These were sometimes ground into flour and incorporated into bread or boiled into soup seasoned with onions, garlic, or vinegar For protein the ancient Greeks did eat meat and fish, but relatively rarely The Mediterranean is too salty and too clear to support the variety of fish found in the Atlantic, and fishing was a dangerous activity yielding unpredictable results But the ancient Greeks liked fish, and fish provided a welcome change of taste from the regular diet of bread, olive oil, and beans Because of its relative scarcity and the difficulties of transporting it fresh, fish was most often pickled and used as a relish to enhance the taste of bread The ancient Greek word for “relish” is opson or opsarion, and the modern Greek word for “fish,” psari, is derived from this word Salted fish was popular, too, because it was easy to transport and store It is likely that the salts and trace minerals in salted fish were as important nutritionally as the protein in the fish Meat was rare and expensive, and the fact that the heroes 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 fit 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 sacrifices 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 modern 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 The 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 summer months Because of uncertain water supplies and their