In conclusion ancient Greek food was different than our food today. In my first blog post, I explained the basics of what they ate which mostly consisted of watered down wine, bread, and meat. In my second, I wrote what gods had to do with food: they ate ambrosia and the Greeks sacrificed animals for the gods. In my third I wrote about ancient Greek poison. I think learning about dead people's food is important because it impacted our food today because we use honey as a sweetener, drink wine, and we have greek yogurt.
This post is about poison because I really like murder TV shows. I wanted to connect my experiences solving murders to why teachers want to torture us with writing. Greeks used hemlock to kill their prisoners (specifically Socrates in 399 bc!!!!). For an adult 8 leaves of the plant is fatal. It causes paralysis--the mind is awake, but the body doesn’t respond and eventually the respiratory system shuts down. Another way the Greeks delivered the poison of hemlock is by feeding their victims the meat of larks. This worked because the larks ate a lot of hemlock and it made their flesh poisonous. There is a myth about Hercules using venom of Hydra monster to poison his arrows. Some historians now think that Alexander the Great was poisoned...!
Sources: http://listverse.com/2012/12/02/10-poisons-used-to-kill-people http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-technology/poison-good-bad-and-deadly-002165 http://io9.com/5942161/the-deadliest-poisons-in-history-and-why-people-stopped-using-them# As we already know, the Greek people believed in the gods and goddesses. The food of the Gods was called Ambrosia and the drink is called nectar. Eating ambrosia gave the gods their immortality. It was served in cubes. Historians think that ambrosia was some form of honey. The ancient Greeks also scarified part of their foods to the gods. The Greeks burned pigs and the legs and fatty part of animals for their sacrifice.
The Greeks were very clean people, and food preparation was a very clean process in honor of Hestia, the Goddess of hearth and home. People thought of Dionysos, the god of the grape harvest and wine, as being part of the wine they drank, and, Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, as being part of the bread they ate. Over all, the Gods and Goddesses had a big impact on Greek food. Sources: https://sites.google.com/a/cbmsonline.net/greece-pink/anciant-greek-food/food-connected-with-the-gods greece.mrdonn.org/food.html Meals were really different then they are now in ancient Greece. For one thing, they didn't have eating utensils. The ancient Greeks ate with their hands or using bread as a napkin or spoon. Also, drinking milk, or wine that was not watered down was considered barbaric. Men and women ate their meals separately. White sugar was not yet invented, so the Greeks used honey as their main scorch of sweetening. Since the Greeks lived in a large peninsula fish was their main source of protein. In ancient Greece beef was very expensive. Greek people ate a lot of vegetables, especially lentils, chickpeas, green peas, and other beans. There were limited amounts of good soil and cropland in ancient Greece. Some historians estimated that only 20% of the land was usable for growing crops!
Here was the daily meals in Greece:
Breakfast usually included bread dipped in wine. Lunch was usually also bread dipped in wine with olives, figs, cheese, or/and dried fish. Dinner was the biggest meal of the day. Usually it included vegetables, fish, and maybe honey cake. There was no sugar so honey was the only sweetener. My blog is about ancient greek food. I love to eat and I love to cook. One of my favorite TV shows is Master Chef Jr. so its not surprising that I would choose food as my topic. I love to eat many of the foods the ancient greeks ate. The foods I like that the greeks also liked to eat include bread, olive oil, honey, yogurt, apples and fish. I hope you like my blog! |