What’s Cooking? in Homer

 

What’s Cooking? in Homer

            If there is any truth to the notion that the word ‘vegetarian’ is based on a very ancient word meaning ‘bad hunter’, then it is fairly certain that the ancient language in question was not Homeric Greek. There were surely no bad hunters in Homer’s day, for there is nary a fruit or vegetable to be found, for the most part, in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Homer’s characters ate huge quantities of meat and bread and drank copious amounts of fiery-looking red wine. It was supposedly Napoleon Bonaparte who said, “An army marches on its stomach.” A vegetarian diet was not one that could sustain a warrior who spent his day engaged in strenuous activities like fighting, pillaging and raping. These guys needed meat for strength, bread for sustenance and wine to wash it all down. Besides that, they were on the road and away from home and had little opportunity for farming. It was Odysseus who pointed out the strategic value of feeding an army well.

Then the crafty Odysseus answered him. “As eager to fight as you may be O godlike Achilles, do not urge the sons of the Achaeans to do battle with the men of Troy while they are hungry, for the battle will not be a short one once the phalanxes of each side meet and the god breathes might into each of them. Instead, urge the Achaeans by their swift ships to avail themselves of food and wine since they will find both strength and courage in both. No man is able to fight against the enemy the whole day long until the sun goes down if he tries to do so while fasting from food, for though he may be eager in his heart to do battle, his limbs will give way unawares and thirst will come upon him and hunger and his knees will grow tired. But a man who has had his fill of food and wine can fight the whole day long against the foe and he has courage in his heart and his knees will not grow tired until everyone leaves the battlefield. So command that the troops be dispersed and let them take their meal.”

The first feast that we come across in the Iliad was one hosted by Chryses, the priest of Phoebus Apollo. He had been advised that his daughter Chryseis would be returned to him, after having been awarded to King Agamemnon as a war prize, and he celebrated by hosting a banquet for the Achaeans emissaries. Meat, bread and wine were the only things that seemed to be on the menu.

When they had prayed and cast forth the barley cakes, then they drew back the necks of the cattle and slew them. They flayed them and cut off the desirable thigh portions and doubling up the fat pieces, placed them on the raw meat. The old man roasted them on a heap of blazing logs and poured fiery-looking red wine over them while the young men held five-pronged spits in their hands nearby. When the thighs had been consumed and the inner parts had been tasted, they cut the rest into smaller pieces and put them on skewers and roasted them skillfully before removing them from their spits. When they had finished preparing the banquet they feasted and no man wanted for anything. When they had satiated their desire for food and drink, the young men filled all the drinking goblets to the brim and distributed them to everyone.

            This feast was fairly typical of what we find in Homer’s epics. The common elements that we note are as follows:

·        Meals often follow ritual sacrifices and prayer is an integral part of feasting.

·         Meals are always held in common and people do not eat alone.

·         The menu most often consists solely of meat, bread and wine.

·         An offering is usually made to the gods, consisting of the smoke and sizzle of the roasting meat. Gods conveniently have ichor instead of blood in their bodies and as a result, do not consume human food, only nectar and ambrosia.

·         A few drops of wine are always poured out onto the ground as an offering or libation to the gods.

·         Everyone always has enough to eat and drink and no one ever goes hungry or thirsty.

King Agamemnon laid on a banquet for the leaders of the Achaeans and the event was described by Homer in almost the same words that he used to describe the one hosted by Chryses,

Indeed they prayed and offered up barley cakes and first off had drawn back the necks of their sacrifices and slaughtered and flayed them. They cut off the rich thigh pieces and double-wrapped the raw flesh with fat. They then lay the pieces on a fire of faggots and roasted them. They then placed the inner portions on skewers and held them over Hephaestus’s flame. When the thigh pieces had been consumed they tasted the innards and then cut up the other pieces and placed them on spits. They roasted all of these with skill and then removed the pieces from the spits. They finally finished their work preparing the banquet and then sat down to eat it. No one of them wanted for anything.

            Later, after a hard day of fighting, King Agamemnon prepared a small ‘snack’ for the hero Ajax.

When they were at the encampment of the son of Atreus, lord Agamemnon, the leader of men, sacrificed a male five year old bullock to the all-powerful son of Cronos. They took off the skin and prepared it, cutting it up into small pieces which they placed on skewers, then roasted it very skillfully and then drew it all off the fire. When they finished their work they prepared to banquet and then did so and no one wanted for anything. The wide-ruling King Agamemnon, the heroic son of Atreus, honoured Ajax continuously by offering him choice cuts of the meat and afterwards they had had food and drink to their heart’s content.

            It would appear at times that the fighting men of the Danaans had insatiable appetites. Odysseus visited the tent of Agamemnon to discuss how to get Achilles back into the battle. The leader of the Achaeans provided him and his group with ample food and drink and then they left to visit Achilles. He welcomed Odysseus into his tent and then asked Patroclus to prepare a feast for their visitors who had just eaten moments before.

He set the large chopping block in front of the fire and on it he placed the loin of a sheep, the loin of a goat and the chine of a fat hog. These were held down by Automedon and butchered by the godlike Achilles and he cut them up and put them on skewers and the son of Menoetius made the fire blaze. After the flames had died down, he spread the embers and he roasted the meat on the spits set in place above the burning charcoal and he sprinkled salt on the meat. After the meat had been roasted, Patroclus set it on plates and distributed bread at the table from wicker baskets and Achilles served the meat.

As Odysseus pointed out, “Rejoice Achilles, we have dined beyond measure both in the tent of Agamemnon the son of Atreus and here in your tent, for you have given a banquet agreeable to everyone’s taste.” This was not the only time in the Iliad when we witness heroes going from one banquet to another.

            The last meal that we see in the Iliad is the one that Achilles prepared for Priam when the old king came to his tent in the middle of the night to beg for the return of his son Hector’s body. After he had agreed to Priam’s request, Achilles offered him the hospitality that was considered due to visitors.

“But come noble old man, let the two of us also think about eating and afterwards you can lament over your dear son when you have taken him into Ilios and he is mourned over by you with many tears.” Then swift Achilles sprang up and killed a white-fleeced sheep and his comrades skinned it and prepared it well and cut it up and skewered it on spits and they roasted it very skillfully and then removed all the meat from the spits. Automedon set out bread in wicker baskets on a wooden table and Achilles served the meat and they reached out their hands for the goodness that was spread before them, and afterwards they had had their fill of food and drink.

            One of the major themes that permeate the Odyssey is hospitality, and as a consequence, we find many examples of food being prepared and served in Homer’s narrative. As I explained in my study ‘Hospitality in Homer’, While hospitality plays more of an ancillary role in the Iliad, it is a central theme in Homer’s Odyssey. ‘Xenia’ is a divine imperative which prescribes that hosts be both welcoming and generous and that guests be respectful and not take advantage of the hospitality that is offered to them. In many respects, ‘xenia’ embodies the values that are important in ancient Greek culture. In the Odyssey, Homer presents us with several stories of hospitality being offered and accepted as it should be, as well as incidents when the customs of ‘xenia’ have been abused, and he explores the subsequent dire consequences which result from those violations of protocol.

The biggest eaters in the Odyssey were the 108 arrogant suitors who had invaded the home of Odysseus on Ithaca, intent on wooing his wife, eliminating his son and devouring all his property. The goddess Athena flew down from Olympus and encountered them in the hero’s palace. Notice what they were eating and drinking – no vegetarians or teetotalers here!

There she came upon the manly suitors who were playing with draughts and sitting upon the hides of bulls that they themselves had slain. The heralds and the squires were busy, some mixing water and wine in bowls, some washing down the tables with porous sponges and getting them ready and still others were distributing large servings of meat.

A steward brought in bread and placed it before them and much food was laid out to eat, lavishly abundant. A carver sliced up meats of all sorts on a platter and set golden drinking goblets in front of them and a herald approached often and refilled them with wine.

Telemachus traveled to Pylos to gather news about his father and walked into the middle of a banquet. The scene is highly reminiscent of what we find in the Iliad.

Then they came to the gathering and seating place of the men of Pylos and there Nestor sat with his sons around him. His companions were getting ready a feast and roasting some of the meat and placing it on spits.

When they had roasted the meat and removed it from the spits, they divided it into portions and enjoyed a wonderful feast and they had had their fill of food and drink.

Before Telemachus left Pylos, King Nestor had an enormous feast set out for him and the preparation of the meat is told to us in a very familiar way by Homer. We see the same descriptions in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and this is obviously stock phraseology that the bard uses when singing his song.

The men lifted up the head of the bullock from the wide earth and held it and Peisistratus, the leader of men, cut its throat. After the dark blood had run from the bullock and life had departed from its bones, they cut up the body and cut out the thigh bones and covered them with a double layer of fat and lay raw flesh on top of them. The old man roasted them on kindled wood and basted them with fiery-looking wine and the young men stood beside him, holding five-pronged forks in their hands. When the thigh bones had been fully roasted and they had tasted the inner parts of the meat, they cut up the remainder, put it on skewers and roasted it, holding the pointed spits in their hands.

But this is one of the few occasions in the Iliad and the Odyssey when a hint is made that the people of the land actually ate something in addition to meat and bread, for we are told, the housekeeper brought out bread and wine and goodies such as god-cherished kings are likely to eat. There is no explanation as to what those ‘goodies’ might have been, but we can speculate that the offerings might have included cheeses, fruits and nuts. Similarly, when Odysseus left Calypso to make her way home, she provided him with food for his journey. We learn that, on his raft the goddess placed a skin of dark wine and a large one of water and food for the journey in a leather sack. In the sack she put all kinds of tasty treats and she sent him on with a gentle and warm wind. We are not told what those ‘tasty treats’ might have been, but perhaps they were similar to the ‘goodies’ found in Pylos.

It seems that Telemachus was served the standard fare when he next went to Sparta to visit King Menelaus, for here we are advised that, a steward brought in bread and placed it before them and much food was laid out to eat, lavishly abundant. A carver sliced up meats of all sorts on a platter and set golden drinking goblets in front of them.

It is when Odysseus came to Phaeacia that we get a glimpse that perhaps people there ate something more than meat and bread. The obvious conclusions are that a diet of meat and bread was suitable for fighting soldiers and also that those who were away from home and active on the battlefield would have little opportunity for sowing, reaping or harvesting foods that would perhaps have been more available to them back home. However, when Odysseus came to Phaeacia, he came to a civilized society and kingdom that was not engaged in warfare and therefore had the opportunity to farm and provide other foods for its tables. Homer tells us about a lovely orchard outside the palace. Odysseus was fed from its abundance and ate well during his stay.

Outside in the courtyard near the door there is a large orchard four acres and around each side of it there is an enclosure. In it great trees bring forth luxuriant fruit, pears and mulberries and beautiful bright apples and figs sweet to the taste and flourishing olive trees. The fruit does not fail these trees or die, neither in the winter or summer, but lasts all year long. The West Wind blows constantly and brings some fruit to life and ripens others. Pear after pear ripens, apple after apple, one bunch of grapes after another, fruit after fruit. There the bountiful vineyard is planted, one part of the crop being dried in the wind on a level sunny spot, another part being gathered in and another being squashed underfoot and out in front, unripe grapes are dropping their blossoms while still others are beginning to turn a dark colour.

In the land of the Cyclops we find many references to cheese and cheese-making. Polyphemus milked his animals on a regular basis and turned the milk into cheese. Of course Odysseus and his men helped themselves to this bounty and we soon learn of the dire consequences. The Cyclops snatched up two of the men, devoured their human flesh and washed down his meal with huge gulps of fresh milk. Not a diet for the tender-hearted! But luckily Polyphemus was partial to wine and was lulled off into a drunken stupor, so that Odysseus could blind him and he and his men could make their escape. They ended their day by roasting the giant’s flock and washing the meat down with sweet wine. Meat and sweet wine must have been favourites for Odysseus and his crew, for he tells us that he and his men spent a year living with Circe eating just that. “So we stayed there for a whole year, feasting abundantly on meat and sweet wine.”

Those men of Ithaca seemed to be addicted to red meat, and despite being warned not to touch the cattle of Helios, they disobeyed the instructions of their leader and slaughtered the herd anyway. Notice that they offered prayers before engaging on their nefarious activities. The consequences of their actions were dire and Odysseus was the only one to survive. The remainder of his crew were drowned at sea.

After they had prayed, they slaughtered and butchered the cattle and cut out the thigh pieces and wrapped them in double folds of fat and laid raw meat on top of them. They had no wine to pour on the blazing fire but they made a drink offering of water and roasted all the innards on the fire. When the thighs had been all burned up and they had eaten the inward parts, they cut up the rest of the meat and spitted it on skewers.

Odysseus finally made it back to Ithaca and disguised as a beggar, he visited the home of his faithful swineherd Eumaeus. The old man treated his guest with a simple meal in the true spirit of hospitality. By this time, the menu sounds pretty familiar, but with pork being substituted for beef. A later meal served by Eumaeus to Odysseus was almost the same as this first one. Eumaeus was very frugal with his master’s possessions and after the second meal was eaten, it was noted that the leftovers were gathered and were served for breakfast the following morning.

So he spoke and he quickly fastened his tunic with his belt and went to the pigsties where a number of young porkers were penned. He seized two of them and killed them both and singed and butchered them and skewered the meat on spits. When he had roasted them, brought them hot on the spit to place beside Odysseus and he sprinkled white barley meal over the meat. Then in a bowl made out of ivy wood, he mixed honey-sweet wine and sat down beside Odysseus and urged him to eat.

            While Odysseus was receiving hospitality from his faithful swineherd, his young son Telemachus was just on the point of leaving King Menelaus and returning home to Ithaca. Before he left, he was served one more meal by the king.

The housekeeper brought and set before them bread and other food from their abundance. The son of Boethous carved up the meat and served out the portions and the son of glorious Menelaus poured out the wine. They eagerly set their hands on the joy that was served before them and when they had had their fill of food and drink, then Telemachus and the glorious son of Nestor yoked the horses and stepped on board the well-decorated chariot and departed from the doorway and the deep-sounding portico.

            Penelope tells us firsthand what was going on in her house and the abuse of hospitality that was taking place. The arrogant suitors had plenty to eat at home but they had chosen to devour her goods instead.

“Their own goods are just sitting there in their house unused, bread and sweet wine, and their servants are helping themselves to them. But they are all over our house, day after day, butchering our cattle and rams and fat goats and making merry and drinking fiery-looking wine to excess and using up everything.”

Odysseus experienced this outrage while he sat at a banquet in his own palace dressed as a beggar. The menu that was served was just as we have come to expect it.

Then they went to the house of the godlike Odysseus and laid down their garments on the couches and chairs and proceeded to butcher some big sheep and fat goats and fattened swine and a bullock from the herd. They broiled the innards and divided them up and mixed up wine in the bowls and the swineherd dealt it out in goblets. Philoetius, a leader of men, distributed bread to them from a beautiful basket and Melantheus poured out wine for drinking and they set their hands to the abundance that was placed before them.

            The final meal that we witness in the Odyssey was the one prepared for the reunion of Odysseus with his father Laertes after the suitors and their supporters had been killed. Once again, there is nothing new about the menu.

Then the crafty Odysseus answered him, “Be of good courage and do not allow all these things to trouble your heart. Let us go to the house which is near to the orchard, for there I sent Telemachus and the cowherd and the swineherd so that they could quickly prepare a meal for us.”

So the two of them spoke and they went their way toward the house and when they got there, they found Telemachus and the cowherd and the swineherd cutting up great quantities of meat and mixing up fiery-looking wine.

One of the real joys of traveling to modern Greece is sampling all the magnificent food one finds there. Roasted meats and bread to be sure, but in addition, all types of seafood, vegetables & salads, colourful fruits, olives, yogurt & feta, gyros, moussaka, souvlaki, spanokopita, dolmades, tzatziki, pastitsio, stifado, baklava and the list could go on forever. I am sure that Penelope never uttered the words, “Telemachus, if you don’t eat your vegetables, you won’t get any dessert!” He probably would have asked his mother what a vegetable was. Based on the accounts about eating in Homer’s works, we can conclude that the ancient Greek diet was boring, or at the least just based on simple and readily available ingredients. Indeed they had to feed the troops, and meat and grain provided good sustenance for hard-fighting soldiers, and perhaps those two essential menu items were all that might have been handy for them, but surely they could have varied their food offerings to some degree. We know from Homer’s description of the orchard of Alcinous and Arete on Scheria that fresh produce was available, so why not tell the guys, while they are out pillaging a Trojan city for meat and barley, to pick up some fruit and veg on the way back to camp? Then again, perhaps the diet wasn’t as boring as I think, and the bard simply found a formulaic way of describing a banquet and just repeated it over and over again throughout the Iliad and the Odyssey. “After they had prayed, they slaughtered and butchered the cattle and cut out the thigh pieces and wrapped them in double folds of fat and laid raw meat on top of them.” That might be the answer to the question about a varied diet, but there is still a question that remains unanswered, “Who did the dishes and took out the garbage after supper?”