September 20, 2007 - 8:50pm
bread in ancient Athens?
anybody have any sources for what would have been the bread in Athens during the 5th century BCE? It's mentioned in many, many ancient texts, Solon says that leavened bread was reserved for feast days, Aristophanes mentions barley bread in a context that suggests it's the everyday bread for poorer people--but apart from that, can't find much. Any ideas?
Alan
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There are lots of articles there.
Could it be that the first discus was a bad loaf? It got thrown away and became a sport? Just a thought.....did that--lots of articles, lots of mention, but couldn't find any recipes. That's where I got the barley bread mention from Aristophanes, etc.
A discus would be just about as heavy and flat as my first attempt to do whole wheat bread, lo these many years ago!
thanks!
Alan
http://www.amazon.com/Philosophers-Kitchen-Recipes-Ancient-Greece/dp/1400060990 shows bread recipes in the index.
much, much thanks. Will get the book from library tomorrow and give it a whirl. Most grateful--
Alan
got book. Subtitle tells it all: recipes from the classical world for the modern cook. All so heavily adapted as to be useless. All the bread recipes, for example, use active dry yeast; obviously not available in the ancient world. Not a single recipe for an unleavened flatbread. Oh, well! Will have to develop something from looking at the ancient texts myself--
Alan
but the Greeks and other bread cultures were also actively involved with beer brewing and wine making. One by-product of these other two is fermented whole grain, or fermenting squashed grapes & fruit which would be just full of yeast. It would not be too hard to figure that the "used grain" from beer brewing was possibly pounded into mush and added into bread. This would provide levening would it not?
Mini O
to be sure--there would have been lots of wild yeasts floating about Athens, from all the wine making, and it's certainly probable that 'used grain' would help in the breadmaking process. But I still suspect that unleavened bread, or at the least flat bread, would have been the everyday fare for the common folks. so, still ready to experiment. Tracked down barley flour today, since Aristophanes talks about barley loaves being what people ate most of the time. Will post what I come up with--
Alan
Here is a link that you might not have read. Flat breads (strange to many of us) were baked on the sides of ovens, still seen in the mideast today. The fact that the Greeks invented front loading ovens, implies that they let their bread rise somewhat. The levened bread invented the oven, so to say.
Bread History Greek
Mini O
https://www.archaeology.org/issues/423-2105/digs/9613-digs-china-food-dispersal