900 B.C. to 850 B.C. Greek recipies?

Question

I have this project in my Lit. class and we have to cook a dish to go with our poet. I choose Homer (as in author of The Illiad and The Odyssey) and he lived from 900 B.C. to 850 B.C. in Greece. I need a good food dish that will knock my classmates socks off and help me become known as a good cook. I'm pretty good at cooking and I can go up to expert level as long as I have detailed instructions. I need either a website or a recipe written by you. I have no preferences as to spice but try to exclude anything thats hard to find. I'm pretty much confined to the local farmers market.

Answer 1

Hot coals in a hollow in the earth is a very old method off cooking.

grilled (like barbied) fish or meat commonly found in the east mediterranean. You could flavour it with mediterranean herbs, like thyme, parsley, rosemary; probably some garlic.

Lamb and goat are often used in Greece.

For dessert, almost any fresh fruit (except apples and pears, which might be too temperate). Grapes, strawberries, peaches. Old world nuts and raisins especially walnuts and almonds.

Esau's pottage in the Old Testament is usually considered to be a kind of lentil soup. Onions could be used to flavour it. and other green herbs.

{It's important to remember they had no Now World vegetables.

All the potato family veg must be excluded - potatoes, tomatoes.

Also peppers and I think some of the legumes came from the new world (some of the specially American beans)

Pecans and avocados are American too. Bad luck - no chocolate!

I have a copy of a roman cook book ( say 400-500 years later) They cooked with wine and had a rather strong and smelly fish sauce. Both cultures used vinegar and olive oil, so you can make a delicious marinade. I don't know specifically what the Greeks ate.

Answer 2

I found this info on http://greekfood.about.com, or look on yahoo search under ancient greek recipes. Not that much has changed in all of these years, but then again, that's why it's so danged good! Good luck with your project.
The foods of ancient Greece were varied, with a concentration on vegetables, legumes, fruits, and fish - although meat was also eaten. Meats were roasted on spits, cooked in ovens, and boiled. Fish was often cooked with cheese. Wine was watered down and sometimes garlic was added. The technique to make the very thin phyllo dough had been discovered sometime around the 4th century B.C.E., so it's likely that sweets like baklava were also eaten - but no sugar! Honey was the traditional sweetener, as were figs and products made from naturally sweet grapes.

According to the Alimentary Habits in Ancient Greece, the oldest known recipe is for slices of fish cooked with cheese and oil.

Measurements were vague since it was presumed that a good cook would know the correct amounts. Men did the roasting of meats over coals or on spits (ancient barbecues), and women did the baking, boiling, and oven cooking.
To get a taste of ancient Greece, here are recipes that reflect both ingredients and cooking techniques of ancient times.

Albacore Tuna
Ancient Bean Soup
Ancient Baklava Recipe (Gastrin)
Cod with Coriander
Honey & Sesame Fritters
Grape Must
Petimezi Grape Syrup
Roasted Leeks and Apple
Sea Bass with Feta