We have said very little of eating or drinking during our visit in Athens, for, truth to tell, the citizens try to get through the day with about as little interruption for food and drink as possible. But now, when warehouse and gymnasium alike are left to darkness, all Athens will break its day of comparative fasting.
Roughly speaking, the Greeks anticipate the latter-day “Continental” habits in their meal hours. The custom of Germans and of many Americans in having the heartiest meal at noonday would never appeal to them. The hearty meal is at night, and no one dreams of doing any serious work after it. When it is finished, there may be pleasant discourse or varied amusements, but never real business; and even if there are guests, the average dinner party breaks up early. Early to bed and early to rise, would be a maxim indorsed by the Athenians.
Promptly upon rising, our good citizen has devoured a few morsels of bread sopped in undiluted wine; that has been to him what “coffee and rolls” will be to the Frenchmen,—enough to carry him through the morning business, until near to noon he will demand something more satisfying. He then visits home long enough to partake of a substantial déjeuner (ariston, first breakfast = akratisma). He has one or two hot dishes—one may suspect usually warmed over from last night’s dinner—and partakes of some more wine. This ariston will be about all he will require until the chief meal of the day—the regular dinner (deïpnon) which would follow sunset.
155. Society desired at Meals.—The Athenians are a gregarious sociable folk. Often enough the citizen must dine alone at home with “only” his wife and children for company, but if possible he will invite friends (or get himself invited out). Any sort of an occasion is enough to excuse a dinner-party,—a birthday of some friend, some kind of family happiness, a victory in the games, the return from, or the departure upon, a journey:—all these will answer; or indeed a mere love of good fellowship. There are innumerable little eating clubs; the members go by rotation to their respective houses. Each member contributes either some money or has his slave bring a hamper of provisions. In the fine weather picnic parties down upon the shore are common.[*] “Anything to bring friends together”—in the morning the Agora, in the afternoon the gymnasium, in the evening the symposium—that seems to be the rule of Athenian life.
[*] Such excursions were so usual that the literal expression “Let us banquet at the shore” σήμερον ἀκτάσωμεν came often to mean simply “Let us have a good time.”
However, the Athenians seldom gather to eat for the mere sake of animal gorging. They have progressed since the Greeks of the Homeric Age. Odysseus[*] is made to say to Alcinoüs that there is nothing more delightful than sitting at a table covered with bread, meat, and wine, and listening to a bard’s song; and both Homeric poems show plenty of gross devouring and guzzling. There is not much of this in Athens, although Bœotians are still reproached with being voracious, swinish “flesh eaters,” and the Greeks of South Italy and Sicily are considered as devoted to their fare, though of more refined table habits. Athenians of the better class pride themselves on their light diet and moderation of appetite, and their neighbors make considerable fun of them for their failure to serve satisfying meals. Certain it is that the typical Athenian would regard a twentieth century table d’hôte course dinner as heavy and unrefined, if ever it dragged its slow length before him.
[*] Odyssey, IX. 5-10.
156. The Staple Articles of Food.—However, the Athenians have honest appetites, and due means of silencing them. The diet of a poor man is indeed simple in the extreme. According to Aristophanes his meal consists of a cake, bristling with bran for the sake of economy, along with an onion and a dish of sow thistles, or of mushrooms, or some other such wretched vegetables; and probably, in fact, that is about all three fourths of the population of Attica will get on ordinary working days, always with the addition of a certain indispensable supply of oil and wine.
Bread, oil, and wine, in short, are the three fundamentals of Greek diet. With them alone man can live very healthfully and happily; without them elaborate vegetable and meat dishes are poor substitutes. Like latter-day Frenchmen or Italians with their huge loaves or macaroni, bread in one form or another is literally the stuff of life to the Greek. He makes it of wheat, barley, rye, millet, or spelt, but preferably of the two named first. The barley meal is kneaded (not baked) and eaten raw or half raw as a sort of porridge. Of wheat loaves there are innumerable shapes on sale in the Agora,—slender rolls, convenient loaves, and also huge loaves needing two or three bushels of flour, exceeding even those made in a later day in Normandy. At every meal the amount of bread or porridge consumed is enormous; there is really little else at all substantial. Persian visitors to the Greeks complain that they are in danger of rising from the table hungry.
But along with the inevitable bread goes the inevitable olive oil. No latter-day article will exactly correspond to it. First of all it takes the place of butter as the proper condiment to prevent the bread from being tasteless.[*] It enters into every dish. The most versatile cook will be lost without it. Again, at the gymnasium we have seen its great importance to the athletes and bathers. It is therefore the Hellenic substitute for soap. Lastly, it fills the lamps which swing over every dining board. It takes the place of electricity, gas, or petroleum. No wonder Athens is proud of her olive trees. If she has to import her grain, she has a surplus for export of one of the three great essentials of Grecian life.