The Byzantines produced various cheeses, including anthotiro or kefalotyri. They also relished shellfish and fish, both fresh and salt-water. They prepared eggs to make famous omelettes — called sphoungata, i.e. "spongy" — mentioned by Theodore Prodromos. Every household also kept a supply of poultry.
Byzantine elites obtained other kinds of meat by hunting animals like deer and wild boar , a favourite and distinguished occupation of men. They usually hunted with dogs and hawks, though sometimes employed trapping, netting, and bird-liming. Larger animals were a more expensive and rare food. Citizens slaughtered pigs at the beginning of winter and provided their families with sausages, salt pork, and lard for the year. Only upper middle and higher Byzantines could afford lamb. They seldom ate beef, as they used cattle to cultivate the fields.
When meat was available, it might come in the form of lamb, pork, chicken, gazelle or donkey. If you’ve never had a gazelle or donkey, then you haven’t lived in the ancient world. Like most cultures during ancient eras, they ate a lot of fish, and fish was plentiful. Ancient Romans used garum, or fish sauce, to flavor much of the foods they ate. The Byzantines did the same.
The Byzantines were the first we know of to use ginger or nutmeg for cooking. Prior to this age, these kinds of spices were only used as healing devices. In particular, they would puree vegetables like carrots and parsnips, and then mash in chopped ginger, cloves, and honey in order to create a tasty meal.
Middle and lower class citizens in cities such as Constantinople and Thessaloniki consumed the offerings of the taverna. The most common form of cooking was boiling, a tendency which sparked a derisive Byzantine maxim—The lazy cook prepares everything by boiling. Garos fermented fish sauce in all its varieties was especially favored as a condiment along with the umami flavoring murri, a fermented barley sauce, which was similar to the modern umami flavoring, the fermented soy product soy sauce. Liutprand of Cremona, the ambassador to Constantinople from Otto I, described being served food covered in an "exceedingly bad fish liquor," a reference to garos.
Many scholars state that Byzantine koptoplakous (Medieval Greek: κοπτοπλακοῦς) and plakountas tetyromenous are similar to modern baklava and tiropita (börek) respectively. Both variants descended from the ancient Roman Placenta cake.
Thanks to the location of Constantinople between popular trade routes, Byzantine cuisine was augmented by cultural influences from several locales—such as Lombard Italy, the Persian Empire, and an emerging Arabic Empire. The resulting melting pot continued during Ottoman times and therefore modern Turkish cuisine, Greek cuisine and Balkans cuisine are all almost identical, and use a very wide range of ingredients.
Portrait of Alexios III Komnenos in The Romance of Alexander the Great, 1300s, made in Trebizond, Turkey. Tempera, gold, and ink, 12 5/8 x 9 7/16 in. Image courtesy of the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Postbyzantine Studies, Venice, cod. gr. 5.
In 1081 the Komnenian dynasty was established on the Byzantine throne. Five emperors from this family ruled for 128 years, trying to restore the military, economic and political power of the Byzantine Empire, trying to reassess the Byzantine position in the eastern Mediterranean after the 1st Crusade and playing a balance -of- power game between east and west. Μoreover, the cultural impact of Βyzantium on the west and the lands around the E. Mediterranean Sea was enormous. This period is usually called Κomnenian renaissance and was the last period of prosperity in Byzantium.
Mavi Boncuk |
It was also in the Byzantine world that the culinary traditions of Eastern Christianity took root. They come down to us today in seasonal menus recognizable for centuries throughout the vast reaches of the Orthodox community. An example of this is the widespread Orthodox Easter tradition of breaking the Lenten Fast with a holiday feast including lamb, red-dyed Easter eggs, and a sweet Easter cake.
As the capital of a powerful and rich empire, Constantinople was a bustling city of a population from 100.000 to 500.000 people, centre of the domestic and foreign trade of the Byzantine state.* Grain, wine, salt, meat, cheese, vegetables and fruits flowed from the provinces into its markets. From the 9th until the late 12th century the capital was also a most important entrepôt of the eastern and northern luxury trade. Spices and high -luxury foods (like black caviar) were imported.
Of course, luxury foods were cherished so dearly by both poor and rich, though only the wealthy landowners, the officials of the state and church and the rich members of the new urban middle class, the “mesoi”, could afford them. The “mesoi” were for the most part traders, craftsmen and businessmen and bankers but some of them made a considerable fortune and enjoyed their purchasing power demanding fine quality foods.
For a wealthy merchant the entry into elite was the ideal. Where this was impossible he emulated the tastes of the aristocrats, food included.
If the hagiographers of 11th and 12th century maintained the traditional ideal of fasting, less conservative sources give a wealth of information about both the increased interest on eating and the greater availability of foodstuffs. The variety of vegetables, fruits and condiments- black pepper, caraway, honey, olive oil, vinegar, salt, mushrooms, celery, leeks, lettuce, chicory, spinach, turnips, eggplant, cabbage, white beets, almonds, pomegranates, nuts, apples, lentils, raisins, etc. -listed as food of the poor of Constantinople by Prodromοs (d. c. 1166, Poèmes prodr. nο.2.38-45) mirrors both the interest on good eating and the availability of dishes. Of course above all, the food in Constantinople of Komnenoi existed as a synthesis of what had gone before, but a synthesis enriched by new ingredients and many innovations.
Icon with the Hospitality of Abraham, late 1300s, made in Constantinople. Tempera on wood with gold leaf, 14 3/16 x 24 1/2 in. Image courtesy of and © Benaki Museum, Athens, 2013
For a wealthy merchant the entry into elite was the ideal. Where this was impossible he emulated the tastes of the aristocrats, food included.
If the hagiographers of 11th and 12th century maintained the traditional ideal of fasting, less conservative sources give a wealth of information about both the increased interest on eating and the greater availability of foodstuffs. The variety of vegetables, fruits and condiments- black pepper, caraway, honey, olive oil, vinegar, salt, mushrooms, celery, leeks, lettuce, chicory, spinach, turnips, eggplant, cabbage, white beets, almonds, pomegranates, nuts, apples, lentils, raisins, etc. -listed as food of the poor of Constantinople by Prodromοs (d. c. 1166, Poèmes prodr. nο.2.38-45) mirrors both the interest on good eating and the availability of dishes. Of course above all, the food in Constantinople of Komnenoi existed as a synthesis of what had gone before, but a synthesis enriched by new ingredients and many innovations.
Icon with the Hospitality of Abraham, late 1300s, made in Constantinople. Tempera on wood with gold leaf, 14 3/16 x 24 1/2 in. Image courtesy of and © Benaki Museum, Athens, 2013
THE “BYZANTINE DINNER” MENU (Edible history project)
MENU of the richsfungaton (spongy omelette) apaki
wine flavoured pork liver
rabbit cooked with red wine and spikenard[1]
roast pork basted with a mixture of vinegar and honey
silignites[2], a very white wheat bread
rice and honey pudding
quince spoon sweet
konditon[3]
thassorofon[4]
wine flavoured pork liver
rabbit cooked with red wine and spikenard[1]
roast pork basted with a mixture of vinegar and honey
silignites[2], a very white wheat bread
rice and honey pudding
quince spoon sweet
konditon[3]
thassorofon[4]
MENU of the poorcapers in honey – vinegar sauce
black olives with mustard seeds
braised endives with garos and olive oil
cabbage with garos[5], olive oil and vinegar
fava made with black-eyed beans served with vinegar and honey
different kinds of bread made with inferior grains or legumes
NOTES BY MAVI BONCUK
[1] Spikenard, also called nard, nardin, and muskroot, is a class of aromatic amber-colored essential oil derived from Nardostachys jatamansi, a flowering plant of the valerian family.
[2] silignites
Food and Drink in Antiquity: A Sourcebook: Readings from the Graeco-Roman World
By John F. Donahue
[3] a Byzantine wine flavoured with cinnamon, cloves, black pepper and spikenard.
[4] Thassorofon - a sweet drink made by grounding peeled Thassian almonds with water in a mortar.
[5] garos is a fermented sauce, one of those familiar in many parts of the world that add savor and saltiness
Breads were baked in a variety of fashions. The “milk oven” had a fire in a separate area below the actual oven. Western Europe, at this time, generally used an oven in which the fire was lit in the cooking space, heating the oven. The ashes were swept out and the break was put in. This oven was also in common use in Byzantium. Bread was also literally cooked in the ashes of a fire. A fourth type of baking was done using a portable oven called a krivanos or klivanos. The krivanos was a metal or pottery dome which covered the bread and allowed it to cook faster and more evenly than simply being cooked in the ashes or upon a brazier.
Cereals were also baked into biscuits. Unleavened bread, called voukellon, was baked twice to make it sufficiently dry to preserve it for long periods of time. This became the bread of the Eastern Roman troops, and was reportedly so hard it had to be dipped in liquid to soften it before it could be eaten.
there were apparently a variety of porridges (cereals cooked in a liquid). one, called trachanas, was made from cracked bulgur wheat soaked in sour milk or yoghurt, then made into balls which were dried in the sun. These balls were added to hot water and produced a porridge which was often garnished with feta cheese. Dishes similar to modern oatmeal were also common.
Pancakes or fritters are some type of flour, plus a liquid, often with other ingredients, which are spooned or poured into a pan and fried. I have found only one specific mention of pancakes and one of fritters, so it is unclear how common these dishes were in Byzantium. In Flavours of Byzantium, Dalby suggests that Eastern Roman pasta, itria, was not commonly eaten. The only specific description of itria I have found comes from the fourth century writings of Oribasios who describes itria as made from wheat, which is made very thin so it bakes easily and then is pounded into very small pieces and boiled for a long time until it becomes a simple mass. Based on this description, it seems unlikely what we call pasta was available in medieval Eastern Roman Empire, although it was clearly available in medieval Europe.
Eastern Romans did not differentiate between things we call vegetables and those we call herbs. Some authors included beans as vegetables, others as cereals, and others as legumes. Vegetables are described as being eaten both raw and cooked. In medieval Western European cookbooks, cooked vegetables are occasionally mentioned, but seldom, if ever, raw ones.
Among the vegetables mentioned are cabbage, lettuce, onions, radishes, leeks, cucumbers, asparagus, rocket, garlic, celeriac, endive, watercress, spinach, orache (mountain spinach), kohlrabi, turnips, and cauliflower. Note the absence of tomatoes, peppers (chili and capisicum) and potatoes (new world foods).
Preparation techniques are remarkably similar to modern ones. Vegetables are cooked (boiled, simmered or steamed) in a variety of liquids, water, wine, linseed oil, garon (Greek garum, Latin = fish sauce). If cooked in water, some sort of additional flavoring was often added. In monasteries, olive oil was often added, much as we add butter today. Vegetables were also baked or fried. Since many of the sources were health texts, we can see Eastern Romans valued vegetables much more than Western Europeans did.
Eastern Romans ate a wide variety of meats, including pigs, goats, sheep, deer, hare, rabbit, and cattle. Most authors indicate that the Eastern Roman preference was for very young, often unweaned, animals. Additionally, meats as well as other foods, were to be served lukewarm. According to most authors sheep, goats, and pork were the usual domesticated animals to be eaten. However, the ninth-century Ordinances of Leo VI specify two types of butchers in Constantinople — one who butchers swine and the other that butchers cattle and sheep.
Young (presumably tender) animals were often broiled or roasted. One recipe describes pork broiled over coals, after being coated with a mixture of wine and honey. Older meats were more often cooked in a liquid, but this liquid might be oil, in which case we are describing frying. Game and beef were to be boiled, but “later”, suggesting the Eastern Romans knew the value of aging meat. Many types of meats were often steamed, but its not clear if these were whole animals or pieces. Marinating meats was also a well–known procedure in the Eastern Roman Empire. Meat was also chopped and cooked much like we cook meatballs today. Sausages were well–known, with pork being the basis for the majority. A variety of sauces were served with meat.
Some dishes were extremely complicated, such as the kid (baby goat) offered to the Bishop of Cremona by the Byzantine Emperor. The kid was stuffed with garlic, leeks, and onions, and coated with garon and roasted whole. It was also quite common for meat to be boiled, followed by another cooking process (baking in a liquid, roasting, etc).
The consumption of meat and its blood was regulated by the Orthodox Church. These included abstinence from meat on fast days (approximately 40% of the days of the year). The Church also forbad the eating of blood–based foods (e.g., blood sausage) and threatened excommunication to those who did. Further restrictions forbade the consumption of an animal which has died by asphyxiation, died in a trap, died from natural causes, or had been killed by another animal. The basis for this proscription appears to be the notion that these animals would contain dried blood. The frequent repetition of these proscriptions would suggest that they were often ignored.
There is substantially less information about fowl than meat. We know that a huge variety of birds were eaten, including chickens, peacocks, turtledoves, starlings, cranes, partridges, doves, sparrows, beccaficos, ducks, titmice, fig–peckers, and bustards. Cooking procedures for any variety of fowl almost invariably recommend the bird be hung (to age it), although there is less agreement as to how long a given bird should be hung. Interestingly, domesticated fowl were also hung to age.
Cooking procedures for fowl included boiling, roasting, baked under the ashes or cooked in a liquid (in an oven). One recipe suggests submerging chickens in vinegar for a day prior to cooking them. While there are many statements about sauces to accompany meats, there are few such statements regarding fowl.
Procedures for cooking eggs are infrequently mentioned as food in Eastern Roman reports. These are limited to boiling in the shell, omelets, and afratos. Afratos is beaten egg white with chopped chicken cooked in wine and fish sauce, then topped with honey and wine. The eggs of chickens, geese, duck, partridge, and pheasant were eaten. In none of the material I have seen is there mention of eggs used as leavening agents or as a binding agents (to help hold foods together).
Eastern Romans separated fish and other seafood into two different categories. I believe this was primarily on a religious basis. Fish contain obvious blood, while according to the Eastern Romans seafood has none. This would mean that seafood could be eaten many times when fish could not. Seafood consisted of crabs, lobsters, cockles, sea nettles, cuttlefish, scallops, oysters, mussels, octopus, and squid. Seafood was usually boiled or fried, but it could also be stuffed and baked. An example of the latter procedure is a recipe in which squid is stuffed with rice and pomegranates and baked.
Given the location of Constantinople, it would be surprising if fish were not commonly found on the East Roman menu. Fish was such a staple that the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennitos ordered nets be taken on all military campaigns so the fresh fish could be caught. There are substantial lists of fish in many of the texts. Some like tuna fish, cod, trout, sturgeon, pike, salmon, sole, etc. appear quite common, even today. Others have names which do not translate into modern terms; for example, porcelets, thrush, and torpedo. Many fish were boiled, but this term (boil) may correspond to our poaching fish. Fish were also baked, preferably with skin on to keep more of the juice inside. Frying and grilling were other popular cooking techniques. Fish were also cooked as part of a soup or stew.
One particularly unusual method of cooking was to use a double boiler. An uncooked barley cake is placed in the bottom of the double boiler, the fish is placed above it and the steam from the cooking barley cake cooks the fish. The result is a cooked fish and a crisp barley cake.
Legumes were a common source of protein for the lower classes and monks. Lentils, broad beans, red beans, black eyed beans, peas, chickpeas, lupines, and vetch. The only legumes regularly eaten raw were fresh chickpeas and fresh sweet peas. Soups and porridges were common dishes for legumes, as were a dish of lentils cooked by itself. In all cases lentils were to be washed and then boiled twice with a change of liquid part–way through. In most cases, the first liquid was plain water, the second could be wine, water with spices and herbs, etc.
Cheese was made from the milk of cows, goats, sheep, and water buffalo. It was curdled using rennet, fig juice, fig leaves or artichokes. Cheese was generally considered good for one’s health, with fresh (like cottage cheese) being the best and hard or cooked cheeses being the worst. Feta and mizithra cheeses are identifiable as being made during the Byzantine era. Yogurt was apparently another common way of preserving milk and was present in Eastern Roman Empire since at least the sixth century.
Nuts and fruits were both subsumed under the term fruits. The list of fruits is extensive, although there is some disagreement as to the translation of some fruits. Fruits available included watermelon, melon, figs, grapes, mulberries, blackberries, apricots, plums, jujubes, citrons, walnuts, hazelnuts, peaches, dates, pine nuts, quinces, pomegranates and walnuts. While most sources suggest that fruits were primarily eaten raw as deserts, they were also made into various types of preserves. A very few recipes suggest cooked fruit other than as preserves.
In addition to fruits and nuts as desserts, there were various prepared, sweet dishes. There were sweet rice dishes made with milk and sugar, unleavened cakes soaked in honey, cakes made with boiled down grape juice (must) and flour, as well as candies made with honey and sesame seeds.
Mushrooms and other fungi were apparently well–known, with warnings regarding those which were poisonous. Truffles were also known. The most detailed recipe for mushrooms indicates that they are to be seasoned with nard, lavender, carnation, cinnamon, a dash of vinegar and honey and then cooked in an egg soup.
Sauces were common and quite varied in Byzantium. They ranged from the simplest brine (water plus salt) to complex combinations of spices, herbs, oil, wine, vinegar and honey. A favored sauce was garon / garum, the famous fish sauce of Roman times. This sauce was in continual use throughout the period and was reported in use by the Turks after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Other common sauces were some combination of vinegar, garum, oil, and wine. Oxygaron was vinegar and garon, eleogaron was oil and garon, oenomelitos was honey and wine, and oxymelitos was honey and vinegar.
In Western Europe there was a specialty dish called a “sotelty”. These sotelties took a variety of forms, but all usually had some element of entertainment associated with them. One form was the practical joke such as making meat look raw or the medieval dribble cup. There were message sotelties which were decorated (some edible, some not) which carried the theme of an event or made a specific point. An example of this form was a thirteenth–century wedding feast in which the sotelty was a representation of a woman having a child. The third type of sotelty was characterized by a deceptiveness in which the appearance of the dish was different than its taste. This last type derived from ancient Rome and continued to the Byzantine Era. These specialty dishes included small fish stuffed into birds as well as small birds stuffed into fish. One particularly elaborate dish took a chicken and removed all the bones except the legs. The innards of the bird “were mixed up and unimaginably complicated” and stuffed back into the intact skin. The skin was covered with dough and cooked.
Medieval Western Europe offers limited information on drinks — beer/ale, mead, wine, and some wine mixtures are the vast majority of drinks reported. Byzantium offers information on a huge variety of drinks. Naturally wine is mentioned. It was sweet, dry, or sour, red, white, or yellow, resinated or unresinated, blended or single vintage. While wine was drunk by itself it was also mixed with a wide variety of spices, as well as honey. These combinations were called conditon. An example of a conditon is wine mixed with pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and spikenard. Wine was usually drunk at room temperature, or as a luxury, heated. Honey wine was not the mead of Western Europe, but is one part honey to two parts wine.
In addition to wine, water is frequently mentioned as a drink. Portions of the religious calendar were designated hydroposion — time of water–drinking. Milk is also frequently mentioned, but very fresh milk is considered the best. Other drinks included fruit juices and juleps. A basic julep is honey and water or sugar and water. Naturally a wide variety of additional flavorings were added. These included fruit juices, herbs and spices. Another class of drinks were called posca or oxycrat. These are vinegar plus water drinks, and like juleps, may have a variety of other ingredients added. There were a few more esoteric drinks: meligala, honey and milk; rodomeli, extract of rose petals and honey; and urdomeli, the foam from boiling honey and wine.
Like the recipes of Western Europe, East Roman recipes seldom offered more than a list of ingredients and a cooking procedure. One hypothesis is that a cook simply needed a reminder of the ingredients and would be experienced enough to know the proportions. Another hypothesis is that specific quantities could not be listed since they would have to be adjusted to meet the health needs of the person(s) consuming the food. These adjustments were made based on the second century humoral theories of Galen. Dalby offers a nice summary of this theory.
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