The Greek Kitchen

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The utensils which I am going to describe and discuss in the following pages are the ordinary utensils of Greek, mainly Athenian, households in the classical period; they have been found in abundance, are not special articles and may therefore serve to furnish a fairly complete picture of the classical batterie de cuisine. It is only in the last generation that material has come to hand which enables us to venture some way to understanding the methods of ancient Greek cooking. The Excavations of the Athenian Agora, in which the majority of the cooking pots on plates IV–VIII have been found, have produced evidence for the contents of Greek kitchens in most periods of Greek history, objects for the most part thrown away when broken as the result either of public or of private sacrifices. Rarely, in contrast with Pompeii, are the contents of the kitchen found in the places where they were used. Thus other evidence must be brought forward to supplement the archaeological, and this evidence is of two kinds: literary and artistic. Our literary knowledge of Greek cookery is derived in the main from the quotations preserved by Athenaeus; other authors refer to cookery incidentally and rarely provide a straight description.