Byzantine Food

Byzantine Food
This brief discussion on Byzantine food, far from in-depth, is designed to give some background to Greek and Turkish food.

Byzantium was a city on a peninsula.

It had been founded as a Greek trading colony in the 600s BC, and for hundreds of years after that was largely known for its fish and seafood exports. It was named after King Byzas of Megara in Greece. In the Roman Empire, it became known its Latin name of Byzantium.

By 324 [1], Constantine I, Roman Emperor from 306 – 337 AD, designated Byzantium as the second capital of the Roman Empire, to look after the eastern half of the empire. It was renamed to Constantinopolis in 330 AD. The Roman Empire was divided into east and west in 395 AD, with Byzantium the eastern capital.

When the western half of the Roman Empire fell (many use the arbitrary year of 476) Byzantium became the new capital of the Roman Empire. Taking into account the founding of the Empire in Rome, and its continuation on in Byzantium, the Roman Empire actually played a role in history from 510 BC to 1453 AD -- nearly 2000 years.

92 Emperors reigned at Byzantium, and over 70 nationalities were in the Byzantine Empire. Balat and Hosoy were Jewish areas of the city of Byzantium; they lived completely equal, and even had their own law courts.

Byzantium was conquered by Muslim Turks on 29 May 1453 in the afternoon, led by Mehmed II, aged 20 at the time.

Parts of the city surrendered rather than fight to the end, such as the present day Koca Mustafa Pasha area in the south-west of the city (then called "Psamatya".) Because of this, Psamatya was not only spared pillage, but Mehmed II insisted that the churches there not be damaged.

Parts of the Empire, such as the Galata suburb across the horn from Constantinople, were given so much religious and cultural freedom under the Muslims that they even continued to hold carnivals before Lent every year.

The Turks referred to themselves as "Ottomans", and saw the term Turk only as a pejorative term for peasants in Anatolia.

The city was renamed from Constantinople to Istanbul in 1930. Many Greeks still refuse to recognize the new name.

FOOD
Byzantium became the bridge that carried the food of the ancient world into modern-day Greece and Turkey. It never experienced the Dark Ages that Europe went through -- though in our Western European centric history, we aren't taught that.

There are not, though, many Byzantine cookbooks. What we know is from writings by travellers, church rules, laws, doctors writing about diets, etc.

The two main influences on their food were the Church, and the "science" of dietetics --the theory of four humours in the body which could be balanced by what you ate for good health.

The Byzantines had eggplant, oranges and lemons. They expanded our range of jellies and fruit preserves. They made rice pudding, served with lashes of honey.

The poor ate a lot of salt pork and cabbage.

There was much street food. The most common cooking method was boiling.

The Byzantines made baklava, and called it "kopton." There is a recipe for it in Athenaeus, XIV, 647-48.

The Byzantines invented marzipan, the samovar and it is presumed, the fork. The number of tines in their forks increased over time. By the 1100s, Byzantine forks had five tines.

Byzantines were fond of spiced wines. They particularly made wine flavoured with anise, which later evolved into ouzo. A common drink for soldiers was "phouska" -- the Greek name for the same drink Roman soldiers had had, "posca."

They used simple sauces made with vinegar and oil, or vinegar and honey.

They used capers, dried figs and walnuts as starters for meals.

Mizithra cheese was made in Thessaly and Macedonia, and prosphatos cheese made in Crete.

Bread
Bakers in Byzantium were exempt from being called up for any public service, in order to keep the bread ovens rolling.

Paximadi was a Byzantine bread made of barley, baked, then sliced, then baked again until very dry and hard. It was used for travellers and given out as army rations. The bread was named after the Greek cook Paximus.

Trakhanas was bread made from cracked grains such as emmer, mixed with soured milk, then formed into balls and dried.

Boukellaton were dried loaves of ring-shaped bread.

Piston was a porridge made from millet.

Meat & Fish
Most houses kept pigs. Lamb was more expensive. Beef was only seldom eaten. Cattle were used to pull ploughs instead, and were seen as work animals.

Herds of gazelles and wild donkeys were kept to be hunted as game.

The Byzantines loved botargo (salted mullet roe, aka "Bottarga" now.) By the 1100s, they were making caviar.

No meat or fish were allowed on Orthodox Church fast days.

Flavourings
Byzantines had all the spices the Romans did, plus nutmeg and ambergris. Among flavourings used were caraway, cinnamon, cumin, honey, pepper, salt, and vinegar. Reputedly, they were the first to apply the herb rosemary to lamb, and the first to use saffron. This made them the first to use rosemary and saffron in non-medicinal applications.

They used mastic a lot as a spice.

Ordinary people, of course, wouldn't have had access to the wide variety of spices that the rich did.

Byzantines used garum as did the Romans and earlier Greeks. They called it "garos."

The Byzantines mixed sweet and savoury. They used caraway in savoury dishes.

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[1] Dates quoted for when Byzantium was chosen an offical city vary from 324, to 330, to 335 AD. Centénaire de la société nationale des antiquaires de France, Paris, 1904, p. 281 says 324. Official inauguration of new name was in 330 AD.

Literature & Lore
"And if you come to the holy city of famous Byzantion, I urge you again to eat a steak of peak-season tuna; for it is very good and soft."

-- Archestratus, fragment 39. Circa 350 BC. Olson and Sens translation.

"Get [your tuna] from Byzantium, if you want it to be good. . . ."

-- Archestratus, fragment 62. Circa 350 BC. Olson and Sens translation.

"And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium."

-- William Butler Yeats (13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939)

Acknowlegements
Dalby, Andrew. The Tastes and Smells of Byzantium. Monday, 3 March 2003. Retrieved September 2006 from http://tastesofmaviboncuk.blogspot.com/2005/07/tastes-and-smells-of-byzantium.html

Dalby, Andrew. Flavours of Byzantium. London: Prospect Books, 2003.

Some Typical Foods Items / Ingredients

Malvasia Grapes