Sweets

     Who wants desert? I'm gonna start with this course because who doesn't like sweets? So what am I making? BAKLAVA!

     I searched on the all mighty Google for an ancient Baklava recipe. I came to find that a lot of it is the same, except some updated ingredients.  So I went to some one better than Google for an awesome recipe... my PopPop. He's been making the delicious desert for years so I thought I could get a few pointers from him, and also have him be my guide so I didn't mess up.

For a reference here's the Ancient Recipe I pulled from Google:

In Greek: γάστριν, pronounced GHAHS-treen

Sesame seeds, pepper, and poppy seeds are only some of the unusual ingredients in this ancient recipe. Petimezi (a sweetener made from grapes), used long before sugar arrived in Greece, adds to the unique taste. If you're hooked on the Ancients, give this recipe a try.

Note that sugar is used in this syrup, to keep the cost down.

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• For the dough:
• 4 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1/4 cup of olive oil
• juice of 1 lemon
• 3 1/2 ounces of toasted sesame seeds (a little over 2/3 cup), ground
• -----------
• For the filling:
• 2/3 pounds of chopped hazelnuts, unsalted
• 2/3 pounds of chopped almonds, unsalted
• 2/3 pounds of chopped walnuts
• 1/5 pound of sesame seeds
• 1/5 pound of poppy seeds
• 1 teaspoon of coarsely ground black pepper
• 3/4 cup of honey
• ----------
• For the syrup:
• 2 cups of sugar
• 1 cup of water
• 1/4 cup of petimezi *
• 3/4 cup of honey

Preparation:

* Petimezi: a syrup made from grapes (recipe).

Combine the dough ingredients and knead to form the dough. Roll out into 3 equal-sized sheets about 1/8 inch thick, large enough to cover a medium baking pan.

Combine all filling ingredients.

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).

Place one sheet of dough in the bottom of a lightly oiled baking pan. Cover with half the filling. Add the second sheet of dough and the remaining filling. Place the third sheet of dough on top. Cut into squares and then diagonally to form trianges. Sprinkle with a little water and sesame seeds.

Bake on the rack just below the middle of the oven at 350°F (180°C) for about 30 minutes.

When the pastry is cool, combine all syrup ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes. Pour the hot syrup over the cooled pastry and let sit until syrup is absorbed (about 3-4 hours).

The differences made with this recipe are I did not make my own dough due to time issues, and I only used hazelnuts and almonds because I just don't have those other things around my house and couldn't afford to go shopping (poor college student at its best!)

In the end the desert came out pretty good, and it didn't taste half bad either. 

I even managed to get a few pictures of the finished product...

I highly recommend if you've never had Baklava before, to try some, because it is really sweet and delicious. 

FOOD

So I'm gonna try cooking on for size. Now I know I am very capable of making a lot of different food, but I'm going to try to recreate some Ancient Roman/Greek dishes that would have been eaten during Festivals or even every day meal time.

Decorations at Banquets

     When ever you think of decorating your house for a special event or holiday, what do you think about putting up? I think about putting out the nice table clothe and making my house look clean and tidy.  In Ancient Greece what did they use to decorate for their banquets and festivals? How were the rooms set up? Do they have furniture?

• The banquet is held in a large room with multiple doors and posts.
• Tall chairs were placed around the walls and the chairs were strewn with embroidered stuff made by the women.
• On the chairs the enthroned the leaders of Phaiakia were drinking and dining. This suggests that the chairs were the klines of classical Greece. A kline is related to the word recline and these chairs could be reclined upon. The seat was a frame with stretched cord about 3 feet off the ground. The frame was 5-6 feet long and 2 feet wide with an armrest on one end.
• boys of gold on pedestals held aloft bright torches of pitch pine so the banquet could be held indoors at night.

Ancient Greek Festival

     During banquets men would lean on elbow couches, making themselves more reclined.  They would be bedecked in garlands.  The couches would be in the Andron and they would be far from the door of which you entered the room.  There would be seven to nine couches in a room and they could hold up to about twenty-seven people.  The rooms were in very domestic settings.  I couldn't imagine having a party in a place like this.

     Apart of the decoration when going to a festival would be the tons of pottery.  Some items would include wine coolers, jugs, various drinking cups, and mixing vessels.  Many of these drinking potteries had scenes of festivals for the Greek god Dionysos, the god of wine.

   I feel that having these decorations at ancient festivals make the living space more lively, as opposed to an empty room with just a few tables and chairs.  Using reclining couches was a way to make people feel more comfortable in the Symposium.

Proper Etiquette in Ancient Greece

     Banquets had always been very important in the culture of the Ancient Greeks, but how exactly did one act at these festivals/banquets? What were the norms and what did they consider improper etiquette? 

     
     By the turn of the seventh century B.C. Greeks slowly showed more interest in the actual meal than just the conversation and talks of the Symposiums. “Banquets had become an elegant party during which people, leaning on comfortable pillows, reclined on the precious cloths laid over soft mattresses; a luxurious surroundings” (Ricotti). But the elegance of this period was not always like this. 

Hero eating his meal

     Some behavior that was tolerated, surprisingly, was fighting. If two men were to get in a verbal argument at a banquet, it was acceptable for the two to start to fight. This behavior was also brought up in many writings of Homer and Aeschylus. Men were also susceptible to getting very intoxicated at the banquets, also causing violent action. Aeschylus described the Homeric heroes assembling for dinner, getting so drunk that they broke their chamber pots on the head of their contestants. Since arguments and conversation were a regular thing at the symposium, it only had to be accepted as normal behavior and not taken as a bad thing. 

Men in conversation at the Symposium

     Although some rowdy behavior happened at the banquets, home life and meal times where completely different for the Greeks. They had three meals a day, not unlike us today; breakfast, lunch and dinner. Lunch was always eaten around noon or early afternoon and dinner was at nightfall. Unlike how we eat our meals today, men and women of Ancient Greece ate their meals separately from one another and if the house was too small for them to eat in separate rooms, the man would eat first followed by the woman and children. After everyone else was finished with their meal, the slave, if any, could then eat. The use of forks was not known at this time so people ate their meals with their hands. Although they did have knives to cut their meats.  

Setting Up Dinner

Woman and Child eating in separate room

    

     In manys ways these ideas have been passed on to our generation, such as the “three meals a day”, but could you imagine verbally arguing and starting a fight at your dinner table?

Source:

http://www.espr-archeologia.it/GoodandBadtablemanners

What is the Symposium?

     Symposium is traditionally translated as “banquet” but more literally “gathering of drinkers” . The Greek symposium was a male aristocratic activity, a social gathering where men drank together, conversed, and enjoyed themselves in a relaxing atmosphere (metmuseum). It was a key Hellenic social institution. Most of the talk that happened in the symposium was about philosophical and political issues and sometimes poetry.  They were also frequently held to celebrate the introduction of young men into aristocratic society.

     The symposium began as a warrior feast.  Prayers opened and closed the meetings and sessions sometimes ended with a procession in the streets. 

     It was broken up into two parts, the first included food and the second with drinking. The food in the first part was rather simple snack foods, basically used to help the second half last longer.  The second part was inaugurated with a libation to the god Dionysus, the god of wine. 

     Symposia were also held by aristocrats to celebrate other special occasions, such as victories in athletics and poetic contests (britannica). Most of the drinking and discussion done in the symposia was done in a separate quarter called the Andron. The rooms were designed specifically for the proceedings. The participants, all male aristocrats, wore garlands and leaned on the left elbow on couches, and there was a large consumption of wine, served by slave boys. The symposium was comprised of about seven to fifteen couches with cushions, which fit one or two people to a couch, there were also low set tables.  

Layout of an Andron

     The meetings were usually overseen by the symposiarch or master of drinking. It was his job to oversee his fellow men and make sure that the consumption of wine stayed so that everyone was happy and not overly intoxicated. It was also his job to make sure everyone followed the rules of the meetings. 

    
     Besides used as a place for meetings and conversation, sometimes the symposium was used for entertainment purposes. Poetry and music were central to the pleasures of the symposium. Although free women of status did not attend symposia, prostitutes and entertainers were hired to perform, consort, and converse with the guests. Some other forms of entertainment may have been games, songs, flute girls, slaves performing or hired entertainment depending on the occasion (wiki). 


     Homosexuality also played a big role in the symposium.  Mostly men gathered to the symposium, and mentored younger boys there as well. This then budded into a more sexual aspect. The ancient greeks did not see man or woman, just beauty, and with the lack of women present in the symposium, homosexual acts occurred. "Homosexuality was even discussed in dialogues of Plato, such as the Symposium, to plays by Aristophanes, and Greek artwork and vases." (Stanford Encyclopedia) 
     

     The drink used for the event was drawn from a Krater, a large jar designed to be carried by two men used for mixing drinks. It was then distributed amoung the guests. The drink was three parts water and one part wine.

     
     The feasts could only be afforded by the rich; in most Greek homes, religious feasts or family events were the occasion of more modest banquets. The banquet became the setting of a specific genre of literature, giving birth to Plato's Symposium, Xenophon's work of the same name, the Table Talk of Plutarch's Moralia, and the Deipnosophists (Banquet of the Learned) of Athenaeus. 

SOURCES:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/symp/hd_symp.htm

http://www.britannica.com/Symposiums

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/homosexuality/