Andromache at the table

The archaic Greek meal revolves around sîtos — the cereal staple: barley or wheat bread, flatcakes, porridges. Alongside comes ópson, what is eaten "with" the bread: olives, cheese, legumes, fish, or on feast days, roasted meat. All is washed down with wine mixed with water. At the table of a Trojan princess, one distinguishes the daily frugal meal from the sacrificial banquet (the hekatombe), and offerings poured to gods and the dead are never forgotten.

Olive oil is the fatty heart of all this cuisine — on bread, in porridge, as libation. Barley, humbler than wheat, roasted then ground (álphita), gives mâza, the flatcake of families and Homeric heroes alike.