The ancient Greek meal revolves around the *sîtos*, the staple food made from grains (barley cake or wheat bread), accompanied by the *ópson*, what is eaten "with it" — olives, cheese, figs, sometimes fish. The real feast continues with the *symposion*, the shared drinking moment where wine is cut with water to the sound of the lyre. For the gods and the dead, offering cakes are set aside, untouched by the living.

Barley is the humble, primary grain of the Greeks, the basis of daily *maza* and *kykeon*; honey from the hills of Boeotia, perfumed with thyme, is the sweetness that transforms the ordinary table into a feast and nourishes the altars.