Tragémata (end-of-meal sweets, during the wine)
Figs with Honey and Fresh Cheese from the Sympósion
FestiveDocumented🍯 🍋facile15 min
Fresh or dried figs drizzled with honey, sprinkled with crushed nuts, and accompanied by fresh cheese. The quintessential Greek sweetness — no sugar, just honey and fruit — served when the meal turns to conversation.
Tragémata (end-of-meal sweets, during the wine)
Fresh or dried figs drizzled with honey, sprinkled with crushed nuts, and accompanied by fresh cheese. The quintessential Greek sweetness — no sugar, just honey and fruit — served when the meal turns to conversation.
When the wine comes and demonstrations give way to talk, I have the figs and honey brought — sweetness loosens tongues better than reasoning. I choose well-ripened figs, split open as one opens a figure to understand it better, drizzle them with Hymettus honey and break some nuts over them. A little fresh cheese on the side, and it's done. My students stayed late; often it was around this sweet dish that a difficulty found its solution.
Ingredients
- •Fresh or dried figs — a bowlful (main fruit)
- •Honey (preferably from Hymettus) — generously (sweetness, coating)
- •Walnuts or almonds — a handful (crunch)
- •Fresh ewe's milk cheese — to taste (accompaniment)
- •Fresh thyme or sesame seeds — a pinch (fragrance)
How it was made : The Greeks did not know sugar: honey was THE sweetener, and the fig, fresh or dried, was a royal fruit exported throughout the Mediterranean. Tragémata ("nibbles") ended the meal during the sympósion, around wine mixed with water.
Sources : Athenaeus of Naucratis, The Deipnosophists · Andrew Dalby, Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece