Propoma (base drink, before or during the meal)
Barley kykeon with honey and mint
DrinkDocumented🍋 ☕facile10 min
A thick drink of toasted barley mixed with water, enriched with grated goat cheese, mint, and a little wine, sweetened with honey. Tangy and earthy, halfway between a drink and a light porridge.
Propoma (base drink, before or during the meal)
A thick drink of toasted barley mixed with water, enriched with grated goat cheese, mint, and a little wine, sweetened with honey. Tangy and earthy, halfway between a drink and a light porridge.
When the sun weighs on Salamis and my dry throat demands relief, I do not seek pure wine — the folly that destroyed Pentheus in my tragedy. I mix toasted barley with cool water, grate a little cheese, crush mint, add a drizzle of honey and barely a finger of wine. Drink it slowly: it is the drink of farmers and initiates, as old as Demeter herself.
Ingredients
- •Toasted barley flour — two spoonfuls (thickener)
- •Cool water — a cup (base)
- •Goat cheese — a little, grated (body and acidity)
- •Mint (or pennyroyal) — a few leaves (freshness)
- •Honey — a drizzle (sweetness)
- •Wine — a finger (optional) (flavor)
How it was made : In the Iliad, kykeon is made with Pramnian wine, barley, and grated cheese; at the Eleusinian Mysteries, it was water, barley, and mint (pennyroyal). It was as much a liquid food as a drink — the portable energy of the Greek world.
Sources : Homer, Iliad, Book XI · Homeric Hymn to Demeter