Hera at the table

The ancient Greek meal revolves around sitos (the grain base: barley cakes, bread) accompanied by opson (what 'enhances' the grain: vegetables, cheese, fish, and during festivals, sacrificial meat). The meal concludes with the symposion, a drinking moment where wine, always mixed with water in the krater, is passed around. For a deity like Hera, the table of the gods is doubled by the table of offerings: what mortals burn, pour, and deposit in her sanctuaries at Argos and Samos.

Before sugar, honey was the sweet gold of the Greeks: it sweetened offering cakes, softened wine, and bound flat cakes. Paired with barley — the grain of both the poor and the temple — it marks almost every dish of the Hellenic world. On Hera's altar, honey and roasted barley often precede the great meat of hecatombs.