Classical Greece: The Menu

A relatively light first course consisted of a variety of appetizing relishes, paropsides, to eat with the bread; quantities served were small. A single large platter might be offered in turn to each guest, containing a selection of perhaps half a dozen of the following: oysters, sea urchins, shrimps fried in honey, aphye ‘small fry’, fried or stewed sliced squid, pieces of galeos (smooth hound, see dogfish) baked or boiled and served with mulberry sauce, pieces of sturgeon, pieces of eel, slices of salt tuna; little figpeckers in sweet pastry, thria (minced salt fish or other ingredients baked in a pickled fig leaf), cheese; bolboi (grape hyacinth bulbs) baked in ashes and served with a cheese and silphium sauce; asparagus, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, and other vegetables, olives of different types, garlic. Sliced egg is mentioned as a garnish. At a very large gathering whole fish dishes might also be served as entrées. At more everyday dinners etnos (pea or bean soup), phake (lentil soup), or bolbophake (bulb-and-lentil soup) took the place of daintier delicacies here.