The starch component

The Ancient Greeks divided their meals into two components, filler and everything else. Opson was the word for the expensive, highly flavoured element and could be some treatment of fish or meat, or maybe just a sauce of cheese and herbs. Sitos was the starch element that formed the bulk of the meal and a backdrop to the opson’s flavours. In those days the sitos would have been fine wheaten bread if you were well off, or barley porridge if you weren’t.

The strength of the sauce or the seasoning of the fish or meat would be related to the amount of starch that needed flavouring, in the same way as, today, a tomato topping for pizza will be more highly flavoured than a tomato soup with croûtons. There was also an etiquette in operation and those who ate more than their fair share of sauce or opson in ancient times were considered rather gross.