The Daily Diet
All indications are that the Greek diet remained much the same over time; after the
Peloponnesian War people perhaps had less than before, at least until a modicum of
prosperity was restored. Athenians usually had only two meals a day, a light lunch in
mid-morning and a
heavier meal in the evening1. Bread baked from barley or, for richer people, wheat, constituted the main part
of the diet. A family could buy its
bread2 from small bakery stands, often run by women, or make it at home, with the wife
directing and helping the household slaves to grind the
grain3, shape the dough, and bake in it in a pottery oven heated by charcoal. Those
few households wealthy enough to afford
meat4 from time to time often grilled it over coals on a pottery brazier shaped
much like modern picnic grills. For most people, vegetables, olives,
fruit5, and cheese represented the main variety in their diet, and meat was available
only as part of animal
sacrifices6 paid for by the state. The
wine7 that everyone drank, usually much diluted with water, came mainly from local
vineyards.
Water8 from public fountains had to be carried into the house with
jugs, a task that the women of the household had to perform themselves or see that the
household slaves did.
