Ariadne's Tribe: Minoan Spirituality for the Modern World
Walk the sacred labyrinth with Ariadne, the Minotaur, the Great Mothers, Dionysus, and the rest of the Minoan family of deities. Ariadne's Tribe is an independent spiritual tradition that brings the deities of the ancient Minoans alive in the modern world. We're a revivalist tradition, not a reconstructionist one. We rely heavily on shared gnosis and the practical realities of Paganism in the modern world. Ariadne's thread reaches across the millennia to connect us with the divine. Will you follow where it leads?
Find out all about Ariadne's Tribe at ariadnestribe.com. We're an inclusive, welcoming tradition, open to all who share our love for the Minoan deities and respect for our fellow human beings.
Food and Cooking in Minoan Crete
One way to connect with an ancient culture like the Minoans is to learn about their daily life: what they did for a living, what their houses looked like, and especially what they ate. Food is a powerful way to connect with other cultures, and that includes those of the ancient world.
A while back I wrote about how the Minoans cooked - what their kitchens and cookpots were like, how they used braziers or outdoor cookfires instead of hearths. Today I'm going to talk about what they cooked. Much of this information comes from an appendix in my book Labrys and Horns.
Crete is an island, so obviously fish and seafood were (and still are) a valued food source. The young Minoan fisherman above, from a fresco found in Akrotiri, is holding a large catch of mahi-mahi, also known as dolphinfish (yes, Minoan art is so accurate, we can identify the species of animals and plants the artists painted). In addition to fresh and salted fish, the Minoans ate octopus, squid, and shellfish like mussels and limpets.
The Minoans had large livestock herds, both privately owned and belonging to the temples in the big cities. From these they got beef, goat, mutton/lamb, and pork. They also hunted deer, grouse, and rabbit and ate snails, though we don't know whether the snails were farmed like they do in France today or simply collected from the wild.
Now, don't panic - the Minoans didn't survive on just meat. They also ate fruits and vegetables, lots of them. Chickpeas, fava beans, and lentils provided the base for soups and stews (you might have heard the term pottage - along with bread, this was a staple food in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East). They grew leeks, garlic, and onions and harvested olives from their groves. They also gathered wild mushrooms and wild greens of all sorts as well as wild asparagus and artichokes. Those wild greens, known as horta, are still popular and available in local markets on Crete.
As for fruit, the Minoans had access to the same assortment that the rest of the people around the Mediterranean ate: dates, figs, grapes, pomegranates, and quinces. They ate all of these both fresh and dried. They also enjoyed almonds, pine nuts, pistachios, and sesame seeds.
As I mentioned above, bread was a staple not just for the Minoans but for everyone in that region and time period. For a shepherd in the hills of Crete, it might be the main source of everyday meals, perhaps with a flask of diluted wine. The Minoans grew barley, rye, and three varieties of wheat, so they had choices in terms of bread, which would have been flattish loaves similar to pita bread or naan. Their bread would have been whole grain, so it would have been quite nutritious. It's possible they used sourdough starters for leavening, or perhaps the yeast in the dregs of home-brewed beer or wine.
Dairy was also a big part of Minoan culinary life. Their huge herds provided milk not just from cows but also from goats and sheep. They drank milk, perhaps with herbs steeped in it, and made soft, uncured cheeses from it as well, much like you find in Crete even today.
For seasoning they had olive oil, of course, and wine vinegar. They boiled down seawater for salt - an easy source for an island culture. And for the sweet things in life they had not just honey but also boiled-down grape juice. They may also have made date sugar the way the Egyptians did.
Speaking of seasoning, the Minoans had a huge variety of herbs available for their cooking and seasoning pleasure: anise, bay laurel, coriander, cumin, dill, dittany, fennel, lavender, marjoram, myrtle, oregano, parsley, poppyseed, rosemary, rue, saffron, sage, thyme, and verbena. That makes for quite a nice spice cabinet, don't you think?
What have I forgotten? Oh, drinks. I suspect that, like much of the Bronze Age world, the Minoans avoided drinking plain water since it wasn't necessarily safe. Instead, they had quite a few beverages to choose from. We know they made beer, mead, and wine. The beeswax-and-resin mixture they used to waterproof their wine storage jars may be the origin of retsina. They probably drank their wine diluted just like everyone else in that time period and region. They also drank milk, as I noted above, and made tea from the various herbs they had available.
If you look at the Minoan diet as a whole, it doesn't look a whole lot different from the way the people in rural areas of Crete eat today - though they now have the newer imports from the Americas like potatoes and tomatoes, foods that were unknown in the Bronze Age Mediterranean. It's a very healthy way of eating, and quite delicious, too.
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