Greek chef tries to unlock the taste of ancient Hellenic dishes

Remember when I posted about the possible foods and entertainment at a Hellenic banquet? Guess what I stumbled upon today: Louis Chrysostomou, spoke to Greek newspaper Ta Nea about his ambitious project to introduce ancient Hellenic cuisine to London’s multinational population, at Life Goddess restaurant.

Chrysostomou has 17 years of experience as a chef in Greece and Britain. He is the head chef of the Greek Embassy in London, and owner of Lamda Delta Catering and Events.cWith the project "Secrets and Flavors from Ancient Greece," the Greek chef hopes to introduce the unique tastes not only to the thousands of Greeks living in the British capital, but also to the British and other nationals.

"Our goal is to present to the British public the Greek cuisine in its entirety, starting from Ancient Greece and its nutritional secrets. This is a vision that finally becomes reality. It is the product of an exhaustive study of prescriptions and sources of nutrition in ancient Greece, starting with the texts of Archestratos and Athineos."

Chrysostomou admits that there is no way of knowing how these dishes tasted thousands of years ago, but the ingredients are known:

"The truth is that we can not know how the food that ancient Greeks ate tasted. However, we use exactly the same ingredients that they chose to make up their meals."

These dishes include the famous “black broth” that the ancient Spartans ate, “mypotos” (a kind of spinach pie) and “melicraton” (a sweet with nuts, honey, and pollen) and are some of the dishes that will be served during theme gastronomic nights that aspire to be a transformation of the ancient Greek symposiums.

After the “Ancient Greek dinners”, other themes will be presented, such as the Pythagorean diet (vegetarian oriented), the Hippocratic diet (prevention and treatment of diseases through food) and evenings dedicated to the local cuisines of Greece (Macedonia, Thrace, Peloponnese etc).

I know the ingredients for the ancient Spartan melas zomos (μέλας ζωμός), or black soup / black broth: it was a staple soup made of boiled pigs' legs, blood, salt and vinegar. It is thought that the vinegar was used as an emulsifier to keep the blood from clotting during the cooking process. The armies of Sparta mainly ate this. It was not a delicacy, but used for sustenance and strength. I'd be very interested in trying this and the other dishes!