So you're going to war in ancient Greece well the first thing you'll need to do
is grab your armor, grab your weapons, and pack some snacks like this ancient Greek treat itrion. So thank you to fight Ramen for sponsoring
this video as we go to war as Greek hoplites this time on Tasting History. Today we are in ancient Greece and
we've just been called up to defend our polis or city-state and while
there's a lot to do to get ready one of the most important things
is to make sure we have enough food for those long hours of marching up ahead. Now we'll talk about many of the foods that
we might eat as a hoplite or citizen soldier but the one that we're actually
making today is a bit of a sweet treat something that could give us that quick burst
of energy just before heading into battle, or if Sophocles is any
authority, and he absolutely is, this snack itrion is just the thing to nosh
on when you feel a rumbly in your tumbly. "But I, being hungry, gaze
again toward the itria." This food is mentioned in many ancient
works spanning over a thousand years and they could varyin how they were made
and the ingredients involved but the most basic form which is
likely the form that you'd have if you were marching with an ancient Greek army is as Athenaeus says "A delicate cake
made of sesame and honey." And that's it, not really a recipe and you could
make the argument that there should be some other ingredients in there but as it happens in
modern day Greece itria still exists. They've just changed the name and while sometimes
they're made with different dried fruits, and nuts, and other flavorings most of
them are still just two ingredients honey and sesame seeds just as Athenaeus
described almost two millennia ago. So the ingredients that we're going to need today
are: a half pound or 225 grams of sesame seeds, and a half pound or 225 grams unfiltered honey. Super simple and rather easy to make almost as easy as making a bowl
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Now when it comes to the itrion it's really, really easy to make. The first
thing to do is to toast your sesame seeds. This is really where most of the
flavor is going to come from. So heat a dry pan over medium heat and
then add in your sesame seeds, and it should take about five minutes to
get these nicely toasted but you want to keep themmoving around because if you let them sit they may burn and that is not a flavor that you
want they'll get kind of bitter and frankly nasty. Now they will start to brown just a
little bit as they cook but really what you're looking for or rather smelling
for is the aroma, this wonderful nutty aroma coming off of the seeds that is-
that's how you know that they are done. And once they're toasted take them off the heat but keep them warm because
they do still need to be quite warm when we finally add them to the honey. As for the honey you can use
any honey but raw unfiltered honey is going to one be best for the flavor, and two will be the best for the
texture that we are looking for. "Anacreon mentions it like this: 'And
I breakfasted on a bit of crisp itrion, breaking it off, and drank a jar of wine." So to get that itrion nice and crisp as Anacreon says it's not only important
to use the right type of honey but the right amount and to caramelize the
honey before adding in the sesame seeds. So add the honey to a saucepan
over medium heat and let it melt. If any white foam forms at the top
just skim it off otherwise stir the honey with a wooden spoon just
so it doesn't burn. Then continue to heat it until it starts to boil
letting it heat until it registers 260 degrees Fahrenheit or 126 Celsius, and as soon as it hits that
temperature add in the sesame seeds and the reason they still need to be warm
is so it doesn't drop the temperature of the honey too quickly. Then stir in all
of the seeds until completely combined, and then leave it over a low heat to cook for
three to four minutes stirring while it cooks. Then pour the mixture into a lined baking tin. I'm using a 9x9 square pan but you can also use a larger pan for a thinner itrion. The
most important thing is to make sure that it is lined with parchment or
foil, or you will never get it out, it is super super sticky. Now you can actually
cut it in just a couple minutes but if you let it cool all the way before cutting it you're going to
get a nice crisp edge on it, and that's what I'm going for. It just looks looks better and also
it gives me time to tell you a little bit more about what a Greek hoplite might have eaten. Today if you get called up to serve in the
military you're going to be outfitted with a uniform, weapons, and hopefully some food, but
in ancient Greece the shopping was up to you. Now there are times and places
in ancient Greece where there were professional standing armies like
the entire free population of Sparta, or these small but mighty sacred band
of Thebes who I need to do an entire video on because they are freaking fascinating, but for today's purposes most
armies at the time in Greece were made up of citizen soldiers or hoplites an army made up of farmers, merchants,
and other people who would be NPCs in a videogame but that doesn't mean that
they weren't extremely skilled warriors. In Athens for instance every male had to go
through two years of training before they hit 20. During that time they would learn
how to fight specifically in a phalanx a formation of heavily armed
infantry in close rank and file, and these two years of service would prepare them should they ever be called up to defend
the city because if Athens went to war they could be called up all the way to the
age of 60, but since they were for the most part just regular old citizens it was up
to them to bring all of their equipment. And that's actually where the term hoplite
comes from, 'hopla' meant to equip or equipment. Later the term 'hoplon' also
came to refer to the iconic meter-wide round shield carried by the hoplite, a shield that they had to bring from home. They also had to supply their own
spear called 'doru' and the 'xiphos', or short sword, which typically came out
only when the phalanx broke formation. They were also responsible for their own armor
like greaves which would protect the shins, and the iconic helmet though there were various
styles of helmet depending on time and location. The Corinthian style became the most recognized.
And both the weapons and the armor would vary from soldier to soldier
depending on their social status, and how much money they made kind
of what they could afford. Perhaps the piece of equipment that varied
most was the cuirass, or body armor. Some men could afford molded
bronze to cover their chest and back to shield themselves from
any manner of projectile or blade, while others wore leather and yet others
linen. Now I know what you're thinking, linen body armor seems not great but it turns
out that the 'linothorax' as it's called was rather effective at providing protection against bronze tipped arrows,
and the slashing of a sword. See while it was made of linen it's
not like a linen suit that you'd expect a Tennessee Williams character to wear but rather many many layers of linen
tightly woven and then glued together. They were so effective and
allowed for easy movement that even Alexander the Great was
often portrayed as wearing one. So whether you go bronze or
linen you are now equipped, and so you can focus on the food because
most of what you're going to be eating you need to bring yourself. In his play the 'Acharnians'. Aristophanes
describes the shopping spree following the Athenian hoplite call to arms during
the Peloponnesian War against Sparta. The soldiers were to arrive at camp with
no less than three days of provisions. "The city fills with the clamoring of soldiers...
crowds surging through the market colonnades, laden with wheat being measured out, wine-skins, oar-leathers, garlic, olives,
onions, in netsanchovies..." Other foods that were common to bring in those first few days were grains
like ember, and einkorn, and barley as well as dried chickpeas and lentils. One because they were cheap, two because they traveled well and three because
they were pretty easy to make. Now when it came to meat you had
fewer options. There was dried meat, and then there was something called 'opson'
which was a popular relish made of dried fish that would be spread onto bread, but any meat
that was like fresh that you wanted to cook you should probably leave that at home.
One it doesn't travel very well, and two you probably didn't have
a good way to prepare it at least you couldn't boil it which was the the most
common and preferred method at the time. In Plato's 'Republic' he talks about
provisioning an army during the time of Homer. "Homer, you know, feeds his heroes at their
banquets on campaign, on soldiers rations. They do not feast on fish even when they
are on the shores of the Hellespont, they eat no boiled meat but only roasted
which is most convenient for soldiers, requiring only that they should light a fire, and not have to go to the trouble
of carrying pots and pans." He also says that Homer never mentions any
sweet sauces or sweet relishes because those weren't foods that would
keep an army fit and healthy which makes me wonder what what
Homer would think about itrion, but I don't want to think about it too much
because I've already made it. Now who definitely wouldn't approve of the sweet snack
would be the Spartans who were famous for their Spartan eating habits, and dishes like melas zomos or the black broth
of Sparta which I did an entire episode on. The Spartans also figured out a
way to drink water on the march, that was let's say less than desirable. They didn't boil it, which would have been smart
but would take time rather they just kind of hid it in a certain kind of cup. "The Laconian kothon was especially well
thought of by the soldiers, as Critias says. For its color hid the disagreeable appearance of
the water which they were often forced to drink, and its curving lips caught the
muddy sediment and kept it inside, so that only the cleaner part
reached the drinker's mouth." A surefire way to get dysentery which is
why most hoplites preferred to drink wine but wine was heavy and cumbersome and you
could only carry a little bit at a time. And while most hoplites did have a slave
with them to to do all the heavy lifting, after a few days you're still
going to be out of rations. So what do you do then? Well if you are fortunate you'd have a leader like
Koiratadas of Thebes to replenish your stores. When he arrived outside of the city of Byzantium
to take control of the Greek army there he did so "with animals for offerings
and a soothsayer. Behind them, a string of 20 bearers carrying barley flour,
twenty carrying wine, three laden with olives, one with as much garlic as a single
man could carry and another with just as many onions. These supplies were
set down for distribution to the men." It was the employee pizza
party at 5th century BC Greece. Now if your leader was not willing or able to to
bring you food then unfortunately you'd probably have to rely on the kindness of strangers.
Herodotus wrote about heralds being sent out ahead of the army
to cities and towns to let them know that an army was coming and they better get ready to feed
them. "They should gather up all the grain and grind find it into flour moreover they fattened
up the finest cattle that money could buy; and they maintained poultry and waterfowl in
cages and in ponds for entertaining the army..." Now there he's actually talking about the Persian army under Xerxes but the same
went for for the Greek armies. As long as A they were on your side and B they couldn't just stop you from
entering the city altogether which is exactly what several Italian cities did
when the Greek armies arrived in 415 BC. "Some of the cities would not receive them
with a market nor allow them into town, although offering them water
and a place to anchor their ships. Tarentum and locri did not
even supply them with the latter." But when towns were happy to see
you well then it was time to eat. When the Greek military leader Xenophon
arrived at an Armenian village with his troops, "There was no place where they did not serve on
the same table, lamb, kid, pork, veal, and poultry along with many loaves of bread, some
of wheat, and some of barley." But that was definitely not the norm. Most
of the time when a Greek Army showed up it just had to kind of take what they needed. "The Greeks, in plundering the strongholds,
found supplies in the houses of bread in heaps. They also found slices of dolphin
salted and stored in jars... and on the upper floors of the houses
were large amounts of flat nuts. By boiling and baking these nuts into loaves
they made the bread which they most used. The Greeks also found wine, which by reason of its
harshness appeared to be sharp when drunk unmixed, but when mixed with water
was fragrant and delicious." And while it may sound nice this pillaging or
"living off the land" as many armies throughout history have called it it was actually a rather
time-consuming process and Thucydides says that the reason that the Greek army
was unable to defeat Troy very quickly and had to instead besiege it
for 10 years during the Trojan War was because they kept having
to leave to go pillage more food. "But if the Greeks had gone all together with a plentiful supply of food
and waged War continuously, without relying on farming and foraging,
they would have easily won in battle and captured the city." So just like any good Greek
tragedy this one has a moral when going to war always pack a snack like itrion. So once the itrion has completely
cooled remove it from the pan, easier said than done when you forget
to line the sides of the pan as I did. You definitely want to line the whole thing with parchment because
it's just super super sticky. Luckily I was able to to kind of break the
the seal around and finally I got it loose, and then you can cut it up however
you like and it's ready to eat. And here we are this sesame and
honey itrion of ancient Greece. It smells really, really good. That kind of
wonderfully warm delicious toasted sesame smell, I mean because basically that's what it is. I also
just love the top. It's so like smoothly sesame, you kind of have to make it smooth before
it hardens to to get it to do that. Anyway, I'm going to try it go. Here we go. [Monch] Crispy as it's supposed to be. Hmm. I mean, what's not to like. It's super sesame-y at first but
as the honey kind of melts that's the flavor that takes over but
that's why you want that unrefined honey. The flavor is not as as sweet. It's still sweet because it's honey but
it's not quite as sweet as clarified honey. And it's cool because at first
it's like really crispy but then
it melts and it becomes soft and almost like marshmallow
but a little a little grittier. Yeah it definitely gets stuck in
your teeth but but it's really, really good and it I'm sure it just packs a real burst of energy I'm going to be bouncing
off the walls for the next couple hours. Luckily I'm filming fairly early
in the day so I can sleep but I do love that this is actually not just Greek. They have this in many, many
places around the world. They still make these in in
South America and Mexico. Heck you could- I think you can get something
very similar like Whole Foods or Trader Joe's. It's just so simple, and not that hard to make. There are recipes that you'll see that just basically add both
together and then cook it or bake it, doesn't work. At least it's not going to get as crispy, I
mean it's still edible but it's not as crispy so make the- cook the two things
separately and then bring them together at the end and you'll get
something delicious and ancient Greek. [Crunch] So go ahead and make this, there's no reason not
to you have no excuse. It's super, super easy, it's only two ingredients and it's been a
couple weeks since I mentioned the Tasting History cookbook behind me so if you haven't got
your copy you can still go get your copy today, and yeah I will see you next
time on Tasting History.
In Poland they are sold on every shop as "sezamki" - but based on sugar syrup not honey (as most sold right now in Greece).
We have similar in Canada called "Sesame Snaps". https://sesamesnaps.ca
As I was scrolling past I thought those were Rice Krispies treats cut on the diagonal.
Ooh ooh linen armor--I saw a HEMA demonstration where they put a many-layered linen tunic on a mannequin, and a guy with a sword slashed it with his full strength. It did indeed stop the blade from hitting the "skin".
Is the Pokemon Vaporeon? It's just a little to blurry for me to tell and it's driving me nuts.
Just tried to make it myself yesterday, using creamy blossom honey since I had it there. At first I thought the consistency was all wrong because I couldn't make it harden up on its own, leaving it out for hours. But then I put it into the fridge and now it's a brick you can hardly bite. XD