Historical cheese making and bread baking class

If you would like to register for this class please contact us at mkavroulakis@gmail.com or fill out the Booking Form  to send you further information.  


The class explores the history of cheese making and learns how to make rennet, vinegar and plant juice-based cheese curds and re-create an ancient Greek goat and sheep cheese recipe.

It is then taken through the many aspects involved in creating different types of period breads- from making sourdough to kneading and from baking to using the bread as an ingredient in various dishes-  using period cookbooks and other primary sources. The breads are baked on hot stones, in a replica of a 5th-century pnigeus (portable earthenware oven), on a replica of a Byzantine portable grill, and in the heat of a traditional wood-fired oven.

Numbers are limited to  8 participants, so that your experience is as hands-on as possible. 

The class lasts around 4 hours  (10:00 - 14:00)

Different themes and recipes are available depending on season and request. 

 

Wild greens & dough: historic & traditional Cretan baking and cooking

This  lesson is for those who want to learn about the history, the  healing powers of the most popular Cretan wild greens and herbs and how to use them in cooking. We will also learn about the history of Cretan bread and phyllo making and how to recreate historical and traditional recipes.
The lesson is available upon request.
Time: 10:00 -14:00


If you would like to register for this class please contact us at mkavroulakis@gmail.com or fill out the Booking Form  to send you instructions and further information.  

Eating in Ancient Greece.

If you would like to register for this class please contact us through  mkavroulakis@gmail.com or fill out the Booking Form  to send you payment instructions and information.  

A brief introduction to food, cooking methods and trade routes of Classical Greece will be followed by a dipping back into its cuisine. Using Athenaeus’ «Deipnosophistai» * and archaeological research data as inspiration, class will enjoy learning how to reproduce ancient Greek recipes both in modern kitchens and according to experimental archaeology.

After the cooking the team will eat what it has been prepared.

Blood sausages: the ancient Greek aimatitis hordi and omathia of the later years.

Numbers are limited to  8 participants, so that your experience is as hands-on as possible. Minimum attendance: 2 cooks.  

The class lasts around 4 hours  and the price is € 100 per person.

• The lessons are given in English and Greek but some lessons can also be arranged in French and German.
• The majority of classes include a complete meal and one glass of wine. Additional wine is available for purchase by the glass or bottle. 

Different themes and recipes are available depending on the products of the season and request. 


Children of all ages can be involved in cultural and nutritional learning through cooking. Of course, not only do they learn to make interesting menu items, they also get to eat them.
Remember that these classes require that each child be accompanied by an adult!

*A compilation of hundreds of ancient Greek works on food, drink, manners and customs.




You can also hire me to create a period cookery course for you or for you and your friends, in the privacy of your own home.
If you like, create your own group of  3 or more people and I will arrange a class just for you.

Going Hellenistic

 Flavors and tastes of what rich and fashionable Hellenistic Greek society might have eaten. (Evmaros, November 2010, Athens)

Clockwise from top left:
cabbage, cucumbers, apples, pomegranate seeds; black olives; arugula sprinkled with Vietanmese nuoc mam, a good substitute for garos (the ancient fish sauce); mushrooms with oxymeli ( a boiled mixture of honey, vinegar and water); semi sweet cheese- bread; turnip pickled with mustard; pork belly stuffed with liver, bulgur and blood; boiled tripe served in sharp vinegar, cumin and asafoetida.

When Macedonian Caranous gave his wedding banquet, early in the third century,  only 20 men attended as his guests. As soon as they had sat down, a silver bowl was given to each of them as a present.

When they had drunk the contents of the  bowls, then there was given to each of the guests a loaf  of bread on a bronze platter of Corinthian workmanship, of the same size; and chickens, ducks, pigeons, and a goose and lots of other items. Each guest took the food and gave it, platter and all,  to the slave who waited behind him. Many other elaborate dishes  were also served. And after them, another platter came, this one was made of silver, on which  was placed a large loaf, and on that geese and hares and kids, bread curiously made, and doves, and turtledoves, and partridges, and a great  abudance of many other kinds of birds.

After  some flute-playing women and musicians had played a prelude, other girls came in, each one carrying  two  bottles of perfume bound with a gold cord and they gave a pair to each of the guests.

Then a great treasure was brought in: a silver platter with a golden edge, and large enough to receive a roast piglet of huge size, lying on its back, showing his belly, stuffed with many delicious things: roasted thrushes, and paunches, and a most countless number of fig-peckers, and the yolks of eggs spread on the top, and oysters, and scallops.  And to every one of the guests were given these items, nice and hot, together with the platters.

But this was not the end of the banquet.

Many more items were brought until the serving time of the after- dinner tables: hot kid, roast  fishes,  Cappadocian bread, real Erymanthian boars  and rivers of wine.

Finally, the after-dinner tables: flat cakes - Samian types and Attic types-  Cretan gastrin, along with the special cake- boxes for each of the guests.

What a feast, indeed!  And what a plethora of ingredients and combinations for those who demanded (and could afford) the best, most extravagant,  most fashionable and ultimately most expensive foods. (More)

Ancient Greek Lunch

A culinary adventure being hosted at Thetis Authentics. The company offers  chrologically authentic reproduction of ancient manufacturing techniques and artefacts  and services based on the application of scientific methods and techniques to cultural heritage. 

Roman Tastes for Modern Palates

 A Roman inspired dinner at the Association of Greek Archaeologists (June 2012)

Cabbage with cilantro, vinegar, honey, asafetida (credit: G.Detsis)

Mixtura cum nucleis pineis (credit: G.Detsis)

Μenu

Ιsicia omentata

Gustum de curcubitis

'Salad' with cucumber and watermelon, flavored with pepper, honey, vinegar, garum and pennyroyal.

Μulsum

Μixtura cum nucleis pineis

Pea puree

Bread made from triticum spelta flour

cabbage with coriander, asafetida, vinegar and honey

Piglet  in wine and fig sauce 

Cooked bulgur

Τyropatina

Cretan gastris