Sacrifice revisited
Following up several comments, thanks all of you.
Burning bones. Bones have to be heated to a high temperature to get them going, but then they burn well. Mammoth bones were fuel in the Ice Age when other fuels were hard to come by. Bones burn when bodies are cremated.
Ash. The Greeks saved the ash from the Olympic sacrifice and piled it up mixed with water games after games until they had a mound that was (if I remember right, my files aren’t with me right now), about 30 feet high. I don’t have stories about what other societies did.
Blood. Almost no one was neutral about blood, life blood. Very charged stuff. Either assiduously avoided or used as a power food.
Cooking for large numbers. Not a recent phenomenon. The ancient world is full of stories of large numbers of people being fed from what were essentially institutional kitchens with vast numbers of staff. It would be wonderful to know more.
Mageiros, the Greek sacrificers-butchers-meat cooks. Agreed that the Greeks did not have a professional priestly caste to sacrifice. What is also worth asking is how often the officiants at sacrifice, particularly the big multi-animals sacrifices, actually did the killing. Or did a professional step in? Clearly kings, emperors, and priests did not get into the business of butchering and dressing the sacrificed animals even if they killed them so there must have been men to do that that hovering in the background. Were they the cooks?
Cato’s libum. Don’t see any reason why festival breads should not be descendents. These traditions tend to be conservative. And when Christians displaced traditional sacrifice, they kept the traditional Roman bread, so perhaps the cake/bread too.
Small scale sacrifice. Yes, lots of this too. I always assume that the man of the family dispatching a lamb or later a rabbit would do so with a nod to the gods, just as many families still say grace before meals.
I assume too that that is was no scam, at most a Pascal’s wager-type insurance policy. Though it was not always dead serious, no more so than church services today. A look askance that so often goes along with religion. Andrew Dalby, in Siren Feasts, has a lovely story of a family going off for sacrifice and picnic and mocking the sacrifice part, from a 4th century BC comedy.
“The way these vandals sacrifice! They bring couches, wine jars–not for the gods but for themselves . . . . they offer the gods the tail-end and the gall-bladder, the bits you can’t eat, and gobble the rest themselves.”
a meal i have heard about but havent yet tried or seen cooked, is pork meat cooked in the blood that was drained from the animal – i know some people are still making it in mountain villages in crete
sometimes game meat like hare is also cooked in this way
Yes, lots of regions use blood as a thickener. The British do it with hare too. I often did that when I was a student because you could get hare for almost nothing and jugged hare, as it was called, was a real treat. But this would not have been part of the sacrifice. Game animals almost never were.
The Greek Orthodox Church forbids the consumption of blood, so what tradition does this belong to in Crete?
Rachel you might remember earlier post on pig killing, in some of those pig killing traditions, the distiction between killing the pig for food and “sacrifice” looks pretty thin.
Hmm, didn’t know the Orthodox Church forbade blood consumption. Thanks. And yes, that distinction can look pretty thin.
Apostolic Degree, clearly the role of blood in the early Christian Church was a big deal. Tucking into a blood sausage tend to take the punch out of the act of the Eucharist. From Acts:
“That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.”
Obviously, much of the Christian world no longer follows these rules. Nice link with the “ye abstain from meats offered to idols” to the current thread don’t you think?
In the island of Timos there is a blood sausage (locally called “poudinga”) eaten by the Catholic, but not the Orthodox population.
Regarding sacrifice of wild animals, at least in Greece the hare was a rare example, maybe due to its special significance in many cultures. The following very interesting.
http://eprints.jiia.it:8080/48/1/153_160_Norbert_Benecke_OAI.pdf
wikipedia (in english) mentions that blood is forbidden by the greek orthodox church, but i’ve never heard the restriction to be applied in it though: ‘believers’ consume the body and blood of christ when they partake in holy communion (even though it looks like bread and wine to human eyes)
History of Food summarises the notion of blood in Cretan (and other Greek) food: http://www.historyofgreekfood.org/?p=29
It is connected with elements of ‘pudding’, but there is enough evidence that blood was used in food from antiquity
ps – the pig’s blood dish that i was referring to in my earlier comment is the ‘xidato’ mentioned in History of Food’s post (this is the dish that i know is still being made in mountain villages all over crete)
Dear Rachel, In the beginning of 5th century, mageiros fulfilled three roles: butcher, sacrificer and cook. (Studies have concluded that in Homeric years there was not a specialist like mageiros to carry out the sacrifice.) Jeanne and Louis Robert mention in ‘Bulletin epigraphique (REG 83, 1970, 51) that throught antiquity there was a strong connection between butchery and sacrifice, even for meat that was sold in market. Indeed, in the Greek markets of classical period, the meat was either from animal ritually slaughtered or was sacrificial meat which had be given to the priests and resold by them.
Smale scale sacrifice. Of course, every one offering the sacrificial could perform the sacrifice (at least if it was a small one). In sanctuaries the priests often reserved this task for themselves.
Catos libum. And before it, a large variety of Greek sacrificial cakes. Do the ancient Egyptians show evidence of analogous cakes?
Obviously much of the Byzantine world did not follow the rule of the abstention from blood, dear Adam. Byzantine literature and historiography disclose many instances of blood in food, though the punishment provided by the laws and the church were very strict. The classical aimatitis hordi (blood sausage) became the Byzantine aimatias and the omathia of later years. Aimatitis, aimatias, omathia from “aima” = blood.
Blood sausages were home made until 1960 in Aegean islands, Peloponnesos and Crete. Today the blood has been largerly substituted with the spleen.
There are more sources then Wikipedia that mention that the Greek Orthodox church forbids the consumption of blood, but as to how much the ban is followed now I don’t know. Still Greek cuisine isn’t exactly over flowing with blood containing products. Also the composition of the modern population of Crete isn’t exactly the same as even 100 years ago, so where the dish comes from is still an open question I think.
here is a series of photos that show the making of xidato, and the use of the pig’s blood in the dish: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7209077@N06/sets/72157622946643634
a brief explanation in given at the beginning of the set into the tradition behind the making of this dish
The continued consumption of these blood products is interesting in the face of religious bans. Especially during the Turkish occupation where in a large part religious identity was national identity. Still it doesn’t sound that widespread a custom.
Also is it positively known that the items Aimatitis, aimatias, omathia actually contained blood? In the modern EU with bans on home slaughter a Tuscan sweet pig blood pancake (“migliaccio” = millet, also doesn’t contain millet anymore) is now begining to be made with chocolate.
It still seems that eating blood products is very localized in Greece, Aglaia Kremezi remarks in an article on pig killing in The Atlantic that while the Keans are aware that eating blood product is known in Crete, to them it is a disgusting idea.
Most of these modern blood sausages in Greece seem to derived from the Venetian sources, rather then having roots in the pre-Christian Greek world. What is the etymology of “omathia”, I can’t see how it is related to aimatias/haimatia/haematia etc, but I’m not an expert by any means and it would be interesting to know what its origin is. What form does this sausage take, is it wrapped in caul fat or in intestine?
it’s definitely not a widespread custom to eat blood food, but there is an economic reason for this
my mother’s family (for eg) who are from a mountain village (much more remote than the one i presented in the photos) were very poor, hence they did not raise a pig – they could not afford to (space, feed, maintenance); raising 1-2 pigs per household was considered a sign of affluence. those who did not raise a pig did not have the chance to make this dish, so it was not srprising that xidato was not in the culinary repertoire of their family
and dont forget that each household only had one (or two) go’s to make blood food anyway (other animals’ blood is never used in this context, and in the early days there was no electricity to preserve fresh products) – some people ate them, while others were disgusted by the thought, which is very much the case in modern society (in a similar way to how we feel about seeing fried scorpions being sold in thailand)
this village did not make sausages with blood – their version of omathies used other blood-related organs; they were wrapped in the intestine. i was surprised that the cook made a reference to the ancient gods (and not the venetians) as to the origins of the dish – but the no-waste element definitely came through, especially when he told me how the urethra of the animal was used to make his only toy
here’s another reference to omathies (aimathies, aimatiai – lingistically it is the same word) from a book of the history of cretan food (a tourist version of this book is also available in english) by maria and nikos psilakis (roughly translated by me):
“omathies, a christmas food known all over byzantine. but its origins lie in ancient greece, where blood was used in the preparation of certain comestibles. byzantine aimathiai were made with the large intestine, the offal and the blood of the pig. the latter was boiled so that it would coagulate, then filled the intestines with this and the other boiled innards”
an explanation is then given for the cessation of the custom of using blood in food in larger centres due to the religious connotations, which did not affect smaller areas (eg mountain villages). the information given accords with the cook’s information in my photo set: omathies in crete were not made with the blood, this was reserved for other dishes (presumably ‘xidato’ was one of them)
That is very interesting thanks. I’m still not quite sure what form the omathia takes. Is it the same thing that is called “kokoretsi” in other parts of Greece, although this is lamb.
My understanding is that the present day consumption level of pork in Greece is a relatively new thing. Prior to the 1950’s keeping pigs was much more localised and restricted, with large parts of the Greek community not eating pork at all.
The Greek families that I know in Melbourne always comment on returning from visting Greece about all the pork products. Souvlaki is a hugely popular item here in Melbourne, but it is never, ever pork, maybe reflecting the diet at the time the Greek population came to Melbourne?
what you write about the melbourne community reflects my own upbringing in nz – we never ate pork in nz, becos, according to my parents, it simply didnt taste as they remembered it in crete, and becos they were poorer than other families, they never ate much of it in the first place (remember – if you could raise a pig, you were better off)
omathies look like a sausage – they are rarely made now, becos they require a lot of work and special skills which are not being passed on to the younger generation
souvlaki in greece is always pork: http://organicallycooked.blogspot.com/2009/11/umami.html (or chicken, as an alternative healthier choice) – but never lamb; the melbourne greeks have developed their own form of greek cuisine, adapting the basics to the readily available ingredients in australia; lamb has (had?) always been the meat of choice in australia (and nz obviously).
i really doubt that eating pork is a ‘relatively new thing’ in greece – there is a huge tradition associated with the pig in rural communities (and most of crete and greece was always rural, except in modern times), which could not possibly have developed in the last 50 years
here is my recent post on the very first meal after the slaughter of the pig: http://organicallycooked.blogspot.com/2009/12/bloody-food-xidato.html
The fact is that the present day consumption level of meat in Greece is a relatively new thing…. as the Greeks become more affluent they eat more meat. But the pork consumption has a very long tradition in Greece. Bones of domesticated porks have been found in Argissa – Magula which are dated on 7000-5000 B.C. During ancient Greek and Roman times pigs were sacrificed to deities, during Byzantine times pig’s meat was high appreciated. Prior to 1960’s, it was the custom for each family in the village to raise a pig which was slaughtered on Christmas Eve and was the basic source of meat for 1-2 months. In villages, being unable to afford to rear a pig was the stigma of ultimate poverty. Of course, during spring and winter lambs and kids replaced the pork’s meat.
Omathia (sing. / omathies pl.) is pig’s large intestine which is traditionally stuffed with rice and /or cracked wheat grains, raisins, chopped liver and coagulated blood. Almonds or cumin seeds or thyme etc. are optionally added. Omathia is eaten boiled or roasted. The first and last time I ate this blood sausage was in Sfakia of Crete(1980). Since then, I have eaten omathies many times but the blood has been replaced with spleen.
The meat of souvlaki is traditionally pork in Greece and in modern times chicken as well.
ASH: here’s another use of ash still in practice in modern cretan cuisine, in the making of the seasonal desert moustalevria, made with grape must
to avoid reading the whole story, skip down to the paragraph below the dish of the finished desert:
http://organicallycooked.blogspot.com/2008/09/grape-harvest.html
this desert is made in modern kitchens, where ash is not generally available, which is why i didnt use it myself in making it
Festival breads — the use of amaranth in pre-hispanic Mexico as a ritual food consumed as part of a group “communion” has always interested me. The ritualized consumption of amaranth was considered so similar to the Christian communion that this extremely nutritive food was banned.
In present day Mexico its use as a candy is popular and a resurgence in popularizing it for wider use in the kitchen seems to be taking hold.