Etiquette for dining in Ephesus was as contextual as it is today. In the homes of the upper class, food in ancient Ephesus was eaten lying on couches set around a table. It was customary for the Ephesians to lie down on their left elbows while eating. Meals were usually eaten with a spoon and served with a fork. Drinks were served in two-handled goblets made of silver, clay, or glass. Wealthy hosts wanted to impress their guests with astonishing delicacies and pleasing hospitality. No expense was spared for this.
The Ephesian diet in ancient times revolved around four basic foodstuffs that still dominate restaurant menus and kitchen tables even today: grains, vegetables, olive oil, and wine. Seafood, cheese, eggs, meat, and many kinds of fruit were also available for those who could buy them. Ephesians were also adept at processing and preserving food, using techniques such as pickling and storing in honey. Flavoring food with sauces, herbs, and exotic spices was another important element in Ephesian cuisine. Our knowledge of what and how the Ephesians ate was compiled from writings, wall paintings, mosaics, and even food remains from historical sites such as the Ephesus Terrace Houses.
Most commonly, wheat and barley made up the bulk of the diet for many and were particularly used for making bread and porridge. The most common fruits were apples, figs, and grapes, although pears, plums, dates, cherries, and peaches were also found.
Vegetables, on the other hand, consisted of typical types such as beans, lentils, and peas, except for broad beans. As an excellent source of protein, these grains were often mixed into bread. As for other vegetables, asparagus, mushrooms, onions, turnips, radishes, cabbage, lettuce, leeks, celery, cucumbers, artichokes, and garlic were used. Both fruits and vegetables were pickled with brine or vinegar, or preserved in wine, grape juice, or honey to preserve them until out-of-season consumption.
Because meat was an expensive product for many Ephesians, it was often prepared in small pieces or as sausages. Although poultry and game animals were important sources of meat, pork, calf, sheep, and goat meat were also used. Game animals such as rabbits, hares, wild boars, and deer were also raised in large and enclosed areas of the forest nearby Ephesus which can be even seen today.
An astonishing variety of birds were valued for their meat, including partridge, pheasant, goose, duck, black chicken, pigeon, magpie, plover, woodcock, and quail. Meats of all these animals could also be preserved by methods such as salting, drying, smoking, brine, and storage in honey.
If the Ephesians did not grow their own crop, they would get their food from a special market which is known as ”Macellum”. These markets were set up outdoors in the public squares of the city of Ephesus or in market buildings reserved for this business. In Ephesus, food markets were established daily from the first century BC.
Meat and Fish Markets of Ephesus
The main market for meat and fish in Roman Ephesus was the Commercial Agora, the big square close to the harbor. Inscriptions on its south gate name the agoranomoi, the officials who kept order in the market and checked goods, weights and prices. Around 200 AD one of them, Lucius Cornelius Philoserapis, gave statues of Eros for the macellum.
In the 2nd century AD a real market building was added, a macellum. Today it is believed that this is the ruin which is still called the Tomb of Saint Luke. For a long time people thought it was a hero’s tomb or a temple. It was probably a courtyard with porticoes, and in the middle stood a round fountain building on a podium. Its rooms were probably cool stores for the food, and the fountain water kept them fresh.
Animal bones found there show what was sold: beef, pork, mutton and goat, with many cockle shells and some mussels. They are butcher’s waste, so the meat was cut and prepared right in the market. The cattle were mostly old work animals, sold to butcher when they could not work anymore. Ancient writers praised the mussels of Ephesus, and one of them says they are the best when gathered in autumn.
BoneLab Ephesos and the Terrace Houses
BoneLab Ephesos is a laboratory for animal bones and shells, opened in 2015 near the site by Austrian archaeozoologists and the excavation team. It holds the largest scientific collection of bones and mollusc shells in Turkey, and it tells us a lot about food in ancient Ephesus.
Bones from the Terrace Houses show that the rich families ate tender meat of young animals, and pork was a special luxury for them. Seafood was loved too: oysters, sea snails, wrasse, grouper and pikeperch, a fish which does not live in Anatolia anymore. Some houses even had basins with running water to keep fish alive for the guests.
By the way, in the Terrace Houses pork became more popular than sheep and goat in the Roman period, although it was more expensive. In the price edict of Emperor Diocletian, one pound of pork cost 12 denarii and beef 8.
The walls of Terrace House 2 even carry shopping notes. People scratched down what they bought: mussels, meatballs called isicia, garum fish sauce, and once a sheep for 20 asses. Somebody also wrote “Long live vinegar and garum, what do you say?” on a wall. Garum came from far away too, a jar of mackerel garum from southern Spain was found in the same houses.
In ancient Ephesus, baker’s shops had a sufficiently hot oven for bread making, and often customers brought their own bread dough and used the oven only to bake it. Alongside these businesses, however, cooking was mostly a household activity. Using a brasier, food was roasted, grilled, and boiled. In particular, spices offered an endless variety of flavors, and at least 142 different types of spices were identified in ancient sources.
Egyptian Grain for Ephesus
Ephesus received grain shipments from Egypt thanks to Emperor Hadrian. This was a big privilege, because Egyptian grain mostly fed the city of Rome and its export was tightly controlled by the emperor’s officials. In 129 AD the council and the people of Ephesus honored Hadrian as founder and savior for this gift.
The same inscription also thanks him for making the harbors of Ephesus usable again, because Cayster River kept filling them with silt. Grain was the base of the Ephesian diet, so a safe supply from Egypt was a matter of life for a big city like this.
