iHop claims to be the international house of pancakes
but not once have I seen on their menu the ancient Greek teganites,
so I'm going to make them instead.
So thank you to Wondrium for sponsoring this video as we make ancient Greek pancakes
this time on Tasting History.
Now I want to start this episode with a quote, not from an ancient Greek but from Julia Child
and if you haven't been watching Julia on HBO you should, it's very, very charming.
Anyway she said "Everything can have drama if done right.
Even a pancake."
My flawless impression of Julia Child. ;)
Anyway since this episode is about pancakes I figured
I should add in some drama by letting you know
that this will be the final episode of Tasting History
!!!
to be filmed in this kitchen because we are moving and that means a new kitchen,
but I wanted to take this opportunity to thank this kitchen.
Thank it for letting me squeeze into it as I tried to film the first episode standing up.
Kitchen was too small to fit me and the camera in it.
Thank it for letting me stink it up by boiling a pot of whole fish to make garum,
and to apologize to it for filling it up with smoke as I burnt my onions for Titanic Month.
So thank you to this kitchen and may the next cook who lives here
have just as much success with it as I did.
Now on to the teganites,
or is it tagênitai or tagenias,
or is it the modern tiganites, lots of different spellings, and likely lots of different pronunciations
for what are essentially the same thing: an ancient Greek pancake made in a tagenon or frying pan.
Now while a form of them are still made today usually with leavening
the ancients didn't leave us a good recipe per se.
Athenaeus says that "Teganites is a cake fried in oil, a flat cake."
And we know that they were served with honey because the Greek poet Magnes asked
"Have you ever seen a smoking Tagenites spit when you pour a little honey over it?"
Still not really enough information for us to recreate but it turns out that the Greek physician Galen,
the same Galen who wrote extensively on the diet and flatulence of gladiators
gave a good description that could stand in as an actual recipe for teganites.
"Now might be the time we talk of the other cakes those made from wheat flour.
What are called tagênitai by the Athenians...
and are prepared with only olive oil.
The oil is put in a frying pan which is put on a smokeless fire,
and when it is hot the wheat flour mixed in much water, is poured into it.
As it cooks in the oil, it quickly sets and thickens to resemble fresh cheese setting in wicker baskets.
Then the cook turns it over... when the under part is cooked they turn it again maybe two or three times
until they think it is all cooked evenly."
So it's pancakes and just like a modern stack of pancakes can have me out for like four hours,
Galen says of these pancakes that "It is obvious that this... restrains the stomach and gives rise to crude humors.
So some mix it with honey, and others also mix in sea salt."
So I'll be using honey and salt to hopefully keep my humors in balance.
Now those four humors, the fluids that were meant to control our health and mood
was an ancient idea that is thankfully no longer with us.
Though we just got away from that idea like a couple hundred years ago,
and there are other ancient Greek ideas that we still haven't gotten away from nor needed to
and I learned about those while watching a video from today's sponsor Wondrium.
Now if you watch this channel often you'll know that I love me some Wondrium.
I have spent many an hour in this little kitchen watching videos from Wondrium as I cook.
See Wondrium which used to be The Great Courses Plus has an amazing
library of educational videos taught by experts in their field on every topic
from science, food, travel, and of course history.
In the lecture 'The Classical Legacy' I learned about the ancient Greek
gift to modern society: the mall.
Part of the agora or city center, there was often a stoa like the Stoa of Attalus in Athens
which was a covered colonnade lined with shops and places to get food on either side just like a mall today,
and I assume teenagers would go there to hang out at the ancient Greek version of Hot Topic.
And if you want to learn more about pretty much any topic hot or otherwise,
visit wondrium.com/tastinghistory or just click on the link in the description to start your free trial today.
Oh! And another idea from ancient Greek that still seems to be with us today
is the pancake, so let's make some ancient Greek pancakes.
So for this recipe what you'll need is: 1 cup or 120 grams of whole wheat flour,
1 cup or 235 milliliters of water,
and the quantities of both the flour and the water and really everything else in this is kind of up to you depending on
what you want your pancakes texture to be like so just use it as a rough guide.
Two tablespoons of honey, a quarter teaspoon of salt, some olive oil for frying,
and some optional sesame seeds which are commonly sprinkled on top, but not always.
So to make these just whisk the salt into the water,
then pour that into the flour, then mix in the honey and cover it and leave it for about 20 minutes,
and during that time the flour will absorb all the water and should make a nice smooth batter,
and while it does if you are using sesame seeds then go ahead and toast them in a dry pan
over medium heat for a couple of minutes, or until they start to brown.
Then remove the seeds and add some oil to that pan and heat it up.
Now you don't want like a puddle of oil but you want there to be a nice layer and you might have to add some in
as you make the pancakes because it will absorb some of the oil.
Once it's nice and hot pour a bit of the batter into the pan
and let it cook for about a minute and a half, or until the edges lose their sheen.
Then flip it over and cook the other side.
Now Galen has you flipping it over two or three times which you can
but depending on the heat and exactly what kind of pan you're using you might not need to.
You'll know when it's cooked all the way through.
Then do the same with the rest of the batter. This should make 10 to 12 small teganites.
So while I was thinking of ancient Greek breakfast I started thinking about all of the other things that ancient Greeks might do in their morning routine
and found some pretty interesting stuff.
So make sure you're Subscribed to Tasting History and hit that little notification bell so you don't miss next week's episode
when I'm in a brand new kitchen,
and let's see what the ancient Greeks besides eating teganites did each morning.
So obviously just like today not all ancient Greeks had the exact same morning routine
but there were some common themes like most people like to wake up before sunrise.
Now maybe you're just on a rhythm and you get up early naturally or you drink a lot of water before bed
or you have a dad who likes to wake you up on Saturday mornings to do yard work like I did when I was a kid.
But if you're the Greek philosopher Plato well you just invent the alarm clock.
Sick of his students and perhaps himself being late for his lectures Plato took a water clock,
a clock that had been around for centuries. It told the time by releasing water slowly from one reservoir into another,
and would mark the hours as it went down or as it filled up.
So Plato made it so that when that second reservoir was filled up to a certain amount it would dump all of its water
into yet another reservoir that had some holes punched in it, and so when it started to fill up very quickly
it made a whistling sound like a teapot.
Probably really, really annoying but effective.
So once you're up you would put on your clothes and one of the garments would have possibly been a chiton
which you have to be very careful when you say and it would have been worn by men and women.
It was just one large piece of wool or linen that was wrapped around you and clipped at the shoulders.
A similar garment was the peplos which was a tube of fabric also pinned at the shoulders
and allowed the wearer to drape the fabric at the waist to hide any holiday weight you're still carrying around,
and then if you were leaving the house you'd toss on a himation which was a sort of cloak,
and if you were a woman leaving the house you'd probably also wear a veil.
Though while they weren't forced to stay indoors women didn't often leave the house. They were encouraged to stay home
pretty much all the time depending on their social rank.
Now another interesting thing that you might do in the morning is go to the bathroom.
Stick with me on this. It's just too interesting not to share.
So many people had chamber pots at home but if you wanted to make going to the bathroom
a more social occasion, and who doesn't, then you would have gone to one of the many public latrines.
Despite your class everyone used many of these public latrines.
Going all the way back to the Minoan civilization on Crete the Greeks had underground plumbing
and they built these public toilets in prominent places like the Temple of Athena in Athens.
That was one that was only for the elite.
The nicest toilets were made of a slab of marvel with holes running down it,
limestone if you weren't so fancy, and then below the slab would be a pipe with running water going through it to...
you know what it does.
Now see the fascinating part was the toilet paper, or the lack thereof.
Now the wealthy would often use basically a sponge on a stick that was dipped into vinegar or salt water,
but for most people it seems they used stones.
Disc shaped rocks and terracotta have been found at archaeological sites for a long time,
and they were believed to be game pieces of some sort,
but now many archaeologists actually believe that they were used to wipe,
and while there's still some controversy around it
the idea is backed up by Aristophanes in his play 'Peace'
where the character Trygaeus requests three stones be placed beside him
then explains how three is just the right number to take care of business.
And once you were done with that you could move on to your other morning ablutions which would include brushing your teeth
though it was a couple millennia before the modern day toothbrush would be invented,
so you would wrap a piece of cloth around your finger and scrub,
and often you would use some activated charcoal to whiten those choppers.
Then you could chew on some fennel or lovage to freshen the breath,
and whilst you chew if you're a lady it's time to put on your makeup.
This would usually start with a face mask meant to lighten the skin and clear the complexion,
of course these were made with white lead so regardless of their actual effect they probably aren't a good idea long term,
but there were other face masks that were probably more healthy made of olive oil, honey, and yogurt.
In fact there were a lot of makeups that used food as ingredients.
They'd use beet root to redden their cheeks, vinegar and lemon juice to bleach their hair, and olive oil to make it shiny.
Lastly they would use charcoal to darken and lengthen the eyebrows,
sometimes lengthening them so much to almost make a unibrow, the look was very popular at the time.
Then they'd perfume themselves with herbs like oregano, mint, and marjoram.
And edible cosmetics were not just for the ladies because if you were a man and balding then you could use Hippocrates remedy of
beetroot, horseradish, and cumin rubbed into the scalp.
Though the secret ingredient was actually pigeon droppings, so maybe it's not everyone's cup of tea.
And it seems that it didn't actually work seeing as the father of western medicine
has a type of baldness actually named after him the Hippocratic wreath.
So once you're all gussied up and looking your best it's time for breakfast,
and if you're a woman you would eat this where most of your meals would be eaten the gynaeceum,
this was a room or rooms where women would spend most of their day and often the night,
and even in their own home men and women did not eat together or socialize on most occasions.
The rooms also tended to be in the most secluded part of the house with the windows only looking inside
to a courtyard rather than outside onto the street,
but regardless of where you ate the Greeks for most of their history
did enjoy a breakfast, but it went by many different names
but Athenaeus when writing about the foods that the hero Odysseus ate said that
"This was the morning meal, which we call Akratismos
because we soak crusts of bread in pure wine akratos and eat them."
This akratos was wine that was undiluted and usually they drank their wine diluted down
with water but you know before coffee in the morning you had to have the strong stuff.
And because the Greeks had a god for pretty much everything they even had a god
specifically of drinking this undiluted wine also named akratos.
Now in addition to bread and wine Akratismos might include figs and olives as well,
and perhaps if you wanted something a little sweeter a short stack of teganites.
So once you've finished cooking the teganites pour a little honey over them and sprinkle the sesame seeds if you're using them,
and then serve them nice and hot for as the Greek poet Cratinus said
they "Should be hot and shedding morning dew."
And here we are teganites from ancient Greece.
Let's give it a try.
Hm!
Hmmm! ^_^
They have this wonderfully crispy edge which you don't get with a modern day pancake and
I don't know if it's because it was fried in oil but they're nice and soft in the center,
but the edges are really crispy which is very cool.
Also using that whole wheat flour gives it a much more complex flavor than just regular white flour
that you would use in a pancake today.
I actually think I prefer them and that's saying something because I love modern day pancakes.
Also the honey being in it and then on it
adds a little bit of a sweetness to it, but it's not like super honey-y.
The sesame seeds they I think you could go either way.
They add kind of a savory note
so if you want to stick with the sweetness forego them,
but if you want something a little more complex add them in, either way fantastic.
So make sure to follow me on Instagram @tastinghistorywithmaxmiller
and I will see you next time in a different kitchen on Tasting History.