Of all the ingredients of the ancient  world none may be more important  

than olives, and that's what  we're making today: epityrum,  

an ancient Mediterranean olive relish.

And we'll discuss the many uses of this tree and its fruit  

in the olive rich civilization of ancient  Greece.

Olives, this time on Tasting History.  

So today's recipe is called epityrum or olive relish and it was extremely popular in the ancient world.

In Plautus's Miles Gloriosis,  or The Braggart, he says

"If anyone ever saw a bigger liar and more colossal braggart than this fellow he can have me for his own

but there's one thing I can say his olive relish makes for insane eating.

Now there are several ancient recipes for epityrum but this one comes from the Roman author 

Cato the Elder.

But it's very similar to the way that the ancient Greeks would have eaten it. In fact it was very popular in Sicily

which had a lot of Greek influence.

Epityrum: select some green black and mottled olives and remove the pits.  

Chop them up well. Add a dressing of oil,  vinegar, coriander, cumin, fennel, rue, and mint. 

Cover with oil in an earthenware dish and serve. 

Simple but a lot of ingredients and it's the  

amount of those ingredients that's going to make  my version different from maybe your version or Cato the Elders for that matter.

So while I will  give you specific amounts for the ingredients  

don't feel like you have to follow them. It's  really whatever you want there are no wrong answers here.

But for my version what you'll need  is 2 cups or 290 grams of pitted brined olives.  

You can use black or Kalamata or green or  a mix of everything it's really up to you.  

In the ancient world they actually called green  olives white olives. I'm still not exactly sure why.

If anyone knows please enlighten me because I could not find a good answer but they were always eaten brined.

Varro says, "If you attempt to eat  white olives immediately after you put them up  

and before they are cured, your palate will  reject them on account of their bitterness.  

And the same is true of the black olive, unless  you dip them in salt to make them palatable."  

So yeah, brined.

A quarter cup or 60 milliliters of olive oil.

2 tablespoons or 30 milliliters of red wine vinegar.

1 tablespoon chopped coriander leaf  aka cilantro,

and if you don't like the taste of cilantro, if it tastes like soap to you then you can use the seeds or you can just leave it out.

A half teaspoon of ground cumin  one tablespoon chopped fennel leaf.  

You can also use the root or the bulb for  this recipe the flavor is very similar  

but the leaf so rarely gets used and it's nice and  delicate so it's kind of perfect for this recipe.  

Two teaspoons chopped rue, dried or fresh,

and one tablespoon chopped mint.

So first make sure your olives are pitted. I bought some pitted and I bought some not because clearly I can't read labels,

and getting rid of the pits was- well it was  the pits.

Then chop the olives up fine it's really up to you how fine they get.

In another recipe by Columella "De re Rustica", he actually talks about  

grinding them more like a like a modern-day  tapenade so you could even do that.

Then add the rue, the coriander, the mint, the fennel, and the  cumin in a small bowl and pour the vinegar and oil  

all over them and mix well.

Then pour that mixture  over the olives and then you're pretty much done.   

I mean it's super easy. A nice quick recipe today but  because there are so many flavors because of all  

the different herbs and everything I'm actually  going to let mine kind of sit and marinate.  

I'm going to let it marinate for a little while  so all the flavors can kind of become one and  

while they marinate you can hit the Like button  and I will tell you a little story about olives.  

"And the dove came into him in the evening and  low in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off:   

so no one knew that the waters were abated from off  the earth."

And that was the sign that the Biblical flood was over, an olive leaf.

Though sometimes it's translated as olive branch but it's definitely a  

dove and I don't see how a dove could carry an  olive branch.

It could be carried by an African swallow.

I mean yeah it could be an African swallow  but it's not it's it's a dove and that's not the point of this.

Now back to olives. Olives.

Olives have been found all over the ancient Mediterranean  

in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs including an  olive wreath in King Tut's tomb   

and a fragment from the new kingdom shows King Akhenaten offering  an olive branch to the sun god who he worshipped.  

Now he could carry an olive branch.

And it's during  Akhenaten's reign that we get the first mention of  

olives coming from what is now Greece.

The pharaoh  was presented with jars of perfumed olive oil  

from the king of Mycenae and just like the  Masinians it's thought that most of the  

cultures around the Greek islands used olives to  their benefit. It's thought that the rise of the  

Minoan civilization of Crete was due in part  to there being a major exporter of olive oil.  

In fact there is a tree in the village of Ano  Vouves on Crete which is estimated to be between  

two and four thousand years old. They can't get  a definite age without cutting it down but if  

it is that latter that 4,000 years old that olive  tree was there during the Minoan civilization but  

even if it's only the 2,000 years that's still  a really long time especially when you consider  

it still produces olives.

But perhaps the most impressive Greek olive tree has to be the one that came from a god.

According to the Athenian  legend King Cecrops founded a city-state called  

Attica centered on the acropolis rock. Now  any respectable city needs a god as its patron  

and two gods stepped up for the job: 

Poseidon god of the sea and earthquakes,  

and Athena goddess of fertility, wisdom, and war. 

I've always thought that was a very odd pairing,  

fertility, wisdom and war. Like- well it's not a  pairing, it's a triad I guess. They don't seem to go together.

So it was decided that whichever  god gave the more useful gift to the city  

would become the patron god, and the answer is  actually cash. Cash is the most useful gift but  

neither god went that way. Would have made for  a bad story.

Instead Poseidon took his trident and smashed it into the acropolis rock and out  came bubbling a spring of water. Unfortunately  

it was salt water.

Wow. Thanks.

Now I don't suppose  you even need to be the goddess of wisdom to think  

of something more useful than a salt water spring  for a city that's rather close to the ocean,  

but she was the goddess of wisdom and came up with  an idea to take her spear stab it into the earth  

and out of the hole sprung an olive tree.

Guess who won the contest?  

Hint: the place is now called Athens and not Poseidonopolis.

In the 4th century BC Theophrastus father of botany claimed that  

Athena's tree was alive and well and still giving  off olives.

And half a millennia later in 170 AD  

the Greek geographer Pausanias claimed that it was  still there. I mean I guess it makes sense the  

tree was planted by a god so you know probably  lives longer than the average, a

and Herodotus tells a story about when King Xerxes from Persia brought the Persian army into Athens.  

Supposedly he had the temple to Athena burned and the next  day after a dream he kind of felt bad about it,  

and wanted to make amends and so he had  some Athenians go up to make sacrifices.  

"It happened that the olive tree was burnt by  the barbarians with the rest of the sanctuary  

but when the Athenians who were ordered to offer  sacrifice went up on the very next day,

they saw that a new growth 18 inches long had sprung  from the stump."

Like bamboo this tree grew and it needed to because it's said to be the mother  tree of many other olive trees in the Athens area,  

and there were actually inspectors who every month  would go out and check on all of the Athena trees  

and make sure that they were still there, and 

if one was found uprooted then the person who got the blame was banished

and they came across one of the oddest and kind of coolest writings.  

It's a speech from ancient Athens by Lysias who  was a speechwriter and it's called

'Defense in the Matter of the Olive Stump.' Essentially he or whoever is reading this is on trial in front of  

the Boule, or the 500 people who kind of  run the day-to-day of Athenian democracy.  

There were 50 from each of the 10 Athenian tribes  and one thing that they did was kind of serve as a  

jury for some things including if you were accused  of ripping up one of these trees.

Now this was written around 400 BC but it kind of reads like a spec script from Law and Order Special Olive Unit.  

"Members of the Boule... I was first charged on the  indictment of having cut down a sacred olive tree on my land...

They could find no proof against me,  so now they charge me for having cut down an old stump.

So, members of the Boule, I think it is my  duty to prove that when I bought the place  

there was not an olive tree nor stump upon it.

Then he brings in witnesses and uses like logic and historic precedence to

to like fight his case and finishes with a closing argument worthy of Matlock.

"I do not know, members of the Boule,  that it is necessary for me to say anything more. 

I have shown you that there was not an olive on  the place as i have brought witnesses and proof.  

You must judge the case, bearing in mind that  you should learn from this man why when it was  

possible to catch me in the act, he brings  the accusation after so long a time,

and why, although bringing no witnesses, he wants you to  trust his mere assertions when he could have arrested me in the act."

I rest my case. But even  olive trees that weren't related to that original  

Athenian olive tree were prized and kept safe  and according to Varro it was most important  

to keep them away from their mortal enemy. The  destroyer of both olive tree and grape vine alike:  

goats.

"...for by their nibbling they ruin young  plants, especially vines and olives.

But because the goat is the greatest offender in  this respect, we have a rule for him.  

So it is that goats found among the vines are  sacrificed to the Father Bacchus, the discoverer of the vine,

that they should pay the penalty of  their evil doing with their lives;

while on the other hand, no goat is ever sacrificed to Minerva, because they are said to make the olive sterile even by licking it,  

for their very spittle is poison to the fruit.

For this reason, goats are never driven into the Acropolis of Athens, except once a year for a certain necessary sacrifice,  

lest the olive tree, which is said to have its  origin there might be touched by a goat."  

Touched by a Goat with Della Reese. Does anyone remember Touched by an Angel?

Just me?

I actually never even watched it but I like Della Reese. Anyway, the Greeks. they took their olives really seriously.  

And that makes sense because olives are very, very  useful. They used them for everything and not just  

the fruit though they did eat the fruit, but they  also used the wood.

They used it in their ship building because according to them shipworms didn't eat olive wood,

and both the cyclops Polyphemus and Heracles used olive for their clubs. 

But while good for scaring off sheep thieves or the occasional bludgeoning, Heracles found that  olive wood was no match

against the Nemean Lion.  

"I held in one hand my darts and the cloak from  my shoulders, folded;

with the other I slung my seasoned club about my ears and smashed it down on his head,

but split the wild-olive, rugged as it was asunder on the invincible brute's maned skull."

But the most famous use of olive wood was to make the wreaths for the Olympic game winners. 

According to the second century poet Flegan of Tralis

the first five olympiads had no crown at  all but during the sixth King Iphitos asked Apollo  

what a good reward for the victors might be. 

"Iphitos, do not make the fruit of an apple the prize of this contest,

but on the victor's head set  a fruitful wreath of untamed-olive from the tree  

now wrapped with fine webs of a spider."

Again cash probably would have been a better prize but when you're in a pinch

go for some cobweb laden olive tree. That- that works too.  

The winners of the game actually also got several  jars of olive oil which in the ancient world  

was basically like winning cash.

In fact Aristotle actually tells us a story of the mathematician and philosopher Thales of Miletus

who got rich off of olive oil.

"He was reproached for his poverty, which was supposed to show that philosophy was of no use. But he knew by his skill in the stars  

while it was yet winter, that there would be  a great harvest of olives in the coming year;  

so, having a little money, he made deposits for the  use of all the olive presses in Chios and Miletus,  

which he hired at a low price because no one bid  against him.

When the harvest-time came, and many wanted them all at once,

he let them out at any rate which he pleased, and made a great deal of money.

Thus he showed the world that  philosophers can easily be rich if they like,  

but that their ambition is of another sort."

So the Greeks invented democracy and capitalism.  

Olive oil was such a prized commodity because it had so  many uses in the ancient world.

It could be used for cooking of course, but it could also light oil  lamps. It was often the base of perfumes and they  

used it to make soap and whether it was Odysseus  in The Odyssey or the pharaohs of Egypt, or pretty  

much anyone on every other page of the Bible, people were always getting anointed with it.  

Which had a religious significance.

Actually in the Bible getting anointed with oil was so important  

that it could be used as a punishment going the  other way.

"Thou shalt have olive trees through all thy lands,

but thou shalt not anoint thyself  with the oil; for thine olives shall drop off prematurely."

Well that's embarrassing. It really  was almost like a magical substance.  

Hippocrates actually calls it the great healer and uses it in  60 different medicines.

Honestly olive oil is so important and has such a long history just in and  of itself that it deserves an entire episode. So  

we will leave it there for today ending with  ancient Greece pick it up some other time.

I don't- I don't know when but we will, but for  today that's it, and let's get back to our olive relish.

So like I said the olive relish  is pretty much ready to eat whenever you want,  

but in ancient Greece and ancient Rome it would  have been served on cheese, so I suggest something  

like a feta or something that's not too too strong  for this. It should make it a little bit nicer.  

Also add some bread in there because you know  who doesn't like bread,

and here we are epityrum,  ancient olive relish.

So like I said I have the  relish but then I also got some cheese and some  

bread and everything but I want to try just the  relish on its own first and let's see how it is.

It's super salty, like I mean it's brined  olives I guess. I guess that's not really  

any different from today but it's  really nice, and none of the herbs  

shoot out. I was really worried that the cumin  would just be way too much, but you know  

it's there. Everything is there but nothing is  overpowering. So my amounts were actually  

pretty spot on I think, but let's taste it with  a little bit of bread and and cheese as well.

Just falls apart.

How embarrassing.

That's the way to do it. You get a little  bit of the creaminess from the cheese.

I mean bread is great but that creaminess from  the cheese almost softens the kind of acid  

tartness from from the olives and the saltiness  and that kind of brine flavor and oddly enough  

and maybe it's because I got some bigger pieces  I don't know but I can taste the herbs more.  

Maybe because it's getting rid of the saltiness you can  actually taste the other flavors that are in there.  

By the way it's lovely. It's  kind of perfect for like a summer  

barbecue, or you know whatever like a  little appetizer.

Appeteezer as we say  here in the States, well we shouldn't say that.

So make sure to follow me on Instagram @ tastinghistorywithmaxmiller and  I will see you next time on Tasting History.