Black soup or black broth (, ; also , , or , ) was a type of blood soup in the cuisine of ancient Sparta, that was made with boiled pork meat and blood, using only salt and vinegar to flavour. The soup was well known during antiquity in the Greek world, but no original recipe of the dish survives today.Maciej Kokoszko, "Mélas Zomós (μέλας ζωμός), or on a Certain Spartan Dish. A Source Study," in Studies on Ancient Sparta, eds. Ryszard Kulesza and Nicholas Sekunda, Akanthina, no. 14, ed. Nicholas Sekunda (Gdańsk: Gdańsk University Press, 2020), 9-28. . OCLC 1225234705. The earliest recorded mention of the soup can be dated to the fifth century BC, in a comedy titled The Miners, written by Pherecrates.Ath. Deipnosophistae. 9.268e-f. The ancient sources provide contradictory accounts on whether the soup was a luxurious meal served only at banquets or a dish that could be afforded by all Spartiates. Throughout history, black soup has been praised by and associated with figures such as Benjamin Rush and Adolf Hitler, although Hitler was (debatably) vegetarian.Carl J. Richard, Greeks and Romans Bearing Gifts: How the Ancients Inspired the Founding Fathers (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), 31. .Elizabeth Rawson, The Spartan Tradition in European Thought (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 342-343. . OCLC 69198.
Etymology The ancient Greek author, Plutarch, who wrote in the first and second century AD, mentioned a Spartan dish in his Life of LycurgusPlut. Lyc. 12.12. named .Maciej Kokoszko, "Mélas Zomós (μέλας ζωμός), or on a Certain Spartan Dish. A Source Study," in Studies on Ancient Sparta, eds. Ryszard Kulesza and Nicholas Sekunda, Akanthina, no. 14, ed. Nicholas Sekunda (Gdańsk: Gdańsk University Press, 2020), 10. . OCLC 1225234705... Today, the phrase has been translated to "black soup" or "black broth".Hans van Wees, "The Common Messes," in A Companion to Sparta, ed. Anton Powell (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Balckwell, 2018), 1:241. . OCLC 981761116. In other ancient sources, this same dish was also known as ,. which means "blood soup", and , ,. which can be translated as "dip sauce". Other times, this dish was simply referred to as .fr. 72 Wehrli.
In Ancient Greek, the term means black,Andrew Dalby, Food in the Ancient World, From A to Z (London: Routledge, 2013), 352. while could refer to any soup cooked using animal products.Maciej Kokoszko, "Mélas Zomós (μέλας ζωμός), or on a Certain Spartan Dish. A Source Study," in Studies on Ancient Sparta, eds. Ryszard Kulesza and Nicholas Sekunda, Akanthina, no. 14, ed. Nicholas Sekunda (Gdańsk: Gdańsk University Press, 2020), 9, 15. . OCLC 1225234705 The 1st-century AD medical writer Dioscurides recorded that there were many variations of . For example, it could be cooked using frog,Dioscurides. Euporista vel de simplicibus medicinis. 1.222.1-4, quoted in Pedanius Dioscorides, Pedanii Dioscuridis Anazarbei de Materia Medica Libri Quinque, ed. Max Wellmann (Berolini: Weidmann, 1914). crayfish,Dioscurides. Euporista vel de simplicibus medicinis. 1.222.3-4, quoted in Pedanius Dioscorides, Pedanii Dioscuridis Anazarbei de Materia Medica Libri Quinque, ed. Max Wellmann (Berolini: Weidmann, 1914). rooster,Dioscurides. Euporista vel de simplicibus medicinis. 2.22.1-2, quoted in Pedanius Dioscorides, Pedanii Dioscuridis Anazarbei de Materia Medica Libri Quinque, ed. Max Wellmann (Berolini: Weidmann, 1914). beef,Dioscurides. Euporista vel de simplicibus medicinis. 2.141.2.1, quoted in Pedanius Dioscorides, Pedanii Dioscuridis Anazarbei de Materia Medica Libri Quinque, ed. Max Wellmann (Berolini: Weidmann, 1914). deer fat,Dioscurides. Euporista vel de simplicibus medicinis. 2.156.1.5-6, quoted in Pedanius Dioscorides, Pedanii Dioscuridis Anazarbei de Materia Medica Libri Quinque, ed. Max Wellmann (Berolini: Weidmann, 1914). and fish. The 5th–4th-century BC philosopher Plato also used the term when referring to a meat dish.Pl. Lysis. 209E. 3. Aristotle, writing around the 4th century BC,Maciej Kokoszko, "Mélas Zomós (μέλας ζωμός), or on a Certain Spartan Dish. A Source Study," in Studies on Ancient Sparta, eds. Ryszard Kulesza and Nicholas Sekunda, Akanthina, no. 14, ed. Nicholas Sekunda (Gdańsk: Gdańsk University Press, 2020), 14. . OCLC 1225234705. stated in his that could be made using horse, pork, mutton, or goat.Arist. Hist. an. 651A. 29. Contrarily, the ancient Greeks had another designated name for soups made primarily with vegetables, which was .Maciej Kokoszko, "Mélas Zomós (μέλας ζωμός), or on a Certain Spartan Dish. A Source Study," in Studies on Ancient Sparta, eds. Ryszard Kulesza and Nicholas Sekunda, Akanthina, no. 14, ed. Nicholas Sekunda (Gdańsk: Gdańsk University Press, 2020), 9. . OCLC 1225234705..
Ancient sources The majority of the ancient sources that describe black soup were written by non-Spartan authors. These authors include Pherecrates of the fifth century BC, Alexis and Matro of Pitane of the fourth and third century BC, Nicostratus of the fourth century BC, and Euphron of the third century BC.Maciej Kokoszko, "Mélas Zomós (μέλας ζωμός), or on a Certain Spartan Dish. A Source Study," in Studies on Ancient Sparta, eds. Ryszard Kulesza and Nicholas Sekunda, Akanthina, no. 14, ed. Nicholas Sekunda (Gdańsk: Gdańsk University Press, 2020), 13-14. . OCLC 1225234705. For example, in Pherecrates' comedy, The Miners, a woman returning from the underworld states that she saw black broth free-flowing through the streets. Antiphanes, a contemporary comedian of Alexis, had also noted that black soup was a staple of the Spartan culture in a play titled The Archon.Ath. Deipnosophistae. 4.143a. A fragmentary anecdote indicates that Nicostratus once ridiculed a cook for not knowing how to prepare the Spartan black soup, along with other dishes such as (: stuffed leaves), (: a Lydian dish), and (: a type of dessert).fr. 1.1-3 Kock.
Other references to black soup are indirect. For example, in Aristophane's Knights, one of the lines in this comedy is "He has had tasty stews exported from Athens for the Spartan fleet."Ar. Eq. 279. Although the reference is not explicit, the fifth century BC poetOxford Classical Dictionary, s.v. "Aristophanes(1)," accessed April 3, 2021. was suggesting that the Spartan version of stew was not as good as the stew cooked by the Athenians. Classics scholar David Harvey stated that the playwright was likely making fun of Spartan black broth in this passage.David Harvey, "Lacomica: Aristophanes and the Spartans," in Shadow of Sparta, eds. Anton Powell and Stephen Hodkinson (New York: Routledge, 1994), 35–58.
Suda Lexicon, a Byzantine Greek historical encyclopedia compiled much later during the tenth century AD,Suda, "Suda On Line: Byzantine Lexicography," eds. David Whitehead et al., contrib. Ada Adler, Raphael A. Finkel, and Ross Scaife, accessed April 3, 2021. states that was a stock cooked using pig, cow, goat, sheep, or bear meat.Adler, s.v. "Πιμελή." Julius Pollux's lexicographic work, , notes that the black broth was a Spartan dish cooked with meat and blood.Julius Pollux. Onomasticon. 6.57.
Origin According to what Euphron (a third-century BC comedy poet)Oxford Classical Dictionary, s.v. “Euphron,” accessed March 26, 2021. had written in one of his fragmentary comedies, titled The Brothers, a cook mentions that a man named Lamprias was responsible for inventing the Spartan black soup.fr. 1.1-35 KockJoan P. Alcock, Food in the Ancient World (London: Greenwood, 2006), 120. However, this claim would be impossible to verify today.Ath. Deipnosophistae. 9.376C.f.
Ingredients
No recording of black soup's exact recipe exists today. Ancient literary sources, including historical, medical, and lexicographic, contain descriptions of black soup and its ingredients. Through interpreting these sources, it can be concluded that the Spartans cooked this dish using pig's blood and meat, with salt and vinegar as the only condiments. According to Plutarch's descriptions, the solid meat chunks in the soup were to be taken out and served separately to the younger attendees during banquets.
Plutarch is one of the ancient authors that alluded to this dish in his writings, such as in the Life of Lycurgus. In a passage explaining the Spartan society's dining and banqueting culture, Plutarch states that Sparta's most famous dish was black soup. The text also suggests that the elders would save the meat for the younger attendees, and they themselves would drink only the liquid.Plut. Lyc. 12.6. From Plutarch's account, can be interpreted as a soup dish made primarily using meat.
In another work of Plutarch, , the author states that the Lacedaemonian (Spartan) cooks could only use vinegar and salt to prepare their food and were supposed to utilize all parts of a sacrificed animal.Plut. De Tuenda. 12. The historian Maciej Kokoszko theorized that Spartans did not use vinegar to marinate the meat. Instead, the vinegar was mixed with the animal's blood during cooking. As the vinegar was added to the blood, it would slow down the clotting process and prevent the blood from spoiling.Maciej Kokoszko, "Mélas Zomós (μέλας ζωμός), or on a Certain Spartan Dish. A Source Study," in Studies on Ancient Sparta, eds. Ryszard Kulesza and Nicholas Sekunda, Akanthina, no. 14, ed. Nicholas Sekunda (Gdańsk: Gdańsk University Press, 2020), 12. . OCLC 1225234705.
Dicaearchus, writing in the fourth and third centuries BC, stated that one of the dishes once served in Classical Sparta was a made using boiled pork.fr. 72 Wehrli. The pork was paid for using the money collected from each member eating at the Spartan mess () to purchase the pigs at the market.Hans van Wees, "The Common Messes," in A Companion to Sparta, ed. Anton Powell (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Balckwell, 2018), 1:211. . OCLC 981761116. The mess () was a membership-based institution that Spartan adults would join upon completing their military training and was essentially a dinner club where men would banquet together.Elizabeth Rawson, introduction to The Spartan tradition in European Thought (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 7. . OCLC 69198. According to Plutarch, each Spartan mess member's monthly contribution included different kinds of produce and cash. This money was specified as "ten Aiginetan obols."Plut. Lyc. 12.2 The sum collected would allow them to purchase up to a dozen piglets per month as the raw ingredients for cooking black soup.Hans van Wees, "The Common Messes," in A Companion to Sparta, ed. Anton Powell (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Balckwell, 2018), 1:241. . OCLC 981761116. The German scholar, Link, has also theorized that black soup was the contribution made by the poor Spartans to the ,S Link, ""Durch diese Tür geht kein Wort hinaus!" (Plut. Lyk. 12, 8): Burgergemein-schaft und Syssitien in Sparta," Laverna 9, 1998: 100-101, quoted in Stephen Hodkinson, Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2009), 883. the extra voluntary donations of pre-prepared dishes and wheat bread.Stephen Hodkinson, Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2009), 468.Xen. Lac. 5.3.
The British Hellenistic scholar W. Geoffrey Arnott has also raised the speculation that Spartan black soup was meatless, made using a black variety of chickpea or Bengal gram,Andrew Dalby, Food in the Ancient World, from A to Z (London: Routledge, 2013), 214.W. Geoffrey Arnott, Alexis: The Fragments: A Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 425-426. but this theory has been refuted by classicists such as Maciej Kokoszko.
Occasions of consumption