Persian Kings were noted for their lavish banquets. Greeks and other foreigners lucky enough to share a Persian meal reported not just the expensive gold and silver plates and drinking vessels but the exotic meats, unknown fruits and vegetables and strange spices.

The following is a list of foods to show the possible diet of the ancient Persians during the Achaemenid period. The diffferent food types are listed against their place of origin. Foods not native to Persia could have been introduced through trade or even as the spoils of war. Using knowledge of food origins, combined with knowledge of trade routes, archaeological and historical evidence, we get a reasonably accurate idea of the foods availables.

It must be remembered that many of the fruits, vegetables and cereals we know today are a result of selective breeding and may have little resemblance to the origial wild or newly domesticated variety. Also names can be misleading, when Herodotus uses the term 'corn' he is using it as a general term for cereal grains, such as wheat, rye, barley or 'Egyptian corn' which is now known as "Dura sorghum". Corn or maize as we know it was only found after the discovery of America.

Large scale cultivation of food crops such as barley and wheat had been going on for thousands of years previous to the Achaemenid period as had the existence of trade routes from Egypt to China and later to Greece and Europe. Not only was the produce exported but seed and stock plants were also traded.

The availability of food was dependant on several factors.

Barley, dates as well as milk and cheese seem to have been the staple foods for the lower classes. Sesame oil, not olive oil, was the main cooking oil used.

Somewhat surprisingly, the traditional Iranian receipes we see today use many if not most of the foods that were available to Persians during the Achaemenid empire.

Numerous varieties of fish were caught along the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. These included sturgeon, dogfish, salmon, trout, carp and pike-perch. Trout were also plentiful in some of the mountain streams and the Qanats or underground canals were a source of carp and roach. Fish could be obtained fresh and also dried.

Full Circle

With our problems today of rising water tables and increasing soil salinity, scientists are looking at wheat and other cereal developed in the ancient world that might hold the promise of tougher wheats and possibly salt-tolerant pulse crops.
Surviving on the sodic soils in what was ancient Persia, some of these ancient wheats have the ability to exclude salt from their root systems.