soups, boiled or mashed ( etnos), seasoned with olive oil, vinegar, herbs or gáron, a fish sauce similar to Vietnamese nước mắm. In the comedies of Aristophanes, Heracles was portrayed as a glutton with a fondness for mashed beans. Poor families ate oak acorns ( balanoi). Olives were a common appetizer. In the cities, fresh vegetables were expensive, and therefore, the poorer city dwellers had to make do with dried vegetables. Lentil soup ( phakē) was the workman's typical dish. Cheese, garlic, and onions were the soldier's traditional fare. In Aristophanes' Peace, the smell of onions typically represents soldiers; the chorus, celebrating the end of war, sings Oh! joy, joy! No more helmet, no more cheese nor onions! Bitter vetch ( orobos) was considered a famine food. Fruits, fresh or dried, and nuts, were eaten as dessert. Important fruits were figs, raisins, and pomegranates. In Athenaeus' Deipnosophistae, he describes a dessert made of figs and broad beans. Dried figs were also eaten as an appetizer or when drinking wine. In the latter case, they were often accompanied by grilled chestnuts, chick peas, and beechnuts. Animals Meat In the 8th century BC Hesiod describes the ideal country feast in Works and Days: Meat is much less prominent in texts of the 5th century BC onwards than in the earliest poetry, but this may be a matter of genre rather than real evidence of changes in farming and food customs. Fresh meat was most commonly eaten at sacrifices, though sausage was much more common, consumed by people across the economic spectrum. In addition to the flesh of animals, the ancient Greeks often ate inner organs, many of which were considered delicacies such as paunches and tripe. Hippolochus (3rd Century BCE) describes a wedding banquet in Macedonia with "chickens and ducks, and ringdoves, too, and a goose, and an abundance of suchlike viands piled high... following which came a second platter of silver, on which again lay a huge loaf, and geese, hares, young goats, and curiously moulded cakes besides, pigeons, turtle-doves, partridges, and other fowl in plenty..." and "a roast pig — a big one, too — which lay on its back upon it; the belly, seen from above, disclosed that it was full of many bounties. For, roasted inside it, were thrushes, ducks, and warblers in unlimited number, pease purée poured over eggs, oysters, and scallops" Spartans primarily ate a soup