''Opson'' ( el, ὄψον) is an important category in Ancient Greek foodways. First and foremost ''opson'' refers to a major division of ancient Greek food: the 'relish' that complements the ''sitos'' (σίτος) the staple part of the

meal A meal is an eating occasion that takes place at a certain time and includes consumption of food. The names used for specific meals in English vary, depending on the speaker's culture, the time of day, or the size of the meal. Although they c ...

, i.e.

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

barley Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley p ...

. ''Opson'' is therefore equivalent to

Banchan ''Banchan'' (, from Korean: ) or bansang are small side dishes served along with cooked rice in Korean cuisine. As the Korean language does not distinguish between singular and plural grammatically, the word is used for both one such dish o ...

Korean cuisine Korean cuisine has evolved through centuries of social and political change. Originating from ancient agricultural and nomadic traditions in Korea and southern Manchuria, Korean cuisine reflects a complex interaction of the natural envi ...

and

Okazu ''Okazu'' ( or ; ; ) is a Japanese language, Japanese word meaning a side dish to accompany rice; subsidiary articles of diet.''Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary'', They are cooked and seasoned in such a way as to match well when eate ...

Japanese cuisine Japanese cuisine encompasses the regional and traditional foods of Japan, which have developed through centuries of political, economic, and social changes. The traditional cuisine of Japan (Japanese: ) is based on rice with miso soup and other ...

. Because it was considered the more pleasurable part of any meal, ''opson'' was the subject of some anxiety among ancient Greek moralists, who coined the term '' opsophagia'' to describe the vice of those who took too much ''opson'' with their ''sitos''. Although any kind of complement to the staple, even

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quant ...

, could be categorized as ''opson'', the term was also commonly used to refer to the most esteemed kind of relish: fish. Hence a diminutive of ''opson'', ''opsarion'' (ὀψάριον), provides the modern Greek word for fish: ''psari'' (ψάρι), and the term '' opsophagos'', literally opson''-eater', is almost always used by classical authors to refer to men who are fanatical about seafood, e.g. Philoxenus of Leucas. Finally, ''opson'' can be used to mean a 'prepared dish' (plural ''opsa''). Plato, probably mistakenly, derived the word from the verb ἕψω ― 'to boil'. The central focus of Greek personal morality on

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made ''opsophagia'' a matter of concern for moralists and satirists in the classical period. The complicated semantics of the word ''opson'' and its derivatives made the word a matter of concern for Atticists during the

Second Sophistic The Second Sophistic is a literary-historical term referring to the Greek writers who flourished from the reign of Nero until c. 230 AD and who were catalogued and celebrated by Philostratus in his ''Lives of the Sophists''. However, some recent ...

References

* Ancient Greek cuisine Greek cuisine Historical foods {{AncientGreece-stub