Many of the elements you might expect to see if you were to go to a Greek restaurant today — lemons, eggplants, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers — were not a part of ancient Greek cuisine because those foods weren't available to Europeans until after they found out about the New World in the 1400s. (They also didn't have rice, but that didn't come from the Americas.) 

Rather, as The Spruce Eats explains, the everyday elements of ancient Greek cuisine included grains like wheat and barley (frequently used to make bread), beans and other legumes, fruits and vegetables, and cheese made from sheep or goat's milk. Common fruits included figs, pomegranates, grapes, and olives, while vegetables included root vegetables like radishes and carrots, leafy vegetables like lettuce and cabbage, and stem vegetables like asparagus and celery. The availability of meat and fish depended on the wealth of the individual Greek, but most people would mostly have access to meat only at public sacrifices and festivals.

The most common preparation methods involved cooking over an open fire, such as boiling, grilling, or spit-roasting, but sometimes, food might be sealed in clay pots and cooked in a clay oven or buried in hot coals. Since there was no refrigeration, foods were preserved by salting, drying, or smoking or by storing them in containers of fat, syrup, or a layer of oil on top to keep air out.

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