by Jill Jaracz
If you’ve listened to the show for any length of time, you know that Alison and I like snacks. We’ve waxed poetic about the snack tables at Beijing 2022 that were loaded with fruit, multiple types of crackers, Swiss rolls, mini-Snickers, cup of noodles and pickled eggs.
We talked about when we were lucky to get a granola bar or piece of fruit at Paris 2024, or when we went to the Paris Media Center, which had some delicious baked goods.
And we gave a small eulogy to the snack table at Milano Cortina 2026, which by then had been reduced to coffee and tea. You want snacks? Go to the concession stand or Essalunga and get your own!
Olympic snacking at Cortina 1956
Maybe that disconnect is why I found the Cortina 1956 snack table descriptions so charming in our recent episode about the cross-country skiing competition. Snacks were important back in 1956 too!
According to the Cortina d’Ampezzo 1956 Official Report, cross-country skiing athletes got Ovaltine, tea, coffee, sugar, oranges, apples, chocolate, sandwiches, dextrose and mineral water.
Ovaltine? Like from A Christmas Story?
Ovaltine, which was made by Swiss-based The Wander Co. Ltd., was one of the Games’ in-kind sponsors, and apparently, they were handing out Ovaltine (or Ovomaltine, as they call it in Switzerland) all over town. The report says,
“And so, when the occasion demands, the ‘Ovaltine Man’, in his yellow uniform is to be seen everywhere, on the snow, and on the ice. Equipped with huge thermo-bottles, they are always on the spot to pour out a hot and comforting drink for the wearied sportsman.”
By 1956, athletes were likely used to the presence of Ovaltine at the Olympics. Ovaltine had been a beverage sponsor of the Games since 1932. They’d go on to sponsor a total of 19 Summer and Winter Olympics, making their last appearance in 1976 (maybe French Alps could bring them back).
Even Ancient Olympians had favorite snacks
Snacks’ role in the Olympics goes way back—all the way back to the Ancient Olympics. Amazingly, we have some knowledge of what ancient Olympians snacked on. I’ve been reading a book called Bite by Bite by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, a collection of essays about food, as a way to take a break from the pile of Olympics and Paralympics books I’m working on. Surprisingly, it too had an Olympics reference (I can’t get away from them)!
In a piece about onions, Nezhukumatathil mentions Pedanius Dioscorides, an ancient Greek physician who championed medicinal plants and documented the use of hundreds of plants for medicinal purposed in De Materia Medica, a highly influential reference guide in herbal medicine. One plant he championed was the onion.
Greek athletes took his work to heart and while training for the Ancient Olympics apparently ate them in mass quantities to help them improve their strength and become more powerful. Onion juice was the workout drink of choice. Part of warming up included rubbing sliced onions on their muscles.
Perhaps the smell alone warded off other competitors.
Ancient meets modern
In Central Athens you can visit the Disocorides Garden, which pays tribute to Pedanius Dioscorides and the plants he found that worked as traditional (although onions don’t seem to be a big factor in this garden). It’s located on the grounds of Zappeion Megaron, a giant exhibition hall that was originally created for a different, short-lived Olympic revival in the second half of the 1800s.
However, in 1896, the building came in handy for Pierre de Coubertin’s revival of the Olympics, and at Athens 1896, it hosted the first modern Olympic fencing tournament. Unfortunately, I haven’t (yet) found what those fencers snacked on.