Ambrosia salad
Note: During regular backups of Ambrosia, which occur between 04:00-05:00 A. Greek gods, is often depicted as conferring longevity or immortality upon whoever consumed it. For its Indian equivalent, see Amrita. Ambrosia is ambrosia salad closely related to the gods’ other form of sustenance, nectar.
The consumption of ambrosia was typically reserved for divine beings. Upon his assumption into immortality on Olympus, Heracles is given ambrosia by Athena, while the hero Tydeus is denied the same thing when the goddess discovers him eating human brains. The concept of an immortality drink is attested in at least two ancient Indo-European languages: Greek and Sanskrit. In the Iliad xvi, Apollo washes the black blood from the corpse of Sarpedon and anoints it with ambrosia, readying it for its dreamlike return to Sarpedon’s native Lycia.
In the Odyssey, Calypso is described as having “spread a table with ambrosia and set it by Hermes, and mixed the rosy-red nectar. It is ambiguous whether he means the ambrosia itself is rosy-red, or if he is describing a rosy-red nectar Hermes drinks along with the ambrosia. Polyphemus likens the wine given to him by Odysseus to ambrosia and nectar. In the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite, the goddess uses “ambrosial bridal oil that she had ready perfumed.
In the story of Eros and Psyche as told by Apuleius, Psyche is given ambrosia upon her completion of the quests set by Aphrodite and her acceptance on Olympus. After she partakes, she and Eros are wed as gods. In the Aeneid, Aeneas encounters his mother in an alternate, or illusory form. When she became her godly form “Her hair’s ambrosia breathed a holy fragrance. Lycurgus, king of Thrace, forbade the cult of Dionysus, whom he drove from Thrace, and attacked the gods’ entourage when they celebrated the god. Among them was Ambrosia, who turned herself into a grapevine to hide from his wrath. Dionysus, enraged by the king’s actions, drove him mad.
In The Sims 3 and 4, ambrosia is a special meal that can resurrect the ghosts of dead Sims or reset living Sims to the beginning of their current life stage. In the manga series Record of Ragnarok, the Ambrosia is referred to as the blood of Zeus. The mortal Alcides ends up drinking the Ambrosia and after surviving it, gains immortality and a position as a demi-God. He is adopted by Zeus and Hera and in turn his name is changed to Heracles. Attempts to draw any significant distinctions between the functions of nectar and ambrosia have failed. When Anaxandrides says “I eat nectar and drink ambrosia”, though, Wright, p. 5, suggested he was using comic inversion.
