01-21-2006, 11:07 PM
The book you want is Andrew Dalby: Siren Feasts (various publishers, numerous editions). He may well bne *the* leading expert on Ancient Greek food and has also published the undeservedly less popular Flavours of Byzsantium (Prospect Books, Totnes 2003) and a guide for modern cooks, The Ancient Cookbook, with Sally Grainger. You may want to look at a more archeology-heavy work to follow, he mostly works with literary sources.
As to sources, if you don't want to slog your way through the entire body of comedy, the best starting point still is Athenaeus' Deipnosophists. Prospect Books published a collection of just the Archestratus recipes from that collection in the late 90s, but I don't recall the translator and it's OOP, anyway, so the Loeb editio0n is your best bet. Some interesting insights can also be had from the late 4th century BC book by Theophrastus 'Peri Phyton' (translated as 'Inquiry into Plants' in the Loeb edition), where he describes culinary as well as dietetic and medical properties.
Generally speaking, there is a lot we do not know about ancient Greek cuisine, but it is quite likely that it relied much more on wild plants, used much less dairy, and was a lot more frugal with meat and fish. The basic setup was starchy foods with small tasty side dishes ('opson') and 'opsophagia' - the habit of eating only or mostly opson - was considered evidence of shocking decadence in 4th century Athens. There is also still some debate whether bread was a luxury food or not, how meat and fish compared in terms of social status, and how many vegetables were consumed, but this is the broad outline.
As to sources, if you don't want to slog your way through the entire body of comedy, the best starting point still is Athenaeus' Deipnosophists. Prospect Books published a collection of just the Archestratus recipes from that collection in the late 90s, but I don't recall the translator and it's OOP, anyway, so the Loeb editio0n is your best bet. Some interesting insights can also be had from the late 4th century BC book by Theophrastus 'Peri Phyton' (translated as 'Inquiry into Plants' in the Loeb edition), where he describes culinary as well as dietetic and medical properties.
Generally speaking, there is a lot we do not know about ancient Greek cuisine, but it is quite likely that it relied much more on wild plants, used much less dairy, and was a lot more frugal with meat and fish. The basic setup was starchy foods with small tasty side dishes ('opson') and 'opsophagia' - the habit of eating only or mostly opson - was considered evidence of shocking decadence in 4th century Athens. There is also still some debate whether bread was a luxury food or not, how meat and fish compared in terms of social status, and how many vegetables were consumed, but this is the broad outline.
Der Kessel ist voll Bärks!
Volker Bach
Volker Bach
