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Cookery Among the Ancients: Attic

The ten books of Athenæus give us a complete manual of olden Greek cookery, and Herodotus, Plutarch, and other authors, if not as exhaustive, are most fertile in references to the subject. Plato, who denounced epicureanism and preferred olives to all other kinds of food, often making his meal from them alone, nevertheless praises Attic pastry, and extols the baker Thearion, who was noted for the perfection of his bread.

Besides beef and mutton, kids, the domestic swine, fowls, the wild boar, the roebuck, hares, rabbits, and numerous game and song birds, the Greeks were especially fond of the peacock, served in all his panoply of plumage.

As the Romans considered the mullet the king of fish, so the Greeks regarded the sole as the piscis nobilis. They were served then, as now, fried, when their size admitted, and likewise were prepared with a savoury sauce under the name of citharus, — "The cook produced an ample dish Of frizzled soles, those best of fish, Embrowned, and wafting through the room, All sputtering still, a rich perfume."

Suckling pig was considered a signal delicacy, its charms no doubt having been set forth in melodious measures in the lost poem of Archestratus. Indeed, who knows but that the sportive grace of the "Dissertation upon Roast Pig" may, after all, be Grecian rather than Anglo-Saxon in essence, and be merely an inspiration caught from some forgotten Attic author? The sea, on its part, yielded its infinite treasures, including the oyster, the earth contributing its varied fruits and esculents. Strong and sweet wine was a common beverage, both mixed, unmixed, spiced, and scented.

After fish and game, pork was the most esteemed food set upon the salvers of ancient Greece and Rome -a food in which epicures believed themselves to have discovered fifty different flavours, or fifty parts, each possessing an individual taste. At large entertainments, and even where the guests were only equal in number to the Muses, it was customary to serve pigs roasted whole, stuffed with sausages and bursting with boudins, or "black pudding." The pig was salted by the ancients in order to preserve it; but Apicius recommended, for keeping purposes, that medium-sized pieces of pork be chosen and covered with a paste composed of salt, vinegar, and honey, and be stored in carefully closed vessels.