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The Hellenistic cooking

by Eugenia Prina Ricotti

THE HELLENISTIC MENUS : THE TRIUMPH OF FISH
We have just seen the fabulous setting of the Hellenistic banquets, and it was in these luxurious tents and in their splendid palaces that the Hellenistic suzerains dined, and they dined really well. Those times gastronomy was much more refined and elegant of the one that had been usual in a world still restricted in its limits as the Greek world had been up to then. Also if the fundamental ingredients were still the basic one that had been used in the precedent centuries now there also was some importation due to the Macedonian army and its conquests. What changed was the style of cooking that was highly influenced by the contact with the Persian and Babylonian civilizations. Also important was the influence of the polished “Magna Grecia” towns that by now had reached a high degree of refinement and opulence. The Sicilians stood up among all the populations for their name as connoisseurs and their style of cooking, and the most famed among them was Archestratus of Gela (Gela is a town near Syracuse), who, wrote on the art of superb dining, his treaty, the Ediphagetica (the Artist of Well Eating) and, sole in this world, wrote it as a poem in hexameter verses.
The book dealt mainly in seafood and was substantially a guidebook on the fishes a traveller could find in the different countries of the south-eastern Mediterranean world. To sum it up it was a kind of Hellenistic super Guide Michelin, ancient of course, but a very good and trustful one because it had been written by one like Archestratus who had travelled a lot, toured all those places, tasted all those dishes and, now shared his experiences with his readers. Of course it was composed in heroic hexameters so it was also a very highbrow one, but, reading it, one could always buy the right fish, in the right place, in the right season and, moreover, how to cook them. A whole book that proves how this food, once spurned, was now valued and how much it was sought after.
However, before beginning his disquisition on the treasures of the sea, Archestratus briefly dwelled about how to organize a banquet. He told his readers what to chose for the menu; what was the kind of wine to offer for the aperitif, and what had to be served with it or munched during the endless symposia. Thus Archestratus enjoins
“Put always on your head wreaths of all kind of flowers that the happy earth produce – sang Archestratus in his hexameters – and adorn your hairs with perfumed distilled ointment. During all the (banquet’s) day sprinkle again and again myrrh and frankincense, fruits of the fragrant Syria, over the fire’s soft ashes. Then, while you are sipping your wine, ask the servants to bring to you a pig’s belly and a boiled sow’s matrix to dip in a sauce of cumin, vinegar and sylphium. With this have them offer you all the tribe of season’s birds. Don’t do like those Syracusans who, without eating anything, drink like frogs. Don’t imitate them and eat exactly what I told you. All the other things that are served with the wine – chicken peas, broad beans, dried figs – are the signs of dire misery. Accept only the “placenta” that is made in Athens, and if you don’t find it and they bring one made in another place, ask that at least it could be served with a little of Attic honey, because this will make it delightful. This is the life that a man must lead, otherwise down below the earth, ahead to his destruction, fall in the abyss of Tartarus and lay there at its deepest depth.”
In Archestratus’ work there are also advices on which bread to eat and which wine to drink and when he has to speak of wines Archestratus shows no doubt: for him the best among all wines was the Lesbos.
“Then, after having taken a full measure of the cup consecrated to Zeus the Saver (it was the toast that was made, when, just after having drank a gulp of straight wine in honor of Dionisus, the guests began to drink diluted one dedicated to Zeus) you must drink a very old wine, but really hoary, whose humid locks are crowned by a white bouquet, a wine grown in Lesbos circled by the sea waves. I also praise the Biblinus of the sacred Phoenician land, but I do not set it at the same level, because also if it is true that, at his first sip a person, who did never taste it before, will judge it more fragrant than the Lesbian – and as a matter of fact the Biblinus stay fragrant for a very long time -, immediately after they will perceive that his taste is very inferior, and that, in comparison to it, the Lesbos’ wine, more than the simple honor, will seem to possess the glory of Ambrosia”
After these preliminaries, Archestratus get in the gist of the matter that, as we have told, concerns the fruits of the sea, by then a very important part of the Hellenistic menu. The names of the fishes that the poet suggests to taste are a great numbers. Certainly many more of the ones that today one could find in a very well stocked market, and many of them are probably be unknown to the greater part of the modern readers. To cite an example there is the torpedo fish that Archestratus advises to stew.
“A torpedo fish stewed in oil, wine, herbs and a bit of grated cheese.”
Just in the few passages of the Aediphagetica that arrived to us we find cited 42 kind of fishes and we also have some very enticing recipes like this on how to prepare the amia (lichia amia), the leer fish:
“For what regard the leerfish cook it in the fall, when the Pleiades dip down, and arrange it as you please. Why must I repeat word for word how you have to do it? you couldn’t ruin it not even if you want. However if you really insist, my dear Moscus, here is which is the best way to prepare it. Season this fish with only a little of marjoram and wrap it in fig leaves. No cheese here, no nonsense! (In the “Magna Grecia it was usual to season fishes with plenty of cheese and this is still done in some part fo Sicily and Puglia. Very tasty), Only put it nicely on a layer of fig leaves and tie it with a string. Then put it under the embers, but be careful to pull it away when it is ready and don’t let it burn. If you wish to have the better quality of leer fish, buy he one that you find in the beautiful Bysance, however it also will be good enough if it has been fished nearby. Be however careful: the more you move away from the Hellespont and travel on the glorious courses of the salty Aegeus and less good the leerfish will be. It will even seems different at such a point to belie all my declarations”
That cheese so much pressed against in the leer fish recipes, is often suggested for other fishes:
“As for the turbot if it is white, firm and big I ask you to wrap it in leaves and put it to boil in salted water. But if it is reddish and not too large then, after pricking it with a knife and well seasoning it with oil an cheese, roast it, because this fish likes only generous and spendthrift people”
Another fish that fascinates Archestratus is, oddly, one of the shark, the dogfish, and he writes a passionate exaltation of its quality:
“No! there are not many man who know how heavenly is this dish or who accept to taste it. Those men are stupid like gulls and are paralysed because they say that dogfishes eats men; but any fish will eat human flesh if ever it can get at it. Thus whoever sustain such a stupid theory will do well to become a vegetarian or join Diodorus the philosopher and abstain from everything as with him the Pythagoreans do.”
Then Archestratus praises the small fry of Athen that he advises to fry mixed with sea anemones, and goes on commending the sword fish’s slice and also that of the tuna which is fished at the end of spring. This, he advises, must be simply roasted on a grill with oil and salt and then sprinkled with vinegar, once used to substitute today lemon. It is interesting to note that in all Archestratus’ recipes, he seasons the fishes only with oil, vinegar, wine, herbs, cumin, sesame and pure salt. Some time he also add some silphium but moderately and he never uses garum.