Subject: new book on ancient greek food

From: [email-masked] (Kjrsten Henriksen)
Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 19:01:41 GMT

Today my pbs station aired on thier `outlook' program (which is, like
somuch else on pbs, imported directly from the uk)  an article on
ancient greek cooking.  They interviewed two people.  These are my
notes from the radio broadcast; all spellings  are conjectural.

one was a resaurant owner zaquinitus (in london, i think) who was developing
recepies from descriptions of dishes in the philosopher Atheneos
The dishes he offered were
	nectar	1/3 wine  1/3 honey 1/3 `the juice of many flowers'
	stuffed mushrooms with garlic and olive oil
	stuffed quid with green vegetables and mint
	barly with fried chicken
	lambs liver in filo

The other was a dr john wilkins, who together with [chef?] shawn hill
is publishing a translations of some stuff by one archistratis of
gala, a greek from the south of sicily writing the 4th c BC.  The work
exists only in fragments.  it was written in verse (dr wilkins says,
quite good verse, beautifull scansion) and is mostly about how to cook
fish.  In fact from the quotes it seems to be mostly which port to go
to to get a particular kind of fish.  The book is called 
archistratis,  life of luxury
and is being put out by prospect books.

Both discussed an herb called sylphium or sylvium [?!?] which was
grown in libia and
extensivly used in early times but which died out around the time of
emperor nero (because the romans liked it so much that they ate it all
and there wasn't any left).  It was replaced in recipies by
asophoetida which dr wilson describes as garlicky with a whiff of
sulfer.  Dr wilson did not enjoy the dishes his coauthor prepared; he
said it was strongly flavored, with a hint of of something `going off', 
combined with an unexpected sweetness.  The interviewer loved the
stuff she had at zaquinatus restaurant.

has anyone else heard anything on this subject?

regards

kjrsten
[email-masked]