Cook, COCUS, COQUUS is the most frequent form used, COCTOR, infrequent. COQUA, COCULA, female cook; though female cooks were few. The word is derived from COQUERE, to cook, which seems to be an imitation of the sound, produced by a bubbling mess
The cook’s work place (formerly ATRIUM, the “black” smoky room) was the CULINA, the kitchen, hence in the modern Romance tongues CUISINE, CUCINA, COCINA. Those who work there are CUISINIERS, COCINEROS, the female a CUISINIÈRE, and so forth
The German and Swedish for “kitchen” are KÜCHE and KÖKET, but the words “cook” and “KOCH” are directly related to COQUUS
A self-respecting Roman cook, especially a master of the art, having charge of a crew, would assume the title of MAGIRUS, or ARCHIMAGIRUS, chief cook. This Greek—“MAGEIROS”—plainly shows the high regard in which Greek cookery stood in Rome. No American CHEF would think of calling himself “chief cook,” although CHEF means just that. The foreign word sounds ever so much better both in old Rome and in new New York. MAGEIROS is derived from the Greek equivalent of the verb “to knead,” which leads us to the art of baking. Titles and distinctions were plentiful in the ancient bakeshops, which plainly indicates departmentisation and division of labor
The PISTOR was the baker of loaves, the DULCIARIUS the cake baker, using honey for sweetening. Martial says of the PISTOR DULCIARIUS, “that hand will construct for you a thousand sweet figures of art; for it the frugal bee principally labors.” The PANCHESTRARIUS, mentioned in Arnobius, is another confectioner. The LIBARIUS still another of the sweet craft. The CRUSTULARIUS and BOTULARIUS were a cookie baker and a sausage maker respectively
The LACTARIUS is the milkman; the PLACENTARIUS he who makes the PLACENTA, a certain pancake, also a kind of cheese cake, often presented during the Saturnalia. The SCRIBLITARIUS belongs here, too: in our modern parlance we would perhaps call these two “ENTREMETIERS.” The SCRIBLITA must have been a sort of hot cake, perhaps an omelet, a pancake, a dessert of some kind, served hot; maybe just a griddle cake, baked on a hot stone, a TORTILLA—what’s the use of guessing! but SCRIBLITAE were good, for Plautus, in one of his plays, Poenulus, shouts, “Now, then, the SCRIBLITAE are piping hot! Come hither, fellows!” Not all of them did eat, however, all the time, for Posidippus derides a cook, saying, CUM SIS COQUUS, PROFECTUS EXTRA LIMEN ES, CUM NON PRIUS COENAVERIS, “What? Thou art a cook, and hast gone, without dinner, over the threshold?”
From the FOCARIUS, the scullion, the FORNACARIUS, the fireman, or furnace tender, and the CULINARIUS, the general kitchen helper to the OBSONATOR, the steward, the FARTOR to the PRINCEPS COQUORUM, the “maître d’hôtel” of the establishment we see an organization very much similar to our own in any well-conducted kitchen
The Roman cooks, formerly slaves in the frugal days of the nation, rose to great heights of civic importance with the spread of civilization and the advance of luxury in the empire. Cf. “The Rôle of the Mageiroi in the Life of the Ancient Greeks” by E. M. Rankin, Chic., 1907, and “Roman Cooks” by C. G. Harcum, Baltimore, 1914, two monographs on this subject
Cookery, Apician, as well as modern c., discussed in the critical [review] of the Apicius book
—— examples of deceptive c. in Apicius, ℞ [6], [7], [9], [17], [229], [230], [384], [429]
—— of flavoring and spicing, ℞ [15], [277], [281], [369]
—— deserving special mention for ingenuity and excellence, ℞ [15], [21], [22], [72], [88], [177], [186], [212], [213], [214], [250], [287], [315], [428]
—— modern Jewish, resembling Apicius, ℞ [204] seq.
—— examples of attempts to remove disagreeable odors, ℞ [212-14], [229], [230], [292]
—— removing sinews from fowl, ℞ [213]
—— utensils, p. [15]