20.
My pupil Leucon, and the rest of you,
You fellow servants—for there is no place
Unfit to lecture upon science in;
Know that in the cookery no seasoning
Is equal to the sauce of impudence.
And, if I must confess the whole o' the truth,
You'll find this quality of great use everywhere.
See now, this tribune, who displays a breastplate
All over scales, or dragon wrought in steel,
Appears some Briareus; but when th' occasion
Calls for his might, he proves a very hare.
So when a cook with helpers and attendants
Comes to some stranger, and his pupils brings,
Calling the servants of the house mere humbugs,
Mere cummin splitters, famine personified;
They all crouch down before him: but if you bear
Yourself with honesty and spirit towards him,
He'll fly half flay'd with fear. Do you remember,
And, as I bade you, give fair room for boasting,
And take you care to know the taste of the guests;
For as in any other market, so
This is the goal which all your art should seek,
To run straight into all the feasters' mouths
As into harbour. At the present moment
We're busied about a marriage feast—
An ox is offer'd as the choicest victim;
The father-in-law is an illustrious man,
The son-in-law a person of like honour;
Their wives are priestesses to the good goddess.
Corybantes, flutes, a crowd of revellers
Are all assisting at the festival.
Here's an arena for our noble art.
Always remember this.
And concerning another cook (whose name is Seuthes) the same poet speaks in the following manner—
Seuthes, in the opinion of those men,
Is a great bungler. But I'd have you know,
My excellent friend, the case of a good cook
Is not unlike that of a general.
The enemy are present,—the commander,
A chief of lofty genius, stands against them,
And fears not to support the weight of war:—
Here the whole band of revellers is the enemy,
It marches on in close array, it comes
Keen with a fortnight's calculation
Of all the feast: excitement fires their breasts,
They're ready for the fray, and watch with zeal
To see what will be served up now before them.
Think now, that such a crowd collected sits
To judge of your performance.
COOKS.
21. Then you know there is a cook in the Synephebi of Euphron; just hear what a lecture he gives—
When, Carion, you a supper do prepare,
For those who their own contributions bring,
You have no time to play, nor how to practise
For the first time the lessons you've received.
And you were yesterday in danger too;
For not one single one of all your tenches
Had any liver, but they all were empty.
The brain was decomposed too.—But you must,
O Carion, when at any future time
You chance a band like this to thus encounter,
As Dromon, Cerdon, and Soterides,
Giving you all the wages that you ask'd,
Deal with them fairly. Where we now are going
To a marriage feast, there try experiments.
And if you well remember all my rules,
You are my real pupil; and a cook
By no means common: 'tis an opportunity
A man should pray for. Make the best of it,
The old man is a miser, and his pay
Is little. If I do not find you eating up
The very coals, you're done for. Now go in;
For here the old man comes himself, behold
How like a skin-flint usurer he looks!
22. But the cook in Sosipater's Liar is a great sophist, and in no respect inferior to the physicians in impudence. And he speaks as follows—
A. My art, if you now rightly do consider it,
Is not, O Demylus, at all an art
To be consider'd lightly;—but alas,
'Tis too much prostituted; and you'll find
That nearly all men fear not to profess
That they are cooks, though the first principles
Of the great art are wholly strange to them;
And so the whole art is discredited.
But when you meet an honest, genuine cook,
Who from his childhood long has learnt the art,
And knows its great effects, and has its rules
Deep buried in his mind; then, take my word,
You'll find the business quite a different thing.
There are but three of us now left in Greece;
Boidion, and Chariades, and I;
The rest are all the vilest of the vile.
B. Indeed?
A. I mean it. We alone preserve
The school of Sicon: he was the great teacher
Of all our art: he was the first who taught us
To scan the stars with judgment: the great Sicon!
Then, next to this he made us architects:
He open'd too the paths of physical knowledge;
And after this he taught us all the rules
Of military science; for all these
Were but preliminaries accessory
To the preeminent, godlike art of cooking.
B. I think you mean to choke me, my good friend.
A. Not I; but till the boy comes back from market
I'll stir you up a little with some rules
About your art, since we can never have
A more convenient time for talking of it.
B. Oh, by Apollo, you're a zealous man.
A. Listen, my friend. In the first place, a cook
Must the sublimer sciences have learnt:
He must know when the stars do set and rise,
And why. Moreover, when the sun returns,
Causing the long and short days on the earth;
And in what figures of the zodiac
He is from time to time. For, men do say
All fish, and every meat and herb we eat,
Have different qualities at different seasons
Of the revolving year; and he who knows
The principles and reasons of these things
Will use each meat when it is most in season;
And he who knows them not, but acts at random,
Is always laugh'd at most deservedly.
Perhaps, too, you don't know wherein the science
Of th' architect can bear on this our art.
B. Indeed I wonder'd what it had to do with it.
A. I'll tell you:—rightly to arrange the kitchen,
To let in just the light that's requisite,
To know the quarter whence the winds blow most,
Are all of great importance in this business—
For smoke, according to which way it goes,
Makes a great difference when you dress a dinner.
B. That may be; but what need is there, I pray,
For cooks to have the science of generals?
A. Order is a prevailing principle
In every art; and most of all in ours:
For to serve up and take away each dish
In regular order, and to know the time
When quick t' advance them, and when slowly bring,
And how each guest may feel towards the supper,
And when hot dishes should be set before him,
When warm ones, and when regular cold meat
Should be served up, depends on various branches
Of strategetic knowledge, like a general's.
B. Since then you've shown me what I wish'd to know,
May you, departing now, enjoy yourself.
COOKS.