COOKS.
30. But the race of cooks are really very curious for the most part about the histories and names of things. Accordingly the most learned of them say, "The knee is nearer than the leg,"—and, "I have travelled over Asia and Europe:" and when they are finding fault with any one they say, "It is impossible to make a Peleus out of an Œneus."—And I once marvelled at one of the old cooks, after I had enjoyed his skill and the specimens of his art which he had invented. And Alexis, in his Caldron, introduces one speaking in the following manner—
A. He boil'd, it seem'd to me, some pork, from off
A pig who died by suffocation.
B. That's nice.
A. And then he scorch'd it at the fire.
B. Never mind that; that can be remedied.
A. How so?
B. Take some cold vinegar, and pour it
Into a plate. Dost heed me? Then take up
The dish while hot and put it in the vinegar;
For while 'tis hot 'twill draw the moisture up
Through its material, which is porous all;
And so fermenting, like a pumice-stone,
'Twill open all its spongy passages,
Through which it will imbibe new moisture thoroughly.
And so the meat will cease to seem dried up,
But will be moist and succulent again.
A. O Phoebus, what a great physician's here!
O Glaucias!—I will do all you tell me.
B. And serve them, when you do serve them up,
(Dost mark me?) cold; for so no smell too strong
Will strike the nostrils; but rise high above them.
A. It seems to me you're fitter to write books
Than to cook dinners; since you quibble much
In all your speeches, jesting on your art.
31. And now we have had enough of cooks, my feasters; lest perhaps some one of them, pluming himself and quoting the Morose Man of Menander, may spout such lines as these—
No one who does a cook an injury
Ever escapes unpunish'd; for our art
Is a divine and noble one.
But I say to you, in the words of the tuneful Diphilus—
I place before you now a lamb entire,
Well skewer'd, and well cook'd and season'd;
Some porkers in their skins, and roasted whole;
And a fine goose stuff'd full, like Dureus.
32. We must now speak of the goose. For as many geese were served up very excellently dressed, some one said, Look at the fat geese (σιτευτοὶ χῆνες). And Ulpian said, Where do you ever find the expression σιτευτὸς χήν̣? And Plutarch answered him:—Theopompus the Chian, in his History of Greece, and in the thirteenth book of his History of the Affairs and Exploits of Philip, says that the Egyptians sent to Agesilaus the Lacedæmonian, when he arrived in Egypt, some fatted (σιτευτοὺς) calves and geese (χῆνας). And Epigenes the comic poet says in his Bacchanalian Women—
But if a person were to take me like
A fatted goose (χῆνα σιτευτόν).
And Archestratus, in that celebrated poem of his, says—