Three Poems

XIII

If you ever travel to the prosperous land of Ambrakia, score a boar-fish if you happen on one, even if it costs its weight in gold—otherwise, the immortals will rain down on you a good dose of the harshest rancor. Take care not to overlook it since this fish is the finest kind of nectar.

But be forewarned: Mortals are not permitted to eat this fish, or even cast their eyes on one. The only exception is for those who carry a certain type of basket woven from hollow marsh reeds and who are adept at whirling small bones in their hands before casting them, and those who lay gifts of mutton legs on the ground.

(Note)

XXXII

You have got to get your hands on tail meat from a female tuna. Not just any; I mean the mothers of all tunas—ones that hail from Byzantion. Cut her up into steaks and grill them after giving them a light dash of finely powdered salt. Baste with olive oil. Eat them hot, dipping pieces into seasoned brine. If you dare eat them without dressing, as the immortals would, nothing would ever be as good. But if you dish them out drenched in vinegar, you'll render the divine vile.

LXII

At a feast never neglect to adorn your neck with garlands of all sorts of blooms from every quarter of the earth's bounty. Mete out drops of the finest perfumes to dress your hair. Cast upon the fire's silken ash Syria's fragrant fruit—frankincense and myrrh.

While you drink your fill someone should bring you such delicacies as sow's belly or womb braised in tangy vinegar, cumin and silphium—or whatever roasted bird is sweetest in season.

Don't follow the manner of those folk from Siracusa, those people who act like frogs and merely drink without eating a thing. Ignore them and dine on what foods I've been telling you about. All their side dishes evidence the lowest sort of culinary destitution—boiled chick-peas, fava beans, apples and dried figs. Yet I'll make one exception and praise pastries from Athens. If you can't go there and get one, next best is to hunt around for Attic honey since that's the dressing that makes those flat-cakes so exquisite.

A free man should live no other way. Or else be condemned to rack and ruin buried miles and miles deep underground beneath the bottomless Pit, beneath Tartaros.

Archestratos
translated from the Greek by Gian Lombardo

Gastrology or Life of Pleasure or Study of the Belly or Inquiry Into Dinner
Quale Press