Siren Feasts by Andrew Dalby (9780415156578)

Description - Siren Feasts by Andrew Dalby

This text provides the first serious social history of Greek food. Cheese, wine, honey and olive oil - four of Greece's best known contributions to culinary culture - were already well known 4000 years ago. Remains of honeycombs and of cheeses have been found under the volcanic ash of the Santorini eruption of 1627 BC. Over the millennia, Greek food diversified and absorbed neighbouring traditions, yet retained its own distinctive character. It begins with the tunny fishers of the neolithic age, and traces the story through the repertoire of classical Greece, the reputations of Lydia for luxury and of Sicily and South Italy for sybaritism, to the Imperial synthesis of varying traditions, with a look forward to the Byzantine cuisine and the development of the modern Greek menu. The apples of the Hesperides turn out to be lemons, and great favour attaches to Byzantine biscuits. Fully documented and illustrated, the book demonstrates the social construction placed upon different types of food at different periods.

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