GREEK COOKERY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 285, 1 December 1934, Page 7 (Supplement)

GREEK COOKERY.

ANCIENT CULINARY TRIUMPHS It may be imagined by some people that our luxurious age is peculiarly the age of cooks. This is very far from "being the case. The _ Greeks and Eomans carried the niceties of the culinary art to a pitch exceeding anything thought of to-day. Could any modern chef entertain a higher sense of the duties , and dignity of a master of the art than the Greek head cook, who thus speaks in Athenacus. (The passage is translated in D'lsraeli's "Curiosities or Literature.") I never enter in my kitchen, I! Hut sit apart, and in the cool direct Observant of wliatc er may pass The scullions' toil. I guide the mi„litj Keep* 3 u"p"the' lire! and lively play the name Beneath these lobster-patties : paheiit l er , Fixed as a statue, skim, incessant skim. Wteen well this small glociscus in its sauce, And boil that sea-dog in a calender, _ This eel requires more salt and ma.jorum , Ko.ist well that piece of kid on eitl.er fjde Equal ; that sweet-bread boil not over 'Tis thus, my friend, I make the concern And 'tlieii no useless dish my table crowds; Harmonious ranged, and consonantly lust. As in a concert instruments resound. My ordered dishes in their courses chime. Some of the great Greek cooks carried their art to such perfection that they were able to serve a whole pig,. boiled on one side and roasted on the op"® 1 "' and stuffed through without visible marks of the knife upon it. The inventor of this feat was cruel enough to keep the process secret for a year. At length it was revealed, that he hau bled the animal to death by a vei y small wound, through which _he had also extracted the entrails piecemeal; that he had forced the stuffing down the throat; and that by means of barley paste he had prevented the roasting on one side, and boiled it afterwards. It is said also of Greek -ks that, by their salting,s picklings, and frying.-,, thev could actually make a turnip pass for'any kind of fish or flesh they chose!