Book 14
52
Menander, in his False Hercules, speaks of cheesecakes made in a mould:— It is not now a question about candyli, Or all the other things which you are used To mix together in one dish-eggs, honey, And similago; for all these things now Are out of place. The cook at present's making Baked cheesecakes in a mould; and boiling groats To serve up after the salt-fish,—and grapes, And forced-meat wrapp'd in fig-leaves. And the maid, Who makes the sweetmeats and the common cheesecakes, Is roasting joints of meat and plates of thrushes. And Evangelus, in his Newly-married Woman, says— A. Four tables did I mention to you of women, And six of men; a supper, too, complete— In no one single thing deficient; Wishing the marriage-feast to be a splendid one. B. Ask no one else; I will myself go round, Provide for everything, and report to you. . . . . . As many kinds of olives as you please; For meat, you've veal, and sucking-pig, and pork, And hares— A. Hear how this cursed fellow boasts! B. Forced-meat in fig-leaves, cheese, cheesecakes in moulds- A. Here, Dromo! B. Candyli, eggs, cakes of meal. And then the table is three cubits high; So that all those who sit around must rise Whene'er they wish to help themselves to anything, There was a kind of cheesecake called ἄμης. Antiphanes enumerates ἄμητες, ἄμυλοι; and Menander, in his Supposititious Son, says— You would be glad were any one to dress A cheesecake (ἄμητα) for you. But the Ionians, as Seleucus tells us in his Dialects, make the accusative case ἄμην; and they call small cheesecakes of the same kind ἀμητίσκοι. Teleclides says— Thrushes flew of their own accord Right down my throat with savoury ἀμητίσκοι.
