Kitap 9
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 χήν? 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— And at the same time dress the young of one Fat goose (σιτευτοῦ χῆνος), and let him too be roasted thoroughly. But we have a right now, O Ulpian, to expect you to tell us, you who question everybody about everything, where this very costly dish of the livers of geese has been mentioned by any ancient writer. For Cratinus is a witness that they were acquainted with people whose business it was to feed geese, in his Dionysalexander, where he says— Geese-feeders, cow-herds . . . .
