Chapter Three:
A Culinary Odyssey

cornelian cherries with Trojan horse

Cornelian Cherry

p. 54: “overgrown with cornel”: Virgil, Aeneid, translated by Fitzgerald, III. 34, p. 66.

p. 55: “An iron hedge”: Ibid., III.65-6, p. 67.

p. 55: “Excavations”: Maria Pappa and Besios Manthos, “The Neolithic Settlement at Makriyalos, Northern Greece: Preliminary Report on the 1993-1995 Excavations.” Journal of Field Archaeology, vol. 26, no. 2, 1999: 177–95 https://doi.org/10.2307/530661 (accessed September 2, 2023).

p. 56: “set out autumn ripened”: Ovid, Metamorphoses, translated by Martin, 8.936-7, p. 291.

Silphion

p. 57: “They fix carefully”: Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants II, 6.3.2, p. 17.

p. 58: “their salaries”: Alfred C. Andrews, “The Silphium of the Ancients: A Lesson in Crop Control.” Isis, vol. 33, no. 2 (June 1941), p. 236. https://www.jstor.org/stable/330743 (accessed September 24, 2023).

p. 58: “Pliny the Elder reports”: Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, 19.15. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Abook%3D19%3Achapter%3D15 (accessed September 9, 2023). 

p. 58: “having a thick root”: Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants II, 6.3.1, pp. 15-7

Lotus

p. 60: “the land of the Lotus-eaters”: Homer, The Odyssey, translated by Fagles, 9.95-6, p. 214.

p. 60: “Any crewman”: Ibid.,9.106-110, p. 214.

p. 61: “smaller than a quarter inch”: The Landmark Herodotus, editor Robert B. Strassler, (NYC: Anchor Books, 2009), 4.177, p. 355.

p. 61: “the size of a pear tree”: Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants I, 4.3.1, pp. 303-5.

Asphodel

p. 63: “created by Demeter”: Porphyry, “Life of Pythagoras,” translated by Moses Hadas and Morton Smith, in Heroes and Gods: Spiritual Biographies in Antiquity, ed. Ruth Nanda Anshen (New York: Harper & Row 1965), p. 118, sections 34-35.

p. 63: “The Pythagoreans”: Detienne, The Gardens of Adonis, translated by Lloyd, p. 47.

p. 64: “It provides many”: Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants II, translated by Arthur Hort, 7.13.2, p. 129.

p. 64: “The dead came”: Homer, Odyssey, 11. 723-7, translated by Fagles p. 270.

p. 65: “the asphodel meadows”: Reece, Steve, “Homer’s Asphodel Meadow,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 47 (2007): 389–400.

p. 66: “planted around graves”: Tozer, H.F. The Islands of the Aegean (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1890) p. 15; https://ia600907.us.archive.org/8/items/islandsaegean01tozegoog/islandsaegean01tozegoog.pdf (accessed October 23, 2023).

p. 66: “Hades”: “Hades Estate & Retinue,” Section 2: Sacred Plants & Animals, Theoi Greek Mythology. https://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/HaidesTreasures.html#Plants (accessed September 2, 2023). 

p. 66: “Persephone”: “Asphodelos,” Suda On Line, translated by Jennifer Benedict. https://www.cs.uky.edu/~raphael/sol/sol-entries/alpha/4299 (accessed September 2, 2023).

p. 66: “one of the most celebrated”: Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, translated by John Bostock (London, Taylor and Francis, 1885) 22.32. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Abook%3D22%3Achapter%3D32 (accessed September 2, 2023).

Fig

p. 67: “Kalchas dropped dead”: Strabo, Geography, 14.1.27. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0198%3Abook%3D14%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3D27 (accessed September 3, 2023).

p. 67: “governing the fig harvest”: Plato, The Laws, translated by A. E. Taylor (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969) Book 8, 844d-845d.

p. 68: “entirely prohibited the export”: Plutarch, “Solon”, translated by John Dryden, Plutarch: The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, (Chicago; Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Inc., 1952), p. 73.

p. 68: “sycophant”: Plutarch, Moralia, “On Being a Busybody”, section 16/523?, translated by W. C. Helmbold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962) pp. 515-7.

p. 68: “figs were cultivated”: Zohary and Hopf, Domestication of Plants in the Old World, p. 159.

p. 68: “caprification”: Ibid., p. 160.

p. 69: “Gall insects”: Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants I, 2.8.1, p. 151.

p. 69: “Dioscorides tells us”: Dioscorides, “1.183”, Materia Medica, pp. 179 -180.

p. 69: “Socrates extolls”: Plato, Hippias Major, translated by Paul Woodruff (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1982) 290d-291c, pp. 12-13

p. 69: “the sexuality of Dionysus”: Eric Csapo. “Riding the Phallus for Dionysus: Iconology, Ritual, and Gender-Role De/Construction.” Phoenix 51, no. 3/4 (1997): p. 264. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1192539 (accessed September 3, 2023).

p. 69: “Clement of Alexandria”: Clement of Alexandria, The Exhortation to the Greeks, translated by G. W. Butterworth, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), 2.30, p. 73. Also https://www.theoi.com/Text/ClementExhortation1.html (accessed October 15, 2023).

p. 70: “fig was sacred”: Athenaeus, Deipnosophists volume 1, 3.78c, translated by Charles Gulick (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961) p. 339.

p. 70: “Herodotus refers”: Herodotus, The History, translated by Grene, 2.48.

p. 70: “The bridegroom’s fig”: Aristophanes, Peace, translator uncredited, (4th to last line). https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2571/2571-h/2571-h.htm (accessed June 24, 2023).

Acorn

p. 71: “Famine and blight”: Hesiod, Works and Days, translated by Dorothea Wender (NYC: Penguin Classics, 1973), lines 230 – 234 p. 66.

p. 72: “Off they went”: Homer, Odyssey, 10.266-8, translated by Fagles, p. 238.

p. 72: “We’ll set desserts”: Plato, The Republic, 372c-d, Book 2, p, 49. translated by Alan Bloom (NYC: Basic Books Inc., 1968).

p. 72: “Arcadians who lived”: Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, translated by R.C. Seaton, Book 4: p. 313; also https://www.gutenberg.org/files/830/830-h/830-h.htm#chap06 (accessed October 15, 2023).

p. 72: “Later the acorn”: Ovid, Fasti, translated by A.S. Kline, Book IV, April 12, p. 125. https://www.poetryintranslation.com/klineasfasti.php (accessed September 2, 2023).

p. 72: “rich in unsaturated”: Beltrão Martins, Rita et al. “Acorn Flour as a Source of Bioactive Compounds in Gluten-Free Bread,” Molecules 25(16),3568. (6 Aug. 2020). https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules25163568 (accessed September 2, 2023).

p. 73: “provides 501 calories”: “Nuts, acorn flour, full fat,” U.S. Department of Agriculture. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/170566/nutrients (accessed September 2, 2023).