Cooking and Processing Fish in Antiquity: Questions of Taste and Texture

Abstract

Scholars have sometimes given the impression that the consumption of fish in the ancient world was most importantly an obsession of the wealthy and corrupt. The politics of fish-eating however is only one small part of the interaction of the Greeks and Romans with fish. The written record shows the widest engagement with fish, their variety and names, along with the cooking, preparation and processing of them. My paper shows that fish are embedded in the cooking codes of the Greeks relating to sacrifice and medicine, and that while fish are wild animals living in an element hostile to human beings, they may also be assimilated into a healthy human body because of their similarity to us. At all times taste is a crucial factor, producing both the perfectly cooked meal and the best state of health in the body—the balancing of the humours.