“If you all think that being a cook at Siracusa is easy, you’re completely wrong. People arrive at the harbour here from all over the world and you have to know everyone’s tastes. People from Rhodes for example, want as an aperitivo a cup of hot wine that smells of fish (...). If you stick a fine squid in it, you’ll make them happy” (…). People from Byzantium like a lot of garlic and a pinch of aniseed (…). The Corinthians don’t even want to know about Athenian cooking.
Then you need a good eye to choose your master. You have to scent immediately what sort of person you’re dealing with (...). It might be that first of all he tells you great things about the magnificence of his house, and then once there, you find yourself having to do everything by yourself. If by any chance you dare to protest a little, he might even be capable of beating you, and when it’s time to pay, he makes a great fuss and doesn’t even want to give you what had been agreed, using excuses like - there wasn't enough vinegar in the lentils (...). By now however, I’ve had quite a lot of experience, and I don’t even consider people of that type. You have to read the good clients straight away and not let them get away; for example, you have to understand who the merchants are who go back home with a tidy sum having done good business here at the harbour. Another client to appreciate is the wastrel from a good family, who is wasting his inheritance with loose women (…) I’m not just saying this, but here in the square I’m one of the best paid. Because I know how to advertise myself and when I enter someone's house I give myself certain airs (…) I manage to appear important! If I have to set up a banquet, I feel a bit like a general: I distribute responsibilities, precise orders; I shout, yell, and sometimes at the right time, box a few ears (…). This is also a surefast method of keeping the masters of the house out of the kitchen (…).
You’d never guess what sort of kitchens I find. Empty of everything; no vinegar, no fennel seeds, no oregano, no fig-leaves to make meat rolls, no oil, no almonds, garlic, cooked must, leeks, or onions! There’s never any sylphius and even salt and wood are missing… I have to bring everything with me (…). Not to boast, but I am one of the really serious few cooks on the piazza. Not like some of my colleagues whose nose is always dripping and snotty, who can’t smell and can’t breath in to judge the perfume of their sauces. There are some who have depraved tastes and use their tongues for other business and not in the kitchen (…). Others are too heavy-handed with the salt, others are so greedy that by tasting continuously, they leave the pans almost empty. Then there’s always someone horny who goes chasing after a servant or nanny in the house and leaves the things to burn on the stove (…) without mentioning those who can’t stand smoke or fire and who are reduced to tears and with such red eyes they look like a mask from a tragedy.
I hope you’ve all realised that I, without failings - almost - am the number one cook in Siracusa. In my profession I’ve earned more than any of our most famous actors will ever earn in all his life (…). My art happens in an empire of perfumed smokes. I’m also an inventor, because it was I who invented the use of royal lentils at the house of Agathocles. But I’ve done even better; everyone talks so much about a certain Lacares, who being generous with his friends in times of famine, happened to feed Minerva in disguise (…) What about me? Feed Minerva? I feed Zeus with all his mates in the Olympus (…) the thundering god now only wants to feed with the smoke from my fires (…). I have him practically in the palm of my hand and if I don’t cook, he’ll die of hunger!"
Marzo 2021