It was in Siracusa that the temperate and austere Greek cuisine was transformed into art. Polèmone of Athens, geographer and traveller at the time of the Punic Wars, tells us that in Sicily the Greeks had founded a temple dedicated to the goddess of gluttony, Adefagìa, who also protected cooks (megeiros). The site of this sanctuary is unknown (cited four centuries later by the philosopher Claudio Eliano) but it was probably in Siracusa which was already known as the gastronomical capital of the Mediterranean in the 5th century B.C., home of the first professional cooks and to the oldest cooking school. The hefty work, Deipnosofisti (philosophers at the banquet), written by Atheneo of Naucratis in the 2nd Century A.D. is a wealth of information regarding cooks from Siracusain Antiquity. He, together with Plato, Aristophanes and Gorgias, tells us the name of the first known “chef”, Miteco of Siracusa, author of a large recipe book called “On the Sicilian cook” of which we only have a single recipe for “Cèpola”, a “poor” fish, red and of an elongated shape: “Cut its head. Wash it and chop it up in pieces. Cover it with cheese and oil and cook it.”.
Despite the simplicity, the sophist Maximus of Tirus considered Miteco as great a cook as Phidias was a sculptor. He travelled to Sparta to teach his art and taught the principles of balancing tastes and ingredients but was met by resistance from the Spartan cooks who thought his emphatic, sophisticated cuisine, rich in condiments and elaborate sauces, didn’t really fit their sober nutritional habits. But he met more fortune in Athens.
Atheneo’s book records large quotes from the Hedypatheia (The pleasures of the palate) by Archestratus, a 4th-century poet from Gela, polistor (of great culture), probably a scholar of the gastronomer Terpisione, who is thought to have been the precursor to Epicurus and who said of himself that he had travelled every land and every sea to find the best food and wine. The doctor Daphnos of Ephesus says this about him:
“Archestrato took a trip around the world to fill his stomach and other baser appetites and said: ‘eat a slice of Sicilian tuna, when it is cut and ready to be salted and placed in jars. But the perch, the aroma of the Pontus, I would give to the lower regions, just as those who laud it do. As there aren’t many mortals who think it is a poor meal. However, keep a mackerel out of the water for three days before starting the brine, still fresh in the jar and only half salted. And if you go to the splendid city of Byzantium, eat - I beg you - a slice of horaion as it is truly succulent.”.