Andrew Dalby

"Delightful and complex. When Dalby blends the spices, the result is unique and irresistible."—Alan Davidson, author of The Oxford Companion to Food

The Story of Spices

Dangerous Tastes

Describes the food and eating customs during the Byzantine Empire.

The Cuisine of a Legendary Empire

Tastes of Byzantium

This, the first in a series of 'biographies' of famous gods and goddesses from The British Museum is ideal reading for all who enjoy popular biography and travel writing and tells the story of the god Bacchus, also known as Dionysus. It begins on the banks of the River Asopos at Thebes, where Zeus, all-seeing king of the gods, caught sight of the beautiful mortal Semele. The baby Bacchus was the result of their brief affair, delivered, it is said, from a womb fashioned in his father's thigh and with tiny horns protruding from his head. Thus a strange beginning was to lead to even stranger tales, passed down through generations of dramatists, poets, story-tellers and historians to become today mere myths from a long-ago world. Pieced together here, they tell of Bacchus's youth spent on Mount Nysa among the nymphs and Satyrs; of his relentless pursuit by the anger of the goddess Hera; of his victory over India while still a mortal; and of his many love affairs, most famously with Ariadne. But Bacchus is best remembered for his gift to humanity of wine. With it he brought pleasure, but also savagery and death. With many intriguing episodes drawn from an astonishing range of sources - including obscure and fragmentary records detailing the songs chanted by initiates at secret rites - this biography brings the strangely powerful wine-god to life as never before.

The Story of Bacchus

a global history

Cheese

Bacchus

An evocative survey of the sensory culture of the Roman Empire, showing how the Romans themselves depicted their food, wine and entertainments in literature and in art.

Luxury and Indulgence in the Roman World

Empire of Pleasures

A literary portrait of the epic songwriter and poet traces the historical origins of the Odyssey and the Iliad, describing the culture that shaped their first-generation audiences while exploring theories about how both poems were written by a single, female poet.

Inside the Origins of the Epic

Rediscovering Homer

Sally Grainger

The updated edition of this best-selling cookbook features a delicious collection of recipes from every strata of classical civilization, all accessible to the contemporary cook. Using a subtle mix of sweet and sour flavours, fragrant herbs, creamy cheesecakes and hearty red wines, ancient Mediterranean cuisine is brought to life. Pioneering the exploration of menus and manners of ancient Greece and Rome, The Classical Cookbook features adaptations of 49 sumptuous dishes. Sitting alongside sun-soaked recipes are rich illustrations of murals, marbles and mosaics, plus lively commentary painting a vibrant picture of everyday wining and dining in the ancient world. The Classical Cookbook will prove that we can still enjoy Terrine of Asparagus, Sweet Wine Cakes, Olive Relish or even Toronaean Shark. Featuring step-by-step instructions, the modern cook will be able to tackle everything from simple meals and street food through to lavish banquets and wedding feasts with an authentic Ancient Greek and Roman flair.

The Classical Cookbook

You’ve heard it from doctors, nutritionists, and your mom: breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It’s also one of the most diverse, varying greatly from family to family and region to region, even while individuals tend to eat the same thing every day. While Americans traditionally like to chow down on eggs, cereal, and doughnuts, the Japanese eat rice and miso soup, and New Zealanders enjoy porridge. But while we know bacon and sausage links belong alongside pancakes and waffles in the early morning hours, we don’t know how breakfast came to be. Taking a multifaceted approach to the story of the morning meal, The Breakfast Book collects narratives of breakfast in an attempt to pin down the mottled history of eating in the A.M. In search of what people have thought and written—and tasted—about breakfast, Andrew Dalby traces the meal’s origins back to the Neolithic revolution. He follows the trail of toast crumbs from the ancient Near East and classical Greece to modern Europe and across the globe, rediscovering stories of breakfast in three thousand years of fiction, memoirs, and art. Using a multitude of entertaining breakfast facts, anecdotes, and images, he reveals why breakfast is so often the backdrop for unexpected meetings, why so many people eat breakfast out, and why this often silent meal is also so reassuring. Featuring a selection of historic and contemporary breakfast recipes from around the world, The Breakfast Book is the first book to explore the history of this inimitable meal and will make an ideal morning companion to crumpets, deviled kidneys, and spanakopita alike.

The Breakfast Book

Covering the political, social and historical background of each language, Dictionary of Languages offers a unique insight into human culture and communication. Every language with official status is included, as well as all those that have a written literature and 175 'minor' languages with special historical or anthropological interest. We see how, with the rapidly increasing uniformity of our culture as media's influence spreads, more languages have become extinct or are under threat of extinction. The text is highlighted by maps and charts of scripts, while proverbs, anecdotes and quotations reveal the features that make a language unique.

The definitive reference to more than 400 languages

Dictionary of Languages

Marcus Porcius Cato

The introduction places the man and his work in context and discusses specific problems of textural arrangement and organization and agricultural practice. There are several drawings to aid appreciation of Cato’s descriptions of buildings and equipment. A book of instruction about the cultivation of vines, olives and fruit, the management of slaves and contract labour, the rituals consequent on ownership and even cookery for humans and the pharmacy. Because of its date, the 2nd century BC, it is a particularly important resource for students of Latin and of early Roman society.

De Agricultura

This is a study of the food that was eaten at the court of the Eastern Roman Empire at Constantinople in the Middle Ages. For centuries it has tempted and fascinated the West, yet very little has been written in English about the foods they ate or the recipes they cooked from. Dalby gives an entertaining account of the dining customs of the Emperors as witnessed by the Greeks and by foreign visitors. He tells of the medical theories that underlay their diet; of their opinions of the raw materials available; and stretches in a calendar of the seasons and how they affected the food on the table. This is underpinned by new translations from the Greek of important medieval treatises on diet, flavors, raw materials and cookery. Andrew Dalby is a classical scholar, food historian and student of languages.

Flavours of Byzantium

Chryssi Bourbou

Johannes Koder

Maria Leontsinē

Tastes and Pleasures of Ancient and Byzantine Cuisine

Flavours and Delights

Take a slice of bread. It’s perfectly okay in and of itself. Maybe it has a nice, crisp crust or the scent of sourdough. But really, it’s kind of boring. Now melt some cheese on it—a sharp Vermont cheddar or a flavorful Swiss Gruyere. Mmm, delicious. Cheese—it’s the staple food, the accessory that makes everything better, from the hamburger to the ordinary sandwich to a bowl of macaroni. Despite its many uses and variations, there has never before been a global history of cheese, but here at last is a succinct, authoritative account, revealing how cheese was invented and where, when, and even why. In bite-sized chapters well-known food historian Andrew Dalby tells the true and savory story of cheese, from its prehistoric invention to the moment of its modern rebirth. Here you will find the most ancient cheese appellations, the first written description of the cheese-making process, a list of the luxury cheeses of classical Rome, the medieval rule-of-thumb for identifying good cheese, and even the story of how loyal cheese lover Samuel Pepys saved his parmesan from the great Fire of London. Dalby reveals that cheese is one of the most ancient of civilized foods, and he suggests that our passion for cheese may even lay behind the early establishment of global trade. Packed with entertaining cheese facts, anecdotes, and images, Cheese also features a selection of historic recipes. For those who crave a pungent stilton, a creamy brie, or a salty pecorino, Cheese is the perfect snack of a book.

A Global History

Cassianus Bassus (Scholasticus.)

This remarkable anthology of classical agricultural texts, entitled `Farm Work' or Geoponika, was compiled at the behest of the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (AD 913-959). Under his direction a series of handbooks was produced, distilling useful knowledge from more than a millennium of Greek and Latin writing on various subjects of practical use from diplomacy and siege warfare to farming. It is of particular value to modern scholars because it quotes from texts that have long since been lost to the world, particularly from authors of the late classical period whose works reflected the agricultural practices of Anatolia, Africa and the Near East. Although the Geoponika has been known in Britain since it was first published here in 1704, there has only been the one English translation, by the Rev. Thomas Owen in 1804/5. Andrew Dalby has considered the original afresh, leaning on the more modern edition of the Greek by Beckh in 1894, and has come up with a more fluent and comprehensible version for the present-day reader. His expertise in matters of food and cookery in the classical and Byzantine world has contributed greatly to the wider utility of his translation. So little is known, or published, about Byzantine food culture and domestic economy that this book should be a really important step forward for students and scholars alike.

Farm Work : a Modern Translation of the Roman and Byzantine Farming Handbook

Geoponika

Rachel Dalby

What do we think about when we think about Greek food? For many, it is the meze and the traditional plates of a Greek island taverna at the height of summer. In Gifts of the Gods, Andrew and Rachel Dalby take us into and beyond the taverna in our minds to offer us a unique and comprehensive history of the foods of Greece. Greek food is brimming with thousands of years of history, lore, and culture. The country has one of the most varied landscapes of Europe, where steep mountains, low-lying plains, rocky islands, and crystal-blue seas jostle one another and produce food and wine of immense quality and distinctive taste. The book discusses how the land was settled, what was grown in different regions, and how certain fruits, herbs, and vegetables became a part of local cuisines. Moving through history—from classical to modern—the book explores the country’s regional food identities as well as the export of Greek food to communities all over the world. The book culminates with a look at one of the most distinctive features of Greece’s food tradition—the country’s world renown hospitality. Illustrated throughout and featuring traditional recipes that blend historical and modern flavors, Gifts of the Gods is a mouth-watering account of a rich and ancient cuisine.

A History of Food in Greece

Gifts of the Gods

Cheese, wine, honey and olive oil - four of Greece's best known contributions to culinary culture - were already well known four thousand years ago. Remains of honeycombs and of cheeses have been found under the volcanic ash of the Santorini eruption of 1627 BC. Over the millennia, Greek food diversified and absorbed neighbouring traditions, yet retained its own distinctive character. In Siren Feasts, Andrew Dalby provides the first serious social history of Greek food. He begins with the tunny fishers of the neolithic age, and traces the story through the repertoire of classical Greece, the reputations of Lydia for luxury and of Sicily and South Italy for sybaritism, to the Imperial synthesis of varying traditions, with a look forward to the Byzantine cuisine and the development of the modern Greek menu. The apples of the Hesperides turn out to be lemons, and great favour attaches to Byzantine biscuits. Fully documented and comprehensively illustrated, scholarly yet immensely readable, Siren Feasts demonstrates the social construction placed upon different types of food at different periods (was fish a luxury item in classical Athens, though disdained by Homeric heroes?). It places diet in an economic and agricultural context; and it provides a history of mentalities in relation to a subject which no human being can ignore.

A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece

Siren Feasts

The life story of the irresistibly beautiful love-goddess Venus--sensual, sexy, and seductive--as never told before.

Andrew Dalby

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