проф. Мачей Кокошко, Здравето и кулинарното изкуство в античния и византийския период

Health and Culinary Art in Antiquity and Byzantium

The lecture is to support the hypothesis of existence an actual connection between  culinary art and dietetics in antiquity and Byzantium by means of exemplifying the presence of the dietetic knowledge in the literature of Antiquity and Byzantium.

The existence of this connection has been observed and proved by the author of the lecture in his publications over the past decade but especially in his study in fish and fish products in late Antiquity and early Byzantium (Ryby i ich znaczenie w życiu codziennym ludzi późnego antyku i wczesnego Bizancjum (III–VII w.) [The importance of fish in the everyday life of the people of late Antiquity and early Byzantium [III-VII c.], Łódź 2005) and in the recently composed chapter on Constantinopolitan nutritional patterns (Smaki Konstantynopola [Flavours of Constantinople], [in:] Konstantynopol. Miasto i ludzie w okresie wczesnobizanyńskim [Constantinople. The city and its ihabitants in the early Byzantine period], eds. M. J. Leszka, T. Wolińska, Warszawa 2011, p. 471-575). However, analogous methodological remarks were made (independently and regardless of the applicant’s own research) by Andrew Dalby (Flavours of Byzantium, Blackawton, Totnes, Devon 2003) and recently repeated in his Tastes of Byzantium. The cuisine of a legendary empire,  London–New York 2010.

The first part of the lecture is to single out elements of dietetic knowledge/lore present outside medical literature (first and foremost in Deipnosophists by Athenaeus of Naucratis and Geoponica). The part of the presentation is to help assess popularization of  dietetic doctrines throughout Antiquity and early Byzantium. 

Subsequently, the lecture will analyze select recipes taken from De coquinaria (i.e. the recipes for sauces [oxyporum, oxygarum digesti bile, oenogarum], flavoured salts, sales conditi, spiced wine, conditum paradoxum, honey wine, conditum melizomum viatorum, Roman absinth, absintium Romanum, rose wine, rosatum, vegetable purée, pulmentarium, the soups called tisana vel sucus and tisana barrica, and finally the commentary on nettles) and show their analogies to the doctrines present in medical writings.