Andrew Dalby

SIREN FEASTS

A very serious and extraordinarily erudite work ... It will surely remain for some time the definitive [source] on Greek food and gastronomy, and as a standard reference work it will be regularly plundered via its quite excellent indexes every time anyone wants to know ... how the Greeks ate -- Roger Just in the Times Literary Supplement

A veritable mine of information ... Andrew Dalby succeeds admirably in combining entertainment value with scholarship, and the result is an eminently readable and highly original volume -- Richard Harrison in Greek Gazette

No review can do justice to the packed detail in this unique book, drawing on the archaeology of prehistoric sites, the inventories of shipwrecked cargoes, ruined storerooms, vase-painting and literature -- Lesley Chamberlain in Financial Times

A real treat for food enthusiasts -- Rena Salaman in Hampstead & Highgate Express

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Winner of a Runciman Award 1996

Cheese, wine, honey and olive oil -- four of Greece's most familiar contributions to culinary culture -- were already well known four thousand years ago. Siren Feasts traces the unbroken tradition of Greek cuisine from prehistoric times right up to the present day. Comprehensive and beautifully illustrated, it is invaluable and engaging reading for all students and teachers of Greek history and everyone who is interested in the gastronomic tradition of Greece and has been (almost) universally praised.

336 pages. November 1995
37 halftones and line drawings
ISBN 0-415-15657-2. London and New York: Routledge

Additions and corrections

Additions, expansions, afterthoughts and even a few corrections to my books and articles appear regularly on this site. The latest items are here.

Contents

1. The Way These People Sacrifice
Part I: The Prehistoric Aegean
2. The Gardens of Alcinous
Part II: Food and Gastronomy of the Classical Aegean
3. Divine Inventions
4. In the Feasts of the Lydians
5. Sicilian Tables
Part III: Food and Gastronomy of the Post-Classical Aegean
6. Lemons of the Hesperides
7. Strymonian Eels
8. The Imperial Synthesis
Part IV: The Byzantine and Later Aegean
9. Biscuits from Byzantium
Notes (55 pages)
Bibliography (20 pages)
Index of ancient and medieval sources (10 pages)
Greek index of foodstuffs, with modern Greek, Turkish, English and scientific Latin equivalents (13 pages)
General index (11 pages)