The Boastful Chef

This is a book about Greek culture. It explains why Greek comedy picked out food in particular as a cultural marker. Hundreds of comic fragments are quoted in translation. The development of comedy is explored together with comic creativity as poets sought to represent 'reality' (figs or cooking-pots) on the stage. It is well known that ancient Greek comedy is interested in food and wine. Many plays conclude with a feast: further, they were produced at festivals of Dionysos where eating and drinking took place. This book explains the importance of food to comedy: it was a medium through which comedy could represent the material, social, agricultural, political and religious worlds to the Greek city-state. Comedy was a powerful cultural commentator partly because the foods that it represented were resonant markers of the culture. There could be no comedy without food. Related genres and artefacts are also considered. The text also contains translations of hundreds of comic fragments; and it reassesses the division of comedy into Sicilian and Attic Old, Middle, and New.