[SCA-Cooks] Medieval cooking for non-cooks

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Sue Clemenger wrote:

> I don't recall Lycaeon, but I double-checked on Tantalus (school was a
> long, LONG time ago).  The sources that Google gave me all
> agreed--according to one of them, serving his son to the gods was some
> sort of test of their omniscience.  Geez, these roman/greek
> types.....<g>


This from Princeton's Greek mythology website:
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 TANTALUS
<http://www.princeton.edu/%7Erhwebb/bar.gif>

Tantalus lived in Asia Minor at a time when gods and men mixed freely and even ate together. Tantalus abused this privilege and served up his son, Pelops, to the gods. They immediately realised what he had done (except Demeter, who was so upset about Persephone that she inadvertently ate a shoulder) and Tantalus was punished in the Underworld by being kept eternally just out of reach of food and drink (hence "to tantalise").

The theme of child-eating occurs also in the myths of Lykaon, Procne and Philomela, and in the story of Tantalus' own grandsons, Atreus and Thyestes.

Pindar, in Olympian 1, mentions the story of Tantalus and Pelops but says he refuses to believe it and offers an alternative version, that Poseidon fell in love with Pelops and took him off to Olympus (as Zeus abducted Ganymede). Tantalus, however, stole the nectar and ambrosia of the gods to serve to his own guests (compare the myth of Prometheus). Pelops was ejected from Olympus as a result.

Both versions of Tantalus' crime involve transgressions of proper boundaries between gods and men, in particular, boundaries regarding food. Like Lykaon, he stands at the turning point in the relationship between mortals and immortals.




LYKAON
<http://www.princeton.edu/%7Erhwebb/bar.gif>

Lykaon: son of Pelasgos and early ruler of Arcadia, a wild and
mysterious region of Greece, he was transformed into a wolf (lykos in
Greek). In Ovid, Metamorphoses 1 his tranformation is described as
punishment for his serving up of a hostage as dinner for Zeus who was
visiting the region to check on the rumors he'd heard. Apollodoros
Bibliotheca, 3.8 tells a slightly different version: Lykaon and one of
his 50 sons mixed up the entrails of a local child with sacrificial meat
and offered it to the disguised Zeus, who killed them all (except for
the youngest son) with his thunderbolt. Yet another variant is given by
Pausanias, 8.2.1: Lykaon was the founder of a city and other
institutions in Arcadia, including the worship of Zeus Lykaios, and was
turned into a wolf for sacrificing a baby to Zeus. Pausanias claims that
this story had been told by the Arcadians for a long time and notes that
he himself is inclined to believe it, since it refers to a time when
such transformations could take place, he is sceptical, however, about
his contemporaries' claims that a man changes into a wolf at each
sacrifice to Zeus Lykaios. (Another variation of this myth, found in the
Suda (a Byzantine encyclopedia) attributes the crime to Lykaon's sons
who mixed human flesh with the sacrificial offering to see if Zeus would
notice. He did.)

Lykaon's father's ancestry varies from author to author: Apollodorus
notes two versions, that Pelasgos was son of Zeus and Niobe and that he
was born from the earth

Lykaon was also father of Kallisto. Her son was Arkas.
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I think it depends on your source, more or less. I remembered Tantalos as having stolen nectar and ambrosia, but again, that probably depends on whether you've been exposed to Tooke, Bullfinch, Hamilton, or the primary-er sources. Is it possible to know the primary source of myth? I suspect, by definition, not.





> --Maire (who was digging through her bookcases this a.m. and found a
> book on egyptian and roman textiles and thought of you, Master
> A.....what century _is_ your persona, anyway? I've always wondered....)

Late 5th century British. We stole that land fair and square hundreds of
years before those darned Angles showed up and ruined everything. The
Normans can just wait in line like everybody else.

Adamantius
--
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com

"It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98