[Sca-cooks] anthimus

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise:
>question: I seem to remember from discussion on this list in the past
>that people in our period might not have been familiar with Anthimus,
>but I may have mixed that up with something else. Anyone got input on
>this.

I don't remember the conversation, but after all, Anthimus' treatise 
_is_ a letter, after all, so it's conceivable it wasn't something 
that became public knowledge for quite some time. I mean, it's not a 
book that was published, and while we have plenty of manuscripts that 
scribes thought worth copying and disseminating, this doesn't 
necessarily have to be one of them.

On the other hand, if it represents a snapshot of contemporary eating 
habits, even an incomplete one or one which is not consistent with 
some as yet undiscovered snapshot/document, it doesn't mean people 
didn't follow similar foodways to those described by Anthimus.

There's a great variance between extant Roman sources, too, for 
example, and as far as I know, no really compelling evidence that 
late Imperial Romans were especially familiar with Apicius. Mostly 
what we can surmise is that if he is indeed the author, we have a 
chance to narrow his identity down to two likely contenders, and 
maybe a long shot or two, which is much of what gives us a sense of 
when it was originally written.

In short, I don't think the phenomenon you're describing, if I 
understand you correctly, is all that unusual. Or am I missing 
something in your question?

Adamantius

-- 




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them 
eat cake!"
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
	-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry 
Holt, 07/29/04