Chapter 10 - Pun-fried Concoctions: Wor(l)d-Blending in the Roman Kitchen

Summary

When the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus compared the cosmos to a posset of barley, cheese and wine (kukeōn) whose ingredients separated if they were not stirred, he spawned other alimentary images for states of many-in-oneness, from variegated poetry to modern multicultural societies. This chapter explores the reception of Heraclitus’ image in later Greek and Latin literature. Plautus’ cook-figures and culinary neologisms have been read as analogues for the poet’s versatile reassembly of Greek culture, while an epic pun in Virgil’s Aeneid frames as “child’s play” a special moment in etymological, culinary and territorial history. In the pseudo-Virgilian Moretum, a peasant’s miniature cosmos takes shape, culminating in the production of a garlic- and herb-flavoured cheese whose many-in-oneness gave a motto to the United States of America (e pluribus unum). At Petronius’ Cena Trimalchionis, dishes based on verbal and visual puns reinforce the freedmen’s liminal identity. Culinary conglomerates have repeatedly transcended their ludic, extemporized contexts to serve the politics and aesthetics of diversity, from antiquity to modern times.