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List of contents
Dedication
List of Figures and Tables
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: On the Tip of the Tongue: Making Sense of Ancient Taste
Kelli C. Rudolph
1. Tastes of Greek Poetry: From Homer to Aristophanes
Sarah Hitch
2. Tastes of Reality: Epistemology and the Senses in Ancient Philosophy
Kelli C. Rudolph
3. Tastes in Ancient Botany, Medicine and Science: Bitter Herbs and Sweet Honey
Laurence Totelin
4. Tastes of Homer: Matro’s Gastroaesthetic Tour Through Epic
Mario Telò
5. Tasting the Roman World
Emily Gowers
6. Tastes from Beyond: Persephone's Pomegranate and Otherworldly Consumption in Antiquity
Meredith J. C. Warren
7. Tastes of Roman Italy: Early Roman Expansion and Taste Articulation
Laura Banducci
8. Tastes and Digestion: Archaeology and Medicine in Roman Italy
Patricia Baker
9. Tastes of Meat in Antiquity: Integrating the Textual and Zooarchaeological Evidence
Michael MacKinnon
10. Tastes in the Roman Provinces: An Archaeobotanical Approach to Socio-Cultural Change
Alexandra Livarda
11. Tastes of Wine: Sensorial Wine Analysis in Ancient Greece
Thibaut Boulay
12. Tastes of the Extraordinary: Flavour Lists in Imperial Rome
John Paulas
13. Tastes of Danger and Pleasure in Early and Late Antique Christianity
Béatrice Caseau
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Kelli C. Rudolph is Lecturer in Classics and Philosophy at the University of Kent, Canterbury. She has research interests in ancient perceptual theories and the relationship between Presocratic and Hellenistic philosophy, and is currently working on theoretical approaches to the senses in antiquity.
Summary
Taste and the Ancient Senses explores the use of taste metaphors in Graeco-Roman literature, which provides us with a window into their own theorising about taste. The values and meaning of tastes, food and eating are also revealed through cultural practices and habits which are accessible to us through the literary, historical and material record.
Additional text
Taste is the most corporeal of senses, requiring not only direct physical contact, but the ingestion of substances that will become part of ourselves. Thanks to its association with "low" bodily functions, taste has commonly been held in low regard by idealizing philosophers and other theorists. This multidisciplinary volume, with contributions from historians, literary critics, and material culture specialists, seeks to redress this imbalance through an engaging exploration of the distinctive qualities, characteristics, and experiences of taste in ancient Greece and Rome. It offers much to ruminate on for readers interested in almost any aspect of the ancient world, food history, or the history of the senses.
- Matthew Roller, Professor of Classics, Johns Hopkins University, USA
