Tha lack of Ancient Greek cook books does not permit us to define the most popular cooking method in ancient Greece.
Our main written source for cook books, cooks and their techinique is Athenaeus of Naukratis.
Thanks to Athenaeus we have some extracts of the work of Mithekus* ( The first author of a cooking book in history
) Archestratus , Erasestratus, Filoxenus, Glaukus.
The problem for modern researchers seems to be that the ancient cooking books were addressing to the professional cooks that suppose to already know the portions and the cooking techniques. Those book were not suppose to teach amateurs.
So the recipes where mostly catalogues of ingredients that a specific course should contain.
Athenaeus though gives us some a recipe of Archestratus about fried shark. In this recipe Archestratus gives specific directions on how dep the frying must be.As he mentions in the extract , shark was an unknown ingredient so he felt obliged to give some explanations on how to cook it.
The fried shark brought us to the other big issue. When the Greeks started to use olive oil in their cooking. We must agere that in the 5th century BC that cooking was already considered a serious task and the word gastronomy appears in the attic dialect , olive oil was in use in cooking.
Excavations have some things to tell us on that too. We have found all sort of kitchen utensil. Casseroles, pans,grills even equipment for bain-mari!! Not to mention the variety in utensils used for baking bread!!
* The story of the Mithekus and the first cookbook in History is very strange . How cannot be strange since Plato is involved in the subject and he created the same problem with Atlantis. But I will mention his story in the Atlantis thread
PS Cape Chef, I couldn't help noticing that you are searching for Mother Tethys.
I might meet her tonight. Do you want me to tell her anything on your behalf? Please let me know
