ABSTRACT
Food enjoys a particularly well-established and central place in classical Greek literature, which provides a unique and sophisticated reflection of the perils experienced by all subsistence economies. Taste generally refers to an experiment of a fleeting or unique type rather than highlighting a connection with consumption, since epic heroes are not given a choice of food. In Homer and Hesiod, descriptions of eating emphasize surplus and deprivation, reflections of the underlying threat of starvation faced by subsistence communities. The taste of food is not at issue, nor are diners described as choosing among varieties of food. Just as the epic association of musical pleasure and sweetness was to have a profound influence on later poetics of taste, equally important is the development of a negative discourse of eating which anticipates the strong fifth-century bce rhetoric against the dangers of gluttony, consuming the wrong types of food or bad table manners.
