A philosopher worthy to bear the title of cook, or a cook worthy to be a philosopher, according to the numerous curious passages scattered in Athenaeus, was an extraordinary genius, endowed not merely with a natural aptitude, but with all acquired accomplishments.  The philosophy, or the metaphysics, of cookery appears in the following passage:—­

    “Know then, the COOK, a dinner that’s bespoke,
    Aspiring to prepare, with prescient zeal
    Should know the tastes and humours of the guests;
    For if he drudges through the common work,
    Thoughtless of manner, careless what the place
    And seasons claim, and what the favouring hour
    Auspicious to his genius may present,
    Why, standing ’midst the multitude of men,
    Call we this plodding fricasseer a Cook? 
    Oh differing far! and one is not the other! 
    We call indeed the general of an army
    Him who is charged to lead it to the war;
    But the true general is the man whose mind,
    Mastering events, anticipates, combines;
    Else is he but a leader to his men! 
    With our profession thus:  the first who comes
    May with a humble toil, or slice, or chop,
    Prepare the ingredients, and around the fire
    Obsequious, him I call a fricasseer! 
    But ah! the cook a brighter glory crowns! 
    Well skill’d is he to know the place, the hour,
    Him who invites, and him who is invited,
    What fish in season makes the market rich,
    A choice delicious rarity!  I know
    That all, we always find; but always all,
    Charms not the palate, critically fine. 
    Archestratus, in culinary lore
    Deep for his time, in this more learned age
    Is wanting; and full oft he surely talks
    Of what he never ate.  Suspect his page,
    Nor load thy genius with a barren precept. 
    Look not in books for what some idle sage
    So idly raved; for cookery is an art
    Comporting ill with rhetoric; ’tis an art
    Still changing, and of momentary triumph! 
    Know on thyself thy genius must depend. 
    All books of cookery, all helps of art,
    All critic learning, all commenting notes,
    Are vain, if, void of genius, thou wouldst cook!”
      The culinary sage thus spoke:  his friend
    Demands, “Where is the ideal cook thou paint’st?”
    “Lo, I the man?” the savouring sage replied. 
    “Now be thine eyes the witness of my art! 
    This tunny drest, so odorous shall steam,
    The spicy sweetness so shall steal thy sense,
    That thou in a delicious reverie
    Shalt slumber heavenly o’er the Attic dish!”

In another passage a Master-Cook conceives himself to be a pupil of Epicurus, whose favourite but ambiguous axiom, that “Voluptuousness is the sovereign good,” was interpreted by the bon-vivans of antiquity in the plain sense.