Food Preparation in Ancient Greece: Representations of Gender Roles in the Literary Evidence

Abstract

There are two high-grade restaurants in Devon,¹ The Carved Angel in Dartmouth and Gidleigh Park Hotel in Chagford. At the first at the time of writing, the head chef is a woman, at the second a man. This happy state of affairs is exceptional in the United Kingdom and in many other cultures. With some exceptions, in Britain and elsewhere high-status cooking of this kind is performed by men, while lower-status cooking, particularly in the home, is performed by women. A further contrast between the two establishments may be seen in the way in which staff are organized. At The Carved Angel, with the exception of the chef Joyce Molyneux, everyone in turn cooks and waits at table, while at Gidleigh Park a more authoritarian regime obtains under which young apprentices either wait at table or stay in the kitchen. Gender roles of this kind are remarkably distinct in British culture, at a domestic level as much as at the luxury end of the market. It is important for us to bear this in mind when looking at the ancient Greeks who to our eyes inhabited a culture which was overtly sexist and also slave-owning.