The most convenient way to enjoy food and wine without suffering from indigestion, gout, obesity or hangovers, is to read about them. But not always is one successful. Often, when reading a biography, a novel or a travel book, I look up from the page and mutter crossly: ‘Very interesting…but what did they eat and drink?’ Fortunately for people like me, however, there is a fulsome and active branch of literature which concerns eating and drinking – from the earliest times of recorded writing to the present day. As well as full-length narratives or collections of pieces by one author, there are many anthologies which gather together diverse essays, poetry, reminiscences and reports of meals or wines or occasions enjoyed or endured, from many sources and authors. I have enough of these on my shelves always to have one to read or re-read – and as I shall show on this page next week, new collections well worth buying are coming along every year.
For your sainted editor an even bigger thrill is that Cyprus Gourmet now attracts people to write about their experiences for us. A 2009 summer visitor from South Africa recalls a memorable lunch experience in Paphos and an old English friend accounts for a very gentlemanly (and slightly unusual) piss-up. Who knows? One day not too far away we may even publish an anthology of our own.
We all have a meal-time idyll to remember – one of mine is of a simple lunch of gorgeously fresh fish by the sea in glorious June sunshine at Monemvasia in Peloponessos with my wife and daughter. It being a weekday and before the holiday season, we were the only diners, looked after by the daughter of the house – father was grilling the fish.
