As for knowing how to talk appropriately and to act in such a way as to become intimate and show himself extremely devoted to his patron, do not you think that this shows intelligence and highlydeveloped knowledge?
Yes, indeed.
And at banquets, to go away with more than anybody else, enjoying greater favour than those who do
not possess the same art—-do you think that can
be managed without some degree of theory and
wisdom ?
What about knowing the merits and defects of
bake-stuffs and made dishes? Does that seem to you
matter for an untrained man’s bumptious inquisitiveness? Yet excellent Plato says:
When a man is
about to partake of a banquet, if he be not versed
in the art of cookery, his opinion of the feast in
preparation is something deficient in weight.