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?

TYCHIADES Yes, indeed.

SIMON 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? TYCHIADES Not by any means.

SIMON 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. Plato, Theaetetus178D.