We like the taste of pheasant fetched from far-off Colchis, we like African guinea-fowl: they are hard to get. White geese and ever-colourful ducks are commonplace flavours. We want the parrot-wra**e, transplanted from distant shores; we want fish from Libyan reefs that cost a shipwreck to bring to Rome: we're tired of grey mullet. We fancy a mistress, not a wife. Roses are under threat from cinnamon. What's best is what has to be hunted for.
Petronius, Satyricon 93. Translation partly published in Andrew Dalby, Empire of Pleasures (Routledge, 2000) p. 266
Ales Phasiacis petita Colchis
atque Afrae volucres placent palato,
quod non sunt faciles: at albus anser
et pictis anas renovata pennis
plebeium sapit. Vltimis ab oris
attractus scarus atque arata Syrtis
si quid naufragio dedit, probatur:
mulus iam gravis est. Amica vincit
uxorem. Rosa cinnamum veretur.
Quicquid quaeritur, optimum videtur.