WILLIAM FISHER, an assistant professor in the art department, showed his series of five panels, 14" by 18" each (Intaglio, Chine Colleí, Ink Jet Print) at the 1998 Annual Faculty of the School of Visual Arts and Dance Show.

    "I remember as a child looking through a book on human psychology. I came across a series of images, hand drawn, of "Tom". The first showed a serious, handsome, distinguished face with the caption How Tom Sees Himself. The next image showed a more friendly looking face, slightly pudgy, approachable, captioned with How Tom's Friends See Him.     There were several more along this vein, all slightly different but obviously the same person. For some time now my work has focused on the quantification of humans, of intellect, the standardized way of judging societal fitness and good citizenship.
    The text was altered from the way I remember it, in an attempt to give it a double meaning, How We Look in this context would mean how we search. How We Think We Look To Others would be read as how we seek what we need within other people and so on. The repetitive nature of the images, the convolutions of the theme and text, the storybook constellations floating around the real worlds of the drawings, all add, I hope, to the absurdity of this world view, and relate to its adolescent, strangely convincing basis"-William Fisher

    PHYLLIS PRAY BOBER, a distinguished art historian, is the 1997-98 Appleton Eminent Scholar in the Arts. Bober, known worldwide for her work on ancient and Renaissance art, has increasingly turned her attention to the study of the history of food and the culinary arts.
    In the introduction to her new book, tentatively titled Culture and Cuisine and scheduled to be published by the University of Chicago Press in 1999, she writes: "A famous aphorism of the eighteenth-century gastronomer Brillat-Savarin goes: Tell me what you eat; I will tell you what you are. Taken literally, this dictum is said to have led the famous actor Edmund Kean (1787-1833) to dine according to the character he was to play: if a lover, he ate mutton; if a murderer, beef; and, if a tyrant, pork."
    Following are some guidelines to follow, courtesy of Dr. Bober, should you wish to produce your own version of a Roman feast. A convivium in ancient Rome included multi-course meals along with musical and acrobatic entertainment.
"Make this a fine antidote to pervasive ideas of Romans, debased gluttony and libertine ways, even if you opt for as much authenticity as possible (i.e., reclining in triclinial style with no more than nine participants and wearing proper costumes; appropriate entertainment).. . . In any case, use suitable tableware (no forks, of course) and squares of stale bread for individual plates are fun; For serving dishes I have used the pottery receptacles that go under flower-pots since they resemble ordinary Roman household ware."

STEEL-LIFE: PHYLLIS STRAUS, an advisor in the Department of Art who also teaches an advanced sculpture workshop, uses a gas welding technique with sheet steel. After cutting, heating, shaping and welding, vignettes from her life emerge. Life-size, or larger, dogs, horses and children take shape. They are coated with a clear finish, never painted, and left out to rust with time.

PHYLLIS PRAY BOBER'S

GUSTATIO (Hors d'oeuvres)

MULSUM (drink)

MENSA PRIMA :

EMBRACTUM BAIANUM (Delights of Baiae, a seaside resort )

PULLUS FRONTANIANUS ( Chicken a la Fronto)

PATINA DE ASPARAGIS (Asparagus Patina)

SECUNDA MENSA:

DULCIA THEBAICAE (Stuffed Dates in Honey)

PATINA DE PIRIS (Pears)
 

You must prepare a number of cooking aids well ahead of time in order to have them available in labeled containers. The basics are: Garum/liquamen (fermented fish sauce) can be bought in an Asian grocery ; Caroenum (by boiling reduce a bottle of red wine to half its volume) ; Defrutum (reduce fresh unfermented grape juice (must) to one-third volume) .

GUSTATIO (Hors d'oeuvres)

FERCULUM PETRONIANUM: Service a la Petronius. Especially effective if you have a round table large enough to display images of 12 zodiacal signs above each platter of hors d'oeuvres, which pun upon their names or myths. If this spread seems too ambitious, use the dipping sauce given below with hard-boiled eggs and crudites, being careful to avoid anachronistic vegetables (no broccoli, for example, or New World string beans, tomatoes and peppers; squash only of the marrow family, but some newcomers to the supermarket such as taro (colocasia) would be authentic. Some examples of the use of the signs the zodiac with suggestions for appropriate foods are:
    Cancer (Trimalchio's birth sign). Use crab claws for an extravagant feast, crab-apples pickled for a more modest play on words; and,

    Libra (scales holding tarts and cakes). A good spot to include crackers, a high-fiber content variety.

    Hors d'oeuvres should be served with an apertif, mulsum. This is made by mixing honey into dry white wine. I recommend a cheap but nonetheless good wine from Romania (Premiat).

DIPPING SAUCE #1 (for cucumber, celery, romaine lettuce-antiquity did not know our headed lettuces). Mix 1 tsp. honey, 2 tbsps wine vinegar , 2 tsps liquamen (nuoc mam or Philippine patis or Chinese fish sauce), a pinch each of rue and pennyroyal or nepeta (catnip).

DIPPING SAUCE #2 (for hard boiled eggs, etc).
3 garlic cloves, crushed (or 3 drops of tincture of asafoetida and a pinch of dried leaf)
1 tin anchovy fillets, with their oil
2 tbsps olive oil
1 tbsp. flour
1/2 cup wine vinegar
up to 1/2 cup retsina (Greek resinated wine)
freshly ground pepper

    In a mortar, bray anchovies and flour to a smooth paste. Saute garlic in olive oil briefly; add the anchovy mixture and slowly incorporate the vinegar, stirring until smooth and thickened. Season with pepper and gradually add the retsina, stirring at the simmer for about 15 minutes. Cool and serve.

MENSA PRIMA

EMBRACTUM BAIANUM (Delights of Baiae, a seaside resort)

    Steam open 4 lbs of mussels in a 1/4 cup white wine. When shelled mince these, together with 2 containers of shucked oysters poached for a few minutes in their own liquor and the edible roe from 2 lbs of sea-urchins (available Spring and Fall in Italian fish shops. When you break open each testa you will note the cartilaginous "mouth" called "Aristotle's lantern" because the Greek philosopher and naturalist was the first to describe this feature, and because it does resemble an old-fashioned lantern. The orange star-shaped roe or gonads may be lifted out easily). Toast in a slow oven 1/4 cup of pine-nuts, then chop and combine with the sea-foods and a finely chopped stalk of celery. In a mortar crush 6 peppercorns, and equivalent amounts of both coriander and cumin seeds; add a pinch to 1/4 tsp. of rue (can substitute chervil or marjoram). Combine with seafood mixture, together with chopped fresh dates (Apicius specifies "Jerico" dates) to a proportion that seems right for your taste, remembering you wish to balance the sea flavors, not overwhelm them.     Moisten all with olive oil, liquamen, and a sweet wine (made by reducing white wine, boiled with sultana raisins) mixed for sweet-salty harmony, about 1/4 to 1/3 cup in total. Serve cold, if desired in individual shells. It is also possible to serve hot: Bake in a gratin dish for 10 to 15 minutes at 350F. In either case, garnish with green coriander.
 

PULLUS FRONTANIANUS (Chicken A La Fronto)

1 frying chicken, cut in pieces, or 2 lbs. chicken legs and thighs
2 leeks, cleaned and cut in rounds
1 tsp. ground dried savory
1/4 cup olive oil for sauteeing chicken
1 small bunch dill
1 small bunch coriander
4 oz. Pine-nuts
2 to 3 tbsps. Liquamen, or to taste
1/4 cup defrutum (fresh) grape juice reduced to 1/3 volume)
freshly ground pepper

Brown the chicken in the oil without seasoning. Set pieces in one layer in an oiled baking/serving dish, scattering leeks, pine-nuts, chopped herbs among them. Sprinkle with the fish sauce (liquamen) and savory. Bake at 350F for 1/2 hour or until tender. Finish with defrutum and pepper.

PATINA DE ASPARAGIS (Asparagus Patina)

1 lb. Asparagus
1/4 cup wine (rose or vernaccia)
1 small onion
2 or 3 medium eggs
peppercorns, lovage, coriander, savory to taste
olive oil, sweet wine and liquamen

Make a puree of asparagus and 1/4 cup of wine, reserving some tips foor a garnish. Bray in a clean mortar the pepper and herbs (quantity your call; half the fun of Roman cookery is the continual tasting and estimating of cumulative effect). Grate the onion or put through a food mill. Add with the spices to the puree and mix in a mixture of reduced sweet wine and liquamen, plus a bit of oil, enough to moisten the puree but not to turn it soupy. Put all of the mixture into a greased oven-proof, shallow dish; garnish with reserved asparagus. Beat eggs as for scrambling and pour over the puree when it is thoroughly heated in a 325F oven, pushing it to make uneven pools to receive the eggs; continue to bake until eggs are set, sprinkle with freshly ground pepper and serve.

DULCIA THEBAICAE (Stuffed Dates in Honey)

Toast pine-nuts in a slow oven until they color. Take fresh dates, stone them and refill cavities with the toasted nuts, about two to a date. Roll in coarse canning or kosher salt. Heat a skillet full of honey (thyme or rosemary preferred) in which the dates may be spread in one layer. Heat through and serve warm.

PATINA DE PIRIS

6 pears of a firm variety
red or white wine to poach pears (may be mixed with water for economy)
honey
3 or 4 beaten eggs
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsps olive oil
1 tsp liquamen
2 tbsps reduced wine, sweetened by simmering with raisins
pepper

Poach pears until tender; peel and core; reserve two for decoration of the dish. Puree four pears with remaining ingredients, adding eggs and oil last. Pour into a greased pie dish and decorate top with slices of remaining pears arranged in a slightly overlapping circular pattern; glaze top with honey mixed with a little oil. Bake in a 375oF oven for 20 to 25 minutes.