Animal, Vegetable, Mineral.

"The salt is from Paros. I scraped it off a rock."

We were already well into dinner when he set the dish of salt on the table. It defined the evening; I had never known such a primordial, elemental satisfaction at the table. Games of twenty questions and dinner parties both are divided into three categories. Only the boldest of players pick "mineral." In the shimmering heat of a Mediterranean summer, salt is second only to water. There's nothing for a languishing pulse like an anchovy filet, some inky dry-cured olives, handfuls of peanuts roasted in their salty shells (the Cretan accompaniment to tsicoudia)- these breathe lust back into the blood. Condiment? The dish of hand-gathered salt was not less than the crystallization of the elemental. You could imagine it being gathered, too- the quenching wine-dark sea, scorching sun, rocks jutting up and cradling pools of ever thickening sea water, the warm breezes coaxing those pristine crystals to gather at the pools' edges. The sum of months of crashing waves and sun and wind glittered from the dish. I ate it plain, between bites of food. The large flakes etch the lip a little and sting, not unpleasantly.

But as I say we were midway through our evening when the dish of salt appeared. Things started out with very great but entirely conventional promise- the most pleasant of dining companions and host- people whose thoughts you want to hear, people you want to talk to- the key element of a gathering. There was brilliantly tasty wine- a white perfumed with blush- a terrace, the largest and most glorious rosemary bush anyone had ever seen, and a fat view of both the Parthenon and my new favorite, the subtle observatory. The rosemary and lavender filled the breeze; every now and then orange blossoms and jasmine wafted up from the street.  My warm expectations were exceeded before we went down to the table. Then they were turned on their head.

Wrapped in the auspicious paper of a fishmonger was our meal- not in the oven, not on the grill, not in a pan. A gleaming knife lay next to it.

I like two kinds of meals. One is the egalitarian variety of the mezze/zakuski/dim sum table. The other is the absolute supremacy of the vanquished and noble (so graceful our creatures of the sea), and the ritual dismantling of it by skilled hand. So when our host took his knife to that graphite blue tuna and slit it wide open, my pulse quickened, just like at the climax of the Rite of Spring. Organs spilled out onto the countertop and the rich mineral tang of blood filled the room. Poultry blood, or the warm blood of a mammal, that may have been too much for an urban creature. But this blood flowed cool and fresh. He cut the flesh into delicate slices and we ate them with chopsticks, dipping them into a dish of soy sauce. Touching it proved irresistible and I switched to fingertips. The fish was as supple as the deep pink of it indicated.

"Fischblut," Gustav Klimt, 1897. Life flows eternal (from cool veins).

As we lingered over the sashimi and the wine, our host put the liver and the egg sacs into a hot pan for a sear. The eggs were fine and snapping firm, popping to the bite; the liver was silky on the tongue. As a third course, he fried the skin and bones up crisp like fish bacon. The very wholeness of it added to a sense of occasion, indeed ceremony. Not a bit of the fine creature was discarded in vain. 

Were there vegetables, breads? In abundance, but only afterward. Nothing shared the reign of the tuna. As the salt had a provenance, so did everything else- the luscious tomatoes, the baby zucchini. The rawness of the primal feast, so delicate on the tongue, excited an animal vitality, the keenest awareness. When the best of the excellent wines came out- it was lush indeed, a darkest honey-colored white- we could tell it was curiously delicious with the artichokes. (Truly even a caveman knows what a difficult pairing that can be.)