Ancient Roman cuisine
In the beginning, dietary differences between Roman social classes were not great, but disparities developed with the empire's growth.
Most organic foods decay under ordinary conditions, but ashes and animal bones offer some archaeological details about the ancient Roman diet.
Remains of small fish bones, sea urchin spines and mineralized plants have survived in the city's sewers; the plants archaeologists have identified include dill, coriander, flax, lentil, cabbage, opium poppy and various other nuts, fruits and legumes, as well as a diverse variety of fish and shellfish.
At Pompeii, grapes, cheese, bread and pastry were burned and buried in peristyle courtyard gardens as offerings to household Lares.
At mid-day to early afternoon, Romans ate cena,[2] the main meal of the day, and at nightfall a light supper called vesperna.
[2] Among the lower classes of the Roman society, these changes were less pronounced as the traditional routines corresponded closely to the daily rhythms of manual labour.
This meal could last until late in the night, especially if guests were invited, and would often be followed by comissatio, a round of alcoholic beverages (usually wine).
The wealthy commonly ate their puls with eggs, cheese, and honey and it was also occasionally served with meat or fish.
[6] The Roman colonies provided many foods to Rome; the city received ham from Belgium, oysters from Brittany, garum from Mauretania, wild game from Tunisia, silphium (laser) from Cyrenaica, flowers from Egypt, lettuce from Cappadocia, and fish from Pontus.
[13] In particular, spinach and eggplant (aubergine) were introduced later from the Arab world, and tomatoes, potatoes, capsicum peppers, maize (the modern source of polenta)[12] and beans of the Phaseolus genus Phaseolus vulgaris( green - French and runner, lima, kidney)[14][circular reference]only appeared in Europe following the discovery of the New World and the Columbian Exchange.
[15] From 123 BC, a ration of unmilled wheat (as much as 33 kg), known as the frumentatio, was distributed to as many as 200,000 people every month by the Roman state.
[16] Originally flat, round loaves made of emmer (a cereal grain closely related to wheat) with a bit of salt were eaten; among the upper classes, eggs, cheese, and honey, along with milk and fruit were also consumed.
In the Imperial period, around 1 AD, bread made of wheat was introduced; with time, more and more wheaten foods began to replace emmer loaves.
[citation needed] Juscellum was a broth with grated bread, eggs, sage and saffron, described in Apicius, a Roman recipe book of the late 4th or early 5th century.
For instance, on his triumph, Caesar gave a public feast to 260,000 humiliores (poorer people) which featured all three of these foods, but no butcher's meat.
[24] A sumptuary law enacted under Marcus Aemilius Scaurus forbade the eating of dormice, but failed to stop the practice.
[21] Some fish were greatly esteemed and fetched high prices, such as mullet raised in the fishery at Cosa, and "elaborate means were invented to assure its freshness".
Popular fruits included apples, pears, figs, grapes, quinces, citron, strawberries, blackberries, elderberries, currants, damson plums, dates, melons, rose hips and pomegranates.
[33] It could be flavored, for example mixed with wine, or diluted with water (hydrogarum), a form popular among Roman soldiers, although the emperor Elagabalus asserted that he was the first to serve it at public banquets in Rome.
At Pompeii, most houses had separate kitchens, most fairly small, but a few large; the Villa of the Mysteries covers a nine-by-twelve meter area.
[41] A square or dome-shaped construction of brick or stone, these ovens had a flat floor, often of granite and sometimes lava, which were filled with dry twigs and then lit.
[41] On the walls of kitchens were hooks and chains for hanging cooking equipment, including various pots and pans, knives, meat forks, sieves, graters, spits, tongs, cheese-slicers, nutcrackers, jugs for measuring, and pâté moulds.
[41] In Ancient Rome, wine was normally mixed with water immediately before drinking, since the fermentation was not controlled and the alcohol concentration was high.
[42] Those instructions as well as detailed descriptions of Roman viticulture date back to 160 BC in the oldest surviving text written in Latin prose.
One specific recipe, Conditum Paradoxum, is for a mixture of wine, honey, pepper, laurel, dates, mastic, and saffron, cooked and stored for later use.
[42] Sour wine mixed with water and herbs (posca) was a popular drink for the lower classes and a staple part of the Roman soldier's ration.
Spira was a type of sweet pastry that was readily available during this time, made with a thin, cake-like crust sometimes containing fruit.
