You are what you eat...

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Roman Cuisine

The images of emperors, aristocrats and paramours feasting in decadent banquet style are the enduring images most have of Roman cuisine. Rich dainties, flowing purple robes and wines are surely very glamorous. But the story of ancient dining is a story that begins in the fields of Italy and from the sea. It reaches from the farthest corners of the Empire, to the stews of the Suburb and even down through the centuries to Colonial America.

Ones customs and diet mostly depended upon their geographical location and their standard of living in Ancient Rome. Most Romans ate lightly, sparingly on a diet based upon grains, oil and water, the more exotic foods gracing only the tables of the wealthy. For example a poet, Juvenal describes one meal at a dinner party, "OHT". It is known that rich Romans would eat whole plates of peacock tongues. Today, such a meal would make our stomachs churn but in Rome this was considered a very unique meal, a delicacy perhaps. One complicated meal involved stuffing a chicken inside a duck, then the duck inside a goose, then the goose inside a pig, then the pig inside a cow, and cooking the whole thing together. Appalling or appetizing? You decide?

Cereal grains were the staple food. Next to the vegetables so important to the Romans, the foremost crop was frumentum, which was wheat, being one of the major sources of food, either baked into bread or boiled into a porridge. In addition to wheat and vegetables, strongly flavoured sauces, as well as spices and herbs were used generously by the Romans. Olives were another most important crop. The olives were eaten, but most importantly, their oil was used extensively in cooking and for other purposes such as fuel for lamps, perfume and body oils. Grapes were also extensively refined, their main fruit substance, and of course, the wine that nearly all Romans, wealthy or poor drank well watered down or mixed with honey at every meal. The remains of the grapes left after making wine was used as a preservative for foods. Meat was used sparingly by the majority of Romans. During the early Republic, it had been eaten only when an animal was sacrificed to the gods. Later, meat was used more often, a small amount added to the daily porridge, a chicken or a pig slaughtered on the farm to feed the family. From the time of Augustus, meat and fish, which was usually a very expensive item, became a daily item in the diets of most of the wealthy Romans. Many varieties of meat began to be consumed at dinner parties of the wealthy, such as peacock brains, bear, lion, and lark tongues. As Rome expanded her Empire, the variety of foods available to those who could afford them increased. As the population grew so did the demand for more and more grain. Much grain was imported from the provinces and territories, such as Egypt. Other imported foods included spices for Northern Africa, wild animals from Spain, wine from various areas, oysters from Britain, and honey from Greece. Evidence of food uses and types generally comes to us from ancient authors, archaeologist who discovered seeds, animal bones etc…, and paintings of the times. The only work of any length about ancient Roman cooking is the cookbook of Apicius.

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(OHT) This picture here is a recreation of a country kitchen. (READ OHT)

The dining room of the Romans was called the triclinium. Formal eating from the wealthier of Romans was reclining on their left elbows. An interesting aspect of the Roman dining was that they ate sitting on a couch around a table called the mensa. Before placing the food on the mensa it was cut up into small pieces. Romans ate with their right hand. Forks had not appeared, but knives and spoons were used. Waiters were mainly male. Jobs they were expected to complete ranged from pouring cold water and bringing hot towels to washing the diners hands and feet and tying garlands around the heads of guests. They were also responsible for cleaning away food spat out or thrown as spitting or throwing food was a Roman tradition. (OHT) Here we see a platform arranged to form three sides of a square and this explains why their dining room was actually called the Triclinium because when the word is split, tri, meaning three and clinium, meaning reclining places room, hence triclinium means "three reclining places room". This platform would have been spread with pillows to allow for comfortable reclining. There was a strict protocol to the placement of diners. The family reclined on the right, with the host at the top. The rest of the platform was for guests, with the middle segment reserved for distinguished guests. The dinner party was a close affair. The houses of the wealthy Romans usually consisted of several dining rooms to fit the seasons. This particular triclinium would have been intended to take advantage of warmer weather; there would have been another more protected triclinium in this house for colder weather. The triclinium below is just a more detailed picture as we see that the walls are covered in paintings and sometimes there were even floor pictures made up of tiny pieces of coloured tiles, called mosaics. These often served as talking points during the dinner.

The order the Romans ate was breakfast, jentaculum, after sunrise. Breakfast consisted of cold meats, eggs, vegetables and bread if you were part of a wealthy family whereas the poorer Roman families only had the luxury of porridge, sometimes a little honey and perhaps a few dates or olives. Lunch, prandium, if eaten at all, consisted of bread, fruit, cheese or perhaps some leftovers from the dinner the night before. Dinner, cena, was the main meal of the day, generally served in the late afternoon. Cena could consist simply of vegetables with olive oil for those of the lower class, or a most elaborate three course meal for the upper or maybe even middle class families. The first course, the "gustus" was the appetizer course, usually eggs, raw vegetables, fish or shellfish, prepared simply, eaten with mulsum which was wine sweetened with honey. The main course, the "prima mensa" consisted of cooked vegetables and meat served with wine. The "secunda mensa" was the sweet course or dessert, consisting of fruits, plain, stuffed and in sauces, honey cakes, nuts and, of course, wine. After dinner drinking was encouraged by serving salty foods. Entertainment included guests singing or reciting, dancers, clowns, gambling and much more…

It is interesting to note that in modern times, we are not so very different from the ancient Romans. Food is an important component in our everyday life. We too eat differently according to our station in life. The wealthier we become, the more elaborately we seem to eat. Just look at the growth in popularity of imported gourmet coffees, specialty food shops and catalogs. We often use our dinner parties or business lunches for that matter, to woo people for our own financial or political gain. But who of us can deny that we too don't enjoy a sophisticated meal every now and again, just like the Ancient Romans. Cornelius Nepos describes Roman cuisine as, (OHT).

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