H.E.M. Cool, Eating and Drinking in Roman Britain. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. 282. ISBN 978-0-521-00327-8.
GBP 19.99 (pb).
Reviewed by Renate Kurzmann, Open University (renate.kurzmann@...)
Word count: 2404 words
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To read a print-formatted version of this review, see
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2008/2008-03-26.html
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Table of Contents
(http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0711/2007006792.html)
H.E.M. Cool's book about food in Roman Britain successfully combines a
variety of archaeological, biological, epigraphic and literary sources,
including very recent excavation results, as well as a review of
secondary sources, by focussing on all aspects of food and nutrition in
the province. The book achieves both a detailed overall summary and a
comprehensive approach using a variety of methods and sources. It is an
invaluable source of information for any scholar researching the
subject of Roman food and drink, a subject which has previously not
been comprehensively presented for the province of Britain. However, it
will also be appealing to the general reader interested in the subject
of Roman food.
Cool is interested in food as an indicator of social habits and
presents a culture's eating habits as one of the keys to its
understanding. The book is divided into three parts. The first part
(Chapters 1-5) deals with the sources on food in Roman Britain,
including written sources, inscriptions and archaeological and
biological evidence. The second part (Chapters 6-15) discusses general
food patterns in Roman Britain, including ingredients and cooking
techniques. The third part (Chapters 16-19) deals with the cultural
implications of food in Roman Britain and selects certain sites to show
the different tastes of different communities.
Chapter 1 ("Ape/ritif") is a general introduction, in which the author
introduces her intentions and in which the structure of the book is
explained. Chapter 2 ("The food itself") mainly deals with food
remains, namely biological ones, such as animal bones, plant remains
and residues. Cool discusses rubbish pits and explains the differences
between local depositions, which are invaluable as indicators of the
things eaten at a certain site and structured depositions of food
remains more distant from the cooking sites, which are usually more
problematic to detect.
Chapter 3 ("The Packaging") deals with the types of vessels food and
drink was transported in. Cool explains the classification of types of
Roman amphorae and other ceramic vessels and wooden barrels found in
Britain.
Chapter 4 ("The human remains") shows that human bones play a very
important role in the determination of a community's nutrition.
Diseases discernible from human bones give valuable information about
the diet of individuals or a community. The author uses the cemetery at
Poundbury as an example of a community in which some individuals were
poorly nourished in childhood and includes a discourse on the subject
of weaning in Roman society. However, Cool also highlights problems
with some of these results, such as site records failing to record
male-female proportions and the fact that some recent techniques, such
as isotope analysis were often not available at the time of a survey.
Chapter 5 ("Written evidence") goes into detail about the scanty
written sources for Romano-British food and drink and includes sources
from locations other than Roman Britain. The most important epigraphic
source for food in the military zone of the North, the Vindolanda
Tablets, are also discussed in detail. Cool alerts the reader to the
role of written and epigraphic sources in determining the social
differentiation of the cuisine of the province and finally discusses
the level of literacy in Roman Britain, which moves somewhat too far
from the topic, in the view of this reviewer.
Chapter 6 ("Kitchen and Dining Basics: Techniques and Utensils") deals
with kitchen equipment and cooking techniques. Cool lists the most
common types of pots and pans and talks about the use of these vessels
in different areas. Many questions regarding cultural habits and ethnic
groups are based upon the types of such vessels, for example the spread
of African vessels has been explained as the result of the arrival of
soldiers from North Africa.[[1]] Cool also reviews the question if the
spread of mortaria is to be equated to the spread of Roman cuisine or
if these vessels may have been used in a totally different way.
Chapter 7 ("Store Cupboards") talks about the basic ingredients used in
Romano-British cooking , such as salt, olive oil, fish sauce, spices,
flavourings and sweeteners. There is also a paragraph about the
cleaning of cereals and milling and about storage and querns. One
paragraph, entitled 'White bread, brown bread, barley cakes', explores
the different traditions regarding the preparation of cereals of
different social groups, which are, however, not easily discernible.
Chapter 8 discusses staples, namely emmer, spelt and wheat in Britain.
Chapter 9 deals with the different types of meat eaten in Roman
Britain. Cool states that during the Late Iron Age and the Roman
period, the main meats eaten in Britain were cattle, sheep and pig, as
shown from the bone remains. 'Romanized sites' display a higher
percentage of cattle and pig bones, whereas lamb dominates at native
sites, following the Late Iron Age pattern. Cool includes an excellent
table on the distribution of bones from different sites and concludes
that the usage of beef and pork was probably more a military than a
Roman habit, since many of the soldiers who arrived in Britain came
from Gaul or the German provinces. Some civilian elite sites, such as
Fishbourne, have produced similar bones to military sites; rural sites,
in comparison, hardly ever produce pork and Cool wonders if this points
to cultural taboos regarding the types of meat eaten. In a sub-chapter
entitled 'Tough but Tasty' Cool investigates why cows were usually only
eaten after four years. Some thought it also given to the type of
butchery tools used. The final thought in Chapter 9 is given to the
question of whether eating horse was a taboo in Roman Britain, as
elsewhere. Chapter 10 deals with dairy products. Their detection is
usually problematic since they leave little residue. The skeletal
evidence, however, according to Cool, speaks against a widespread use
of dairy products, which somewhat contradicts Cool earlier statement
regarding the usage of cows of milk animals before being eaten (p.
85-86). Perhaps she is referring to the consumption of milk for
drinking only and not to cheese consumption here, nevertheless more
specific details on the usage of cows' milk would have presented a
slightly clearer picture.
Chapter 11 deals with consumption of poultry and eggs. Domesticated
birds in Roman Britain were chickens, ducks and geese. Cool compares
different bones from different sites in a coherent table. Chapter 12
deals with the consumption of fish and shellfish. In Rome, fish was
seen as a luxury food; however, it is not certain if the fact that fish
was a rare occurrence in Roman Britain points to the same trend.
Generally, there are more fish bones from medieval sites than from the
Roman ones, which may be due to Christian influence, which forbade the
eating of meat for certain parts of the week and year. However,
shellfish is very common in Roman Britain and may not have been as
luxurious in Britain as in the centre of the empire, as the author
points out.
Chapter 13 discusses game and hunting. Several sources, such as the
Vindolanda Tablets, suggest that hunting was popular in Roman Britain,
however, Cool points out that this is not reflected by the animal bones
found. Gaming was a pastime of the elite and Cool illustrates very well
that the presence of lots of hunting scenes in art are not necessarily
a sign of the fact that hunting was practiced often and that it was
probably a sport as much as a means of food provision.
Chapter 14 deals with greengrocery. On the subject of fruit in Roman
Britain, Cool shows that good evidence is found in cesspits through
seeds and pips. The presence of certain seeds does not necessarily mean
that fruits were actually grown in Britain, which Cool illustrates on
the example of figs, which were grown on a small scale but more often
imported. A discussion of the most important vegetables, the most
popular of which was the radish, follows including a discourse on the
types of problems encountered when working with vegetable residues.
Chapter 15 centres on the subject of drinks. Cool argues that, due to
the fact that milk was not popular and that water was often unclean,
alcoholic beverages would have been drunk, such as wine or mead. This
is followed by a discourse, in which Cool goes into detail about wine
in general, followed by evidence for amphorae in Roman Britain, and the
mechanisms of wine supply for the Roman army. The usage of beer is also
discussed. In her sub-chapter 'pints and half-pints', the author talks
about changing fashions related to drinking vessels and their social
significance.
Chapter 16, entitled 'End of Independence', is the first of the final
chapters, which investigate social patterns of eating and drinking
habits. Cool illustrates very convincingly that no particular date of
change for Late Iron Age culinary habits to Roman ones is discernible.
Her list of Late Iron Age chronological problems is very thorough. She
argues that the so-called core-zone in the Southeast of Britain did
experience a change in eating and drinking habits prior to the conquest
of ; Cool uses the model of tea drinking and its dilution to different
social spheres in more recent times to illuminate how new customs are
passed down to the different levels of society. She names the elite
burials of Hertfordshire as an example of a community which used new
table forms, which could refer to new types of cuisine, and
investigates the Dorset area in comparison to show that outside the
core zone, exotic vessels were also imported but seem to have had less
impact on cooking practices. She concludes that some areas adopted
Roman food practices and some did not, but is of the firm belief that
it is wrong to seek political explanations behind all these processes.
Chapter 17 entitled 'A brand-new province' looks at the food in the new
province Roman Britain. It is illustrated how the taste of the newly
arrived soldiers need not necessarily have been Roman, since these
soldiers came from everywhere in the Roman Empire. As examples, Cool
discusses the military fortress of Colchester and also Leadhall in
London, a site with civilian immigrants with wealth. In a sub-chapter
on country life, Cool also introduces two example sites: Claydon Pike
in Gloucestershie and Orton Hall Farm in Cambridgeshire. She shows that
the two sites displayed different pottery than military or urban sites
and that there are regional differences between them regarding the
frequency of types of food found.
Chapter 18, 'The Coming of Age' investigates Britain during the third
century AD. Several sites, which have produced evidence for food
consumption in the second and third century AD, are discussed. Cool
also highlights the role of food in the cult of Mercury and Mithras and
analyses cult at Uley based upon the extremely young age of the animals
slaughtered there, with religious implications and concepts of purity
and taboo. She also includes a discourse on the types of animals
sacrificed at graveyards, such as Brougham, although most of those were
not eaten.
Chapter 19 entitled 'A different world' deals with the post-Roman era.
Cool states at the start of this chapter that she can be counted
amongst those scholars who do not believe in abrupt end to the province
but that there was continuity and then goes on to discuss the problems
with short chronologies in the fifth century AD. She analyses the
increased use of drinking glasses, which spread beyond Britain into
Ireland and investigates the role of Christianity on society, wondering
if it could have contributed to the increased under-nourishment of some
females (possibly due to extreme fasting, as advertised by some early
church writers), giving examples from Poundbury. However, she also
shows that some early churches, such as Butt Road, Colchester, dined
particularly well, according to the evidence from excavated animal
bones. She concludes that in spite of the fact that some typically
Roman things, such as the use of mortaria and Roman fish-sauce went out
of fashion and that there was continuity and variation in the fourth
and fifth centuries.[[2]]
In her conclusion, Cool points out several things that need to be
considered for further studies on the subject. As with all other
aspects of life in Roman Britain, there was no united Romano-British
cuisine but geographical variations. Also, no 'Roman' influence, as
such, existed because the new immigrants that came into the province
came from a wide geographical area and would have brought very varied
influences with them. This corresponds well with other research on
Roman Britain and the general picture of a very multicultural province.
Culinary changes in Roman Britain began during the century before the
conquest, although some areas were later than others to adopt changes
in eating and drinking habits. Cool raises some interesting questions,
such as why chicken, game, and pork were elite foods compared to beef,
sheep or goat, for which no satisfactory answer has been found yet or
why fish was rarely eaten in Roman Britain. She also raises the
question why religious sites used very young animals and suggests that
this must be an indicator of the type of human relationship with the
Romano-British gods. On a final note, the author expresses hope that
future scholars will check the patterns of her finding against new data
and will generally aim to incorporate a more complete presentation of
all data from a place.
Overall, this is an extremely valuable and informative new study, which
both summarizes old data and new findings extremely coherently and
which provides a very good analysis of the social implications of
eating and drinking in Roman Britain. As a minor point of criticism, in
the reviewer's opinion, a brief comparison of foods within the province
with those from the areas outside the Roman frontier in the general
third part of the book, would also have been desirable since it would
have been interesting to compare native sites with little Roman
influence with ones with more influence within the province and to
investigate if any food influences reached the non-Roman North at all.
Also, very occasionally the author moves away from the subject of food,
by discussing eating and drinking habits from elsewhere and evidence
for other aspects of Roman life, such as literacy, which is slightly
confusing. However, overall, this book is extremely well-researched and
written and presents a very detailed summary of the subject and can be
recommended highly to both scholar and enthusiast alike.
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Notes:
1. V. Swan 1992. "Legio VI and its men: African legionaries in
Britain". Journal of Roman Pottery Studies 5: 1-33.
2. I. Wood 2004. "The final phase", in: M. Todd (ed.) A companion to
Roman Britain (Oxford): 428-442.
A pre-quel would be cool. Make Patrick Stewart as Caesar and all is forgiven. (Hinds did a decent job, but Stewart would be better).