Roman feasting styles

[caesar novus]

I went to a cool lecture by Dr. Nicholas Hudson on Roman feasting styles. By a clever statistical analysis of physical dishes in dining rooms of various dates, he comes up with 2 social (festive) dining styles, neither of which equates to the hollywood version or even the versions on their frescos. He says the popular conception depicted was the exception.

 

In early Rome, they engaged in what I believe he called status dining. There were a mix of patron, clients, and folks of various ranks paying tribute to each other and firming up relationships with symbiotic deals. They used dishware very much like today where everyone had their own plateware (theirs a bit smaller than ours). This way you didn't have to share or compete with others with common plates. You all recline, with heads toward the center of a circle and feet outwards like spokes of a wheel.

 

In late Rome, the upper class still did the above a bit (using silver rather than pottery dishes), but most folks got more egalitarian with shared bigger dishes. "Convivial dining" was more of a communal thing, possibly with a christian influence. This isn't as great as it might sound, since there was no longer much striving for excellence, but rather a leveled "chain of contamination". Seated people paired up to eat from main dishes, then different pairings shared smaller dishes. So A and B shared, C and D shared... but then B and C shared another dish, so you were in a chain of spit potentially linking all together.

 

I asked him if Mary Beard was right in saying the snack shops labeled in Pompeii couldn't be so because their food serving pots were unglazed and thus unsanitary for repeated wet use. He agreed and said they may have been spice shops.

Edited October 25, 2013 by caesar novus

[guy]

I asked him if Mary Beard was right in saying the snack shops labeled in Pompeii couldn't be so because their food serving pots were unglazed and thus unsanitary for repeated wet use. He agreed and said they may have been spice shops.

 

 

 

Good point. Great post. Thank you.

 

 

guy also known as gaius

Edited October 25, 2013 by guy

[caldrail]

Dining was of course for the wealthier Roman, and what comes across is that the Romans appreciated novelty or suprises (good grief, stuffed vine leaves again?). Sometimes entertainment was laid on and even a private gladiatorial bout for the delight of the party-goers could take place where-ever they had room. The thing is though that a lot depended on circumstance. I don't imagine a formal dinner, even with wealthy senatorial types, would be the same experience in a large urban villa in Rome and the commanders house in a provincial fort on the far frontier.