Roman food

[Ursus]

Ok, I don't need any recipes for exotic dishes like stuffed pig's wombs.

 

What did average Roman Joe eat?

 

If one wasn't a wealthy patrician, I assume the meal consisted of bread, olive oil, locally grown fruits and vegetables, and beans. I assume meat wasn't in a plentiful supply unless one lived on a farm or went hunting/fishing. How prevalent were eggs?

 

How widespread was cheese? Did they have yogurt?

 

 

Did they drink anything besides watered-down wine?

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

Ok, I don't need any recipes for exotic dishes like stuffed pig's wombs.

 

What did average Roman Joe eat?

 

If one wasn't a wealthy patrician, I assume the meal consisted of bread, olive oil, locally grown fruits and vegetables, and beans. I assume meat wasn't in a plentiful supply unless one lived on a farm or went hunting/fishing. How prevalent were eggs?

 

How widespread was cheese? Did they have yogurt?

 

 

Did they drink anything besides watered-down wine?

 

Only the rich could afford a steady diet of meat. So wheat (known to the Romans as "corn" frumentum was the staple food of most Romans. They mostly ate it as a boiled porridge, sometimes adding flavorings or relishes to it. They had desserts too. And, of course, bread was a staple.

 

I'd imagine that for breakfast they'd have something like a wheat biscuit of some sort or bread flavoured with a little bit of cheese, or dried fruit or honey, then for lunch maybe something like eggs, with bread and cheese (again) or maybe some left overs from the day before, then for dinner probably some sort of wheatmeal porridge and probably a little bit more bread.

 

For drinks they had a bit more of a selection, they had a drink called calda which was warm water and wine laced with spices, mulscum which was honeyed wine, posca which was vinegar mixed with enough water to make it drinkable and of course plain old watered down wine.

Edited March 11, 2007 by Gaius Paulinus Maximus

[Nephele]

Delving into my favorite book on Roman daily life (circa 134 C.E.) -- A Day in Old Rome by Professor William Stearns Davis -- I found that not only was bread the Roman "staff of life", but one's social class often dictated the sort of bread one got: "There is a cheap bread of coarse grain (panis sordidus) for the humblest; a second quality (panis secundus) for better class purchasers, and also the very white and sweet siligineus. You ask for 'Picenian bread' if you want fine biscuit, and for libae if you desire smaller rolls."

 

Cabbage was a popular veggie -- Cato the Elder declared it to be "the finest vegetable in the world." Other side dishes to be found on the average Roman dinner table included turnips (the favorite of Manius Curius, conqueror of the Samnites), artichokes, asparagus (who can forget Augustus of I, Claudius irritating the heck out of Livia with his crude expression: "As quick as boiled asparagus"?), beans, beets, cucumbers, lentils, melons, onions, peas, and pumpkins. Stearns wrote: "A visitor to Rome should promptly accustom himself to garlic; and there is a certain fashionable rusticity about garlic eaters, as if they were trying to bring back the flavor and odor of 'the good old times.'"

 

When it came to meat, the poor would buy goat's flesh. "Many citizens nevertheless never taste beef or mutton except when it is distributed in the form of a sacrifice at some of the great public festivals." Pork was popular (mostly for the better off classes), and poultry on the whole was in greater demand than red meat. Other meat staples for the lower-income Roman households included hare, rabbit, and venison -- all of which "are comparatively cheap, and everybody with a price can buy wild boar at the better purveyors' shops."

 

Fish was in great demand, but the poor people had to content themselves with "salt fish or pickled fish, from little sardines to slices of the big cybium, as forming frequently the only break in an otherwise vegetarian diet. They also make up salt fish with various vegetables and cheese into a kind of fishballs."

 

Olive oil and wine had universal use. For the common Roman, beverages other than wine (although even the commoners enjoyed their wine) included beverages made from wheat and barley, and also from fermented quince juice. And then there was posca (also the name of a favorite character from HBO's Rome): "vinegar mixed with water, was the common drink of the lower orders among the Romans, as of soldiers when on service." (ref. Smith's).

 

 

How prevalent were eggs?

 

How widespread was cheese? Did they have yogurt?

 

I'll leave the question of yogurt to the Roman foodie experts of this board, as my beloved little book makes no mention of this. But there are frequent references to cheese being in widespread use. As stated above, for the fishballs that Joe Average Roman ate, as well as for cold suppers.

 

One mention of eggs includes a reference to these being served during jentaculum (breakfast) with "a cup of heartening mulsum" should the master of the house be "expecting to go on a journey or to put in a hard day debating in the Senate." So I presume that eggs were used to bulk up the general breakfast, rather than be the main dish of the breakfast.

 

Looking forward to hearing from our foodie experts on board!

 

-- Nephele

Edited March 11, 2007 by Nephele Carnalis

[Pertinax]

Meat certainly doesnt get much of a mention as any sort of staple for ordinary people, we tend to find meat as an additional food more for the soldiery (but id add, when available perhaps dependent on locality and the fruitfulness of the hunt). Remains dug over from the Gask Ridge/Antonine fortifications ( in modern Scotland) are long on grains (though inclusive of imported items-olives being the most obvious). I was inclined to suggest that the situation might be likened to more developed parts of modern China outside the main cities, a lot of basic staple and some greens , and meat when you could catch it . The staple grains were underscored by the need to revert to a barley diet in times of dearth, a very unedifying diet.Cabbage is mentioned as an omnipresent staple of course along with any other complex vegetable proteins available (lentils in particular).Quite a heavy diet!

 

Barley was unloved ( certainly it was an army punishment diet) , oats were deemed a Germanic weed (though later used for fodder and food), spelt and rye were the true staples emerging in the baking trade as it shaped up as a distinct trade (as opposed to household task) in the mid Republican times.

All the "recipe" section is the food of the wealthy urbanite, and perhaps the perceived "decadent" diet of the uncritical modern.

[Ursus]

Very informative. Thank you all.

 

Nephele, your post in particular was informative. Thank you. However, you say the author believes the Romans ate pumpkins? I believe pumpkins are native to the Western Hemisphere and were not introduced to Europe before American colonization.

[Nephele]

Very informative. Thank you all.

 

Nephele, your post in particular was informative. Thank you. However, you say the author believes the Romans ate pumpkins? I believe pumpkins are native to the Western Hemisphere and were not introduced to Europe before American colonization.

 

That's right, but these aren't the same pumpkins that we know in the New World, just as the "corn" that is often referred to isn't the "maize" of the New World.

 

Pliny used the word pepo, and I believe it is being translated here as "pumpkin" (my Cassell's Latin dictionary also translates it thus), even though this vegetable or fruit was more likely a variety of squash or a large melon.

 

EDIT: I should add that A Day in Old Rome was first published in 1925. Perhaps if William Stearns Davis, Professor of Ancient History at the University of Minnesota, had written the book today (if he were still alive), he might have chosen another word for pumpkin in his book. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book for a brilliant peek into the everyday world of the Romans, circa 134 C.E.

 

-- Nephele

Edited March 11, 2007 by Nephele Carnalis

[docoflove1974]

I was inclined to suggest that the situation might be likened to more developed parts of modern China outside the main cities, a lot of basic staple and some greens , and meat when you could catch it .

 

Yeah, but many in rural China (and, through migration, much of eastern Asia) also have some sort of bean curd to add to the protein level in their diet. If I recall, lentils are high on protein, and I would guess other legumes would be, too, but what else would supplement their protein needs?

[Andrew Dalby]

Very informative. Thank you all.

 

Nephele, your post in particular was informative. Thank you. However, you say the author believes the Romans ate pumpkins? I believe pumpkins are native to the Western Hemisphere and were not introduced to Europe before American colonization.

 

That's right, but these aren't the same pumpkins that we know in the New World, just as the "corn" that is often referred to isn't the "maize" of the New World.

 

Pliny used the word pepo, and I believe it is being translated here as "pumpkin" (my Cassell's Latin dictionary also translates it thus), even though this vegetable or fruit was more likely a variety of squash or a large melon.

 

EDIT: I should add that A Day in Old Rome was first published in 1925. Perhaps if William Stearns Davis, Professor of Ancient History at the University of Minnesota, had written the book today (if he were still alive), he might have chosen another word for pumpkin in his book. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book for a brilliant peek into the everyday world of the Romans, circa 134 C.E.

 

-- Nephele

 

Yes, it's true, pumpkins are a common mistake among writers and translators dealing with ancient Rome. It's interesting to see that even Cassell's dictionary makes this mistake -- but very often you can't trust dictionaries on the identification of foods. People who write dictionaries just aren't that interested in food ... You meet kidney beans in translations of Roman texts too. These also are transatlantic imports, only available in Europe some while after Columbus.

 

And it's true that when people in Britain say 'corn' we usually mean wheat, not maize. (Hence most British people probably believe that corn flakes are made with wheat ...)

 

Latin 'pepo' is a melon. Melons and watermelons were available in the ancient Mediterranean, having been transplanted from further south in prehistoric times.

[caldrail]

I think I mentioned it somewhere else on this forum but a yoghurt made from curdled milk (I don't remember the latin name) was available but that was more likely to be a rural dish?

[Andrew Dalby]

I was inclined to suggest that the situation might be likened to more developed parts of modern China outside the main cities, a lot of basic staple and some greens , and meat when you could catch it .

 

Yeah, but many in rural China (and, through migration, much of eastern Asia) also have some sort of bean curd to add to the protein level in their diet. If I recall, lentils are high on protein, and I would guess other legumes would be, too, but what else would supplement their protein needs?

 

There is a tendency, among us luxury-loving fat people who eat far too much fresh meat, to forget that meat is available in other forms. Sausages. Ham and bacon. Tripes

[Nephele]

Very informative. Thank you all.

 

Nephele, your post in particular was informative. Thank you. However, you say the author believes the Romans ate pumpkins? I believe pumpkins are native to the Western Hemisphere and were not introduced to Europe before American colonization.

 

That's right, but these aren't the same pumpkins that we know in the New World, just as the "corn" that is often referred to isn't the "maize" of the New World.

 

Pliny used the word pepo, and I believe it is being translated here as "pumpkin" (my Cassell's Latin dictionary also translates it thus), even though this vegetable or fruit was more likely a variety of squash or a large melon.

 

EDIT: I should add that A Day in Old Rome was first published in 1925. Perhaps if William Stearns Davis, Professor of Ancient History at the University of Minnesota, had written the book today (if he were still alive), he might have chosen another word for pumpkin in his book. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book for a brilliant peek into the everyday world of the Romans, circa 134 C.E.

 

-- Nephele

 

Yes, it's true, pumpkins are a common mistake among writers and translators dealing with ancient Rome. It's interesting to see that even Cassell's dictionary makes this mistake -- but very often you can't trust dictionaries on the identification of foods. People who write dictionaries just aren't that interested in food ... You meet kidney beans in translations of Roman texts too. These also are transatlantic imports, only available in Europe some while after Columbus.

 

And it's true that when people in Britain say 'corn' we usually mean wheat, not maize. (Hence most British people probably believe that corn flakes are made with wheat ...)

 

Latin 'pepo' is a melon. Melons and watermelons were available in the ancient Mediterranean, having been transplanted from further south in prehistoric times.

 

Thanks, Andrew Dalby, for the elucidation on the pepo/pumpkin question! Now if you could just direct me to my sought-after recipe for Roman pheasant before next weekend, I'll be set!

 

-- Nephele

[Gaius Octavius]

There is a tendency, among us luxury-loving fat people who eat far too much fresh meat, to forget that meat is available in other forms. Sausages. Ham and bacon. Tripes

[Pertinax]

I was inclined to suggest that the situation might be likened to more developed parts of modern China outside the main cities, a lot of basic staple and some greens , and meat when you could catch it .

 

Yeah, but many in rural China (and, through migration, much of eastern Asia) also have some sort of bean curd to add to the protein level in their diet. If I recall, lentils are high on protein, and I would guess other legumes would be, too, but what else would supplement their protein needs?

Lentils and lupins Gracious Madam! We forget the lupin as a staple now, but then it was a major legume crop.

[docoflove1974]

Lentils and lupins Gracious Madam! We forget the lupin as a staple now, but then it was a major legume crop.

 

So it wasn't just a very sill Monty Python sketch?

[Pantagathus]

So it wasn't just a very sill Monty Python sketch?

Cleese: Shut up! It's a hold-up, not a Botany lesson. Now, no false moves

please. I want you to hand over all the lupins you've got.

Jones: Lupins?

Cleese: Yes, lupins. Come on, come on.

Idol: What do you mean, lupins?

Cleese: Don't try to play for time.

Idol: I'm not, but... the *flower* lupin?

Cleese: Yes, that's right.

Jones: Well we haven't got any lupins.

Girl: Honestly.

Cleese: Look, my friends. I happen to know that this is the Lupin Express.

Jones: Damn!