Edamus: Let’s Eat!

Roman MealsBanquet Project: Latin I

Let’s Eat!

• Most Romans were poor.• “Bread and Circuses”• Annona---welfare tokens• Alimenta---similar to our WIC program for kids• Daily food in the city for the lower classes

would have had little variety: bread, vegetables, meat on occasion

• Wealthy Romans enjoyed a wide range of food.

Your Meals

• ientaculum: breakfast (usually bread dipped in oil or wine; wealthier people might add fruit, cheese, etc.)

• prandium: lunch (a light meal, usually cold leftovers)

• cena: dinner (largest meal of the day, might start as early as 3 PM)

Where Did Food Come From?

• Markets: vegetables, fish, poultry, meat, fruits• Thermopolium: take-out shop• Pistrina: bakery• Only the wealthy had culinae (kitchens) in

their homes

Pistrina

Thermopolium

Common Foods

• Bread• Poultry/fish• Vegetables• Meat: for the poor, on rare ocassions such as

public sacrifices

What the Romans did NOT have…

• Rice strawberries• Pastaraspberries• Tomatoes coffee• Potatoes tea• Sugar hard liquor• Corn butter• Oranges chocolate • bananas

• Instead of butter, they used olive oil• Instead of pasta, they used thin pancakes• Romans had many varieties of wine from all

over the Empire---wine was always mixed with water (to make different strengths)

Fishy Business!

• Garum, aka liquamen• “Fish sauce” or “fish pickle”• Made from the heads, bones, and entrails of

fish which decomposed in a strong brine

Don’t think it’s around today?!

Vinegar, Molasses, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Anchovies, Water, Onions, Salt, Garlic, Tamarind Concentrate, Cloves, Natural Flavorings, Chili Pepper Extract.

A Dinner Party

• Triclinium--- “tri”=“three”, literally 3 couches, 3 people per couch (the ideal number for a dinner party)

• Guests reclined to eat, resting on the left elbow

• Slaves would remove guests’ sandals and wash their feet

Presentation!

• Wealthy parties would feature exotic foods such as peacock and flamingo

• Often cooks would present food disguised as something else (such as a pig that looked like a chicken, or cakes made to look like boiled eggs)

Utensils

• Spoons, plates, bowls, goblets• No forks• Slaves carved meat into small pieces before it

was sent to the table• Most eating was done with the fingers

Courses• Appetizer: gustatio

– eggs, shellfish, salad, mulsum---honeyed wine• Main course: fercula

– several courses, odd number, the chief dish would be served in the middle

• Pause for libation to the gods• Dessert: secunda mensa (“second table”)

– fruits, sometimes pastries• Sometimes slaves would replace the entire table top for

dessert…that’s why it was called “second table”

A Cooking Rant

My cook wants a mountain of peppercorns, And then he’ll waste my best Falernian wineTo make his precious fish-pickle recipe…And now that enormous boar he’s boughtWon’t even fit the stove: by the father of the gods,I swear he’s trying to bankrupt me!

---Martial (1st c. AD)

Apicius: De Re Coquinara“Concerning Cookery”

• Apicius lived during the 1st century AD• Was a well-known gourmet• His cookbook survives• Roman cooking relied heavily on sauces• Often combined sweet and spicy (hot) flavors

Some Sample Recipes

• Patellam Lucretiam: Wash onions. Throw out the green parts and slice into a cooking vessel. Add a little fish stock, oil and water. While cooking, place raw saltfish in their midst. And when the fish are almost cooked, sprinkle a spoonful of honey and just a touch of vinegar and boiled wine. Taste. If the dish is bland, add a little fish-pickle. If it is too salty, add a little honey. Sprinkle with the leaves of the oxtongue plant and simmer.

Copadia Haedina sive AgninaChoice Cuts of Kid or Lamb

• Cook them with pepper and stock. Serve with a sauce of sliced green beans, stock, pepper, laser, fried cumin, pieces of bread, and a little olive oil.

Dulcia DomesticaHomemade Sweets

• Take palms or dates, with the stones removed, and stuff them with nuts or nut kernels and ground pepper. Salt the dates on top and bottom and fry in cooked honey and serve.

• ***Pepper can mean pepper, cinnamon, or nutmeg. All were known to the Romans, who lumped them into the same category.

Aliter Dulcia“Other Sweets”

• Strip of pieces of the best African must cake and immerse them in milk. When they have drunk [up all the milk they can, form them into small cakes]. Bake them in the oven, but not for long lest they become too dry. [After baking] remove [from the oven and] pour honey over the cakes while they are still hot. Puncture them so that they may drink [up the honey]. Sprinkle with pepper and serve.

Arise: even now boys are buying their morning pastriesAnd the roosters of the dawn are

everywhere alive with calls.---Martial

Just don’t become obsessed with food…

Calliodorus, yesterday you sold a slave for 1,200 sesterces to dine well once.

But you didn’t eat well: the 4 pound mullet you bought was the spectacle, the chief dish of your dinner.

I cried out to you: “This is not a fish, you b----, it’s not: It’s a man, Calliodorus, you’ve been eating a man!”

---Martial

Roman Dinner Party Project!• You must invite 8 guests (and yourself) for the nine diners.

The guests can be anyone, real or fiction, living or dead.• Draw out your seating chart and show who will sit where,

including the guest of honor.• Using web resources, plan your dinner with the gustatio,

fercula, and secunda mensa. Make a menu with the Latin and English recipe names, and the actual recipes (ingredients) for each.

• Plan your entertainment. The Romans enjoyed poetry, dancers, music, acrobats, and so forth.

What you’ll turn in:

• On unlined paper:– Your seating chart/guests’ names (point out who is

the guest of honor)– Your decorated menu. Include the entertainment

at the bottom.• gustatio (appetizers), fercula (main course), secunda

mensa (dessert)– Work should be historically accurate, neatly done

(preferably typed or printed), and show off all your research!