vase of Pompeii.

The cuisine of ancient Rome has greatly evolved over the centuries. The food of the ancient Romans , was dependent on exotic dishes under the Empire. Most of the Romans under the Republic, were content with simple food. They ate little, fairly coarse foods, and even the law punished those who engaged in banquets too rich ^{The staple food of the Romans}

The power of the early Romans was primarily composed of grains like barley , the wheat and wheat which were manufactured with a slurry (pulmentum) remains, even in imperial times, the food of the poor. This slurry was raised by herbs like mint and seasoned with olive oil , the butter is not used as food. The slurry was accompanied by goat cheese or vegetables , like lettuce , and leeks , and cabbage , and olives , and beans.

Thereafter, the staple food consists of bread , which appeared rather late in Rome ( ^third century BC. ) and manufactured at home. It is also accompanied by vegetables, especially cabbage, but leeks, chicory , from cucumbers. These vegetable dishes are a harmonious combination of surveys of flavors: mint, garlic , coriander , celery , dill and fennel.

Besides herbs, Roman cuisine was always possess a reserve of garum. It was a sauce condiment made from fermented fish: they fry salted fish guts and being left in the sun until the meat is processed. The equivalent current garum is nuoc mam in Vietnam.

The Romans ate meat, which however was reserved for feast days. Very soon, however, wealthy families became accustomed to eat in abundance, according to various preparations. The Romans had a preference for meat from pork , to lamb , to fricassee of duck stew or doe , patty brawn boar , as well as for meat boiled rather than roasted, consumption of fresh meat is rare.

For daily use, the family farm supplied milk to sheep or goat , and it manufactured the cheese.

For the pastry, the preference of the Romans went to cakes made from cheese often reduced to powder. They were most often presented coated with honey, sprinkled with poppy seeds or sesame seeds, baked on sheets of aromatic plants and trees.

The Romans were making several kinds of wine: wine with straw (vinum passum), the honeyed wine (vinum mulsum), etc.. And vinegar mixed with water (the posca Beverage Legionnaires). The Romans liked drinking wine as fresh and usually mixed with water. The price of wine was not very high. The most famous wines come from Capua, Pompeii, Messina and especially Falernian. The fermented wine was forbidden to women.

Food preservation

Each household had its Roman reserves flour , of honey , of oil , and olives marinated in the brine and raisins , commodities essential to the Roman kitchen, and carefully preserved in jars (DOLI) and amphorae. The power depended heavily on the ability of everyone to preserve food.

In attics, were stored the wheat and beans : in Pompeii were discovered amphorae filled with flour (mola) and Spelt (flan).

Several methods have been used for preservation of perishable food: smoking, drying and salting. Salting was the most common technique and was determined using the salt or by immersion in a bath of brine. Except marinating, the methods were based on drying or dehydration.

The smoking process is used for both meat and fish from the ^second millennium BC. AD in Europe. It dries and introduces formaldehyde, which acts as a preservative and also changes the taste of meat, enhancing its flavor. In the ^first century , Columella present its observations on the taste of a cheese that Roman has been cured in brine, then smoked . The Romans under the Republic used so much already smoking. During the imperial period the smokers have increased for smoking beef, ham, bacon and fish .

The use of salt was an important, well documented and conservation for the Romans. Several types of salt were used: rock salt (or salt ) and sea salt, which were also mixed spices . The sea salt was obtained by evaporating seawater in salt marshes. Sea salt was also probably imported from Gaul . Sources also provided salt salt, extracted by boiling or evaporation. Rome was well stocked with salt, among others, by the Via Salaria, a significant warehouse stood at the mouth of the Tiber. Columella mentions the use of salt in processed cheese, goat, and Cato the Elder relates how they kept the green olives in brine and it gives a procedure, known among others for making cured hams. The deli was famous Gallic. Varro indicates that eggs were also preserved in salt.

Drying in the sun and wind in the Mediterranean area has been widely used, but no evidence confirms this. In antiquity, the Egyptians cut fish in half, salted, then, for drying, hung from a pole . It is reasonable to assume that the method has continued to be used in Greek and Roman periods.

Little known, or at least less described, keeping honey has been used to preserve fruit (at least the plums and apples). The combination of honey and wax facilitates the conservation process. Pliny the Elder described this technique .

The Romans extended the life of milk by making cheese in addition, the cheese is more convenient to transport than milk . Palladius and Columella describe the manufacture of hard cheeses, and plants or ingredients that facilitate clotting , temperatures, drying, salting ...

The caves are not sufficient to preserve food for long, so the Romans could also have used primitive forms of refrigeration to keep food fresh. These techniques could produce cold by evaporation or some forms of accumulating snow and ice in winter for use in warmer weather . Unfortunately there is no direct evidence. These techniques were anyway available to the rich.

Meals

History meals everyday

Triclinium, drawing artist

The day was punctuated by three Roman meal.

The traditional breakfast was served jentaculum morning. The main meal of the day was served dinner (cena) and another at noon (prandium) a little less important. Customs, especially the richest, have been much influenced by the traditions of Greece and the provision of food due to new conquests, while the lower strata of the society which preserved the old customs longer corresponded to daily rhythms of a worker.

The Romans became idle, rich or poor, will get into the habit of snacking throughout the day (besides Rome swarmed by street vendors). For them, meal times have changed. The snack has been discontinued and there is:

• the jentaculum: sort of breakfast very brief, taken at sunrise. It consumes bread rubbed with garlic, cheese and a glass of water. Breads originally flat, round are made from flour farro. In the higher classes, we also ate eggs, honey, with milk and fruit. The bread could be eaten with wine, olives or olive oil. Starting with Augustus , the bread began to be made from wheat bread and replaces the farro. It has also begun to eat sweet and savory biscuits.

• The prandium: This simple meal taken very quickly around noon remains fairly frugal, and sometimes took up. We ate cheese, fruit, some vegetables, a boiled (pecumia), bread soaked in wine as a drink of water or wine lying. We ate some hot food, often consisting of remnants of the previous day.

• La cena: dinner and is the main meal of the day, but that takes late afternoon or at dusk and lasts about three hours. If the poor were content with polenta , for the richest people, it became customary to set all its obligations in the morning. They performed the tasks required after the last prandium, then went to the bathroom. Around nine o'clock the beginning cena and could extend into the night. People eat with their fingers and slaves are there to ensure the comfort of the diners, and offer them fatty foods. The guests have towels. We know that some were woven asbestos , which allowed them cleaned by passage through a fire. Only this meal offered a ceremonial and consisted of three services:
  • The first gustatio, consisted of a series of appetizers (oysters and snails were, for example, very popular). Was served with it a mixture of honey and wine called mulsum.
  • During the main service, mensa prima, was seen arriving at the table meat or poultry roasted, boiled, grilled or in sauce, sausage or simple stews. It was with regular wine, often mixed with water. After the entrees, an offering was offered to the gods Lares.
  • Finally, the meal ended with the second service, secunda mensa, assorted fruit, cakes and candies, exciting thirst.

The comissatio could then give the ambience of the evening. It then designated a king of beverage, according to his mood, defined the quantities and types of wines that the guests were drinking, and if the guests were and philosophize joke or get drunk.

The Banquet

fish mosaic of Pompeii (Naples Museum)

The end of the Roman Republic will mark a radical change in eating habits. In the early Roman frugality succeeded after the conquests and from the ^second century BC. AD , especially in the higher classes of society, the desire for food less frugal, more varied and refined during the meal during which they drank to the health of guests, and where dances and singing took place. When wearing a toast, it was customary to drink as many cups as the name of the person involved letters.

Then the Romans the richest begin to eat fish , and wild boar which has been a great success. Finally, it is also reported that the Romans enjoyed the products of hunting: pheasant , partridge , woodcock , and foie gras , which seems to be a Roman invention.

An epigram of Martial is targeting a certain baeticus man tastes gross, who preferred the capers , the onions and ham to hares , the boar , the pheasants and drank more willingly retsina as Falernian .

It was at this time that the first growths of Western Europe. For the first time, texts written by contemporary authors allow historians to know that these wines are tasted and evaluated .

The Romans will reconnect with luxury, unnecessary, the spices of the rich Etruscan banquet. They will also develop techniques for food preservation. The revenue of Apicius (Roman gastronome great) show the refinement of Rome. But if the rich Romans ate delicacies and numerous, most people could not eat bread, porridge of wheat or beans.

Caricature of a famous scene cena under Nero is described in the Satyricon of Petronius , in the chapter banquet Trimalchio. Banquets, the Romans had cooks meals so that guests can not recognize what they were served.

The food revolution did not happen smoothly. The legislature, through "sumptuary laws", tried to channel it. One of the first taken, -182 , had intended to limit the number of guests to a banquet. It was futile Diodorus Siculus reports:

"We got into the habit of serving sumptuous meals, along with wonderful aromas with scents, and for which we prepared beds covered with pillows ... Wine, who were agreeable, were despised; we did, unrestrained delight of Falernian, choice and their rivals, and the best fish and other refinements of the table . "

The table manners

During the meal, diners stretched out on special beds arranged in a horseshoe around the table. The guests leaned to one side, the right hand they grasped the food, while the left arm resting on a pillow holding the plate. Diodorus says that these "colorful cushions were the most expensive and made with consummate art of ivory, silver and other precious materials" . The Romans were using spoons and forks at the table but not with knives, food being precut.

We ate in a room provided for this purpose, the triclinium , which takes its name couches (three in number) on which the guests were lengthening, the fourth side left open to enable the service.

Preparing Food

It was noticeable that at Pompeii , destroyed in 79 , almost all houses have their own mills. Each house also had his own kiln in which the baked breads and circular plates. Many houses also owned mills olive oil. The inhabitants of the insulae had them, certainly, to buy food in tabernae and thermopolia.

Here is a list of utensils used in cooking in ancient Rome:

• the pot (olla) is used to boil food.
• Slow cooker (or caccabus caccabulus) is used to cook food.
• The strainers are used to filter and stamens.
• The cookware (patina) is suitable for frying foods.
• Stoves (sartagines) are used for frying.
• The mortar used to grind food for the sauce.
• Mussels (or formal training) are used to decorate by grinding food.
• Ladles, forks and knives (harpago, Trulli, furca, carnarium) are used to cut food.

See also

Internal Links

Edition of 1541

• Re coquinaria of Apicius compilation of recipes from ^the fourth century.
• Archestrate , Greek writer on cooking.
• Tetrapharmacum , a famous dish.
• Culinary art history and power in ancient Greece.
• Meat preservation

External Links

• History of food: roast from prehistory to the Roman abundance

Bibliography

• Pierre Grimal, Life in ancient Rome, Ed. PUF, Collection Que sais-je?, No. 596 ( ISBN 2130432182 ).
• Petronius , Satyricon.
• Andr Tchernia and Jean-Pierre Brun, the wine ancient Roman, Ed. Glnat, Grenoble, 1999 ( ISBN 2723427609 ).

Notes

• Ancient Rome portal
• Portal food and gastronomy
• Portal of the Vine and Wine

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