Ancient Roman food
I was going to write about marmalade but then I watched a television program about Ancient Roman food so I changed my mind. This probably won’t come up again and the marmalade definitely will - for a week at least!
So I started looking for pictures and came across all these wonderful mosaics. I mean look at this one - look at the expression on the fish’s face, and the detail in the hanging bird. And the colours. I never cease to be amazed at how modern it all is. It just confirms that half the fun of this project is looking for pictures.
HONEY AND FISH SAUCE AND GRAINS
The program itself was marginally boring - not sure why because what he was saying was really quite interesting and although I knew some of it I didn’t know it all. In fact it was a bit like our Rome walk this holiday. Somehow dissatisfying in spite of the interesting content. They made stuff too and although a lot of it looked pretty uneatable, some of it didn’t. Perhaps the most interesting comment was from the lady (who I have seen somewhere before) who is a specialist historical cook - she said that because the herbs and spices most used were cumin and coriander, and because they used fish sauce in virtually everything, really the food was almost curry-like. Which is not at all Italian of course, But then they didn’t have tomatoes did they - or pasta? The things that seemed to crop up most often were honey, fish sauce, grains and pulses and olive oil. Meat - pork and lamb - some of it retrieved from sacrifices. The pictures imply a lot of fish too. A big sack of grain given out for free to all Roman citizens and the ability of the poor to cook snacks whilst watching gladiators kill each other down below were also different. And we know they had restaurants - we saw one in Ostia.
“Apicius posoned himself when he discovered that after sqandering a hundred million sesterces on food he had only 10 million left and couldn’t face the prospect of lowering his standards.” The Art of Food
They’re not really quite sure who Apicius was - there are one or two contenders - but whoever he was he wrote the first known cookbook - which is pretty perfunctory but which I guess gives us most of our knowledge about what the Romans ate - that and the archaeologists we saw on yesterday’s program - who find remains in people’s stomachs, in the sewers and where people cooked. And then I suppose there are all these wonderful pictures and mosaics, and other Roman writers like Juvenal as well.
So what did he make? I remember a revolting energy drink for the gladiators made from burning fenugreek, a revolting looking wine - they added all manner of stuff to the basic wine which he said made it taste a bit like ketchup. There was a sort of gruel that the crowd snacked on up in the Gods as it were - lentils and barley seemed to be major components. The poor old gladiators only seemed to get bread with honey. Then he went to a baker and they made some bread with fermented grapes instead of yeast which actually looked quite good - but then they broke it up and poured honey over it and scattered figs around. Not my thing but I guess it could be to some people’s taste. He seemed to like it anyway. The historical cooking lady then made some fairly nice looking chicken, pork and lamb dishes which actually looked pretty appetising and which the crowd who tasted them also thought were OK. She said that they only started cooking properly when they imported Greek cooks but my own source - a cookery book I have had for a long time called Wild Blackberry Cobbler and Other Old-fashioned Recipes, says, that Greek cooks were into very plain stuff and the Romans “delighted in food that combined many flavours”. In the light of my previous comments about hunter gatherers the Romans were obviously pretty sophisticated cooks - and it is interesting how there was an obvious differentiation between what the poor and the rich ate - now when did that start to happen? I have to admit though that on the sophisticated cooks side Rome came after several thousand years of civilisation - so not a surprise really. They still didn’t really understand yeast though.
"Roman food ... had a highly original and very clear, refreshingly aromatic flavour that was sharp and piquant, never cloying or heavy.” Wild Blackberry Cobbler and Other Old-fashioned Recipes
Are we interested in all of this? Well David who is a Rome freak was not - but then he’s not much interested in food really. Personally I think I am more interested in the pictures than the food. Still - worth a look. And I’ll provide one recipe as well.
FISH IN ITS OWN JUICE (BY APICIUS)
Prepare the fish carefully. Put in a mortar salt and coriander seed; pound. Roll the fish in this. Place it in a pan, cover and seal, and cook in the oven. When it is cooked, remove. Sprinkle with very strong vinegar and serve.
(My recipe book suggests using balsamic vinegar)
