What was the typical ancient Roman diet? What evidence do we have (if any)?
I see a dog featured alongside fowl in those frescoes. Would dog have been served?
I don’t know for sure but I highly doubt it. Dogs were cherished pets so the owner of this place was probably showing off his pet. Similar to the Cave Canem mosaic in the House of the Tragic Poet.
*clack-clack*
Most of those look delicious. Of course, I haven’t tried garum. But I bet I’d get used to it.
I suspect garum is one of those things where a little is great, and a lot is not.
Liquid smoke is like that.
That’s what I was thinking too. Too much and I’d gag
essentially thai fish sauce i believe
I've made some. That Parthian chicken is top tier fr.
Fresh Oysters from Baiae. An assortment of charred and seasoned grilled fish. Steamed mussels and clams. Leeks with thyme and olive oil soaked whole grains.
Roast pheasant stuffed with herbs and sautéed garlic butter mushrooms. A side of savoury snails cooked to perfection. As refreshment, sweet orange nectar kept cool with chipped ice from the Alps
Yeah, if you are a Patrician. Average people: Plebians and slaves, did not eat like this!
There is a book available, Apicius "Cookery and dining in Imperial Rome" which has lots of recipes in there using ingredients from the time, so no potatoes etc. and is the oldest know recipe book in existence.
Sows uterus is one of the delights in it nom nom
I recently started reading, Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome. It's about the Roman gourmet Apicius and about half the book is a list of his recipes. If you want to see what the Romans ate (and how to make it) check it out, it's pretty cool.
Larks' tongues, wrens' livers, chaffinch brains, jaguars' earlobes, and wolf nipple chips. I'll let myself out..
Get 'em while they're hot, they're lovely
CMOT Dibbler, is that you?
Garum - fermented fish guts used as a sauce . Mm mm
All Garum all the time. True Garum for True Romans.
People providing nice responses. I come with the boring yet insightufl academic paper
Lots of fish. Bread. By our standards shitty wine. Olive oil. Garum. Evidence for this can be found in various ruins, such as pompei
Pork. Lots of pork. And chicken. Interestingly not beef. Those were work animals.
Beef was consumed...but mostly in communal sacrificial banquets. They would have been just plainly roasted over a fire on spits, like kebabs or BBQ.
And even then, goat and mutton were more common sacrificial meals.
If the sources are to be believed mostly, if not entirely, wine and garum
There is an interesting series of books on historical Italian cooking. You may be interested in this, the kindle file is really cheap :
Ancient Roman Cooking: Ingredients, Recipes, Sources https://amzn.eu/d/01cfRHhG
The books are available in both English and Italian.
Dormouse. Their main meat was pork. They knew rice existed but it wasn’t prolific. A lot of seafood and grains. Beef was pretty rare. No tomatoes or garlic or potatoes or corn though.
They absolutely had garlic
A lot of venison and hedgehog too, relatively speaking for meats.
Lots of grains, either as a porridge or bread plus fruits and vegetables and some meat. Plus a lot of wine/vinegar.
The Cura annonae was a grain dole for the population of Rome.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cura_annonae
The newly excavated thermopolium in Pompeii has great frescos showing food available including a tasty looking fruit flatbread.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/pompeii-opens-recently-discovered-ancient-fast-food-restaurant-1998265/amp-page