Inside The Roman Kitchen Continued

This week's blog will continue the discussion of Roman cuisine and some of the main sources that have helped us come about ancient Roman cuisine.  The work that I will draw from and refer to is A Taste of Ancient Rome by Ilaria Giacosa.  Giacosa does a good job by drawing from the works of various ancient Roman cooks who documented their work.  She also does a good job of talking about the different foods used in the kitchen, not only fruits and vegetables, but also cheeses and meats.  She briefly discusses the Roman banquet and how it was set up, but I will not go into too much detail about it seeing that I have already discussed it in previous blogs.  She then discusses the various parts of the Roman meal and what the main ingredients used in each part.  In these sections she also notes many Roman recipes.  

The first area I want to touch upon that is discussed in Giacosa's book is that of the use of ancient sources.  Since the Roman civilization lasted a little over a thousand years it is only natural to think that it would changed on multiple occasions; this change includes shifts in its cuisine.  The change, as noted by Giacosa, may have been due to a shift in the economy of the empire.  The empire started off small, poor, and limited agriculturally.  As the Romans expanded their empire, their resources also grew and diversified due to their connection to three different continents. (1)

The first author discussed, and that I have discussed in an earlier blog, is Cato.  The focus of Cato's work was agriculture around 180 BC.  The second author discussed is Columella whom I have also mentioned before.  Columella also wrote about agriculture, a couple hundred years after Cato, specifically 35-45 AD.  Both of these men provide readers with instructions for prepping simple foods, i.e., how to store and season olives, what to feed slaves that are working on a field.  They also discuss several recipes for grains, as well as tips for seasoning various cheeses and preserving fruits and veggies. (2)

Cato the Censor was a politician, but also a devoted farmer and fairly famous for this during the Roman Republic.  During his youth he worked on his parents farm and continued this as he grew older.  His famous writing is De agricultura which discusses how to manage an estate, types of slave work, what to feed slaves, and the different breads one could use during ritual sacrifices. (3)

Columella was a military man, a politician, and an agriculturalist.  He came from a wealthy Spanish family and eventually moved to Rome.  One area where Columella is known for is for being a part of a successful business selling plants.  The other area he is known for is his work De re rustica which was more complex than the work of Cato. It consisted of thirteen books each of which was based on a single subject.  De re rustica provided recipes on how to preserve fruits and vegetables, and instructions on how to prep wine, vinegar, and mustard among other things. (4)

Triclinium from A Taste of Rome by Ilaria Giacosa.

Apicius and Petronius are the third and fourth authors Giacosa discusses.  Most of our information on Roman cuisine comes from these two men.  Both men were of the upper class of Roman society.

Petronius wrote Cena Trimlchionis, a book that discusses the types of meals that were popular during the reign of Nero.

Apicius lived during the 1st c. AD and organized banquets as well as invented crazy dishes and sauces.  Some of the main ingredients in these crazy dishes were the used of flamingo and nightingale tongues, camel heels, and roasted ostrich.  This interested me because it shows how the Romans incorporated different resources from different areas of the empire in their cuisine.  Apicius was such a popular cook that other sources contemporary to his time and after him cited him.  For example, Pliny the Elder credited Apicius with the idea of force-feeding geese figs in order to enlarge their livers.  Apicius is also known for naming various dishes, some of which are the following: palina for egg-based dishes; concicia for bean or pea dishes; minutal for fricasee; ofellae for stew meat; and isicia for ground meat patties.  His legacy lived on after he died, so much so that 200 years after his death a good cook was referred to as an "Apicius".  Unfortunately his life ended in suicide after he lost all his wealth and could not handle life without it.  Eventually all of his recipes were integrated with other recipes, including Greek ones, and became known as De re coquinaria. (5)

Giacosa also mentions the poet Martial who gives us perspectives on the everyday life of Rome.  His following three works discuss food.  His Epigrams discusses meals and popular foods.  Xenia discusses the different foods Romans would traditionally exchange during the Saturnalia, the most important holiday of the year.  His Apophoreta discusses the mementos guests would receive from the hosts during a banquet.  Martial's works are good in discussing the types of foods the Romans ate, but also the types of rituals they partook in. (6)

The second area Giacosa discusses is the sources of food that the Romans used.  I appreciated that she made note that Roman food differs greatly from modern-day Italian food. She notes that the tomato and potato that are so popular in Italian cooking today, were non existent during the Republic.  They were only included in Italian cooking after the discovery of the Americas; other resources also introduced later were eggplant, sweet and hot peppers, corn, turkey, dates, and citrus.  Oranges for instance were introduced in the 10th c. in Sicily by the Arabs.  The lemon was from the Orient and was brought to Greece (and later Rome) by Alexander the Great (356-323 BC).  

A big part of Roman and Mediterranean cuisine was fish.  The abundance of fish of various types in the Mediterranean Sea caused the Romans to make it a big part of their diet.  Sea food included sardines, anchovies, tuna, scorpion fish, red mullet, lobster, squid, cuttlefish, and octopus.  In terms of meat the Romans ate cattle, pig, lamb, goat, chickens, geese, ducks, pigeons, doves, deer, and boars.  

Veggies were the most popular and most available of all foods.  They included asparagus, carrots, leaf cabbage, onions, leeks, squash, and cucumbers.  They could be eaten cooked or raw or incorporated into soups.  

Romans also enjoyed cheeses that were made from sheep or goat milk and served as the basic source of nutrition during the Republic.  Cheese was given to people as gifts and mixed with water and cracked wheat to create several delicious cakes.

Fruits were also a big part of the Roman diet and were usually eaten at the end of the meal just like they are today in Italy.  Among the most popular were pears, apples, pomegranates, quinces, plums, blackberries and mulberries.  The Romans also imported fruits like the apricot from Armenia, the peach from Persia, and dates from Palestine and Ethiopia.

Another important part of Roman cuisine was the use of grains to make soups, porridges,  bread, and cakes.  The nutritional value of these grains was far greater than that of grains today because they were not processed or refined.  The earliest grains used by Romans were barley, spelt, rye, oats, millet , and panicum.  Barley was the most important because it was used to feed Roman troops, while oats were used to only feed animals.

Rice was a luxury item brought over to the Roman Empire from India; its cultivation in Europe didn't begin until the 8th c.  Wheat was also widely cultivated in Rome and was used to make white bread, black bread, leavened bread, flat-bread, and was seasoned with poppy, anise, fennel, celery, and caraway seeds for flavor.   The Romans also used three different types of flour to back with: fine flour (siligo), intermediate type (simila), and whole-grain (cibarium).  Below is a map of all the food sources in ancient Rome. (7)

From A Taste of Rome by Ilaria Giacosa.

Due to this growing increase of resources from expansion, the Romans were able to set up food shops.  These food shops were highly relied on by those who were not able to grow their gardens or set up their own fields for cultivation.  These food shops then resulted in the creation of food markets.  One of the largest markets was the Market of Trajan which housed 150 shops on 6 different floors.  It was built during the reign of Trajan (98-117 AD) by the architect Apolodorus of Damascus. (8)

Giacosa's discussion of the Roman kitchen and banquet is nothing new from what I have discussed in earlier blogs.  The kitchen for an ordinary Roman family was small and not really considered kitchens because the homes were typically small.  Wealthier and bigger homes had what we today would consider "real kitchens."  These kitchens didn't have windows, contained a packed dirt floor, and didn't have an exhaust channel so smoke could escape, which resulted in many fires. (9)

Among the furnishings in these kitchens were the following: ovens for baking cakes and bread; a water basin; a couple of burners on top of a brick base; and a pantry and storage room to keep foods.  The burners were maintained by wood or charcoal, the latter of which produced less smoke.  Romans also had utensils which included wooden, metal, or bone knives, spoons, and spatulas, and whisks, sifters, skewers, grills, mortars, and pots. (10)

Hanging pots in a Roman kitchen from A Taste of Ancient Rome by Ilaria Giacosa.

In a triclinium the slaves did the cooking, while the upper class ate in a reclining position.  The slave not only prepared the food, but he or she also cleaned the table when everyone was done.  In terms of etiquette those eating were expected to eat a little at a time.  When dining, one was supposed to recline on his or her left arm and eat food with his or her right hand. (11)

My favorite part about Giacosa's work was her discussion of the different parts of the Roman dinner.  She gives detailed information about how they made sauces, and what were the most popular appetizers, main courses, and desserts.  I will talk about all except for main courses because in my next blog I will be making a Roman plate from one of those three choices.

The Romans LOVED to create sauces for their foods.  It was in many ways the most important part of the meal because it could easily change the taste of any food.  Sauces were made to accompany many foods, meat, fish, veggies, and eggs to name a few.  The basic ingredients for sauces included berries, spices, wine, fermented fish sauce (garum), olive oil, vinegar, water, dates, hazelnuts, walnuts, and starch.  Garum was perhaps the most common ingredient of all and it was something that the Romans borrowed from the Greeks.  Garum was actually popular throughout the Mediterranean in general, and this goes back to the fact that there was so much fish available.  The sale of garum was in large pre-packed amphoras, so we know it was a big business! (12)

Garum sauce 

Appetizers were important because they kicked off the meal.  The usual choices were seasoned eggs, egg-based dishes, veggies, salad, mushrooms, assorted shellfish, cheeses seasoned with herbs, olives, and sausages. The usual serving size for these appetizers was 2-3 people. (13)

Reading about the desserts was my favorite probably because I have a sweet tooth! Giacosa explains that the Romans either served sweets, fresh or dried fruits, salted focaccias (breads with different seasonings and herbs), and sometimes even sausages or cheese for dessert.  She pulls from the works of Cato and Apicius to give us some traditional Roman dessert recipes.  Cato's recipes are simple and were made to accommodate the farmer and his family.  The main ingredients in these recipes were flour, cheese, and honey.  Apicius' recipes were more sophisticated and thus required more ingredients. (14)

In my next blog I will start off my making one or two of the recipes mentioned in A Taste of Ancient Rome and then talking about them.  I really enjoyed Giacosa's work, but I would have loved if she would have provided pictures of some of the foods she discusses so that I would know what each dish is supposed to look like before I start cooking/baking it.  Other than that, I cannot wait to get "hands-on" this week!



1. Ilaria Giacosa, A Taste of Ancient Rome (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 5.
2. Ibid., 5-6.
3. Ibid., 6.
4. Ibid., 6-7.
5. Ibid., 6-8.
6. Ibid., 10.
7. Ibid., 11-16.
8. Ibid., 17.
9. Ibid., 19.
10. Ibid., 19-20.
11. Ibid., 22.
12. Ibid., 26-28.
13. Ibid., 28.
14. Ibid., 156.