Some homes had a second smaller dining room for less important meals and family meals were taken in a plainer oikos. The triclinium would be richly decorated, it was a place to show off wealth and status. The fourth side was always left open to allow servants to serve the dishes.ĭiners were seated to reflect their status. It would be eaten in the triclinium, the dining room, at low tables with couches on three sides. The cena could be a grand social affair lasting several hours. Richer citizens in time, freed from the rhythms of manual labour, ate a bigger cena from late afternoon, abandoning the final supper. They may have eaten a late supper called vesperna. A small lunch, prandium, was eaten at around 11am. But how much has the regional food changed over the last two millenia? Listen Now The daily Roman cuisineįor the ordinary Roman, their diet started with, ientaculum – breakfast, this was served at day break. When we think of the modern Mediterranean, delicious and vibrant food is one of the first things that come to mind. Poets like Horace (65 – 8 BC) and Juvenal (1st – 2nd century) leave clues.Ī 10 volume cookbook, Apicius’ De re coquinaria (4th – 5th centuries AD) survives and Pliny the Elder’s great Natural History (c77 AD) is a fine source on edible plants. Petronius’ over-the-top Satyricon (late 1st century) is probably the inspiration for our imagined decadent banquet. Rome’s rich literary and visual culture can also provide clues. The cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii (destroyed in the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius) have left sewers and rubbish heaps packed with digested dietary evidence. The most tangible evidence of the Roman diet is food and human waste excavated by archaeologists. Rome was a hierarchical society too, and the slave ate an enormously different diet from the master he served. The 1,000-year and pan-European extent of Roman history takes in an enormous culinary range. The Romans weren’t always reclining at a table loaded with roasted ostriches, literally eating until they were sick.
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