Curiosities of ancient Rome (Food)

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Food is a collection of interesting facts about the diet, foods, and culinary customs of ancient Rome. This category includes lesser-known facts and interesting information about Roman dishes, ingredients, meal organization, and dietary differences between the different social classes of the Roman Empire.

Trojan pig – Roman dish

Information about a luxurious Roman dish – the so-called The “Trojan pig” comes from the 5th century and we owe it to the scientist Macrobius. Macrobius himself describes the meaning of the dish as follows:…Więcej

How did ancient Romans eat their meals?

Ancient Romans consuming soup mainly used spoons made of bronze, animal bones or wood. Richer Romans used silver cutlery. The so-called ligula a small dessert spoon. There was another type, for example, coclear – a…Więcej

Cumin in ancient times

Ancient Rome used a range of overseas spices such as black pepper, long pepper, ginger, cardamom and cinnamon. However, the most frequently used raw materials, both in cooking and in medicine, that were grown locally…Więcej

Exaggerated feasting and vomiting in Roman world

Excessive consumption of food and excess was something the ancient Romans believed should be avoided at all costs. The ideal Roman should be devoted to the gods, his family and homeland, and above all, he…Więcej

Ancient wine “Villa dei Misteri – Mastroberardino”

Palaeobotanists recreated the ancient wine that was drunk in ancient Rome two thousand years ago. For this purpose, orchards with grapes were created in Pompeii and the cultivation of plants was undertaken as the Romans…Więcej

Moralia – collection of Plutarch’s texts

Plutarch of Chaeronea (c. 50 – c. 125 CE) is a Greek historian whose most famous work is the collection of lives of famous figures of the ancient world – the so-called Parallel Lives. His…Więcej

Frogs in world of ancient Greeks and Romans

Ancient Greeks and Romans identified frogs with harmony, fertility or debauchery and the goddess Aphrodite (Venus). Ancient writers devoted numerous texts to frogs, including “Batrachomyomachia”, which tells about the war of mice with frogs and…Więcej

Recipe for Roman cream

Cream recipe by Marcus Gavius Apicius, a gastronome from the times of Octavian Augustus and Tiberius. In a chafing-dish put honey, pure wine, raisin wine, pine nuts, nuts, cooked spelt, add crushed and toasted hazelnuts…Więcej

Bucellatum – Roman biscuit

The late-Roman Codex Theodosianus, which is a collection of Roman laws, mentions that a Roman soldier should be equipped with a buccellatum ac panem, vinum quoque atque acetum, sed et laridum, carnem verbecinam, or “hardtack…Więcej

Basil – spice of Greeks and Romans

Basil was already known in ancient Greece and Rome. It was known as ocimum (Latin) or basilikos (in Greek “a herb worth a king”). It is mentioned i.e. by Pliny the Elder, who distinguishes one…Więcej

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