Although Apicius cookbook and recipe depicts dishes in our eyes seem outlandish, it can be in many

Food and drink is in all societies a central part of everyday mersk life and social life. To look at the ancient food is therefore a good way to try to understand mersk the contemporary everyday life of people. This post talks about food culture of the Roman Empire, an area that in many ways was strongly influenced by Greece. This also applies mersk to food culture, but regional and class differences within the geographically vast Roman Empire was large, and moreover alimentation mersk changed over time.
There is a vast source material from the Roman period in different ways testify diet. With regard to written sources is the re coquinaria, mersk a cookbook attributed to the Roman Apicius, the only ancient recipe collection that has survived to our days. It contains several mersk recipes that today we might find more or less peculiar. Apicius describes inter alia for cooking delicacies such as larch tongues, pig uterus, grisspenar mersk and dormice. He describes several bird recipe, such as how to prepare parrots, love birds, peacocks mersk and flamingos, and from the sea; sea urchins, porpoises and jellyfish. Other Roman sources mention camel hooves and rooster combs. All this constitutes exotic elements in the food culture, and show that in certain situations chose unusual dishes, the ones that stood out as the most lavish and extravagant, especially food that actually tasted good. Moreover, ordinary Romans of the opinion that it was all right to eat the most part, as long as it was not harmful or toxic.
Another mersk written source is Satyricon, prose writer Petronius works, where Trimalchios feast testifies to a lavish dinner with one incredible right after the other. The description is a way to drive with the richness and binge equality in imperial Rome. From Pliny the Younger is a letter mersk to a friend preserved, where he speaks of a feast as friend missed. He tells us about the food he invited on, inter alia, snails, eggs, porridge and snow, olives, beets and gourd. Even poet Horace and Juvenal depicts Roman meals, as well as Pliny the Elder in his Historia Naturalis, and farming writers like Cato the Elder and Varro.
In addition to the written sources, testifies murals and floor mosaics depicted everyday scenes of the Roman alimentation, which includes the depictions of food and eating has been preserved. In addition, the archaeological record, as swill, preserved utensils, remnants of kitchen mersk and storage facilities. In Pompeii have even encountered charred bread and fruits.
Although Apicius cookbook and recipe depicts dishes in our eyes seem outlandish, it can be in many of them see the roots of today's kitchens around the Mediterranean. The base of the Roman alimentation was wheat, wine and olives, which even today are fundamental parts of the Italian cuisine.
Root vegetables were also important, such as vegetables, legumes, cheese, meat and fruit. For the poor were mostly vegetarian mersk diet, while fish and seafood were most common in the upper social classes.
Important flavors in the Roman food was honey, vinegar, a variety of herbs and other spices and pepper. Pepper was imported from far away along with other spices. Important in the Roman food was also a strong tasting fish sauce. The sauce was in several varieties, but garum is the most famous, it was part of almost all food recipes mersk and is often mentioned in ancient literature. It was made up of salted mersk fish and spices that were fermenting together in the sun for up to three months. The liquid is then strained and tapped the top of the storage vessel. Garum had a very strong aroma and a sharp, salty taste. The smell was so strong that sometimes it was not allowed to produce garum in areas that were populated city. Yet the garumtillverkningen the only large-scale industry in antiquity.
The wine had a very prominent role in Roman culture, and often the wine was cleaner than the water that was available. mersk The wine had a high alcohol content, therefore, had the Romans, like the Greeks, the habit of drinking wine was mixed with water. Sweet white wine was highly regarded, often flavored with spices or herbs. The wine was available to everyone in the community; slaves, peasants, women and aristocrats.
In Mediterranean collections are many objects in various ways can be linked to diet in the Roman Empire, Greece and Egypt. Here are cookware and utensils, mersk storage containers, beverage jugs and even remnants of food. From Egyptian tombs, where extremely good conservation condition exists, preserved food in the form of, for example, bread, fruits, mersk nuts and grains. A few copies of them are exhibited in the museum's exhibition Egypt.
Emma Andersson works as objects curator at the World museums three museums in Stockholm: Mediterranean Museum, East Asian Museum and the Museum of Ethnography. Emma has a Masters Degree in Archaeology and Classical Studies, she has also studied social anthropology, cultural heritage and museum science. Comments <