Cooking in Ancient Rome

Romans have not left a lot of information about their way of cooking. The main source is a famous book “De re coquinaria” compiled in the late 4th or early 5th century AD by Apicius, a gastronome. He was a very wealthy man spending fortunes giving his many guests refined food. Apicious himself invented a lot of ways to cook, he wrote them down in his book.

A whole chapter is devoted to the conservation of meat, fish, fruit en vegetables. Keeping ingredients fresh without a refrigerator in a warm climate was extremely difficult. Honey and brine played a very important role to conserve food.

Other chapters talk about perfumed wines and oils (mainly to make sauces), mulsum (dry, white wine mixed with honey, mostly served as aperitif) and other sauces of all kind. 

Preparation of all sorts of wild meat, poultry ( including viscera and minced meat), sea- and river fishes are also described. In all chapters the author pays a lot of attention to spices and herbs to accompany the dishes.

Other authors sometimes write about dishes they see in daily life (Ovidius, Plinius, Martialis, Juvenalis, …) They sometimes show appreciation for some (mostly simple) dishes, but dislike big and extravagant buffets  ( Stoicism). They also mention the nutritive value of foods (the physician Celsus).

Note

All sorts of roman kitchenware can be found in many museums worldwide. The houses of Pompei have a big collection of dishware, silverware, cookware, etc. But also museums in Köln, Xanten, Mainz, Saalburg, Wiesbaden, … own beautiful collections found during excavations in old roman camps and limes.

External Links

     Latin texts

http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost04/Apicius/api_intr.html

     Translations

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Apicius/home.html (English translation by Vehlen)

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/recipes/ethnic/historical/ant-rom-coll.html (English translation by Robert Maier)

http://www.apiciana.nl/derecoquinaria/inhoud.html (Latin text and Dutch translation)