19
Jan
2015
Eating Like a Roman
A few posts back, I posted some recent news about the discovery of a great deal of composted Roman sewerage at Herculaneum. The archeologists have been as eager to dive in as the contestants in The Magic Christian, because such a large … sample (180 bags) … gives us a pretty good idea what the citizens of (at least this block) of Herculaneum were eating and so then also tells us something about food production, health, and other matters.
Mary Beard, the Classicist from whose blog I got this information, says that — not surprisingly — preliminary results indicate that they ate a lot of eggs, nuts, and dates, which were common elements of the general Mediterranean diet in antiquity. Perhaps a bit more interesting is the discovery that they also ate a lot of sea urchins, a tasty treat (if you like caviar) still eaten throughout the Mediterranean but not so easy to harvest.
The banquet in Fellini's Satyricon.
How much do we know about how Romans ate?
Quite a lot, actually. Read the rest of this entry »
