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The cuisine of the Roman Empire was formed under the influence of the gastronomic culture of Ancient Greece. This ancient gastronomy was based on bread, wine and olive oil – no meal would have happened without these products.
The main products in early Rome were bread and cereals, from which stews and cereals were prepared, for example, bullet, a mixture of flour, honey, salt, olive oil and water. They also loved borscht, and specially for them they grew cabbage and beets. Even great artists and emperors did not shy away from this occupation.
Ancient Rome is considered the founder of salads. Even then, they were prepared from chopped lettuce, parsley, onions and seasoned with honey, salt, vinegar and olive oil (and from the XNUMXst century AD, ground black pepper was added).
The Romans paid special attention to breakfast – they ate densely and with taste. Usually it was the leftovers from dinner – olives, capers, eggs, bread and cheese, honey. The children were given milk and sweet or salty wheat cakes. At noon, they ate a light lunch or snack on something bought from spontaneous merchants.
With the onset of darkness, the whole family gathered for a hearty meal. Soups made from cereals or dried vegetables, cheese, vegetables, olives, and meat were necessarily present on the table.
During the late Roman Republic, cooking began to become an art form, and slave cooks became an expensive commodity. Dishes are becoming more sophisticated, and some ingredients are incomparably expensive.
In the days of the Roman Empire, even the ruling emperors showed interest in cooking, competing in the unusualness of new recipes. A whole feast is arranged, where the pride was precisely the prepared dishes with which they tried to surprise the representatives of the nobility.
The Roman meal consisted of an appetizer (gustus or gustatio), a first course (mensa prima) and a dessert (mensa secunda), which was mainly served with fruits and sweets.
Among the most popular snacks were eggs and egg dishes, vegetables, salad, mushrooms (including truffles), seafood, herbal cheeses, olives, sauces, fricassee.
Meat dishes were luxurious, often whole carcasses were baked, all kinds of sausages were fried, as well as the insides of animals (rumen, kidneys, testicles, and so on) and unpopular parts of their bodies: ears, tails, skin, udders. The Romans adored exquisite dishes from small birds – pigeons, blackbirds.
The fish dishes were very varied. Smelt (apua), azella (asellus), sea wolf (lupus), stingray (torpedo) and other exotic representatives of the seas and rivers were prepared. Seafood was represented by crayfish, lobster, squid.
There is a legend that the legendary Roman emperor was not indifferent to carrots, which he attributed to aphrodisiacs. One day, he invited the entire Roman Senate to a banquet that consisted entirely of carrot dishes, hoping that this would raise the sexual desire of everyone present. Whether this is true or not is not known for certain.
Caesar is also credited with the famous phrase “We are what we eat.” The author of the first cookbooks of Marco, Gaby Apicius lived during the time of Julius Caesar.
The cookbook Apicius “On the Art of Cooking” contains dishes that combined recipes and products from different regions of the world: Alexandrian pumpkin with honey and pine grains, lamb filled with savory and Damascus plums, an ostrich with two varieties of dates and peas. Indian with squid and octopus, seasoned with wine, green onions and coriander.
Dinner in the style of Ancient Rome from the time of Caesar looked something like this.
Chicken Parthian
You will need 4 pieces of chicken, a teaspoon of ground black pepper, 4 tablespoons of hot Vietnamese fish sauce or 4 fillets of anchovy in vegetable oil, 3 heads of garlic, 2 teaspoons of cumin seeds, half a glass of chopped parsley, half a glass of chopped celery, half a glass of white wine …
Cut the chicken into pieces. Make a sauce by mixing black pepper, parsley, celery, cumin, garlic, soak everything in hot fish sauce with water. Pour the sauce over the chicken and simmer until tender. Serve with black pepper.
Olive caviar
Take 100 grams of whole black olives (or green olives), a teaspoon of cumin seeds, a teaspoon of fennel seeds, a teaspoon of coriander seeds, 3 mint leaves, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and 3 tablespoons of white wine vinegar.
Remove the pits from the olives and chop them up. Grind the cumin, fennel and coriander seeds in a mortar. Chop mint finely. Place everything in a blender and blend. Gradually add oil and vinegar and mix for another 1 minute. Serve with slices of bread.
Sweet ham
You will need a thick piece of pre-cooked ham, a sufficient amount of honey, 500 grams of flour, olive oil.
Use a knife to make cross-to-cross cuts on a piece of ham, then rub it with honey. Make a shortbread dough by mixing flour and vegetable oil. Place the ham on the rolled dough and drizzle with another spoonful of honey. Carefully wrap the ham in the dough and place on a greased mold. Place the dish in the oven and bake for 20 minutes at 160 degrees. It can be served both hot and cold.
Honey dates
Stuff the dates with walnuts, pine nuts, or even ground black pepper. Dip in salt and fry in honey for 5-10 minutes. Place them on a plate greased with vegetable oil to keep them from sticking together or sticking to the plate. Serve hot.