FOOD IN ANCIENT ROME: STAPLES, EXOTIC DISHES, PIZZA?

FOOD IN ANCIENT ROME

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House of Julia Felix still life
of wine and fruit from PompeiiRome was praised by Virgil in 29 B.C. for its grain, wine, olives and "prosperous herds." Food was never a problem in Rome. The land around the city was productive and as the empire expanded it was fed by fertile land in Tunis and Algeria.

Roman cuisine is often associated with over gluttony and over-the-top indulgence, with lark’s tongues and stuffed dormice and the like but what ordinary people ate a regular basis is much more mundane: typically millet or wheat-based porridge, seasoned with herbs or meat if available.
Dr Mike Ibeji wrote for the BBC: “The diet of the inhabitants of Vindolanda [in Britain] was pretty varied. Within the Vindolanda tablets, 46 different types of foodstuff are mentioned. Whilst the more exotic of these, such as roe deer, venison, spices, olives, wine and honey, appear in the letters and accounts of the slaves attached to the commander's house; it is clear that the soldiers and ordinary people around the fort did not eat badly. We have already seen the grain accounts of the brothers Octavius and Candidus, demonstrating that a wide variety of people in and around the fort were supplied with wheat. Added to that are a couple of interesting accounts and letters which show that the ordinary soldiers could get hold of such luxuries as pepper and oysters, and that the local butcher was doing a roaring trade in bacon. [Source: Dr Mike Ibeji, BBC, November 16, 2012 ]

Silvia Marchetti of CNN wrote: Ancient Romans enjoyed sweet and salty concoctions. Lagane, a rustic short pasta usually served with chickpeas, was also used to make a honey cake with fresh ricotta cheese. The Romans used garum, a pungent, salty fermented fish sauce for umami flavor in all dishes, even as a dessert topping. (For context, garum has a similar flavor profile and composition to current-day Asian fish sauces such as Vietnam’s nuoc mam and Thailand’s nam pla.) The prized condiment was made by leaving fish meat, blood and guts to ferment inside containers under the Mediterranean sun. [Source: Silvia Marchetti, CNN, December 25, 2023]

Determining What Ancient Romans Ate

One way scientists have determined what people ate is by examing garbage dumps and sewer remains. Excavations of plumbing and sewers near the Roman Colosseum have turned up traces of vegetables, small fruits and even pizza. According to the Miami Herald: The sewer system revealed the types of foods spectators snacked on as they watched performances — and the bones of animals that met their fate in the arena. Sewer leftovers aside, ancient Romans kept food and many other materials in ceramic pottery. Archaeologists in Italy found pottery and ceramics so frequently while excavating the ruins of Falerii Novi, an ancient city about 30 miles north of Rome, that they dubbed it the “tupperware of antiquity.”. [Source: Aspen Pflughoeft, Miami Herald, December 31, 2022]

Archaeologists excavating Herculaneum near Pompeii, studying what Romans ate by examining what they left behind in their sewers and sifting through hundreds of sacks of human excrement, determined that Romans ate a lot of vegetables. “Dr Annamaria Ciarallo, an environmental biologist and researcher at Pompeii, told Tribune News said: “The food then was mainly based on cereals, vegetables, cheese and fish, with just a little meat. It was very healthy – the original Mediterranean diet.”

Carbonized eggs and bread have been found in excavations in Pompeii. Dr Joanne Berry wrote for the BBC: “ Such finds are very rare, since organic materials generally have not survived. There is only limited evidence of goods such as food, wooden furniture and cloth (for clothes, or drapery) that were essential to everyday life, yet were made of perishable materials. It does appear from the available evidence, however, that the inhabitants of Pompeii had a varied diet. Other preserved foods that have been discovered include bread, walnuts, almonds, dates, figs and olives. Many animal bones (sheep, pig, cattle), fish bones and shells (scallop, cockle, sea urchin, cuttlefish) also have been uncovered.” [Source: Dr Joanne Berry, Pompeii Images, BBC, March 29, 2011]

Natural Conditions in Italy for Producing Food

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Winter food Harold Whetstone Johnston wrote in “The Private Life of the Romans”: “Italy is blessed above all the other countries of central Europe with the natural conditions that go to yield an abundant and varied supply of food. The soil is rich and composed of different elements in different parts of the country. The rainfall is abundant, and rivers and smaller streams are numerous. The line of greatest length runs northwest to southeast, but the climate depends little upon latitude, as it is modified by surrounding bodies of water, by mountain ranges, and by prevailing winds. These agencies in connection with the varying elevations of the land itself produce such widely different conditions that somewhere within the confines of Italy almost all the grains and fruits of the temperate and subtropic zones find the soil and climate most favorable to their growth. [Source: “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932) forumromanum.org |+|]

“The earliest inhabitants of the peninsula, the Italian peoples, seem to have left for the Romans the task of developing and improving these means of subsistence. Wild fruits, nuts, and flesh have always been the support of uncivilized peoples, and must have been so for the shepherds who laid the foundations of Rome. The very word pecunia (from pecu; cf. peculium), shows that herds of domestic animals were the first source of Roman wealth. But other words show just as clearly that the cultivation of the soil was understood by the Romans in very early times: the names Fabius, Cicero, Piso, and Caepio are no lessancient than Porcius, Asinius, Vitellius, and Ovidius. Cicero puts into the mouth of the Elder Cato the statement that to the farmer the garden was a second meat supply, but long before Cato’s time meat had ceased to be the chief article of food. Grain and grapes and olives furnished subsistence for all who did not live to eat. These gave “the wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread that strengtheneth man’s heart.” On these three abundant products of the soil the mass of the people of Italy lived of old as they live today. Something will be said of each, after less important products have been considered.” |+|

Food also came from elsewhere in the Mediterranean. A satirical poem by Varro, a contemporary of Cicero, lists peacock from Samos, heath-cock from Phrygia, crane from Media, kid from Ambracia, young tunny-fish from Chalcedon, murena from Tartessus, cod from Pessinus, oysters from Tarentum, scallops from Chios, sturgeon from Rhodes, scarus from Cilicia, nuts from Thasos, dates from Egypt, and chestnuts from Spain. |+|

Common Foods in the Roman Empire

bread from Pompeii

Among other things Romans ate doves, chickens, figs, dates, olives, grapes, white almonds, truffles and fois gras and cooked fowl in clay pots. There were no tomatoes, potatoes, spaghetti, risotto, or corn. Romans often turned up their noses at the food from outside Rome. On the food in Greece a character in a satire commented: “They give weeds to their guests, as though they were cattle. And they flavor their weeds with other weeds."

Major crops included grapes, olives, peaches, cherries, plums and walnuts.Romans grafted apple trees and spread apple cultivation throughout their empire. The main pieces of farm machinery were olive oil presses. Rabbits are believed to have been domesticated using wild rabbits from Iberia in the Roman Era.

The Romans consumed dairy products such as milk, cream, curds, whey, and cheese. Harold Whetstone Johnston wrote in “The Private Life of the Romans”: “ They drank the milk of sheep and goats as well as that of cows, and made cheese of the three kinds of milk. The cheese from ewes’ milk was thought more digestible, though less palatable, than that made from cows’ milk, while cheese from goats’ milk was more palatable but less digestible. It is remarkable that they had no knowledge of butter except as a plaster for wounds. [Source: “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932) |+|]

“Honey took the place of sugar on the table and in cooking, for the Romans had only a botanical knowledge of the sugar cane. Salt was at first obtained by the evaporation of sea water, but was afterwards mined, Its manufacture was a monopoly of the government, and care was taken always to keep the price low. It was used not only for seasoning, but also as a preservative agent. Vinegar was made from grapes. Among the articles of food unknown to the Romans were tea and coffee, along with the orange, tomato, potato, butter, and sugar.” |+|

Variety of Foods Found in the Roman Empire

To appreciate the consummate skill of the Roman chef, past master in the art of so disguising dishes that none could guess their ingredients (ut nemo agnoscet quid manduces), we need only hear Petronius vaunt the exploits of his chef: "If you want it, he will make you a fish out of a sow's belly, a wood pigeon out of bacon, a turtledove out of a ham, and a chicken out of a knuckle of pork. There could not be a more valuable fellow." To realise the progress of gastronomy in his day and the excellence and variety of the food supplies which were at the gourmet's disposal for varied combinations, we may read the Thirteenth Book of Martial's Epigrams. [Source: “Daily Life in Ancient Rome: the People and the City at the Height the Empire” by Jerome Carcopino, Director of the Ecole Franchise De Rome Member of the Institute of France, Routledge 1936]

Fish were caught in the gulfs and bays adjacent to the city; shell-fish, large and small, in the Mediterranean. Game abounded in the Laurentine and Ciminian forests. The open country near at hand supplied from its flocks and herds meat and milk in every form, the cheeses of Trebula and Vestini, and also vegetables of every sort: cabbages and lentils, beans and lettuce, radishes and turnips, gourds and pumpkins, melons and asparagus. Picenum and the Sabine country were renowned for the quality of their oils. The pickles with which eggs were seasoned came from Spain.

Pork came from Gaul, spices from the East; wines and fruits from all the sections of Italy and the world; apples, pears, and figs from Chios, lemons and pomegranates from Africa, dates from the oases, plums from Damascus. Every kind of food had its amateurs and connoisseurs. From Juvenal alone a collection could be made of gourmands whose mouths watered to see the abundance of the market: "the dirty ditch digger who remembers the savour of tripe in the reeking cookshop"; "the youth who has learned from the hoary gluttony of a spendthrift father to peel truffles, to preserve mushrooms, and to souse becaficos in their own juice"; the prodigal who for 6,000 sesterces bought a mullet that he coveted; the gourmet Montanus, who "could tell at the first bite whether an oyster had been bred at Circeii or on the Lucrine rocks."

Roman Food That We Recognize Today

Adam Hart-Davis wrote for the BBC: “Celtic cooking had probably been a one-pot affair, such as a mess of potage to be shared by the household, but the Romans introduced the three-course meal. They cooked meat, fish and eggs and brought with them apples, pears, apricots, turnips, carrots, coriander and asparagus. They brought recipes too - I can strongly recommend the kidneys stuffed with herbs and the fishy custard.” [Source: Adam Hart-Davis, BBC, February 17, 2011]

Pompeii "pizza" fresco

On what the Roman Britons, Tom Whipple wrote in the Sunday Times: 1) “Porridgey gruel: The ultimate peasant food low in refined sugar, almost impossible to get obese on, you know what they say, nothing tastes as good as thin feels. And gruel feels pretty thin.” 2) “Bread: Ward off diabetes the ancient Briton way, by chewing continuously on gritty, tough and mind-numbingly tedious bread made from poorly milled flour. Calorifically, you barely break even. 3) “Broth: It might not have the richness of modern soups, but as far as your oral hygiene is concerned it will keep you smiling to the very end. If, that is, you can get over the unrelenting misery of your diet.” [Source: Tom Whipple, Sunday Times, October 2014]

Joel N. Shurkin wrote in insidescience: “Archaeologists studying the eating habits of ancient Etruscans and Romans have found that pork was the staple of Italian cuisine before and during the Roman Empire. Both the poor and the rich ate pig as the meat of choice, although the rich got better cuts, ate meat more often and likely in larger quantities. They had pork chops and a form of bacon. They even served sausages and prosciutto.... Besides the meat, there would be vegetables that looked little different from what we eat, said Angela Trentacoste of the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. Except for grain, which was imported in huge quantities from places like North Africa, everything was locally grown.... Pizza had yet not been invented.” [Source: Joel N. Shurkin, insidescience, February 3, 2015 +/]

What People in Pompeii Ate

Christina Sterbenz wrote in National Geographic History: Evidence of what Pompeiians ate has been discovered carbonized, but recipes, written on papyrus and translated by monks in the Middle Ages, also offer clues, according to Comegna. One recipe detailed what Comegna called an “ancestor of lasagna.” “No tomatoes, just with meat and ricotta cheese, and layers of pasta,” Comegna said. “Lasagna is the modern name, although the idea is quite the same.”

In 2005, researchers at the archaeological site recreated many of the recipes of ancient Pompeii and replanted some of the fruits and vegetables residents ate, like figs, olives, plums, and grapes. (Pompeiians also traded with North Africa for dates.) Visitors to the park could enjoy dishes such as savillum, a favorite dessert similar to a cheesecake or custard; peaches with honey; and prosciutto. On top of their garum consumption, Pompeiians’ diet revolved heavily around fish. In one sewer in Herculaneum, 43 species of fish bones were found, according to Benedict Lowe, a professor of history at the University of North Alabama. Residents also got their protein from sheep, chicken, lentils, and beans, Comegna says. Cereals, such as oats and barley, were also common.

The majority of the foods in Pompeii were bland. The ancient Romans had salt in abundance, but not many other flavors, so they’d trade with India for spices like cinnabar and pepper. In fact, the Romans spent so much money on spices that Indians used Roman currency as their own for a time, Lowe says. But only the rich could afford spices. Houses of the extremely wealthy even had saltwater ponds right next to their dining rooms, which they would stock with fish to catch right before a meal, according to Lowe. He points out that Seneca, a major stoic philosopher of the time, wrote somewhat sarcastically that a Roman wouldn’t consider a fish fresh unless they killed it on their plate. The people of Pompeii also flavored their wine — and changed its color — using fava beans. At one remarkably well-preserved “thermopolium,” a snack or wine bar, fully unearthed in 2020, fava beans were found at the bottom jugs of wine.

Pompeii “Pizza”

In June 2023, archaeologists revealed a fresco from Pompeii that appeared to be of a pizza. But actually it was not a pizza because it lacked tomatoes and mozzarella, the two ingredients that define the classic Neapolitan pizza recipe, because they were not available in Italy in the A.D. first century when the Vesuvius eruption entombed Pompeii. Rather the fresco depicts a piece of round flatbread on a silver tray, surrounded by nuts, dried fruits such as pomegranates, arbutus fruits and dates and a goblet filled with red wine. [Source: Jonathan Amos, BBC, July 19, 2023]

The flatbread in the fresco, however, could be a precursor to the modern-day pizza. AFP reported: The 2,000-year-old painting was discovered in the middle of a half-crumbled wall during an archaeological dig. What was depicted on the wall of an ancient Pompeian house could be a distant ancestor of the modern dish," said experts at the archaeological park in a statement. [Source: AFP, June 27, 2023]

The fresco is believed to refer to the "hospitable gifts" offered to guests, following a Greek tradition dating to the 3rd to 1st centuries B.C. and described by imperial Roman-era writers including Virgil and Philostratus. Pompeii's director, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, said the newly uncovered fresco shows the contrast between "a frugal and simple meal, which refers to a sphere between the bucolic and the sacred... and the luxury of silver trays and the refinement of artistic and literary representations.".

"How can we fail to think, in this regard, of pizza, also born as a 'poor' dish in southern Italy, which has now conquered the world and is also served in starred restaurants," Zuchtriegel added. The new excavations revealed an atrium of a house that included an annex with a bakery, partially explored in the late 19th century. In the working areas near the oven, the skeletons of three victims have been found.

Dinner with Trajan, Martial and Juvenal

Thanks to a letter of Pliny the Younger we know the kind of cena Emperor Trajan (ruled A.D. 98 to 117) presided over in his villa at Centumcellae (Civitk Vecchia): "We were every day invited to Caesar's supper, which for a prince was a modest (modica) repast; there we were either entertained with interludes (acroamata), or passed the night in the most pleasing conversation." Pliny himself accepts as a rare and welcome gift the "very fine thrushes" sent him by Calpurnius and the pullet which reached him from Cornutus: "Weak as my eyes still are, they are strong enough to discern that it is extremely fat." He accepted an invitation to dinner from Catilius Severus (consul in A.D. 115), "but I must make this condition beforehand, that you dismiss me soon and treat me frugally. Let our table abound only in philosophical conversation, and let us enjoy even that within limits." A letter of his preserves the menu he had prepared for Septicius Clarus in which he jestingly boasts of the expense I was at to treat you which let me tell yoi' was no small sum. I had prepared, you must know, a lettuce and three snails apiece; with two eggs, barley water, some sweet wine and snow... Besides all these curious dishes, there were olives, beets, gourds, shalots, and a hundred other dainties equally sumptuous. You should likewise have been entertained either with an interlude, the rehearsal of a poem or a piece of music, as you like best; or (such was my liberality) with all three. But the oysters, chitterlings, sea-urchins, and Spanish dancers of a certain were, it seems, more to your taste!” [Source: “Daily Life in Ancient Rome: the People and the City at the Height the Empire” by Jerome Carcopino, Director of the Ecole Franchise De Rome Member of the Institute of France, Routledge 1936]

The same good taste reigned among the humbler middle classes. Let us inspect, for instance, the cena which poet Martial arranged for seven guests: “My bailiff's wife has brought me mallows that will ease the stomach, and the various wealth the garden bears; among which are squat lettuce and clipped leek, and flatulent mint is not wanting nor the salacious herb (eruca); sliced eggs shall garnish lizard-fish served with rue and there shall be a paunch dripping with the tunny's brine. So much for your hors d'oeuvre. The modest dinner shall be served in a single course a kid rescued from the jaws of a savage wolf, and meat balls to require no carver's knife, and beans, the food of artisans, and tender young sprouts; to these a chicken, and a ham that has already survived three dinners, shall be added. When you have had your fill I will give you ripe apples, wine without lees from a Nomentan flagon which was three years old in Frontinus second consulship [98 A.D.]. To crown these there shall be jests without gall, and a freedom not dreaded next morning, and no word you would wish unsaid.”

Even simpler and more amusing is the dinner which the satirist Juvenal proposes to his friend Persicus: And now hear my feast, which no meat market shall provide. From my Tiburtine farm there will come a plump kid, tenderest of the flock, innocent of grass, that has never yet dared to nibble the twigs of the dwarf willow, and has more of milk in him than blood; some wild asparagus, gathered by the bailiff's wife when done with her spindle, and some lordly eggs warm in their wisps of hay together with the hens that laid them. There will be grapes too, kept half the year, as fresh as when they hung upon the vine; pears from Signia and Syria, and in the same baskets fresh-smelling apples that rival those of Picenum.

It is pleasing to think it was menus like these that were enjoyed during his holidays at Pompeii by the townsman who had painted on the walls of his triclinium the wise mottoes which we still read there, breathing decency and dignity: 1) Let the slave wash and dry the feet of the guests, and let him be mindful to spread a linen cloth on the cushions of the couches.2) Spare thy neighbour's wife lascivious glances and ogling flatteries, and let modesty dwell in thy mouth. 3) Be amiable and abstain from odious brawlings if thou canst. If not, let thy steps bear thee back again to thine own home.

Exotic Food in Ancient Rome

snails

According to National Geographic: The Romans excelled at food, using everything from chickpeas to chicken to sea urchins in their lavish dishes. They seasoned their foods with honey, caraway, salt, and pepper, developed wine from grapes, and baked bread and pastries. The most famous ingredient was garum, a fermented fish sauce used to flavor porridge and even as a dessert topping. [Source National Geographic, November 8, 2022]

Romans hosted elaborate dinner parties with hosts trying to top one another with the most elaborate dishes. At the famous hours-long feasts, reserved for the elite delicacies such as as raw oysters, lobster, rabbit, and wild boar appeared on tables, served with eye-popping dishes such as parrot tongue stew and stuffed dormouse. The epitome of hedonists, wealthy Roman men ate lying down on couches to help reduce bloating, and they stuffed themselves until they vomited, making room for more.

Exotic Dishes Ancient Rome

The Roman elite indulged themselves with unusual foods such as nightingale tongues, parrot heads, camel heels and elephant trunks. They ate or reportedly ate peacocks, dolphin meatballs, herons, goat feet, peacock brains, boiled parrot, flamingo tongues and orioles. They liked watching birds fly out of featured dishes and ate an electric fish because “it was fascinating." Sometimes a calf was cooked up with a pig inside it and inside the pig were a lamb, a chicken, a rabbit and a mouse.

One of the greatest delicacies was foie gras made by force feeding geese with figs to enlarge their livers. The Roman are sometimes credited with inventing foie gras, but the Greeks also ate it. The Roman Emperor Elagabalus once ordered 600 ostriches killed so his cooks could make him ostrich-brain pies.

One delicacy favored by the rich was stuffed dormouse, Christina Sterbenz wrote in National Geographic History. “a larger and meatier ancestor of modern mice. The live dormice would be placed in a glirarium, a ceramic jar with a lid and perforations that allowed them to breathe. It was typically filled with nuts so they could eat, fatten up, and then be cooked. “According to the cookbook written by Apicius, the dormice would be stuffed with pork, pepper, pine-nuts, and fish-sauce,” Lowe said. Despite literary evidence that the upper classes dined on flamingoes, no discoveries have verified that yet, he said. (He also cautions against taking literature from the period literally because it was mostly written by senators and other members of the upper class, who had a vested interest in portraying their society in the most positive light possible.) [Source: Christina Sterbenz, National Geographic, August 1, 2023]

Evidence of Romans Dining on Giraffe and Other Exotica

Excavations in Pompeii have provided hard evidence that ancient Romans dined on giraffes, pink flamingos and exotic spices from as far away as Indonesia, according to a study of food waste examined by researchers from the University of Cincinnati led by archaeologist Steven Ellis. AFP reported: “The most used foods found in drains and dumps were grains, fruits, nuts, olives, lentils, local fish and eggs, but there was also more exotic fare like salted fish from Spain, or imported shellfish and sea urchins. [Source: AFP, January 8, 2014 /*/]

“A joint of giraffe was found in the drain of one home. “This is thought to be the only giraffe ever recorded from an archaeological excavation in Roman Italy,” Ellis said. “Ellis’s team has been working on two neighbourhoods of Pompeii for over 10 years. The area had around 20 shops, most of which served food and drink, and the archaeologists analyzed their waste drains as well as nearby latrines and cesspits. The remains go back as far as the 4th century B.C. Ellis said that Pompeii urbanites had “a higher fare and standard of living” than previously thought and the university said the research was “wiping out the historic perceptions of how the Romans dined.” Ellis’s discoveries were presented at the joint annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and American Philological Association (APA) in Chicago. /*/

camel-like giraffe in a 5th-century Roman-Byzantine church in Petra, Jordan

According to a University of Cincinnati press release: “Ellis says the excavation is producing a complete archaeological analysis of homes, shops and businesses at a forgotten area inside one of the busiest gates of Pompeii, the Porta Stabia. The area covers 10 separate building plots and a total of 20 shop fronts, most of which served food and drink. The waste that was examined included collections from drains as well as 10 latrines and cesspits, which yielded mineralized and charred food waste coming from kitchens and excrement. Ellis says among the discoveries in the drains was an abundance of the remains of fully-processed foods, especially grains.

“The material from the drains revealed a range and quantity of materials to suggest a rather clear socio-economic distinction between the activities and consumption habits of each property, which were otherwise indistinguishable hospitality businesses,” says Ellis. Findings revealed foods that would have been inexpensive and widely available, such as grains, fruits, nuts, olives, lentils, local fish and chicken eggs, as well as minimal cuts of more expensive meat and salted fish from Spain. Waste from neighboring drains would also turn up less of a variety of foods, revealing a socioeconomic distinction between neighbors. [Source: University of Cincinnati]

“A drain from a central property revealed a richer variety of foods as well as imports from outside Italy, such as shellfish, sea urchin and even delicacies including the butchered leg joint of a giraffe. “That the bone represents the height of exotic food is underscored by the fact that this is thought to be the only giraffe bone ever recorded from an archaeological excavation in Roman Italy,” says Ellis. “How part of the animal, butchered, came to be a kitchen scrap in a seemingly standard Pompeian restaurant not only speaks to long-distance trade in exotic and wild animals, but also something of the richness, variety and range of a non-elite diet.”

“Deposits also included exotic and imported spices, some from as far away as Indonesia. Ellis adds that one of the deposits dates as far back as the 4th century B.C., which he says is a particularly valuable discovery, since few other ritual deposits survived from that early stage in the development of Pompeii. “The ultimate aim of our research is to reveal the structural and social relationships over time between working-class Pompeian households, as well as to determine the role that sub-elites played in the shaping of the city, and to register their response to city-and Mediterranean-wide historical, political and economic developments. However, one of the larger datasets and themes of our research has been diet and the infrastructure of food consumption and food ways,” says Ellis. “He adds that as a result of the discoveries, “The traditional vision of some mass of hapless lemmings – scrounging for whatever they can pinch from the side of a street, or huddled around a bowl of gruel – needs to be replaced by a higher fare and standard of living, at least for the urbanites in Pompeii.”

Insects as a Food in Ancient Rome

Professor Gene R. De Foliart wrote: “Pliny the Elder, 1st Century AD Roman natural history author, mentions that cicadas are eaten in the East. Pliny also records that Roman epicures of his day highly esteemed the Cossus grub and fattened them for the table on flour and wine. There has been much confusion about the identity of the Cossus, which Pliny stated feeds in oak. Bodenheimer lists several species that have been put forward by various authors as the Cossus of Pliny, but credits Mulsant with settling the question, and concludes that almost certainly it was the larva of Cerambyx heros Linn. [Source: “Human Use of Insects as a Food Resource”,Professor Gene R. De Foliart (1925-2013), Department of Entomology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2002]

mushrooms

Cowan discussed the Cossus as follows: The Cossus of the Greeks and Romans, which, at the time of the greatest luxury among the latter, was introduced at the tables of the rich, was the larva, or grub, of a large beetle that lives in the stems of trees, particularly the oak; and was, most probably, the larva of the Stag-beetle, Lucanus cervus. On this subject, however, entomologists differ very widely.... But the larva of the Lucanus cervus, and perhaps also the Prionus coriarius, which are found in the oak as well as in other trees, may each have been eaten under this name, as their difference could not be discernible either to collectors or cooks.... Pliny tells us that the epicures, who looked upon these cossi as delicacies, even fed them with meal, in order to fatten them.

Athenaeus, about 200 AD, mentions cicadas as dainties in Greek banquets, being served to stimulate the appetite. Athenaeus' opinion should possibly carry extra weight as he was a Greek grammarian and rhetorician who wrote extensively on Greek contemporary life, including cookery.

Third Century AD Roman sophist naturalist and author Aelian sounds another discordant note regarding cicadas when he reports with discontent that he saw people selling small parcels of cicadas for food. Aelian also tells that the King of India served as dessert for his Greek guests a dish of roasted grubs from palm trees, which Holt believes to have been the palm weevil, Calandra palmarum. The locals considered these grubs a great delicacy, but the Greeks did not enjoy them.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons except garbage, Archaeology News Network

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901) ; “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932); BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history/ ; Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org ; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Live Science, Discover magazine, Archaeology magazine, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, The New Yorker, Wikipedia, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia.com and various other books, websites and publications.

Last updated October 2024