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What did the ancient Romans eat?
- perihelions 5y ago"To recreate this 2,000-year-old dish, Magnanimi started with a recipe from the 1st-Century AD Roman cookbook De Re Coquinaria, the only surviving recipe book from ancient Rome, which is attributed to Apicius, a wealthy gourmand once described by Pliny the Elder as "the most gluttonous gorger of all spendthrifts"." I could have sworn I learned about Apicus from an ancient HN thread... but apparently it's never been linked on here before? Did moths eat the thread? https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29728/29728-h/29728-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29728/29728-h/29728-h.htm [English, 1936] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apicius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apicius related: "Archaeologists uncover ancient street food shop in Pompeii" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25543742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25543742 semi-related: "The mystery of silphium, a lost Roman herb (2017)" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22229666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22229666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15197503 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15197503
- Jtsummers 5y agoI think you misspelt it in your search: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=apicius&sort=byPopularity&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- perihelions 5y agoOh, that was it.
- wise0wl 5y agoIf you enjoyed this, check out Tasting History on YouTube. He had a whole slew of ancient Roman recipes that he faithfully reproduced.
- dbcooper 5y agoHistorical Italian Cooking is a good channel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsDUyQI88LLvpu9RCevwQEA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsDUyQI88LLvpu9RCevwQEA
- hellcow 5y agoIf this article interests you, give Tasting History on YouTube a look.[0] The host recreates historical recipes and ties in primary-source research along the way. He did a series on Roman food -- what the legions ate, etc. 0. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsaGKqPZnGp_7N80hcHySGQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsaGKqPZnGp_7N80hcHySGQ
- doc_gunthrop 5y agoThe YT channel Invicta made an excellent video covering in detail this very topic with regard to the military units, titled "Everyday Moments in History - A Roman Soldier Prepares Dinner". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-l_EbXE3LU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-l_EbXE3LU
- lipanski 5y agoMy YT recommendation on the topic is the hilarious but very well docummented BBC series "Supersizers Eat" [1] [1] https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8D56E0F6438B4CE6 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8D56E0F6438B4CE6
- esrh 5y ago"tomatoes didn't come to Italy until the 1500s, when Cortes brought them back from the Americas." Shocking! Somehow whenever i think of "italian food" the first few images that come into my mind usually involve tomatoes somehow...
- MichaelMoser123 5y agoMax Miller on youtube says he knows how to make Garum - the fish sauce that is often referenced. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S7Bb0Qg-oE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S7Bb0Qg-oE Now sure if that is genuine, i previously read that the recipe for this stuff has been lost (but the Author says his receipe is based on Byzantine sources) More about the author here: https://youtube.fandom.com/wiki/Tasting_History_with_Max_Miller https://youtube.fandom.com/wiki/Tasting_History_with_Max_Mil... it says his historical cookbook will be published next year, in 2022.
- Niksko 5y agoThe idea that you can't make garrum at home in the traditional way (salt, fish, time) is false. I've done it, yes there's a smell, but it isn't as bad as people suggest, and the result is worth it. Traditional garrum making is also practiced by lots of fermentation focused restaurants, as well as more modern techniques that use koji as an enzymatic source. The quick garrum presented in that video is really just a salty fish stock, and I suspect would lack the protein breakdown products that make garrum so special. You can however make garrum quickly, with the protein breakdown products, albeit lacking a little complexity from the extended ageing (primarily maillard reaction products, but probably other lactic fermentation and more complex breakdown chains). Preston Landers has created a technique [1] that uses dietary supplements as a source of very high enzyme concentrations. I've done this method, and it's pretty easy to accomplish, and produces really great results, in about 3 hours. [1]: https://www.culinarycrush.biz/all/3-hour-garum-recipe https://www.culinarycrush.biz/all/3-hour-garum-recipe
- rwmj 5y agoHow different is it from anchovy-based fish sauces like nam pla? The method of making it (fermenting whole fish for a long time) seems fairly similar.
- Niksko 5y agoVery similar I'd say. Temperature, fish variety, small changes in method or salt content, all of these likely change the end product. But it's fundamentally the same set of reactions.
- baxtr 5y agoSide note: really difficult to read the site on mobile with all the ads popping up
- donatzsky 5y agoIf you're on Android, just use Firefox with uBlock Origin. I don't know if I could live with Chrome, since it doesn't have extensions.
- 29athrowaway 5y agoI am surprised to see so many distinct ingredients. Roman food markets must have been interesting.
- dTal 5y agoRome can be considered an early attempt at a "globalized" society - while not strictly global it did bring many different regions and cultures over a very wide area under one administrative umbrella, and opened the doors of trade. Among other things, that lets you do things like regularly consume dishes that use geographically distant ingredients. You could probably go down to the store and buy all kinds of spices pretty much anywhere in the Roman Empire.
- ingas 5y ago> Among other things, that lets you do things like regularly consume dishes that use geographically distant ingredients. I think that you idealizing ancient Rome. Ice was a delicacy. "Dishes for geographically distant ingredients"? No meat, no fruits, no milk products. So it's only cereals could be imported from long distances.
- 29athrowaway 5y agoSalted or dry meat, dry fruit, cheese.
- dTal 5y agoAh yes, the four food groups. /s I think you're underestimating what could be done with preservation technology such as salting, curing, drying, pickling, fermenting etc. Meats were in fact frequently traded. Salted pork was a staple food. Cheese even more so. And what of liquids? You're surely aware of ancient wrecks filled with amphoras? What was in them? Surely not cereals. Oils, wines, vinegars, acidic sauces such as the famed "garum" - all travel well.
- user3939382 5y agoArtichokes! I think about that whenever I eat them.
- ekianjo 5y ago> the ancient romans If a civilization lasted for several hundred years, there's no single answer for that kind of topic. Food is fashion, and is ever changing over time. It's like asking "What did ancient Americans eat between 1600 and 2000?" years in the future, and the answer will vary widely for each century (and regardless of technical progress).
- ewams 5y agoGood point. And different in different regions such as Texas vs NY. Upstate NY vs New York (the city). Even in the same cities within different cultural areas just blocks away from each other!
- ekianjo 5y agoNow imagine there's only one cookbook left from the 20th century, and then "historians" of the year 3000 will proudly write a publication about "What North Americans Ate During the Middle-Ages (1600-2000)" based on that. Survivor bias, well known fallacy that Historians are hardly familiar enough with.
- otabdeveloper4 5y ago> What did ancient Americans eat between 1600 and 2000? Corn syrup, of course.
- eyko 5y agoThe evolution of cuisines in recent history bares no resemblance to the evolution of cuisines in the late bronze Age to the late antiquity. For one, information was slow to travel, and influences were much further away, and besides that, most agriculture was subsistence farming: families owned land just about enough to feed themselves and sell a bit of surplus, if nothing went wrong). Recipes were passed down generations before any changes would be made by the introduction of new ingredients to the local agriculture. Most families lived on the same ingredients for their entire lives so things were a bit more stagnant than you'd imagine if you're taking recent history as your benchmark.
- throw0101a 5y agoPerhaps see the book Delizia!: The Epic History of the Italians and Their Food by John Dickie: > In this “revelatory history of gourmet Italy from antiquity to today” (Publishers Weekly), the fascinating story of how one vast country comprised of uniquely distinct regions came to produce some of the most delicious and beloved foods of all time is expertly revealed. * https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Delizia!/John-Dickie/9780743278072 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Delizia!/John-Dickie/... (He also wrote Cosa Nostra, about the Sicilian mafia, and Blood brotherhoods: a history of Italy's three mafias.)
- DonaldFisk 5y agoThe original Latin text of Apicius is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20200214163251/http://users.ipa.net/~tanker/apicius.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20200214163251/http://users.ipa.... Regarding the "toxic recipe" (Absinthium Romanum), I've made and drunk this several times and have survived to tell the tale. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_absinthium#Toxicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_absinthium#Toxicity for more information.
- hackermailman 5y agoThere's a winery in France that makes wine as close to the ancient Roman method too http://tourelles.com/ http://tourelles.com/
- kaesar14 5y agoI saw this post in my hotel room this morning in downtown Rome and decided to make this restaurant the park around the Appian Way our early afternoon plans. Fantastic meal. Thanks for sharing.