5 ms·
> The cost of baking bread was very high to a poor Roman, so if no access to a communal, public oven could be had, the grain would be crushed and made into a po
by ogogmad 5y ago
> The cost of baking bread was very high to a poor Roman, so if no access to a communal, public oven could be had, the grain would be crushed and made into a porridge known as ‘puls’ that was likely similar in taste and texture to modern polenta
According to Wikipedia, "the variety of cereal used [in the dish Polenta] is usually yellow maize", which is a New World cereal, so not available to the Romans.
- monocasa 5y agoI mean, the article says that puls was similar to polenta, not that it was polenta. Puls was typically made with farro.
- ogogmad 5y agoWould it have been similar in taste and texture to a dish usually made from yellow maize?
- monocasa 5y agoYes, crushed and boiled farro is similar to crushed and boiled corn.
- kkfx 5y agoI do not try it crushed, but I do try "modern" farro (due to classic seeds selection I can't really say how similar to ancient one it is) and it's not much similar to corn, grains are bigger, absorb more water, have a bit more taste. They are still not beans but definitively more tasty even if chewy. However we also should consider that ancient eating habits were FAR different than actual ones, so was life. It's very hard to compare "prices" in completely different societies... In some part of our history there were a big abundance of certain products, in some other a big deficiency, in the '700 in western European countries most people eat FAR more than now to a point we can't probably sustain the rhythm today, in the '300 there was a very deep crisis and most people have nearly nothing to eat etc. Prices can't be a unique measure like today. Just imaging a society where most families do have a bit of farm animals, for them does it matter their "price"? They raise chickens at home, so they have eggs and meat, what sense does the price of these "products" makes to them? They might just trade them to the few who travel at an accordingly high price, but local "poor" do have them in their own backyard for "free". Similarly if most people outside cities (so most people numerically in general) grow wheat in their own backyard how much it matter it's price? They trade it for wealthy people living in cities or as taxes, to create strategic stocks handled by their governments to cope with regular crisis, that's form the price, not what people have to pay really for it.
- monocasa 5y agoThe crushing them before boiling is what makes them similar. It ends up being a starchy paste with little uncrushed nodules interspersed.
- airstrike 5y agoHow do people know so many seemingly random things on HN is beyond me
- naniwaduni 5y agoTurning into starchy paste with uncrushed nodules interspersed is, like, what usually happens when you take starchy plant bits and crush and boil them.
- tuatoru 5y ago> Just imaging a society where most families do have a bit of farm animals That wasn't ancient Rome, though. Poor people in Rome lived in (or around) insulae - apartment buildings.
- kkfx 5y agoPoor people in Rome were just a little fraction of poor. At that time Rome itself was what we call a small city today, vast majority of people living outside and poor people inside are mostly slaves of the rich inside, no "ordinary free Citizens". Beside that "apartments" never exists in Rome, there were various size of Domus (houses) with "apartments" for servant, surveillance etc but they were nothing like what we call apartments these days. The most similar thing conceptually can probably be named "colonial homes".
- monocasa 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insula_(building) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insula_(building) Only the very wealthy lived in a domus.
- ogogmad 5y agoCrushed and boiled sweetcorn tastes like something made from wheat? If true, TIL.
- monocasa 5y agoPolenta isn't made with sweet corn, but a more starch heavy variety.
- adrian_b 5y agoNow polenta is made with maize, because it is more tasteful. However in the ancient Rome the meaning of the words was different. "Polenta" was barley porridge and "puls" was emmer porridge. Both were eaten by those who could not afford bread. "Polenta" was made from "alica", which was a kind of semolina made from barley.
- ogogmad 5y ago> Now polenta is made with maize, because it is more tasteful. Which means that the article's claim that it was "probably identical in taste and texture" is wrong. Which was my point.
- gumby 5y ago> According to Wikipedia, "the variety of cereal used [in the dish Polenta] is usually yellow maize", which is a New World cereal, so not available to the Romans. It's quite possible that "polenta" was a generic term for "seeds mushed and baked into a savoury cake" that later evolved into a more specialized use. Sort of how the generic term "corn" now refers specifically only to maize (and to maize in general, so shedding all of its meaning in the process) in American English for some reason while its cognate "kernel" does not.
- ogogmad 5y agoOK. My comment expresses scepticism that something made from sweetcorn tastes like something made from Old World wheat. It quoted a claim from the article that I didn't think likely to be true.