Kids Learning Zone

Food

As with most things in Roman society class and status reflected on your diet there was a mixed diet depending on where you fitted into the social ladder, they ate meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, shellfish but lacked foods we know today like potatoes, tomatoes, rice, pasta.

Breakfast 'ientaculum' may just have been water or maybe a little porridge or bread with olives or wheat biscuits. Lunch 'prandium' consisted of much the same as breakfast. The main meal was in late afternoon or early evening, dinner 'cena ' was for those with money a hot meal bought from stalls or bars, things like sausage in semolina, bacon and beans or bread, lentils with meat. There was a supper type meal called 'vesperna' but this went out of fashion as habits changed and the focus was the main meal. Often in wealthy households meals were followed by drinking called 'comissatio' where mainly wine was consumed sometimes in vast amounts. There were even burger sellers where a meat burger was sold with bread so the Romans invented fast food thousands of years before anyone else.

'Posca' was an Ancient Roman drink made by mixing poor quality wine, vinegar and water. Bracing but less nutritious and palatable than wine, it was typically a drink for soldiers, the lower classes, and slaves. The poor could expect porridge again with bread and a less flavored diet often with poorly nutritious ingredients.

The rich often had dinner parties mainly guests were men with the occasional woman. the food here was very decadent with the party goers reclining on couches set out in a 3 sided rectangle (The fourth side removed to allow slaves to deliver food). These type of events took place between friends but also between those entertaining guests to gain political, business or social advantage in society, sounds familiar.

Above a typical Roman banquet scene in a rich house above,

Below a soldier cooking in the field after making camp

The menu would be very exotic comprising of 3 courses. The first an appetizer of raw vegetables, eggs, fish, olives, salad, mushrooms and sauces.
The next course the main course could be up to 7 dishes of meat, fish, poultry prepared vegetables and sauces. The famous stuffed dormice cooked with honey and poppy seeds, stuffed lambs innards with sausage meat, also roasted song birds all washed down with copious amounts of wine sweetened with honey 'mulsum'.
Dessert could be dried or fresh fruit seasoned with pepper. Entertainment at these rich parties involved dancing, acrobats, musicians, poetry and intellectual debate.