Food and Banquets

1. Food and Banquets

2. Meals

4. Pompeii prices • Bread 6 • Cabbage 2 • Beetroot 1 • Mustard 1 • Mint 1 • Salt 1

5. Snack bar 150+?

6. Banquet (Convivium)

7. After the Baths

8. Fishing for an Invitation Whether you are in the hot room or anywhere else in the bath building, there is no way to escape from Menogenes, although you may try with all your might. … When you pick up your towel which is dirtier than a child’s bib, he will exclaim that it is whiter than snow. While you are combing your thin hair he will say that you are styling Achilles’ locks. He will praise everything, he will marvel at everything, until finally ,having endured his thousand tedious ploys, you say, “Come and have dinner with me.” ( Martial, Epigrams 12.83)

9. Banquet (Convivium) • Arrive after sunset • Wear evening dress ( bring changes of clothing) • Enter on the right foot • Hands and feet are washed

10. Banquet (Convivium) 1. Aperitifs 2. Hors d’ouevres 3. First main course 4. Second main course ( Dessert) 5. Aphoretae (gifts) 6. Commisatio ( drinking party)

11. Triclinium

12. Couch Placement Status Locus consularis (Medius 1) Host (Imus 1)

13. House of the Triclinium umbra

14. Staff Nomenclator Ministratores

15. Knives and Napkins • Umbra (additional guests)

16. Conversational Topics • Why is A the first letter of the alphabet? • Which came first the chicken or the egg? • Why does drink satisfy hunger, while food makes one thirsty? • Why is a priest of Jupiter forbidden to eat raw meat? Did Alexander the Great drink too much?

17. Pentheus room ( House of the Vettii)

20. Larva convivialis

21. Food warmer

22. Leftovers • You rifle through every dish that’s served: sow’s teats, pigs ear, enough woodcock for two, half a mullet and an entire pike, fillet of moray eel, a pullet thigh, a dove dripping with sauce. When it is all wrapped well between the corners of an oil-soaked napkin you pass it to your servant who carries it home; while we remain seated there and can do nothing. Give us back our meal, if you have even the slightest shame. I did not invite you for tomorrow, Caecilianus. ( Marial 2, 37).

23. Food and Cooking

24. Sources of Info Ancient authors Archaeological remains Modern Parallels

30. Meat

32. XENIA

34. Sausage

35. House of the Vestals • VII, 2, 16 • Bones yielded from excavation ( 250 out of 1500 identifiable) • 33%= pig • 10%=sheep/goats • 2%=cow • (12 chicken bones)

36. Seafood

37. Vegetables

38. Fruit

40. Dormouse

41. Seasoning Sauces--Garum Defrutum Spices---Cumin, pepper, lovage Thickeners--Eggs, bread, rice Nuts

42. Apicius ( 1st c. CE)

43. Sample menu Aperitif – Spiced wine Hors d’ouevres—hard-boiled eggs with garum sauce; Lettuce patina ( lettuce ground and cooked with garum, defrutum olive oil and eggs)

44. First main course– game hen with sweet and sour sauce ( pepper, cumin, olive oil, garlic, vinegar, garum honey) Second main course—Pear patina ( pureed pears with pepper, cumin, honey, defrutum, garum, olive oil, and eggs) sprinkled with pepper

45. Desert Fresh fruit, wine Egg Sponge with milk

46. Egg Sponge with Milk Thoroughly mix four eggs, 1.5 cups milk, and 1 oz. Olive oil. Put a little oil into a pan and heat until hot. Pour in egg mixture. When cooked on one side turn into a serving dish. Pour honey over, sprinkle with pepper and serve. (Archeology Magazine Nov/Dec 1990)

47. Cena Trimalchionis by Petronius Petronius’ Satyricon Cena Trimalchionis 19,000 sesterces Roast dormice in honey and poppy-seed. Sausage on plum and pomegranate seed, Figpecker in peppered mayonnaise, black and green olives Peas, beef kidneys and rams testicles, barren sow’s womb, fig, scorpion fish, goose, magpie, cake and muffin, poultry, sow’s udder, roast hair, small fish bread, pork stuffed with

49. Modern Sources for Roman Cooking and Recipes 1. A Taste of Ancient Rome, by Ilaria Gozzini Giacosa, University of Chicago Press, 1994 2. Around the Roman Table, by Patrick Faas, University of Chicago Press, 1994.