Posted on 02/07/2015 9:01:27 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Let's pretend it is 56 B.C. and you have been fortunate enough to be invited to a party at the home of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, a great social coup. Piso, after all, was Julius Caesar's father-in-law and a consul of Rome...
You need to prepare for pig. 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, like Piso, 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; in other words, a meal not unlike what you'd find in Rome today -- or in South Philadelphia...
MacKinnon and Trentacoste are zooarchaeologists... They rummaged through ancient garbage dumps or middens, and occasionally even ancient latrines looking for the bones of animals and fish people ate. People would sometimes dump the garbage in the latrine... can deduce a great deal from the bones about what life was like.
They also can often piece together a typical diet based on recovered porcelain shards.
They can look at bones in a dump and can tell what the animal was, sometimes how it was slaughtered, where it came from, and how the food supply worked...
Zooarchaeologists also have literary evidence of what was eaten from writers such as Juvenal and the poet Martial, often in satirical plays where writers mocked the ostentatious indulgence...
Some historians believed the lower class was mostly vegetarian but that is not true... generally ate the same things the upper class did, but not the same cuts (think mutton versus lamp chops) and probably not in the same quantities.
(Excerpt) Read more at insidescience.org ...
I have the BEST recipe for Muffulatta salad!
Tomatoes from elsewhere cannot compare to those grown in the lava-rich soil under that sun, with Mediterranean breezes recycling the rainfall. Simply scrumptious. I buy tomatoes canned in Italy whenever possible. And the lemons big as grapefruits! My eyes bugged out when I first saw them. The artichokes, the sunflower seeds, the fungi, the beans, the rice and the risottos, the clams as small as your fingernail... sigh.
Verramente! See my post 42 just above...
The best pizza I ever had was from Pizza Al Metro and the best ponzerotti from Pizzaria DAngelo.
In what city Naples or Rome?
They were in Mola di Bari.
The tomatoes there are one of a kind. My Nonno had lemon trees in his yard and plenty of artichokes on his farm. We had plenty of fresh fruit, vegetables and nuts.
Clams.....we were told in no uncertain terms not to touch any local shellfish, especially mussels, due to the danger of hepatitis. Local produce had to be dipped in water with a little Clorox added. So I never got to try spaghetti alle vongole.
Until Dad got quarters we stayed at the Albergo della Terme Agnano, not far from Solfatara. The dishes on the menu under “Il Chef Raccomanda” always included pasta pomodoro & bistecca alla griglia, always reliably good.
Been to Bari. Great seafood!
Also in Apulia? Mmmm...
If you are interested, there was a “gourmet” Roman cookbook that made it to the present day.
Thanks! And amusingly, a couple with the last name “Brothwell” have a book or two out about it.
I bet the peasants rarely ate meat because they were poor!
thank goodness the author didn’t pick one of the crazy emperors who would be doing your wives upstairs while you ate
For 56 BC it sounds pretty amazing to me.
True!
Hey! No! Helen Thomas is Arab, not Italian. Here are some Italian women:
Tony Luke’s: Yo! It’s da best!
Bump your post for later.
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