Latest features How the Romans ate

Date Published:

27/06/2008

Heston cooked up a Roman feast for his celebrity guests, but just what did the ancients eat?

Population

At the time of the first emperor, Augustus, (27 BC - AD 14) an estimated 60 million people resided in the Roman Empire. In Italy, there were about six million individuals, one-third of them slaves.

As the empire expanded, so did the population. During the reign of Antoninus Pius (emperor from AD 138 - 161), Rome had a population of 1.5 million inhabitants. The second biggest city in the Empire at that time was Alexandria, with a population of more than half a million. Londinium (London) was home to about 30,000 people in the mid-2nd century AD.

Let them eat bread

The Roman satirist, Juvenal, joked that the masses could be won over by appealing to their bellies: "The people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions and all else now... long eagerly for just two things: bread and circuses."

Social class determined the kind of bread that people ate in Rome. There were three main varieties: 'plebeian' black bread, made from low-grade, barely sifted flour; 'second', made from slightly refined flour; and 'white', eaten only by the rich. A grain and oil dole was distributed, free of charge, to the urban masses in Rome. As the population grew, so did pressure for the Emperor to find new grain supplies. Egypt became Rome's main grain supplier and earned the nickname, 'the breadbasket of the Empire'.

He was such a fungi

In October AD 54, the emperor Claudius was poisoned by his wife so she could bring her son, Nero, to power. The scheming Agrippina sprinkled a potent substance onto her unwitting husband's plate of mushrooms. Nero was later quoted as declaring "mushrooms to be the food of the gods, since Claudius by means of the mushroom [has] become a god".

Eat the world

The size and diversity of the Roman Empire brought a variety of exotic ingredients to the capital and made Rome a city of world cuisine. Among the epicurean imports were spices from India and Indonesia, beef cattle from Britain, wine from Greece and Spain and grain from North Africa.

Soldiers serving on Hadrian's Wall wrote back to families in Rome about the foods available to them, listing spice, goat's milk, salt, young pig, ham, corn, venison, vintage wine and Celtic beer among the victuals on offer.

Celebrity chef

In the 1st century AD, Marcus Gaius Apicius wrote a recipe book and a book on sauces. At the heart of many of his dishes was the pungent sauce, garum, made from the fermented entrails of fish.

Among the ingredients listed in Apicius' dishes are lark's tongue, sterile sow's womb, parrots, turtle doves, sea urchins and jellyfish.

Dine like a Roman with this jellyfish tempura recipe

Grow your own

Romans introduced new farming methods to Britain, including the practice of keeping pigs in sties to fatten them up. They also brought some of our favourite game birds including pheasants and guinea fowl to the island.

The Romans are thought to be the first people to create game parks for the purpose of hunting. And it wasn't just large animals that were contained for eating, dormice were a delicacy, reared in pottery jars and fattened up on acorns and nuts.

Raise your own tasty birds - find out how

The taste of wealth

Olive oil, wine, pork, dates and pepper were vital staples in the Roman kitchen. Romans loved cheese but this was mostly made from goat's milk or sheep's milk. Cow's cheese was rare.

Upper class Romans favoured heavily flavoured dishes. Spices were costly and elaborately seasoned meals were a way to demonstrate wealth but according to chef Alan Coxon this may have been a way to make up for a loss of palate caused by lead poisoning.

How much?

Towards the end of the 3rd century AD, rising inflation led the emperor Diocletian to fix prices and wages.

Find our more about food history with Heston's Feasts

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