WEEK 1 LESSON 4EUROPE AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE

WEEK 1, LESSON 4 2

INTRODUCTIONCivilization began near to the Mediterranean Sea, which connects Europe, Asia, and Africa. All the most powerful ancient civilizations of Europe were centered there—sea travel was much faster than land travel, and being on the Mediterranean made it easy to expand your influence. Mesopotamia, on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean, was the first to establish a writing system, a legal system, and a social structure. The fertile land allowed for a wide variety of fruits and vegetables to accompany their beer and barley. In ancient Egypt, south of the Mediterranean the Nile flooded every year, providing plenty of fish and replenishing the nutrients in the soil, allowing for plentiful crops. On the northern coast of the Mediterranean, Ancient Greeks were the first civilization to strive towards a healthy diet (discussed in week 2). However, the most powerful civilization of ancient Europe was the Roman Empire, which at its height completely encircled the Mediterranean, from Spain to Egypt, stretching inland from England to Albania.

BREAD AND CIRCUSESBread was the foundation of the Roman Empire. Everyone in the city of Rome who could afford to buy it bought it, and everyone else received free grain from the government. Breads made from barley, millet, and oats were all staples in various parts of the Empire, and the more well-off could afford the vast variety of wheat breads made from different regional wheats. Romans ate their bread plain (sometimes baked with raisins or other dried fruits for flavor), dipped it in wine or goat milk, or used it to mop up the sauces other foods had been cooked in. They never ate bread and butter, though—in the Romans’ eyes, butter was something that only “barbarians” ate (to the Romans, anyone not from Rome was a barbarian). The only oil they used in cooking was olive oil.

The Roman writer Juvenal complained that the people only cared about “bread and circuses,” referring to the free grain, chariot races, and gladiator combats that kept much of Rome’s population occupied.

The Roman Empire in 117 AD.

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COOKINGThe poor in the Roman Empire did little cooking—many of them lived in poorly-ventilated tenements, where a cooking fire would fill the room with smoke and might set the entire building on fire. Instead, they bought food from cheap cookshops—or simply ate raw. Many meals only consisted of bread, olives, raw beans, and figs. Sometimes, they would splurge on food from cheap, greasy cookshops, usually pork or fish. The middle class ate better, with regular meals of meat, fruit, and vegetables to go with their bread, but were still limited to local produce. It was the rich of the Roman Empire who ate food imported from all over the known world—and shared it with everyone they knew.

BANQUETSFor the upper class of Rome, it wasn’t enough to eat rare, expensive, exotic foods—you had to show everyone else you could afford them. Banquets and feasts became expressions of wealth and power. A Roman senator’s banquet might have (in addition to its locally sourced offerings) pickles from Spain, ham and wine from Gaul (ancient France), and oysters from Britain, all seasoned with spices imported from India, China, and Indonesia.

The Roman Empire also saw the first cookbook in recorded history: Apicius, named after a Roman gourmand who may or may not have written it. Marcus Apicius was the most extravagant gourmand in the history of Rome, serving food from all corners of the empire prepared in elaborate ways, such as flamingo’s tongue and red mullet. After spending millions on his feasts, he discovered that he was running out of money and couldn’t afford to maintain his lifestyle any longer. He decided he would rather die than live a life without the finest foods in the world, and poisoned himself.

SOMETHING TO CONSIDERThe Romans NEVER ate bread with:

ButterOlive oil

Dried fruit

Where have you encountered food snobbery?

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BANQUETS (CONT'D)A common myth about Rome is the “vomitorium”: a room adjacent to the average Roman banquet hall where guests could throw up what they’d just eaten to make room for seconds. No such room ever existed—Romans did throw lavish banquets, but the food (shipped from distant corners of the empire) was often less than fresh, and often drenched in fish sauce (see next section). Few people would want to throw up just to make more room for it.

The Romans did use the term “vomitorium”, but only to refer to the entrance halls of amphitheaters like the Coliseum. The building’s seating system was so efficient that, if you were to watch the amphitheater fill up, it would look like patrons were being vomited into their seats.

Vomitorium—although it never existed, the vomitorium has been a popular myth because it fits so well with our concept of Roman extravagance.

Image of a "Vomitorium".

LIQUAMEN, SILPHIUM, AND ASAFOETIDALiquamen and silphium were two staples of the Roman diet. Liquamen (sometimes called garum) was a sauce made by fermenting fish, such as sprats, mackerel, or anchovies, for 2 to 3 months; the mixture was sometimes diluted with wine, but sometimes used at full strength. The sauce was mass-produced in ports, where the stench was inescapable, and imported to Rome, where people put it on most of the things they ate. Its strong flavor was used by the poor to counter the bland flavors of their diet, and by the rich to mask the fact that most rare, exotic, expensive foods, such as peacock, didn’t actually taste very good. It’s rarely eaten in Europe anymore, but similar fish sauces are used in southeast Asian cuisine.

Silphium was a herb from North Africa that was used in nearly all dishes—until it mysteriously went extinct in the first century CE. In its place, Romans began using asafoetida, an herb from Persia that smells like rotting garlic. Despite its powerful smell, it has a flavor like leeks when cooked, and improves the flavor of fish dishes. It’s still used today—it’s called ‘hing’ in Indian cuisine, and there are trace amounts of it in Worcestershire sauce.

SOMETHING TO CONSIDER

Have you eaten any foods that were rare and exotic but turned out to not taste very good?

What counts as an exotic food for you?

What foods do you eat regularly that would seem exotic to your grandparents?

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THE ROMAN SPICE TRADEThe Romans loved spices—the stronger the better. Despite their high price, spices were so popular that even ordinary people bought them whenever they could afford to.

In order to justify the high prices of spices, traders made up ridiculous stories about their origins. To gather cassia (a kind of cinnamon), they said, gatherers had to wear a protective suit, made from ox hides, that covered everything but their eyes, to protect them from the vicious giant bats guarding the cassia trees. Frankincense was guarded by flying snakes. Cinnamon was found only in the nests of huge man-eating birds that lived on treacherous mountaintops. The vast majority of Romans had never seen the lands these spices came from, and so would believe just about anything about their origins.

All that changed in the first century CE, when the Romans discovered the monsoon winds. These allowed them to sail to India and back in less than a year, so that they could trade directly with the Indians for spices. They discovered that most spices came from the bark, fruit, and roots of perfectly ordinary plants, and the process of gathering them didn’t actually involve fending off ferocious beasts. Their exotic flair was gone—but the Romans still couldn’t get enough.

The Romans’ love of spices spread all through their empire and beyond. When the Goths laid siege to Rome in 408 CE, they demanded all the wealth in the city as ransom. The offering they ultimately accepted was thousands of pounds of gold, silver, silk, hides—and pepper.

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LEAD POISONINGSome historians claim that the Roman love for spices and strong fish sauces came from lead poisoning. The Roman plumbing system was made of lead pipes. They wore lead makeup. They ate and drank out of lead containers, and used lead pots to boil grape syrup to sweeten their wines. By the twilight of the Roman Empire, many Romans may have been suffering from acute lead poisoning.

The Romans had no idea what lead poisoning was, but they would have suffered the symptoms just the same: among other things, a loss of appetite and a strong metallic taste in one’s mouth. In order to stimulate their diminished appetites and hide the metallic taste, they may have sought out flavors that were as strong as possible, whether in fish sauce or peppercorns. However, there is no way to confirm whether this idea is true or not.

THE FALL OF THE ROMANEMPIREThe Roman Empire, like any empire, couldn’t sustain itself forever. The Roman administration became more corrupt and decadent, and was beset by constant civil wars. Some scholars believe that deforestation and degraded soil prevented Rome from being able to feed its population. More and more, the Empire depended on “barbarian” mercenaries for protection, but as the Empire weakened, many of the mercenary tribes abandoned the Roman Empire and carved out their own kingdoms in Europe and North Africa. The Mediterranean, once mostly united, fragmented into a number of smaller powers, marking the beginning of the Middle Ages.

IMAGE SOURCESIllustration (map) of The Roman Empire in 117 AD courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

Photo of an Old Roman stone inscription licensed through Adobe Stock.

Photo of ancient Roman archaeology courtesy of Pexels and licensed under the Pexels License.

Photo of Italian olive oil courtesy of Alex Ex via Wikimedia Commons and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic.

Image of mosaic floor with slaves serving at a banquet, found in Dougga (3rd century AD) courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Photo of a vomitorium at the Roman amphitheater in Trier licensed through Adobe Stock.

Photo of fish sauce in white bowl licensed through Adobe Stock.

Photo of cinnamon bark courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.

Photo of black peppercorns courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.

Photo of lead pipes courtesy of Pexels and licensed under the Pexels License.

Photo of black peppercorns courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and licensed under Public Domain.

Image (painting) of the sack of Rome in a painting by Evariste-Vital Luminais courtesy of Wikimedia Commons licensed under Public Domain.

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