Table arts from Greco-Roman antiquity
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) The news may disappoint the people of Marseille: tapenade, attributed to chef Meynier in 1880, actually has a distant ancestor from antiquity. At best, then, it is a recreation ‒ a variation on a theme thousands of years old. This ancestor is Greek, its name is stemphylon [ ] L’article Epityrum: the olive, mother of all good pastes est apparu en…
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) The etymology of the word ‘lavender’, from the Latin lavare, does not go back to antiquity, contrary to popular belief. There were no Roman baths scented with this fragrant plant: lavender was used exclusively in pharmacy. Nor did it feature in dishes. When the ancients flavoured wine [ ] L’article In antiquity, lavender didn t cleanse – it cured…
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) Roman towns teemed with establishments selling food and drink. In the excavated portion of Pompeii alone, archaeologists have identified some 160 of them. This is explained by the fact that only a very small fraction of the population could afford the luxury of a home with a [ ] L’article Popina, caupona, taberna: eating out in ancient Rome est…
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) A food prized by the masses yet scorned by the elite, a universal remedy yet a contested one, an aphrodisiac that nonetheless gives repellent breath, an object of mockery or a venerated deity: the onion accumulates paradoxes in ancient culture. Beneath its concentric tunics lies a food [ ] L’article The onion in Antiquity: not such a humble bulb…
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) Although we sometimes count on our fingers, it never gets us very far. At ten, we have exhausted our natural resources. Getting round the problem, the Greeks – and after them the Romans – used a system allowing them to count up to 99 on one hand, [ ] L’article A computer at your fingertips est apparu en premier sur Nunc est bibendum .
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) One readily imagines the Lotus-eaters offering Odysseus a flower of the Egyptian lotus, its pale blue petals contrasting with yellow stamens. A mistake: what the Homeric hero s companions eat, to the point of forgetting even their desire to return home, is certainly not the flower of an [ ] L’article In Homer, one lotus can hide others est apparu…
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) In the Odyssey, eating is never innocent. Every bite says who one is: man, beast, or god. Homer composed an epic of the failed feast – ten years of wandering in which one devours and is devoured, in which one forgets one s homeland in a cup, in [ ] L’article The Odyssey: Odysseus at table with monsters est apparu en premier sur Nunc est bibendum…
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) There was a time when the Romans made do with thick porridges of far, that rustic wheat wrapped in its husks, as Pliny the Elder attests: For a long time the Romans clearly lived on porridge, not bread. [1] But as early as the 5th century BCE, a [ ] L’article when wheat sheds its hull, Roman dough rises est apparu en premier sur Nunc est bibendum…
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) At the origins of Rome, there was einkorn, emmer and spelt, three so-called hulled cereals. This is a somewhat technical point, but here it is: after threshing, their grains remain enclosed within their husks (glumes), which requires an additional dehusking step. This drawback is offset by several [ ] L’article The hulled wheats, rustic ancestors…
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) Long before Rome was born, cereals were already feeding the societies of the Italian peninsula. Cultivated since the Neolithic, they shaped not only diets, but also landscapes, exchange networks and ritual practices. Thanks to archaeobotany and archaeology, it is now possible to trace their history with growing [ ] L’article Grain and humans in…