The Ancient Mediterranean Diet

[Angela]

Here is the article:
http://www.archaeology.org/news/2960-150206-rome-ancient-meals

It wasn't just about olive oil, vegetables, fruit and grains.

The Italian love affair with pork products is longstanding. It also seems we always liked to eat well!:grin:

"Pork was a staple food for the Etruscans and the Romans, and was probably be served in ways familiar to today's Italian diners. The poor and the rich both ate easy-to-keep pigs, although the rich got better cuts of meat and ate it more often and in larger quantities than the poor. The rich also indulged in rare spices and fancy dinnerware, while the lower classes used crude utensils to eat meals purchased from street vendors, or stews and porridges cooked in large pots."

The high quality diet of even those who weren't well off is not a surprise. The archaeologists are finding the same thing from the excavations of Luni near me. They ate grains, vegetables, fruits, olive oil, and also pork products and fish. Of course, they also drank wine. In addition, even average farmers, in this case, used ceramics imported from far away.

 

[Maleth]

Definatly one of my favourite sunday roasts .....mmmm (could be more nicely presented in a bigger plate but anyways ....

http://www.ilovefood.com.mt/recipes/majjal-bhal-fil-forn-by-patricia-azzopardi/

 

[Aberdeen]

Here is the article:
http://www.archaeology.org/news/2960-150206-rome-ancient-meals

It wasn't just about olive oil, vegetables, fruit and grains.

The Italian love affair with pork products is longstanding. It also seems we always liked to eat well!:grin:

"Pork was a staple food for the Etruscans and the Romans, and was probably be served in ways familiar to today's Italian diners. The poor and the rich both ate easy-to-keep pigs, although the rich got better cuts of meat and ate it more often and in larger quantities than the poor. The rich also indulged in rare spices and fancy dinnerware, while the lower classes used crude utensils to eat meals purchased from street vendors, or stews and porridges cooked in large pots."

The high quality diet of even those who weren't well off is not a surprise. The archaeologists are finding the same thing from the excavations of Luni near me. They ate grains, vegetables, fruits, olive oil, and also pork products and fish. Of course, they also drank wine. In addition, even average farmers, in this case, used ceramics imported from far away.

This may be slightly off topic but I see the good diet of people in ancient Italy as one more piece of evidence that an empire prospers best when the people of its home territories share broadly in the benefits of empire. But I suspect if one looked at Italy towards the end of the empire, one would find evidence of more megamansions but poorer nutrition among the common folk. Something for the modern American ruling class to think on.

 

[bicicleur 2]

in a big city like Rome, with no refrigerators and no high-speed transportation, it was not possible to feed the whole population with a healthy diet
they survived on cereals
that's why they were that much smaller than the milk-drinking Celts

i suppose the wealthy could get high quality food, but i doubt they were that conscious about healthy food ..

it reminds me .. the cities of Tongeren and Maastricht were specialized centers in a fertile agricultural area (Tongeren for cereals, Maastricht for meat & dairy) with good road connections to feed the legions along the Rhine
quote a clever organization i must say

 

[Angela]

in a big city like Rome, with no refrigerators and no high-speed transportation, it was not possible to feed the whole population with a healthy diet
they survived on cereals
that's why they were that much smaller than the milk-drinking Celts

i suppose the wealthy could get high quality food, but i doubt they were that conscious about healthy food ..

it reminds me .. the cities of Tongeren and Maastricht were specialized centers in a fertile agricultural area (Tongeren for cereals, Maastricht for meat & dairy) with good road connections to feed the legions along the Rhine
quote a clever organization i must say

I'm not sure about Rome, I'd have to look up the latest research, although it seems clear that food products from the countryside were constantly being brought in, contributing to the constant roar during the night caused by carts and wagons rolling into Rome. (Most of that kind of traffic was banned during the day.) Also, pork products then and well into the 20th century were rarely eaten fresh...just in the fall when the pigs were butchered. The meat was salted (cured) or smoked. The same goes for fish unless you lived very close by. Our love affair with salted fish like baccala is apparently also a long standing one. Plus, any self respecting town dweller in Italy, down to very modern times, could always find a tiny area for a rabbit hutch or chicken coop, and clay pots to grow vegetables if needs must. It's true that grain would have been the staple and enough couldn't be grown locally for a city of Rome's size, and had to be imported. We don't have the terrain for it...too mountainous. In my own area, wheat was always a luxury. For many hundreds of years flour came from dried chestnuts.

However, the diet of the citizens of Pompeii was quite good, even for the lower classes. Slaves, of course, were probably a different matter.

The poorer classes seem to have consumed grains, vegetables, fruits, olive oil, fish, and chicken eggs, and occasionally meat. It sounds pretty healthy to me and not too far from some recommended food pyramids I've seen. Not, of course, that they would have consciously chosen it for health reasons. Granted, someone who ate a lot of protein in youth or drank a lot of milk might grow taller and more robust, but that doesn't always mean healthier. Otzi, although he consumed some grains, had a diet high in fatty meat and his arteriosclerosis was terrible.
http://www.uc.edu/News/NR.aspx?id=19029

The myths about the legions surviving on a diet of wheat polenta are also not accurate. The Roman army units were virtual towns on the move, and included farmers and herders and butchers along with all the other trades. They farmed vegetables, herded their own cows, kept chickens and rabbits and pigs, and foraged fresh water fish and oysters.
http://romanmilitary.net/people/food/

For this one you can scroll down to the Food section, although it's an interesting article in its own right. They seem to have loved their bacon, which is just pancetta by another name! It's my favorite of the Italian cured meats.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/vindolanda_01.shtml

This is a list of the foods brought to Britain by the Romans. It surprised me that even onions, cabbages, peas, turnips and apples were unknown, not to mention chicken. They subsisted on grain porridges, meat and milk then?
http://resourcesforhistory.com/Roman_Food_in_Britain.htm

I think that differences in bone structure have to do with differing proportions of the ancestral populations as much as differences in diet.

 

[Yetos]

ok

modern words from ancient Greek and Roamn foods

Λουκανικα, Lukanika, sausages, a Roman word named after Luka Italy
a way to feed army with meat, when cooking is not available, loykanika combines meat with vegetables, so to presrve vitamins
Salami from Αλμη (saltwater boiled meat) εισ-αλμη -> salami
a way to preserve meat with no refrigarator needed
pizza pitta pissia (pies)
3 different pies based on the same mix of flour with wheast and water (watch double tt turns in double ss, as common)
makaroni μακαρονι (pasta) the food of hapiness and forgivess, a dish dedicated to dead in the island of Mακαρων (underworld)
even today in some areas they served them in memory of the dead (μακαριστων) although Christianity changes it with boiled grane and semola with sugar or honey, as the Jew custom,
etc,

Besides Roman soldiers where paid in salt, can you imagine why?



ok about meat we know,
lets see fish,
οψονιον οψαριον,
ancient athenean army were fed by fish, every day were given twice at least 1 sardine (oψαριον) and 1 pitta (the bread of pizza), that is why modern Greeks call the fish ψαρια instead of Ιχθυς.
every 3rd or 4rth day a piece of tuna or bigger οψονιον.
they put them in boxes, with layers of salt, and weight above, till they get dry, no cooking.

Makedonians had a diet of goat meat, cut to pieces, boiled till the fat covers the meat, and a lot of salt inside, with a company of few giant beans


Spartans ate a soup, μελανας ζωμος, black juice, it is not known the ingredients, but we know it had honey and meat



except the athenean army diet, all the others lack of vitamin C,
and orange or kiwi etc were not known that time.


generally Greeks even today do not drink milk,
but love cheese and Yogurt, Γιαουρτι,
cheap hard cheese is easy to make, milk lemons and salt, it can last almost all year sometimes even at summer.
in daily dishes, milk is almost upsent, except babies,
but cheese or yogurt is a must,
so the calcium needed was taken by cheese or yogurt instead of milk,
now as for grains,
mainly where 3-4 types like Zea, but Greeks trade with Crimea and Sicily big quantities,
Romans did with Egypt,

 

[LeBrok]

This may be slightly off topic but I see the good diet of people in ancient Italy as one more piece of evidence that an empire prospers best when the people of its home territories share broadly in the benefits of empire. But I suspect if one looked at Italy towards the end of the empire, one would find evidence of more megamansions but poorer nutrition among the common folk. Something for the modern American ruling class to think on.

It easily might be backward. If country is rich, good economy, even poor people eat well and have better health. I find that when people have a lot and good living they share eagerly with poorer others directly or through taxation. Economy, economy, economy.

 

[LeBrok]

Pork, is my favorite meat and I love Italian cuisine. Maybe I was Italian in my past reincarnation?

 

[Angela]

I thought it was funny that one of the articles mentioned that in all of the documents found, the soldiers never complained about the food. That's not the case with modern armies, but then they don't produce their own.

For you, LeBrok:
"The diet of the inhabitants of Vindolanda was pretty varied. Within the Vindolanda tablets, 46 different types of foodstuff are mentioned. Whilst the more exotic of these, such as roe deer, venison, spices, olives, wine and honey, appear in the letters and accounts of the slaves attached to the commander's house; it is clear that the soldiers and ordinary people around the fort did not eat badly. We have already seen the grain accounts of the brothers Octavius and Candidus, demonstrating that a wide variety of people in and around the fort were supplied with wheat. Added to that are a couple of interesting accounts and letters which show that the ordinary soldiers could get hold of such luxuries as pepper and oysters, and that the local butcher was doing a roaring trade in bacon."

This study is getting a lot of coverage, and some reviews have more detail:
http://www.science20.com/inside_sci...e_meals_most_americans_would_recognize-152950

"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."

"As the hegemony of Rome grew so did the city and what was a largely rural Etruscan society became a more urban Roman one, she said. That changed the food supply. Most food, as now, came from farms outside the city.But, the city dwellers still raised pigs. They take up little room, can be easily bred and transported, Trentacoste said, and are easy to raise.


They also had chickens roaming the yards that looked much like the chickens of today, MacKinnon said, and they were close to the same size. Modern farmers use breeding and nutrition to make the chickens grow faster, but eventually Roman chickens would catch up. Cattle take up too much room but rich Romans had beef occasionally, and sometimes goat."

"Some historians believed the lower class was mostly vegetarian but that is not true, MacKinnon and Trentacoste said. The 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."


Low-fat food was not in vogue because the fat would protect meat from spoilage in a world without refrigerators. Because only the upper class had kitchens at home, other Romans bought food from street vendors, something like the lunch wagons of today. Mostly, MacKinnon said, they would put the food in large pots and make stews or a porridge. They might also boil the meat.Only the wealthy were able to broil or barbecue."

In the countryside it would have been very different, I think. They could easily broil meat.


"Despite legend, most Romans or Etruscans did not often eat exotic animals regularly, although upper class diners might enjoy songbirds swallowed whole and one midden in Rome contained the bones of a slaughtered camel. Trentacoste said songbirds are still eaten in some parts of Italy."

They are indeed.

And no, there was no pizza as of yet, but I bet there was this:

A recipe from Apicius:
Sauteed Veal Escalope with Raisins and Wine
¼ teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon peppercorns
½ teaspoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon lovage
1 tablespoon dried onion
1 teaspoon defrutum
1 teaspoon honey
2 tablespoons white raisins
300ml dry white wine
1 dash vinegar
1 dash garum
Pound the cumin and the celery seed in powder, then grind the peppercorns. Mix all the ingredients together and leave the raisins to macerate for at least a few hours and up to a day. Beat the veal fillets with a rolling-pin or meat-tenderizer, until they are flattened. For Roman authenticity, the escalopes should be cut into small pieces or strips after frying—they didn't use knives at table. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then fry briefly on both sides in a hot pan with a little olive oil. Remove the veal from the pan. Put the sauce mixture, let it reduce, then pour it over veal and serve immediately.

Garum is just like anchovy paste. Trust me, it's incredible what it does to improve the taste of the other ingredients.

 

[Angela]

Yetos: ancient athenean army were fed by fish, every day were given twice at least 1 sardine (oψαριον) and 1 pitta (the bread of pizza), that is why modern Greeks call the fish ψαρια instead of Ιχθυς.
every 3rd or 4rth day a piece of tuna or bigger οψονιον.
they put them in boxes, with layers of salt, and weight above, till they get dry, no cooking.

Some things haven't changed all that much:

My family in Italy still buy big boxes of them, and then remove the salt. The old farmhouse used to have a stone trough through which water constantly ran where food was put to be de-salted.

 

[bicicleur 2]

I've heard gooses or ducks were raised in Belgium and Gaul for Rome
They made the gooses or ducks walk all the way to Rome in order to arrive there fresh and alive .. it took several months
I don't know the phrase in Latin, but it said 'whatever moves goes fast'