| Roman Culture |
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Can you believe that various emperors of Rome declared that cooking in apartments was illegal. Because most buildings were made of wood, there were many terrible fires. The Roman food pyramid consisted of bread, olives, olive oil, and cheese. Wine and water were the primary drinks, since there was no coffee or tea. If you made enough money, you could afford to eat a lot of meat or fish. Pork was also very popular. For important occasions, strange foods, such as flamingo were prepared.
Ientaculum
For breakfast, Romans ate bread dipped in wine, or spread with garlic, salt, or cheese. Children might have filled up with wheat biscuits.
Prandium
Around noon, Romans ate cold meat or fish, vegetables, eggs, mushrooms, and fruits. More often than not, leftovers from the previous night's cena were eaten.
Cena
The poorer classes might have eaten a bowl of porridge made from ground wheat for dinner. To give it some flavor, they used herbs, olives, mushrooms, or vegetables.
Birthdays, dinner parties, or weddings were opportunities to serve special foods. Many appetizers such as salads, radishes, eggs, oysters, or sardines were served. After appetizers, there could have been 6 more courses of dinner! They might have consisted of poultry such as:
Or fish such as:
Honey-sweetened cakes and fruit were served for dessert. Everyone continued to drink wine well after dinner.
But you would certainly need some money if you were planning to eat out every night. This is a very strange looking coin, isn't it? We seldom see a frontal portrait of anyone on a coin. You can probably see why, looking at this funny face.
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