Roman meals

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Roman meals
A Typical Roman's Food for the day ieutaculum -
This would be eaten early, probably as soon as
the sun rose and would include bread and fresh
fruit. prandium      - Probably taken around
noon. Lunch was only a small meal as it was
thought a large meal would make one fall asleep
in the afternoon. It would include some of the
following - a little cooked meat - ham or salami,
salad, cheese, hard-boiled eggs, vegetables and
bread. cena     - This would begin at about four
in the afternoon and could continue into the
night. The starter would be either a salad or
dish of small fish. The main course of fish,
cooked meat and vegetables would be served next.
The dessert would consist of fresh fruit and
cheese. Sometimes small cakes sweetened with
honey would be served.  
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Dining - Triclinium

• Triclinium room for 3 dining couches with 3
  places for reclining
• (Only children, slaves, rubes ate sitting
  up!)
• 3 couches arranged around a square table
• Nomenclator usher announced guests
• Full Dress Cena is 7 courses
• hor doeuvres gustatio 3 entrées
• 2 roasts
• dessert secunda mensa
• Commissatio drinking period, governed by a
• rex bibendi
• Vomitorium area for ridding oneself of burden
  in order to continue feasting

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• The order of reclining at table encapsulated
  world-building. The guests' positions carried
  such inherent connotations of social
  differentiation that not even a meal of amici was
  necessarily free of social gamesmanship. The
  guest of honor (locus consularis) traditionally
  had the choice location at table, with proximity
  and primary access to the host. All other guests
  were placed at the discretion of the host,
  usually according to their rank and status from
  the lectus summus on down. Members of the host's
  familia, such as his wife or freedpersons, would
  lie on his couch (lectus imus) in the places of
  lowest status (if they were present at the meal).
  Slaves were not normally allowed to recline at
  dinner or eat during dinner because they were
  busy cooking and serving the meal, and were not
  of adequate rank to join the company regardless.
• -Pedar W. Foss, "Kitchens and
  Dining Rooms at Pompeii

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Vagarities of human taste

• Marco Polo Chinese eat dogs, cats, rats, and
  mole soup Tartars eat rats, horse, dog
• ROMANS!
• Mixed sweet and sour (vinegar with honey mint)
• Drank wine hot (mulled wine with honey)
• Used lots of sauces, esp. fish sauce

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Liquamen

• Fish guts and chopped fish pounded and stirred to
  thick fluid, left in sun to ferment until most
  moisture evaporates, strained through basket
• Light fluid garum
• Mush remaining allec
• Martial 2 eggs plus dash of garum for a good
  breakfast
• Garum production was a major industry in and out
  of Rome.

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Other foodstuffs

• Botulus sausage. Ingredients stuffed into
  pigs bladder
• Puls boiled wheat or barley
• Fructus varieties of local fruits/veggies

apples and pears and figs and plums (and prunes,
which are dried plums) and raisins (made from the
grapes), green peas (mostly dried like for
split-pea soup), lentils, and chickpeas onions,
carrots, garlic, and cabbages honey (they didn't
have sugar) herbs like dill, thyme, oregano,
basil, and mint nuts, especially walnuts and
chestnuts and acorns cucumbers (they didn't have
tomatoes)
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Livestock

• eggs (from chickens and from geese and ducks)
  yogurt and cheese, mostly from goats and sheep
  mutton (sheep meat), goat meat, and pork and ham
  and bacon, chicken, goose and duck, and fish,
  especially tuna. Oh, and snails - people raised
  them in special snail gardens, with little box
  hedges for them to crawl on.