Ancient Roman Meals :: essays research papers

Ancient Roman Meals     The ancient Romans were standardised to todays generations in their feedinghabits but never ate three hearty repasts a day. Ientaculum and prandium were precisely appetizers that filled their stomachs unitl the large cena, the eventthey look forward to since awakening. They had names for their meals similar toours, breakfast (ientaculum), lunch (prandium), and dinner (cena).     Breakfast, ientaculum was usually taken about gild oclock and consistedof merely a few pieces of scratch line sprinkled in salt or dipped in wine, and with afew raisins and olives, and a little give up added. The poorest Romans atelittle other than w foment either crushed to sour a porridge or ground into flourfor bread.     Lunch, or prandium was usually taken at noon. It was usually nothingmore than a piece of bread accompanied by cold meat, vegetables, and fruitwashed down with a glass of wine. Both ientaculum and p randium were so shortthere was no motivation to set the table or wash ones hands.     The only serious meal was the evening dinner or cena. Dinner time waspractically the comparable for all Romans due to the lack of artificial light. Dinnerwas after the bathing tub at the end of the eigth hour in winter and at the ninth insummer. The food is mostly cold,-breads, salads, olives, cheeses, and meatsremaing from last nights dinner. Occasionally, hot dishes such as ham and pigsheads are feasted upon. Some wealthy Romans would bring as umpteen as seven coursesto feed on.     Trimalchio, a wealthy Roman would have a bronzed donkey with appetizerdishes of olives, stuffed dormice rolled in dulcify and poppy seed, hot sausageswere laid on a silver grill close to pomegranate and damson seeds. The guestswere still busy with the hors doeuvres when a tray would be brought in with abasket on it, in which there was a wooden hen spreading her wings. Un der thestraw were Peahen pelts that would base passed out. from each one egg contained a fatbecafico rolled up in spiced egg yolkf. There were plates with the twelve signsof Zodiac on them that had food matas ching the symbol, ram, bull, crab, figs,lion, etc. Some hosts would heat a wfshole pig and then entertain his guests byhaving skilled swordmen cut the pa fig like he was killing it. After eating,many guests would entertain each othed sfr in belching. It was consideredpolite to belch and release flap after a ni sce meal. Guests would simply snaptheir fingers and servants would come run with vases to contain urine.