Lower-Class Cuisine and the Culture of Roman Society

This was negligence, because the same culture built the Colosseum and the Pantheon, which are still standing. The tenements had no kitchens, so street vendors did a thriving business selling bread and grain pastes. Wheat was the mainstay of the poor. In 122 B.C., reformers lowered the price of grain so the poor could afford it; in 58 B.C., wheat became free to those who qualified.

The wheat was usually prepared two ways: mashed and boiled into porridge, or ground and baked into bread. Leavened and unleavened bread, bread with poppy seeds, with pepper, with salt, with cheese, with honey; square bread and round bread and flat bread and shaped bread could be produced on a massive scale because the Romans had the technology to produce flour on a massive scale. This required more than human labor- the donkey was harnessed to a grinding stone called a quern and walked around it in endless circles to separate the wheat from the chaff.

For a cold beverage, soldiers and the poor drank posca, vinegar diluted with water. Calda was wine diluted with hot water. They also had a kind of bread soup with vinegar and mashed cucumber, the forerunner of gazpacho. Indoors at the taberna (where we get our word tavern), patrons could drink wine and nibble on salted foods, chickpeas, or turnips, the way popcorn and peanuts are served in American bars. The popina served simple dinners and alcohol. Both places provided gambling and prostitutes.

In the country, a real villa, the house where the farmer lived and worked, was very different from the vacation villas of the rich. Under one roof were the living quarters for the farmer and his family, an underground prison for chained slaves, a kitchen with high ceilings so the beams didn’t catch on fire, baths, a bakery, dining room, barn, stable, threshing room, and separate rooms for olive and wine presses, and wine fermentation. Again, great care was taken with direction: the grain storage should be open to the north, because north wind is the coldest and least humid, so the grain will stay dry and won’t rot.