Food and Feasts

Food in a rich household.

             The kitchen was an open hearth filled with charcoal. Most of the cooking pots were made of pottery althoughsome were iron. The burning charcoal must have made the kitchen very hot for slaves who were getting thefood ready. The kitchen slaves washed the vegetables and herbs in a stone sink. Baking was very difficult because there was no oven in the house, so bread, cakes and puddings were usually bought from a baker.
      A Feast

Most people were  too poor  to  buy  fish  or  meat. They ate  mainly porridge, green vegetables, pancakes, washed  down  with watered  wine.This is  what  a ferast in a rich Roman houshold  may  have looked  like. For the first  course they ate raw vegetables, shellfish,eggs  or  stuffed dormice. For the second  course they ate boiled or roast  meat, doves,chicken, pork  or roast  boar. For the third course they had fruit, honey cakes, spiced  loaf or stuffed dates.Guests who  were  invited to a feast  in a rich person's house  lay  on  a couches  and  ate  with  their  fingers. Slaves cut  up  the  meat for them, served out  the food and  brought  round  bowls of  water  so that the  guests  could  wash their  hands  between  courses.  Poets  and  musitians provided entertainment. They played string instrument called a cithara.