A Mediterranean diet, with limits
The Roman diet is often summed up as grain, olive oil and wine, and that is a sound starting point. The Romans also ate vegetables, legumes, fruit, cheese, fish and meat, but in proportions that depended heavily on wealth, region and season. Our evidence includes literary sources, a cookbook attributed to Apicius, farming handbooks, wall paintings, kitchen remains and the contents of drains and latrines, and these give an uneven picture. Foods that would later define European cooking, such as tomatoes, potatoes, maize and chocolate, came from the Americas and were unknown to the Romans, and sugar was not a common sweetener.
Daily meals
A common pattern was a light breakfast (ientaculum), often bread with cheese or fruit, a small midday meal (prandium), and the main meal, cena, in the late afternoon or evening. For many working people the main meal was simple, and not everyone ate three times a day. Wealthy diners hosted long dinners in the triclinium, reclining on couches in a style borrowed from the Greeks, with several courses from appetisers to dessert.
The staples
Cereals formed the base of the diet. Wheat was the preferred grain, though emmer and barley were also eaten. A thick porridge known as puls, made from grains or legumes, was the traditional food of early Rome, and bread became more common as milling and baking developed. Bakeries and shops in towns sold loaves, and many households relied on commercial bakers.
Alongside grain came:
- Olive oil, used in cooking, lamps and bathing
- Legumes such as lentils, chickpeas and broad beans, an important source of protein
- Vegetables such as cabbage, onions, leeks, garlic and turnips
- Fruit such as figs, grapes, apples and pears, and dried fruit and nuts
- Cheese and eggs, with milk used mostly for cheese
Meat was eaten less often by the poor, in part because it was expensive. Pork was widely favoured, and the cuts and sausages are mentioned in sources. Sheep, goats and poultry also appear, and wealthy hosts sometimes served game or imported delicacies. Fish and shellfish were available along the coasts, while preserved or salted fish travelled inland.
Sauces and flavourings
Roman cooking leaned on strong flavours. The most distinctive was garum, a fermented fish sauce also called liquamen, used as a seasoning in place of salt in many dishes. It was made and traded around the Mediterranean, and its production sites have been found in places such as Spain and North Africa. Other flavourings included herbs, honey, vinegar, pepper, cumin, coriander and boiled-down grape juice called defrutum. Honey was the main sweetener, since sugar was not in common use.
Spices such as pepper came from India along trade routes, linked to monsoon trade winds that allowed ships to cross the Indian Ocean. They were costly and used more in rich households.
Wine and other drinks
Wine was the drink of the Mediterranean, and most Romans drank it diluted with water. Quality varied enormously. Some wines from certain areas, such as Falernian, were famous and expensive, while ordinary people drank cheap, rough wine. Warmed wine or wine with honey, called mulsum, was also served. A drink called posca, made from water and sour wine or vinegar, was common among soldiers and the poor.
Water was also drunk, supplied by fountains, wells and springs. Beer was known, but more associated with northern provinces than with Mediterranean tables.
Street food and eating out
Cities had many food shops and bars. At Pompeii, the thermopolium, a counter with built-in jars set into the surface, served hot food and drink to passers-by. Pompeii daily life included many such places, and similar establishments have been found elsewhere. People in apartments often lacked kitchens, so they relied on cooked food from vendors, taverns and bakeries. Eating in the street was therefore ordinary, not unusual.
The grain supply and the poor
Feeding a large city was a political matter. Rome depended on imported grain, particularly from Sicily, North Africa and Egypt. The state supplied grain at subsidised prices, and eventually free handouts to eligible citizens, though not all residents qualified. Rome’s overseas wars, such as the Punic Wars, drew new territories under its control and changed the sources of its food. The grain dole was meant to prevent hunger and unrest, and it shaped politics.
Poor households ate largely bread, porridge, vegetables and legumes, with olive oil and cheap wine, and meat only at festivals or sacrifices. Hunger was a real risk in bad harvest years. For all that, the poorer diet was not necessarily unhealthy, and was often rich in fibre and plants.
Dining among the elite
At the other end, rich Romans staged banquets that could be elaborate and competitive. Literary descriptions, such as the fictional dinner of Trimalchio in Petronius’ Satyricon, are satire and cannot be taken as straightforward evidence, but they reflect a culture of display. Writers also mention exotic items, such as dormice and imported fruits, and moralists criticised excess. Many elite households ate far more simply on ordinary days.
Enslaved cooks and servants prepared and served these meals, and the tasks assigned to them show how Roman slavery was bound up with daily consumption. Food also had a health dimension, since Greco-Roman medicine considered diet central to well-being and recommended foods according to ideas about balance and temperament.
Putting it together
Roman food was less uniform than any single menu suggests. A soldier on campaign, a farmer, a baker in Pompeii and a senator at his villa ate quite differently. What linked them was the shared place of bread, oil and wine, and a culture that treated shared meals as central to social life.