Food of Roman Britain
Hope everyone is well in these strange times and keeping safe and healthy!
Let's talk a bit about Roman Britain and how the Romans viewed these mysterious lands...
But, before that let's get some anecdotal accounts from our Mediterranean cousins about UK:
Cold. Wet. Foggy. Miserable. These are probably the main descriptions -unfair of course- that one gets from modern Italian (and Greek!) students after they've spent their first semester in UK universities, particularly in the Northern cities. Well nothing has changed since Caesar's time! Take the following lines:
'It is "the home of men who are complete savages and lead a miserable existence because of the cold; and therefore, in my opinion, the northern limit of our inhabited world is to be placed there" (II.5.8). By Diodorus Siculus an ancient Greek historian, known for writing the monumental universal history Bibliotheca historica, much of which survives, between 60 and 30 BC. Or the following: The nights are short (Caesar, Gallic Wars, V.13; Agricola, XII) and the weather miserable, with frequent rain and mists. "I don't want to be Caesar, stroll about among the Britons" Florus writes to Hadrian, "and endure the Scythian winters" (Historia Augusta: Hadrian, XVI.3). It is a savage place (ferox; Agricola, VIII) as are the fierce, inhospitable Britons who live there (Horace, Odes, III.4.33). Those near the coast in Kent may be more civilized, but in the interior they do not cultivate the land but share their wives with family members, live on milk and meat, and wear the skins of animals—behaviours so foreign to the Romans.
Until the Roman invasion, the most common dish would've been some short of pottage, a thick vegetable stew or soup flavoured perhaps with bog-myrtle, and served in bowls made from unleavened bread with the occasional salted pork, bacon or seafood and of course wild game. Everything changed after 43AD!
Cherry, plum, fig, cucumber, pea, chive, cabbage, lettuce, garlic, onion, marjoram, parsnip, possibly hare, (or could have been earlier) rosemary, turnip, pheasant... All introduced by the Romans...
Who Incidentally they've made the first burgers! Not the Americans! hahaahahaa! :-p
Anyway find out more about all of the above when you listen to the podcast!
Oh check this website with aerial photos of Roman forts and settlements in Britain:
https://www.cambridgeairphotos.com/themes/roman+fort/page5.html
Ancient Music Themes by Pavlos Kapralos
Music Theme for the ad provided by Aris Lanaridis
https://www.arislanaridis.co.uk/
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