A Handbook of Food Processing in Classical Rome
Subtitle: For Her Bounty No Winter (Technology and Change in History)
Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers
Published: August 2006
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 294
ISBN-13: 9789004152366
Subjects: European history: BCE to c 500 CE; History of science; Social history; History - Ancient & Classical; History; Art & Art Instruction; History: World; Ancient Rome; Ancient - Rome; Food; Food supply; Preservation; Rome
Description: Rome was able to support a huge urban population by providing it with the rudiments of human nutrition in the form of processed foods. This volume contains a careful analysis of those food processes. The work is organized on the basis of the presumed importance of those foods, beginning with the so-called Mediterranean Triad of cereals (particularly wheaten bread), olive oil and wine, then dealing with plant products such as legumes, vegetables and fruits, then animal products, and ending with the condiments (salts, sugars, acids, spices) which were themselves the agents for the preservation of other foods. The work combines analysis of literary and archaeological evidence from antiquity with that of traditional comparative practices and modern food science.