The Authentic Roman Banquet | Cook Back In Time | Absolute History

by sword by fire by conquest a shadow of Rome spreads across Europe six centuries of total power brutality and games balanced however by refinement and extreme sensuality the Philosopher's Juvenal reduced the Empire to a single scornful formula bread and games room however built the first European civilization and this included eating habits we forget that the Romans offered food to their gods and their dead they left us their Hobbes fast food and deep respect for great gourmets [Music] by 30 ad shop selling food were to be found at every street corner of Rome already the center of a vast empire in the cool of shaded patios buyers often extremely fine connoisseurs were delighted by the subtle smells of vegetables spices and meats [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] one of the best known of these buyers was Marcus gavels Apicius a true gourmet accompanied by his matron and kitchen steward he is looking for a rabbit of sufficient quality for one of the new recipes he has just written for his day Reiko Canaria the first great treatise in the history of cooking like all great gourmets he knows that it is essential to choose good products to make an excellent meal [Music] now this idea is immediately proved right in the kitchen a caucus generally a slave who cooks following his master's orders and tastes begins to prepare the rabbit that Apicius has chosen the Romans already had invented Hobbes but in the patricians huge villas the elite of the time the space reserved for preparing meals was surprisingly restricted kitchens and Roman houses did not have the kind of central place that kitchens have today in many houses but rather there was a place where food was prepared by the servants and therefore was meant to be done out of view and out of sight and above are above all out of odor of any of the members of the house the fact the food came to the table but where was actually prepared was not considered to be important or interesting in any way another characteristic of Roman kitchens was that in order to evacuate wastewater they were always located close to the latrines as the toilets were called in the villas there for convenience did not always mean delicious smells [Music] but this does not prevent the LA penis from being gently glazed with honey to delight this evenings prestigious guests say on the emperor tiberius son [Music] [Applause] [Music] in Rome sweet grilled meats were always highly appreciated [Music] another favorite meat dish of the Romans was mince meat used to make a variety of stuffing the Romans were always expert at stuffing snails and masters at stuffing pigs guts with cheap cuts or awful [Music] Apicius kitchens the Luke Anika as they were known were composed of numerous condiments delicately mixed with smoked pork or beef this sausage is popular Rome or Strasbourg as frankfurter sausages are today included pepper cumin savory and parsley mixed with fat and pine nuts [Music] the Romans prepared amazing banquets with their stuffed foods these feasts inspired great gourmets and also the first novelist Caius Petronius our biter known as Petronius on his wax tablets in the satiric on the guests of all the great aristocratic households vocht the pleasures and frenzies of meals under the empire already drunk his hand lying on his wife's shoulder his forehead decorated by several crowns and went from the scent that ran into his eyes he sat down in the seat of Honor and immediately requested wine Tramel kyun charmed by his good humour asked for an even larger cup the frescoes at Pompeii provide perfect illustration to Petronius account and the orgiastic behavior of the rich citizens governed by Nero [Applause] but Pompeii frozen forever by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD also supplies a considerable amount of further information on Roman behavior [Music] we should not believe that the Romans spent their time heat on having orgies for the Romans amia was also meant to be a sober occasion because contrary to legend they were an obstinacy eight little only the privileged few were able to indulge themselves in magnificent deals these dinners were composed to two parts first a banquet known as the Kenna and then the Komisar tio which prolonged the banquet by a drinking session of the door a form of orgy during which the master of the banquet proposed that a certain number of cups of wine be drunk testing the health of all present these sessions could end extremely late at night and sometimes in a state of advanced simulation [Music] the rich whether they had overdone their wine intake or not always ate lying down leaning on their left elbow and Oh leading with the right hand [Music] during meals poets often accompanied by their lyre created an atmosphere of celebration combining feasting with superstition [Music] at Pompeii the Magnificent villas of the Vitesse the Menander or Julio Felix watched over by the penalties or domestic gods are still intact and evoke rites connected with eating in the homes of the wealthy the dining room or triclinium was considered a symbol representing the world we need to imagine that the dining room was the universe with its three main parts the ceiling which represented the world at the gods heavens but then the table which is missing here and on which the servants placed the dishes represented the earth he said Allah hasn't left there lastly there was the world of the dead the floor onto which remains were thrown for the deceased [Music] in Rome entertaining was above all about impressing one's guests social or political success was measured by the quality and abundance of the dishes the everyday life of the Roman pleb was much more frugal like the Greek diet the Roman diet had a very low protein content and was simply enriched by cereals or ingredients from distant lands Romans 8 more or less everything that we eat today except that in the Roman period of course a lot of these things had to come from distant parts of the Empire and in particular I would like to mention spices that came from India and even further from the South Sea Islands and it's interesting to notice that there was a Roman Emporium and South India where they collected these foodstuffs that were needed and at home and Rome and Buffalo I think it's also important to underline that they ate just about the same things that we today except that there are myths about their food consumption in particular some people think that they did not eat pork as it turns out we know that great amounts of pork were actually consumed and even that they probably were the first to domesticate porks and make them into an animal that was closer to what we know today with progressing breeding methods the Romans were able to eat pork more frequently prepared in small quantities as a stew or to make meatballs for ordinary families it was given much more sophisticated treatment by famous butchers such as Vitalis his superb Dougs famous pigs trotters all brawn and a large choice of smoked hams and sausages made him one of Rome's best-known butchers the right of the actual meal however was the same for all [Music] the ordinary people who did not have the means for three Klingons and their accompanying furniture eight sitting down breakfast known as Yin Taku room was eaten upon awakening and consisted of cheese bread accompanied by honey or olive oil and sometimes a little fruit was added this had to last a Roman until sunset and the only real meal was de Kenna that is to say dinner it was possible however to take a short break for lunch the prandium the poor took out a chunk of bread and a few olives better off citizens were able to offer themselves various hot dishes at the thermopolium [Music] this very first fast-food system invented for the Roman citizen existed on street corners in rome and pompeii and offered one or two main dishes which could be taken away or eaten on the spot in this Thermopylae um in Pompeii the counter must have contained olives fruit and hot cereal based dishes and very often some boiled meat and to a certain extent boiled food is always been seen as the simpler kind of food and so in a way to show that you are more cultivated or you are superior to others you will indicate people as being eaters of boiled meats whereas your preparation of these meats is more refined and that you are going to prepare the nuthin's or or fry that meat and this is possibly the root why the Greeks saw the Romans as consumers of boiled meat because they were basically or at least they thought rather uncultured people but the mash eaters as they were nicknamed by the Greeks were also great travelers about every 60 kilometers along the immense Roman Road network built right across Europe there were always places to eat something for example on the via de Mesilla which linked Rome to Spain to the west of what is today neem in France Roman engineers built a colossal bridge with 11 arches across a river that had legendary flood levels and designed mansion is nearby people on foot or horseback could rest here look after their Mount have a drink will eat a piece of fresh bread there was no shortage of bread throughout the Empire it was usually in the form of pancakes and everyone could eat as much as they wanted but there was no family in the Roman Empire bread was even a significant tool of social policy in Rome between 200 and 300 thousand penniless people each received two loaves a day when the Empire celebrated a new conquest the citizens were even allowed to have a double ration of bread and wine to drink to the Emperor's health during the 1st century BC the provinces around Rome were the largest exporters of wine in the ancient world two centuries later the Empire had practically doubled in size and the situation had been reversed Rome was no longer an exporter but had become an importer [Music] Bacchus was less and less a Roman the entire Mediterranean coast and in particular the south of Gaul had been colonized by vines this led to the development of the art of gallo-roman viticulture vines were cultivated as plants war on snakes and one of the best-known vineyards according to the Latin authors of the period such as columella or Pliny was the Tory Kula domain here delicious wine potions were matured by the Sun from bunches of grapes visually espousing olive tree branches according to legend the fruit of this union gives the potions drinker the vine strength and the olive trees endurance the marriage of the grape and the olive therefore pay tribute to Bacchus the god of wine with them vine growing became an art form and at the same time a market in which each color had its place the wine growers of antiquity rapidly began to specialize taking customer's tastes into account the Romans did not like red grape varieties they only liked white grapes it appears though that the goals and the Greeks appreciated red grape varieties so Sydney the goals practice a custom which the Romans considered unbelievably barbaric drinking their wine undiluted wine was always drunk diluted with water except in Germany and gules later the Gallo Romans through what we call romanization began imitating their conquerors customs and adopted consumer habits similar to those of the Romans quality control did not yet exist on the great wine-growing properties of antiquity it was quantity that counted [Music] the Romans did everything they could to press every drop from the grape after treading it by foot so as not to lose a drop the precious nectar was pressed by a weight of over a ton operated by an ingenious system of pulleys [Music] the juice was then vinified and aromatized by honey or on the contrary slightly salted by seawater the seller masters who were experienced in ologists added concentrated grape juice known as de flu eaten to the wine as it fermented enabling the wine to remain smooth until the end of fermentation I've come to the conclusion that the wines which were the most appreciated in Italy were wines which had benefited from noble aging completely transforming their taste and color ombre white wines became amber colored or nearly black with a taste that recalled the wines of Andalusia madeira or the Italian Vincente they were very unlike French wines I am convinced that if we were to have given a Roman one of our great Bordeaux wines he would have found it disgusting but in Rome where each citizen drunk an average of a hundred and fifty liters of wine every year great vintages such as feller mo could be transformed into undrinkable mixtures according to Marshall in his epigrams especially if the amphora came from the unscrupulous merchants of mass alia today Marseille your unfortunate friends received terrible poisons from you from across the seas for the same price as follow mo I know why you no longer come to Rome it is because you must be afraid to drink your wine because of the sudden gales in the Mediterranean many galleys overloaded with counterfeit filler mo never reached port history does not relate whether poison fish floated to the surface at the site of the shipwrecks the fish having trunks some of this counterfeit for Lomo [Music] however chroniclers all tell of the Romans keen interest in sea treasures the sea is the element which cost the most to man's stomach through its preparations its dishes and its delicacies there'ss observation by the writer Pliny the Elder may have been made by Lucas Lucas we hardly remember that this general who later became a senator conquered Asia Minor but history informs us that he was one of the first great gourmets [Music] and like all Romans he adored seafood so as not to be dependent on Neptune's Roth he even practiced the latest fashion a fishpond breeding [Music] which patricians were able to have red mullet conga octopus bonito or turbo very expensive products in high demand [Music] ordinary fish cost two to three times more than the best meet some fine catches such as Moray who busts were even sold at auctions as a result the Romans who were smart and loved their food developed fish breeding it would seem from the sources that we have that the Romans were great lovers of fish and of course to certain extent that was possible because Rome was so close to the sea and not only that it had that large fleets and therefore it was easy to have a regular supply of fish but what's interesting is that the Romans also developed fish farms they were probably with some of the first people to do that and managed to therefore cultivate fish in a way that then was further done in in the Middle Ages in Rome nothing was wasted everything thrived and was transformed the Romans did not throw any part of their fish away heads and innards sometimes slightly rotten were pressed and filtered to make garam a source made of fish prized by the ancients in the early Christian area this highly salted sauce was a luxury condiment but the Empire's development and the fact that it replaced salt in mostly plain and uninspired cooking of the time made it an indispensable source in Roman cuisine [Music] to meet demand which had increased within just a few decades garam was manufactured in industrial quantities on all the Empire's shores garam received an appellation according to the category of fish it came from today garam are still used a long way from Road in Asia where it is called Rahman the Romans also had a weakness for poultry as these had to be plump they were fattened but not any old how frescoes and the Villa Vita he said Pompeii provide a record everything that flies is force-fed but one of the Romans favorite fruits the fig the fig was a mythical fruit that came from the tree under which Romulus and Remus who had founded Rome were discovered the writer play describes 25 varieties including white violet green non black [Music] the fig tree harvest was always an important gourmet event for this family of patrician landowners however it was a real Tantalus torture for their slaves [Music] there was no question of compromising the goose liver fattened with FIGS one of Roman cooking's best-known dishes [Music] to the Romans liver became so closely connected to the fig that ficus gave its name to liver faqatilu [Music] eatin fresh dried four with honey figs were also the favourite ingredients of the sweet and savory harmonies found on all roman tables [Music] [Applause] [Music] whether it grow from delicacies all temptations greed can be a nasty fault particularly when it becomes an alibi to start a war in a hundred and fifty BC Katyn worried by a sudden revival in Carthage's power appear before the Senators carrying a basket of fresh figs [Music] when do you think this fruit was picked it was picked at Carthage only three days ago that is how close the enemy is to our walls the metaphor of fresh figs upset the Senators so much that they voted the third Punic War against the Carthaginians [Music] guitar go delenda Carthage must be destroyed and Kaitlyn's wish was fulfilled [Music] [Music] [Music] two centuries later in 98 AD under the reign of Trajan the Roman Empire was at its height 25 legions watched over its frontiers from the north of England to the Sahara and from Portugal to Syria the Pax Romana reigned everywhere or nearly to the north of Baga cone today buffet in the noir department of France German tribes were rebelling and Centurions marched to the front [Music] to commemorate the emperor tiberius visit here 2,000 years ago these history enthusiasts meet each year on the site of the ancient forum of Baga come to enact the exploits of Roman legionaries [Music] in civilian life this op co a noncommissioned officer to marcus Julio Skelos is a history teacher at the lycée and Alvey precise and meticulous with his men he has reconstituted every single detail of a Roman soldiers kit in the evening in the deliver WAC this equipment becomes proof that rome did not acquire its invincibility solely by the sword or pyram a throwing spear but also through fortress logistics shotgun duel we carry between three to ten days rations of we turn on kit and we each eat about 1.4 to 1.5 kilos every day a legion therefore needed 7 tons of wheat the marching legions were followed by wagons Rome's strength dependent upon its supply columns which allowed the 5000 men of the legion to march 30 kilometers every day with 40 kilos kit this evening in the camp Marcus who Lewis knows that his soldiers morale depends upon their messed him they all have their ration of dried vegetables but the OP Co plays the role of Pater familias to improve their everyday fare to make the chickpeas taste better you mix them with as much cumin as you want according to your taste oh you mix wine vinegar and honey in with your lentil we love these combinations of sweet and savory cooking is in a sense our pastime once we have cleaned our the legionary was somebody who liked to eat well and who needed to eat well to be fit to fight the dried vegetables which were like to carry were responsible for the many triumphs of Roman legions lentils often to be found in the Legionaries bag were also very practical for playing Letran coulis the ancestor of backgammon the stakes were less high when betting with lentils rather than sister Deus Roman money [Music] Gladiators on whom phenomenal amounts were vetted also appreciated lentils when one carried a nickname that could be chanted by 30,000 spectators in the Roman Colosseum it was not enough simply to eat to live it was necessary to eat to win and ultimately survive their interest in dried vegetables was mainly motivated by a strict energy-producing diet at the school for gladiators in meme directed by the then famous doctor sex to sluttiness fighters often came from all over Gaul and even Iberia they were worth a fortune and therefore needed to be looked after as much chickpeas vegetables and cheese as they wanted depending upon their weight and training programs bhakti should come to our mind you might the gladiator was a sportsman unlike Hollywood's vision of him he was not somebody who was there to kill as fast as possible in the arena but someone who had had a very long training for Pendelton technique had liked leading contemporary athletes they were given slow sugars they didn't eat pasta they ate cereals spelt and chickpeas you are washing the Porsche they were given the basic food of the Roman world which provided them with strength and energy before dinner he also found a bus to the wrong with you [Music] as far as their drink was concerned the diet was strict no wine only water and the water could not be too cold as it would tire them and make them short of breath [Music] [Music] in France in the ditches of the Faculty of NIEM modern-day gladiators of the Actor Institute demonstrate that these men who were sometimes better known than our football players were above all high level athletes [Applause] in a sense they disagree with the research of Austrian scientists who recently stated that gladiators too rich too fat must have looked like sumo wrestlers [Applause] [Music] difficulty the techniques employed required speed and breath retty IRA and the circuit are needed to run well the circuit or in particular with a helmet on his head it's difficult to imagine someone who weighed a hundred and twenty kilos being able to run after Reggie IRA for three minutes the duration of a fight who wore no armor and could move as fast as possible nostril iconographies of the time portray muscular and athletic gladiators not fat ones yet to avoid our perfectly regulated fights true choreographies rigorous combat and often inevitable death [Applause] in the tunnels under the arena's Rome toppled into macabre superstition masked gravediggers retreat the victims still warm blood and ran to sell it gladiators blood was deemed as a remedy against epilepsy it was said and above all a youth giving fluid another fluid rich and soft smooth and preserving also developed under the Sun and interested the Romans olive oil around the perimeter of the Mediterranean Basin the olive tree grew and it was a cult object however it only gave a good harvest every other year cultivating it we pray the olive tree to bear fruit pruning it we restrict it from doing so so the same went in antiquity many economists such as columella gave lengthy accounts of the olive groves rigorous and methodical farming it is important not to make a mistake when harvesting to obtain the right balance between the moment when the olive is just ripe waiting to be picked and to ripe with too much acidity [Music] pressed crushed or refined the Olive gives different qualities of oil according to the pressing the month in which it was harvested and above all the place where it grew during the Roman Empire they had problems producing enough olive oil in Italy so we see that large cultivations of olive oil were done in North Africa and were imported into the peninsula but at the same time I think it's important to point out that that animal facts were also used and to a certain extent the whole idea that Romans were consumers of olive oil only olive oil goes back a little bit to this whole development of the idea of a Mediterranean diet that has been somehow mythically pushed back at the time and that the Romans would have been the first ones to to be consuming this Mediterranean style food adapt of Mediterranean diets there were however some drops of olive oil that the Romans did not use solely for eating this was the oil that remained at the bottom of the presses these thick oils mixed with must were used only for lighting and sometimes the assistant cooks the [ __ ] eye when not concentrated seasoned the vegetables with lamp oil causing the guests indignation as they had a very short when it came to olive oil in the kitchen gardens to mix with the subtle fruity olive oil flavors the Romans carefully cultivated a variety of fragrances mint coriander garlic celery cumin a bay leaf were all marvelous ways to bring out the flavour of minced meats [Music] Epicurus will not contradict this particularly when he is about to receive Tiberius son drew Zeus at his table although he loves sumptuous meals he also cultivated a great many vegetables cucumbers asparagus mushrooms leeks carrots all artichokes were the vegetables most often found in Apicius very inventive recipes a true connoisseur of their nutritional and healing virtues he liked quoting extracts from Pliny Snatcher 'l history salad is salutary against gout sparkling eyes and dislocations this evening in Apicius kitchens a large quantity of cabbage is also being cooked and the tender shoots and the axilla of the leaves in fact resembles today's broccoli once cooked they will be ideal for accompanying stuffed snails to seasoned rabbit and pork ribs he has had spices sent from the Empire's eastern limits Apicius adored pepper and cloves but right now he must find rose petals the first great gourmet in history could have thrown himself into preparing sales dogs stuffed with sea urchins or pink flamingos tongues with honey however his endless inspiration led him to prepare nightingales baked with rose petals choosing rose petals was an art Apicius had an excellent nightingale supplier but a few quails or thrushes would do his recipe went to birds per person are needed placed the rose petals on the water surface the kaki have already chopped up their awful and Apicius personally watches over the preparation of the stuffing an essential part of a Roman recipe once the noble birds have been delicately smeared with honey cut the mint carefully then with a generous dose of olive oil grind pepper coriander garlic and cloves with aromatic herbs accompanied by a drop of day flu Eitam concentrated grape juice [Music] after preparing this source Apicius orders that each bird be delicately stuffed with a pick of the crop prune [Music] after 30 minutes cooking on a low flame the rose petals are added just before serving complete happiness is ensured with an amphora from fuller mode the Pickers impressed Sian and ruthless Tiberius sons [Music] all Rome spoke with wonder of this new dish Apicius was unbelievably fashionable and inscribed the recipe on the tablets of the patrician school of cooking which he had just opened in the Empire's capital [Music] there he taught the secrets of preparing a dish of camel's feet crayfish stuffed with caviar or other dishes that became hallmarks of ancient Roman cuisine [Music] certainly a Petrus is an important source for Roman cuisine there are certain elements that would seem to be typical of the late Roman Imperial period and in particular the sweet and sour combination which is very much of a hallmark that then seems to disappear in in Europe for quite a long time in the Middle Ages and so in that sense probably we can consider a Beatrice as a fairly faithful source for what Imperial cuisine was like it was unthinkable that this mythical gourmet should meet with an ordinary end Epicurus fell into depression in 37 ad he considered that he was no longer able to continually create and innovate [Music] Marshall chronicled is over ambitious and demanding individuals life Epicurus wrote Marshall you still had about ten million secrets up your sleeve however not being content with this situation you swallowed the ultimate potion a cup of poison never a pick Lluis will you be more greedy Apicius feared that he would not be able to maintain his level of excellence but he surely did not imagine that his name would cross the centuries [Music] today at paquius has found a new disciple in the person of one Mari Arzak who has a three-star restaurant at San Sebastian in Spain one of Europe's most sought-after tables the marvelous essence of Basque cuisine and breathtaking inspirations are born in this taste laboratory improvising a Cortado lamb with a thin veil of coffee ah sax avant-garde cuisine is mixed with recipes of the famous gourmet of antiquity I'm 62 years old I studied read and observed everything I could in both the modern and ancient worlds I look at everything and I found some very important things in ancient Roman cooking water struck me in a pickiest cooking is the balance between sweet and savory I realized that sweetness stabilizes taste for when one adds a little sugar to food tasters enhance and last longer I was struck by this and began researching in this direction eventhough I usually like Apicius Arthur continually seeks perfection these lemon tree leaves come from Tasmania this black sesame from Cephalonia Western Greece in his taste cabinet the spices from around the world become the counterpoint of a breathtaking culinary symphony you can bet that the dish you're discovering today is roast laughs it's pretty complicated to prepare the presentation is also magnificent and you could eat every bit of it in the pickiest time there was a lot of useless decoration today without elaborate and numerous techniques we know that any decoration and cooking must also be delicious to eat cook Alchemist and decorator our sack displays and distorts flavors the veil of coffee disappears like a mirage when the dish is served an ultimate reference to the master of the ephemeral and sumptuous meals of antiquity your poorest of course it's now become necessary to look for ingredients from all over the world is true that in cooking I feel related to a pickers period Rome's culinary refinement was shattered by the barbarian invasions of the late 5th century and only a few recipes were saved thanks to dedicated monks it was necessary to wait eight centuries for cooking to once again prove its worth with a taste for mixtures and the memory of epic use this great forerunner of master chefs had understood that greed is not only a sin but can also be a form of civilization [Music] you

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 157,230

Rating: 4.8316951 out of 5

Keywords: history history documentary funny history fun history school, timeline, ancient rome, roman empire, roman history, roman diet, everyday moments in history, absolute history

Id: 1BuiqkyxwFU

Length: 49min 18sec (2958 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2019