I’m not a foodie. I’ve never cooked for a crowd. I’ve never cooked anywhere other than my home kitchen, or on a camp stove (working at Burger King and Arbys over 20 years ago doesn’t count). I know next to nothing about Ancient Rome. Yet I offered to be Feast Steward for an SCA event with a Roman theme. What does that mean? Basically, it means I’ll be trying to make period-accurate Roman food for about 100 people for an all-day buffet.
Did I mention the event is in six (6!) months? Six months to learn all about Ancient Roman culture, food, herbs, spices, cooking methods, and recipes. Six months to attempt making all those recipes. Six months to figure out a menu for 100 people. Six months to figure out how much food per person to serve. Six months to figure out the best way to make large amounts of food on a budget. Six months to figure out all those things I haven’t even thought of figuring out yet!
I figured I should start a blog as a way to chronicle all the research and trials and errors of recipes. Plus it would be a good way for me to keep track of everything.
The first thing I did was go online for same basic searching of Ancient Roman food. It became apparent that Apicius was the place to start (whatever Apicius is). Did some more searching and low and behold, Apicius is one of the earliest extant (extant=actual real surviving example – took me awhile to figure out what THAT meant) cookbooks found, and just so happens to be from ancient rome. Yay! Let the Journey begin.
Ancient Roman Cooking for the Culinary Impaired 