Ancient Roman Cuisine - Table Culture

Table Culture

From 301 BC, Greek customs started to influence the culture of higher class Romans. Growing wealth led to ever larger and more sophisticated meals. Nutritional value was not regarded as important: on the contrary, the gourmets preferred food with low food energy and nutrients. Easily digestible foods and diuretic stimulants were highly regarded.

The dinner was consumed in a special dining room, which later was to be called triclinium. Here one would lie down on a specially designed couch, the lectus triclinaris. Around the round table, the mensa, three of these lecti were arranged in the shape of a horseshoe, so that slaves could easily serve, and a maximum of three diners would recline at each lectus. During the kingdom and early republic, the only people allowed a place on a lectus were men. By the late republic and imperial times, and especially among the aristocracy, women were permitted to recline during meals. Traditionally, women would dine sitting upright across from their husbands or fathers in chairs. More tables for the beverages stood beside the couches. All heads were oriented towards the central table, with left elbows propped on a cushion and feet at the outside of the dinnercouch. In this fashion at most nine people could dine together at one table. Further guests had to sit on chairs. Slaves normally stood.

Feet and hands were washed before the cena. The food would be taken with the fingertips and two kinds of spoons, the larger ligula and the smaller cochlear with a needle-thin grip, which was used as a prong when eating snails and molluscs, in practice substituting for the modern fork. At the table, larger pieces would be cut up to be served on smaller plates. After each course the fingers were washed again and napkins (mappae) were customary to wipe one's mouth. Guests could also bring their own mappae to take home the leftovers from the meal or small gifts (the apophoreta). Everything that could not be eaten (e.g. bones and shells) was thrown onto the floor, whence it was swept away by a slave.

In summer, it was popular to eat outside. Many houses in Pompeii had stone couches at a particularly beautiful spot in the garden for just that purpose. People lay down to eat only on formal occasions. If the meal was routine, they ate while seated or even standing.