Читать книгу Crazy Feasts - Dr. Marilyn Ekdahl Ravicz Ph.D. - Страница 4

In spite of humble origins, Roman cuisine became enormously elaborate through time. A history of trade and conquests stimulated the use of increasingly varied ingredients, and wealthy hosts became increasingly addicted to sponsoring sumptuous feasts with unusual entertainments. These feasts, quite naturally, were prepared and served by small armies of servants and slaves. By the imperial Roman period, competition among feast-givers was the rule not the exception, and political and military careers were known to hang in the balance between banqueting successes and failures. Much depended upon a host’s ability to please, impress and satisfy guests.

Through time and conquests, far-flung colonies offered a staggering range of foods as tribute or trade, and sybaritic decadence became stylishly rampant among the wealthy. By then, wealthy Romans’ villas often offered multiple dining rooms, each elaborately decorated with murals, and Roman chefs had developed complex dishes from unusual and costly ingredients.

Although conservative Roman senators argued loudly against the ruinous waste of hedonistic feasting, it continued unabated. Sumptuary laws defining the acceptable limits for entertaining were passed by the Senate and typically ignored. While many banquets were given to gain economic or political prestige, others were staged as extravagant excuses for sheer debauchery. Elaborate menus and prolonged feasting were interlarded with loud or sometimes crass entertainments and occasional trips to baths or vomitaria to regurgitate, to relax or to recover stamina for more feasting - all ingenious if unappetizing alternatives to feeling as stuffed as many of the dishes served.

Luxurious Roman dining rooms were typically light, airy, attractively furnished and decorated with colorful murals celebrating food or food-related activities. Some murals were definitely erotic, as the ruined villas of Pompeii and Herculaneum illustrate. Wealthy Romans dined reclining on couches while being served by servants or slaves. A triclinium, the dining room, takes its name from the arrangement of three couches (triclinia) placed on three sides of each dining table. Thus, dining room sizes were referred to as two, three or more sets of triclinia arrangements.

During long feasts, guests were sometimes invited to bath and/or change their garments between courses, and special resting-rooms were provided for sloppy or careless diners to don extra togas brought with them. In this sense, dining chambers functioned much like stage settings with dressing rooms nearby. Having slaves and dressers makes a huge difference!

Roman men typically banqueted together, although women could also be present depending upon several factors and the nature of the feast. Sometimes women were present as entertainers, and/or were present and introduced as ‘trophy’ wives or mistresses before the serious drinking of unwatered wine began. Trimalchio’s feast includes just such an interlude staged by the host’s wife. In her case, she brought a couple of fellow-diners with her and provided a few literal high kicks and jokes for dramatic relief.

Roman literature reports that fortunes were spent on feasting by the imperial likes of Lucullus, Heliogabalus, Claudius and Caligula – names to reckon with. Gluttony and hyper-developed tastes for the bizarre were expressed by serving dishes like flamingo or nightingales’ tongues, camels’ heels, and ostriches stuffed with sows’ udders. Emperor Lucullus even excavated a canal from the ocean to one of his estates in order to have abundant fresh seafood literally swimming into his kitchen. He also constructed an immense aviary to dine luxuriously on birds while observing others flying about in ‘their prison’. This reminds the author of something Samuel Butler noted in his Notebooks: Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

We know a good deal about Roman culinary history through the writings of historians, social critics, dramatists and poets. We also have an extant Roman cookbook containing considerable information regarding classical period dishes. This cookbook, one of the first in Western history, entitled De re coquinaria (Of Culinary Matters), is attributed to Marcus Gavius Apicius, a wealthy gourmand and luxury loving merchant reputed to be a world-class diner. Dates for Apicius vary, but it is generally agreed he lived during the final years of the last century B.C.E., and dined during Tiberius’ reign (14 to 37 C.E.).

Apicius was reportedly so serious about food that Seneca wrote about him: ‘Having consumed thousands of sesterces for food, Apicius, oppressed by debtors, was forced to review his accounts, and when he discovered he had only a few hundred sesterces left, he poisoned himself for fear of dying of hunger.’ Even if Seneca’s commentary is an exaggeration based on gossip, no other information is needed. Perhaps it is true, however, since Seneca was young Nero’s tutor, and thus a member of the gossipy palace staff.

Some say there was perhaps more than one Apicius, both (or more) noted for their devotion to food. Varying stories were handed down through history. Athenaeus’ several-volume published Greek manuscript entitled, The Deipnosophists (The Learned Ones or Sophists at Dinner), is rich with tales of Greek and Roman culinary history. In this important work, Athenaeus described Apicius’ fixation on seafood – especially giant shrimp – and noted that certain cakes were named ‘Apician’ after him. However, Apicius’ cookbook was never mentioned. Perhaps it was not actually known as a collection until after the third century C.E., when, by that time, his manuscript may have included many additional added recipes.

Although written in Greek, The Deipnosophists tells us much about Greek and Roman food and dining habits. Athenaeus of Naucratis, Egypt, was a learned man from the early to mid-3^rd.century C.E. who was perhaps also quite a gourmand. His writings include many tongue-in-cheek feast descriptions. One example is his reference to a notable Greek marriage feast to celebrate the nuptials of Iphierates, who married the daughter of King Cotys of Thrace. The narrative stretches the imagination and mentions how some hosts gave their guests such elaborate take-home memorabilia as gold tiaras, silver cups, and expensive jars of precious unguents. A few selected lines about the Cotys’ wedding feast summarize some details. Clearly the somewhat later Romans were not unique in hosting crazy feasts:

‘At the dinner were your butter-eating gentry, with unkempt hair and in countless numbers. Cotys (the King) himself had an apron on, and brought in soup in a gold pitcher; but what with tasting the wines in the mixing bowls he got drunk before the guests did…. His home does not lack Syrian myrrh, the breather of frankincense, tender-flaked barley cakes, fine meal cakes, octopuses, entrails, suet, sausages, porridges, garlic, beets, stuffed fig leaves, anchovies, mackerel, chops, sea-eel, ray, sole, swordfish, roe-tunny, shark, grapes, figs, flat-cakes, olive-cakes, milk-cakes, cauliflowers, silphium, vinegar, fennel, sesame, periwinkles, grasshoppers, rennet, cress, limpets, mussels, oysters….’

The description continues for pages, and lists more dishes, music, entertainers, semi-nude dancers, guest follies and so forth (see. Vol. II, book IV, pp. 101 and following). At least the Romans had addlepated Greek spendthrift precedents as their models in food as in the visual arts.

Athenaeus also describes how abstemious the early Spartans were during their feasts, but notes that they were eventually corrupted by Persian customs. He mentions that early Spartan rural feasts were typically public and contributed to by all the citizens who dined together in a kind of harvest sharing or thanksgiving banquet. Democracy in action! But customs change or are soon corrupted, whether by the then Persians and/or later Romans.

By imperial Roman times, many dishes were complex, and a collection of herb and spice flavored sauces, variously called garum, liquamen or muria, were widely used. It is possible that Apicius’ first recipes consisted primarily of sauces, and that his earlier collection was later augmented by other dishes and then collected into a single volume cookbook.

During Greek and Roman times, and for centuries afterwards, most of the world considered herbs and spices to be not only flavorful, but medicinal and curative too. Their use was important for health, aside from their tasteful serendipity. A glance at Apicius’ published sauce recipes show they included many ingredients such as: wines, vinegars, celery seed, mustard, broth, oil, pepper, cumin, thyme, coriander, raisins, nuts, dates, dill, mint, honey, onions, caraway and so on. Similarly, the Roman category ‘poultry’ included: chicken, duck, goose, crane, partridge, doves, wood pigeons, figpeckers, squab, pheasant, thrushes and ostrich – any flying bird including the ostrich, which can only run hell-bent and flap vestigial wings.

Questions remain about the identity of some Roman herbs and spices. Whether or not the famous and favorite herb silphium came originally from Asia Minor is not known; however, by Roman times it flourished along North African shores until it disappeared, probably from over-harvesting for gustatory as well as herbal contraception purposes. It may have been the same herb used as late as the Tang dynasty along the Silk Road, where it was considered rare and referred to as laser. Some historians think that both silphium and laser were either asafetida, or closely related to that plant. And in fact, asafetida has largely replaced extinct silphium as a food flavoring around the Mediterranean world where silphium was known and respected.

Consider the ubiquitous sauce garum. Romans made garum from the blood, gills and intestines of heavily salted fish placed in open vats to ferment for weeks (thankfully) outdoors. Daily stirring and natural pickling caused fermentation, which was enhanced with selected herbs. Romans considered garum to be a powerful restorative and frequently added it to meat, fowl or fish dishes, as noted in Apicius’ recipes. Nobody knows exactly how garum tasted, but culinary historians suggest it may have resembled current Southeast Asian fish-based sauces or anchovy sauce. We shall never be certain, since silphium, or related laser, became unavailable by late Roman times. Sadly, the economic fate of some North African cities (Cyrene) rested heavily on the export of silphium until overuse, overgrazing and/or climate change rendered the plant extinct. Foods are important as trade goods through the centuries.

Now onward, if not upward, to our crazy Imperial Roman Feast. Trimalchio’s feast was documented by Petronius, a Roman satirist from the first century C.E. Although a stern social critic on the one hand, Petronius was also the Director of Entertainments for Nero’s court, and thus a well-known man about town. As a critic, Petronius was apparently skilled at keeping one side of his brain from knowing what the other side criticized – a neat trick, in view of Nero’s more debauched proclivities.

The excerpts from Petronius’ Satyricon included here are not merely translated from Latin, they are heavily paraphrased to avoid the rather antique prose of the author’s early translation. However, the tone and sense of the feast is clear either way. Interested readers can refer online to Project Gutenberg, which offers an English translation of the Satyricon, including racy sections sometimes later claimed to be ‘mere forgeries’. Either view is only of passing interest to us now, and the forgery charges may represent monkish censorship.

Trimalchio’s Feast describes one invitee’s experience as a dinner guest. It remains descriptive, but is also a satirical commentary on the host, Trimalchio. The full Satyricon is available in many annotated, abridged and even more fanciful translations. My personal copy is an early translation that appears closer to the original (which my years of Latin scarcely recall), and its language is a bit arcane. Petronius’ style suggests to me it should be rendered in a more casual almost slangy manner; therefore, most parts are paraphrased, and repetitive sections of description are skipped and so noted by using the conventional dots (…) here and in other chapters of this book.

Whether or not this feast actually occurred is unknown; however, Petronius presents a virtual paradigm of Roman feasts described by others. The point of its historical verisimilitude is moot, since its menu and characters are clear and descriptive enough to be of interest as a paradigm of what must have been many crazy Roman feasts.

Petronius made it clear that the host, Trimalchio, was very rich and apparently also somewhat crass in manner. He was doubtless not from an old storied Roman clan or upper class family. This description is echoed in enough other documents to assure us similar feasts were held by wealthy Romans, and imitated in the Roman provinces. Slave-like imitations of banquets and menus should not surprise us, since culinary fashions normally trail wealth in fashionable clumps, even when most avant-garde dishes are often adaptations of past peasant fare, or represent new medical theories and diets.

Back to Trimalchio’s social pretensions and outré tastes made apparent in Petronius’ description. The opening scene depicts the guests’ arrival at Trimalchio’s baths, apparently attached to his huge villa. The time was probably late afternoon. As you read the excerpts, imagine being Trimalchio’s guest. Fellini must have read Petronius to frame some of his movies, although Woody Allen never met that challenge with his film featuring a single ambulating lobster.

Historians tell us that during late afternoons, certain quarters of Rome’s cobbled streets bristled with parties of men in elegant togas on their way to banquets. A slave or two accompanied each guest for several reasons: as bodyguards; to carry cloaks or extra togas; to tote home the gifts hosts presented each guest as memorabilia; or finally to support a drunken master homeward.

Trimalchio’s feast is divided into lengthy ‘courses’ that are interrupted by periodic entertainments, ribald accounts with erotic overtones, business or host-slave interactions, staged ‘punishments,’ and Trimalchio’s true-confessions and soliloquies. His dramatic references to the fleetingness of life and pre-planned funeral ceremonies provide an odd descant to the Bacchanalian tone of the overall feast, paralleled only by the host’s description of his bowel habits. That alone is a bit crazy, or suggests that considerable wine was early imbibed. Versions of Petronius vary slightly, but all depict the flavor of a feast that was not only somewhat crazy, but probably illegal under current Roman anti-sumptuary laws.

The convention of printed dots (…) indicates skipped passages in the following excerpts, and italics indicate explanations or cited poetry. Single quotes indicate the beginning and end of the overall text. I also opted not to use quotation marks for excerpted citations, since they are often only paraphrased and not direct quotes.

Now on to the drama: Scene One of Trimalchio’s feast.

Imagine you are one of Trimalchio’s guests, ambling along a cobbled avenue in Rome amid late afternoon crowds. You, your slaves and other companions approach Trimalchio’s large villa and its adjunct bathing quarters. Other male guests are also arriving, all wearing typical fine evening togas (vesta cenatoria). Meanwhile, your slaves carry garment changes to be used during the feast.

Although guests arrive clean, perfumed and with properly oiled hair, Trimalchio invites them to share another more or less ceremonial bath. This by-play is probably to show off his sumptuous bathing pools near the villa’s entrance. Upon arrival, the guests notice that Trimalchio had been playing a staged ball game with his servants. Our chronicler-guest describes the opening scene that greets the guests:

‘Plump Trimalchio is playing ball in the courtyard with several servants, one of whom carries his silver pissing bottle into which Trimalchio pees. He then rinses his hands and wipes them on the head of a slave boy. (The guests enter the villa courtyard after their ‘ritual’ bath to which the host had invited them.)

At the villa entrance stands the porter, a eunuch in a green uniform with a cherry red belt. He is shelling peas into a silver basin. Over the doorway hangs a golden cage from which a spotted magpie warbles to greet the visitors. After the guests enter the villa, they approach the entrance to a dining room. Nearby sits a hunched-over treasurer busily going over accounts...The guests take their places (in the dining room). Discussions and laughter are heard as they greet one another warmly.

Several dusky slave boys from Alexandria pour ice water over the guests’ hands...while others attend to washing their feet and toenails.... Dishes served for the first course include a Corinthian bronze sculpture of an ass with two large panniers containing white olives on one side and black olives on the other... Dormice (small, furry-tailed Old World rodents resembling squirrels) roasted and sprinkled with honey and poppy seed are served along with the olives. Steaming hot sausages on beds of damsons (plums) and pomegranate seeds are next carried in on a huge silver gridiron.

During these initial servings, Trimalchio is carried in by slaves on an elevated chaise to the sound of flute music.... He picks his teeth with a silver toothpick...while nodding to his guests, and is still playing a board game with a slave. Soon another tray arrives holding an enormous basket whereon sits a wooden hen with its wings spread....Two more slaves rush in and dig peahen’s ‘eggs’ out from under the wooden hen, which they distribute among the guests. The guests take up silver spoons (weighing half a pound each) and crack the ‘eggs,’ which are actually covered with pastry… Each guest searches inside the pastry shell with his fingers and finds a plump little figpecker (small songbird), all covered with yolk and seasoned with pepper.

Goblets of fine Falernian wine and mead (honey-sweetened wine or mulsum) are constantly served by corps of singing male waiters. Two long-haired Ethiopians carrying small leather bags pour heavily perfumed water over the guests’ hands periodically. Meanwhile, one slave carries in a silver skeleton with articulated joints, and flings it rather noisily on the table. At this point, Trimalchio slowly intones a recitation of the following poem:

O woe, woe, man is only a dot!

Hell drags us off and that’s our lot/

So let us live a little space,

At least while we can feed our face.

Next, a huge and deep circular tray decorated with the twelve rings of the zodiac is carried in and presented. Over each of these rings appropriate symbolic dainties are placed: over Aries the Ram, chickpeas; over Taurus the Bull, a beefsteak; over the Heavenly Twins (Gemini), testicles and kidneys; over Cancer the Crab, a garland; over Leo the Lion, African figs; over Virgo the Virgin, sows’ udders; over Libra the Scale, a balance scale with cheesecake in one pan and pastry in the other; over Scorpio, a sea scorpion; over Sagittarius the Archer, sea bream; over Capricorn, a lobster; over Aquarius the Water-Carrier, a goose; and over Pisces the Fish, two mullets. In the center of the tray is a grassy turf bearing a full honeycomb. Meanwhile, a young Egyptian slave carries around a silver warming oven of fresh breads while he mangles a song from a drama, The Asafetida Man, in a rather sickening voice.

At this juncture, four dancers hurtle into the dining room and remove the lid of yet another huge platter to reveal plump fowls, sows’ udders, fish, and a hare with wings fixed to his middle to look like Pegasus. At the same time, little leather bottles tip allowing a peppery fish sauce (garum) to run over the platter’s contents so that some fish seem almost to be swimming in a narrow channel.

At this juncture, the guests are eating, imbibing in more wine and engaging in loud gossip with the host. They focus on Trimalchio’s wealth, as well as the personality of his popular wife. The importance of astrology to the host and his family is also considered, while Trimalchio nods, grins and accepts their laudatory and personal comments. He continues to drink and eat.

Several humming servants now appear and cover the dining couches with embroidered coverlets depicting nets, while others act as hunters and brandish broad spears and the paraphernalia of hunting… Suddenly Spartan hunting hounds bound in and dash about making a noisy uproar. Behind them, slaves carry in a huge platter bearing an entire wild boar wearing a freedman’s cap…. From the boar’s tusks dangle two baskets woven of palm leaves. One is full of fresh Syrian dates, and the other holds dried Theban dates. Little roasted piglets in pastry surround the boar.... Next, a huge bearded fellow enters flourishing a large knife. He stabs the boar’s side smartly, and out flies a flock of live thrushes that are caught in nets by the slaves who race around the room chasing them.

While the guests continue to visit and eat, a handsome youth arrives wearing a garland of grape leaves and ivy wound around his head. He’s pretending to be Bacchus the Reveler, and carries a huge basket of grapes. At this point, differences of opinion about political ideas are expressed by several guests; however, these are cut short by Trimalchio who announces loudly that he feels the need to visit his privy.

When Trimalchio returns, he discusses his bowel habits and freely offers his guests sage advice about how to maintain ‘regularity’ by using a laxative made of pomegranate juice and resin in vinegar. He ends his discourse by inviting his guests to visit and use his several privies whenever they feel so inclined.

While Trimalchio drones on, more servers arrive. They carry in a massive pig surrounded by its piglets and place it on a table. Trimalchio stares at it and jokingly suggests that it looks to him as if the pig has neither been gutted nor cooked, but merely seasoned with cumin! Therefore, he announces, his chef must be stripped and beaten! A simulated beating of the groveling cook follows, after which the punished chef recovers his shirt, smirks broadly and takes up a knife. With a nervous hand, the chef slashes open the pig’s belly, and out pour heaps of cooked sausages and blood puddings.

The vindicated chef is then rewarded with money and a fine Corinthian bronze platter. After this bit of dramatic farce, more ribaldry, joking and drinking follow. Next, a series of acrobatic dancers and clowns entertain the guests. During this series of theatrics, conversations turn to joking, citing poetry, and ultimately a collective decision not to punish the youngest acrobat who inadvertently fell onto Trimalchio’s dining couch.

Fine Falernian wine continues to flow during the dinner, even after some guests became slightly verbally abusive, but probably in an orchestrated manner as their part of the show. Since performing excerpts from the Classics was popular during Roman feasts, peace was restored, and an actor loudly recites several passages from Homer. After this dramatic interlude, the banqueters return to more dedicated prolonged eating.

The servants now form a double line so that an entire broiled calf can be carried in on a two-hundred pound silver platter. The calf, which wears a warrior’s helmet, is served whole. Following the arrival of the roasted calf, one slave marches in garbed as Ajax and begins slashing at the calf with a drawn sword. He then collects huge chunks of meat on his sword-point which he further slices and distributes pieces among the surprised guests.... The guests eat the roasted meat pieces while continuing to gossip and drink.

All of a sudden the coffered ceiling begins rumbling, and the entire dining room seems to vibrate. The surprised guests leap to their feet in a panic as the rumbling continues. When the frightened guests look up in surprise, they see that the ceiling panels are opening. Next, an enormous hoop is let down from which dangle gold tiaras and several alabaster jars of fragrant unguents. The startled guests are asked graciously by Trimalchio to accept these as presents to take home after the feast.

Once the guests settle down again, they peer around and find that yet more food has been served. There is a large tray of cakes already placed on the table, and in its center is a sculpture of Priapus (god with outsized penis) made of pastry. He also holds fresh apples and grapes in his very adequate lap. Apparently the apples were somehow injected, so that when squeezed or bitten, they ejaculate saffron-flavored water!

More laughter, conversation, storytelling and wine-drinking follow, until even the slaves join in. They also sip wine mixed with water as they wander around serving more casually to say the least. A large tray of cakes is followed by several more savories. Instead of typical thrushes, however, fat roasted capons are brought in – one for each guest – and each one is accompanied by flavored goose eggs in baked pastry shells.

By now it is very late, and another somewhat drunk guest and his wife noisily arrive. They are accompanied by Fortunata, Trimalchio’s wife. Fortunata immediately ambles around and shows-off her jewelry to all the guests. Then she proceeds to dance around the tables while flapping her cerise petticoats about. After this wild show-and-tell interlude, more high kicks and ribald sexual joking ensue. These are initiated by Trimalchio’s loud vocal jibes, since he is by now quite clearly as intoxicated as the guests.

Trimalchio calls out loudly for desserts, while the servants scatter sawdust tinted with saffron, vermilion, and powdered mica on the floor. The guests sing and tell jokes, after which professional singers enter and perform more songs. Meanwhile, yet another endless course is served. This one consists of thrushes stuffed with raisins and nuts and covered in baked pastry shells. These savory birds are followed by roasted quinces with thorns stuck into them so that they resemble sea urchins.

A staged fight among the servants then occurs, followed by a simulated rumble between Trimalchio and Fortunata. The guests laugh as they watch these scenes until they notice that oysters, scallops and snails are sliding out of several jugs that have been carried in on steaming silver gridirons. During this serving interlude, boys with long hair walk around with silver bowls of perfumed cream with which they massage the feet of the guests reclining on their couches. The slave boys also wrap the guests’ legs and ankles in wreaths of fragrant flowers.

Trimalchio delivers a rambling but detailed account of the outrageously sumptuous funeral he hopes will mark his death one day. It will feature a large tombstone that carefully lists an inventory of his great wealth. Although he and Fortunata dissolve in tears after this pseudo-sad narration, they eventually stop sniveling about death in front of the guests, and return to laughter and joking.

By now, the guests are tipsy, so the party undertakes an exit trip to the baths for a much-needed intermission of dousing. (A kind of Keystone Cops routine follows in the baths). When the bathed guests return, they are escorted to a second dining room where tables are already laden with wine and pastries. During this dessert interlude, the guests continue to exchange light verbal banter until, after the break of dawn, the end of the feast is in sight.’

Petronius’ account of Trimalchio’s feast ends with a description of the bleary-eyed guests as they stagger off with their slaves who bear Trimalchio’s rich dinner gifts.’ (Extracted and paraphrased from: Satyricon, and the Apocolocyntosis, Volume II; translation and introductory notes by J.P. Sullivan, as well as on-line Project Gutenberg’s version, which was consulted for comparison).

Well! Trimalchio’s feast combined dining with theater-in-the-round, several true confessions, the services of a massage parlor and a surreal trick ceiling. The use of multi-ethnic slaves and actor-chefs as part of The Dinner Show is notable, as is the cameo role of the trophy-wife and her high-stepping performance. Trimalchio’s feast emphasized his wealth in a manner that epitomized imperial Roman theatrical entertainment among the newly rich, many of whom were – by Imperial Times – upstart canny tradesmen instead of the traditional clan-centered aristocracy.

Freely serving Falernian wine is analogous to serving Jeroboams of the best French champagne today. Good Falernian was seldom mixed with herbs or spices, as were less impressive wines, although wines were typically cut with water during the earlier courses of any feast. The Romans, like the Greeks, typically drank wine diluted with water or juices, because drinking it neat was (rightly) surmised to cause early drunkenness. This practice was often honored in the breach during the final hours of feasts and symposia.

Imperial Roman culinary patterns, such as stuffing smaller animals or their parts into larger ones, encasing foods in dough, or larding fowl and fish with herbs and sauces all characterize Trimalchio’s feast. Serving food ingredients in pastry shells and shaped into sculptures was very popular in Imperial Rome, and similar food-as-artwork patterns were elaborated during medieval culinary history too.

Interspersed periods of entertainment such as dances, music, recitations, dramatic scenes, poetry and literary readings were echoed in many Roman feasts, crazy or not. The excesses of this crazy feast, with its blatant focus on the conspicuous consumption of endless courses of dishes, and blatant use of slaves, costly ingredients and fine wines, compose its crass profile to feature Trimalchio’s wealth. Reviewing the menu for a ‘casual’ feast such as this was, helps us understand a need for the Senate’s sumptuary laws. The guests could not possibly eat a fraction of the rich dishes served, and the use of baths, two dining-rooms, and costly take-home gifts emphasize luxury intended as pure display. Moreover, the obviously crass manners and conversation of the host and hostess, add the frosting on the cake of their gauche demeanor.

Thus, most of this feast’s craziness relates to its gross distortion of traditional Roman values into wasteful opulence, trick ceilings, and overly sumptuous gifts to the guests. In spite of Trimalchio’s attempts to appear upper class, his gross exaggeration of personal wealth and coarse behavior outweigh the kudos wealth might have given him. Crazy is as crazy does.

Imperial Roman dinners (coena recta) or feasts (comessatio) were typically organized as follows. First came an antipasto (ante coenam or gustum) consisting of fish, vegetables, fruits and nuts, shellfish or the ever-popular dormice, served with mulled wine (mulsum). Next came the first main course, mensa prima, consisting of game, boar, roe, deer and Picenian (wheat) breads, along with other meat or poultry dishes. This was followed by the mensa secunda or mensa pomorum, (fruit table), consisting of jams, preserves, but perhaps also sausages, cheeses or other primarily sweet dishes (see Flower and Rosenbaum, 21-22). Courses could be extended and even repeated too.

Drinking often increased as the meal progressed and usually peaked after the sweets were eaten. At that juncture, the guests (and the hosts in Trimalchio’s case) sometimes became their own entertainment. While we call the service order courses, they obviously include a different jumble of foods from our current concept of course progressions.

Should you decide prepare a classical Roman feast, crazy or not, you might restrict your menu to more feasible dishes and dispense with slaves, trick ceilings, Alexandrian boys, live birds stuffed into boars, sows’ udders, dormice or roasted small songbirds. But you can still serve dishes with a Roman flavor adapted from Apicius’ cookbook, as well as offer live entertainment or appropriate background music. Feel free to exploit your children, relatives, friends or talented neighbors. Some might be willing to play the role of slaves or servants for a fee or several lottery tickets. It’s up to you and to them. It could be fun. They might enjoy wearing sheets or cleverly draped towels and leather sandals too, especially if dining occurs outdoors in a pleasant patio-atrium.

Contemporary guests usually arrive clean and groomed, so the bathing interlude can be eliminated, unless you’re a Californian with a hot tub. Decide whether or not to use such implements as spoons (under a half-pound, please). Until Italians more or less ‘invented’ forks and championed their use several centuries later, spoons and bread served (and still can) to carry food from plate to mouth. Togas are optional, but it is always easier (and neater) to dine sitting rather than reclining on any ersatz couches you might create. If you don’t believe me, try the alternative during a ‘practice’ meal first. Messy and frankly hard on the elbows, I promise you as a dilettante.

Dispense with many Trimalchian details, but do offer a memento to departing guests as the Romans did. A well-designed printed menu with excerpts from Trimalchio’s Feast and a couple recipes might serve as an easily made souvenir. Or, if you’re in for a penny as well as a pound, a small piece of Italian glassware might do. If you live where outside patio dining is feasible, it might be pleasant to feast as Romans often did, al fresco in an inner atrium patio, protected from the wind and wildlife, human or otherwise.

Obviously bread was served for Trimalchio’s feast, although it merited minimal mention. Romans ate a variety of flatbreads and cheesecakes, but not the dessert kind. However, unless you are a passionate baker, plain or herb-flavored loaves and flatbreads are available today in good markets and bakeries.

Falernian wine days are over, but Italy and other countries offer a variety of wines from which to select one or more types; however, serve them unwatered, and not over-generously. Roman salads usually consisted of rocket, leeks, chicory, watercress, sorrel, basil, other tart greens, herbs and even nuts and cheeses. Some of these items are popular and available again for salads. Romans dressed salads with oil, vinegar, nuts and salted cheese (feta crumbles make decent substitutes) mixed with dashes of juice or consommé.

The following menu and recipes are only suggestions. Select those dishes appropriate to the season and number of guests you invite, or find similar ones in pertinent books noted in the bibliography or online. These recipes reflect Apicius’ era, but include adaptations to facilitate their current preparation. It is doubtful your local supermarket offers dormice or sow’s udders, and flamingo’s tongues are probably protected as endangered species. Sorrel and other herbs are seasonal at best, but others are typically available. While not allowed to raid the zoo for ostriches, flamingos or pheasants, be content with chicken, duck or other available poultry. Most of us prefer to hear and not eat songbirds.

At first glance, Roman and contemporary Italian cuisine seem to have little in common; however, hints of the former remain in layered and/or stuffed dishes, salads and some egg dishes. Since many ingredients came later from the Americas or Middle East, they were absent from Roman recipes until much later. However, a few of these ingredients have admittedly found their way into the appended recipes, i.e., like tomatoes. Your food drama can be mildly fictional without despairing.

Finally, ask your guests not to bring their slaves, unless they promise to help clean-up afterwards. They would only overburden the guest list and might try to become part of the show. Although types of pasta were known in Rome well before Apicius’ time, it is more interesting to serve a Classical Roman feast with minimal pasta. The earliest pastas were probably made from strips or beads made of dough, much like couscous is made today. Whether or not pasta first happened in China or farther west is moot. Who knows actually? It could have happened as a side-product of Roman or Chinese military campaigns, but certainly preceded Marco Polo’s return from Asia.

As for making your Roman feast crazy, that part is up to you. Actually, serving some of the following ancient dishes might be crazy enough to qualify. Roman-type music is available on CDs, and might help set the mood without throwing coins in your fountain. But given a fountain, one could make an amusing game out of that scenario too. Forget the trick ceilings, although rose petals scattered on the table would be consistent with Roman practices. Our phrase sub rosa derives from the Roman practice of sharing private secrets truthfully while seated at a table decorated with red roses. They were and remain important as sacred flowers. Use them wisely. And if you must discuss digestion, try to keep it general.

Note: All included recipes serve six unless otherwise noted.

Menu for a Classical Roman Feast

Mulsum and Antipasto

Mulsum (lightly honeyed wine)

Medium to hard-boiled Eggs with Caper-pine nut Sauce

Hearts of Artichokes with Lentil Stuffing

Mixed Mediterranean Olives

Onion and Chicken Appetizer

Pear Patina

Mensa Prima

Duck with Prune Sauce

Ham in Pastry

Roast Lamb with Savory Sauce