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
Side Dishes
Cabbage and Leeks
Beets in Mustard Sauce
Mensa Secunda
Imperial Cheesecake
Stuffed Dates Apicius
Fried Wheat Cakes
Fresh Fruit
Two ingredients merit explanation: garum and lovage. Lovage was a popular herb, which Romans considered medicinal. While lovage (an umbelliferous plant) is still popular and easily grown, I’ve never seen it in a supermarket. So I agree with others that chopped celery leaves make a fair substitute. You can also easily grow lovage, which is seasonal and requires little special care.
For garum, you have two alternatives. One is to use the Southeast Asian fermented fish sauce or nuoc mam available in Asian markets. These sauces are also made of fermented fish, sea salt and herbs; however, dilute them slightly with water and/or a few drops of light soy sauce. The other alternative is adding 1 teaspoon of anchovy paste to one cup of white grape or apple juice with a dash of light soy sauce and chopped oregano (see Edwards, p.305 for other suggestions). I’ve used the anchovy paste alternative with a dash of asafetida (sorry there’s no extinct silphium), and found it quite acceptable. A variety of Asian fish sauces are easily available now. You can make your garum in a small jar with a screw on lid and keep the remainder in the refrigerator.
The following adaptations rely heavily on tested recipes from two translations of Apicius’ Latin book De Re Coquinaria: A Taste of Ancient Rome, Ilaria Gozzini Giacosa, trans. Anna Helklotz; and Romanae Artis Coquinariae Liber (The Roman Cookery Book), Barbara Flower and Elizabeth Rosenbaum. Also of interest for reference is Andrew Dalby and Sally Grainger’s The Classical Cookbook, as well as The Roman Cookery of Apicius by John Edwards. I also consulted the Dover edition of Apicius, reprinted from Vehling’s translation. Then too, there’s