The menu of a modest Roman meal in an epigram by Martial

What the Romans wore, how they furnished their houses and what they talked about, we can picture quite well; but what an ordinary Roman dinner looked like came as a revelation to me personally. In one epigram Martial lists the dainties prepared for his table, inviting a friend to a modest repast.

The menu is as follows.

For starters: lettuce, which even in Roman times was reckoned the cheapest of greens, pungent onions, and salted tuna in chopped eggs. Whenever you eat mimosa salad, remember from whom you inherited it.

For the main dishes: freshly cut green cabbage in a black dish, yellowish beans with ham, and sausages with white porridge. In Rome porridge was often served not as a sweet but as an accompaniment to a main dish of meat with salt and other spices.

For dessert: dried grapes and Syrian pears, and roasted chestnuts from Naples. Although the Romans were fond of baking, the dessert course often consisted of fruit alone.

And, of course, wine with all of it.

Towards the close of the evening's sitting there were to be fresh olives and hot peas with warm lupin. The latter is otherwise known as the wolf bean, a plant with large blue, white and pink flowers; in our day lupin is used chiefly as an ornamental crop.