- In Ancient Rome, society was divided between wealthy patricians and poorer plebeians, who ate different types and quantities of food. Patricians consumed more expensive fare. - For breakfast, Romans typically ate bread, cheese, fruit and meat, drinking milk or wine. Plebeians broke their fast at dawn while patricians did so later. Modern Italians enjoy sweets, coffee and fruit juices with their morning meals. - Lunches have also changed from Ancient Rome. Plebeians once ate quick meals standing while patricians hosted lengthy banquets. Today, pasta, rice, soups and salads are popular, along with meat, fish and dessert.

1. Romans and us
We’re going to see what Romans ate
and
the differences about food
from the Ancient Rome
and Italy today

2. Introduction
In Ancient Rome community was divided between patricians and plebeians.
The plebeians were the poor people of the Roman Empire and the
patricians were the rich people of the Roman Empire.

3. Introduction 2
Patricians ate more than plebeians and they ate more
expensive food. Today we don’t have these differences in the
community but there’s obviously some food which is more
expensive than other food.
We think that the true differences about food today are in the
international food(Japanese, Mexican; Chinese…food) because
there are obviously different traditions.

4. In the Roman Empire people
usually had:

5. Breakfast (Ancient Rome)
 They usually ate some bread, cheese, fruit and meat. They drank
milk or wine. Sometimes they ate a piece of bread with wine and salt
or just a piece of bread with milk. There weren’t any sweets because
they didn’t know sugar. The Romans usually ate for breakfast the
food of the dinner of day before. They had breakfast at about 6:00
a.m. so at sunrise (especially for plebeians).

6. Breakfast today
 Today we can have breakfast at different times (from 6:00 to
10:00 a.m.)
 We eat many sweets made with pasta like croissat but also
ciambella (cake with a hole in the middle) and other sweets.
Adults often have coffee or cappucino. Some people also
have barley coffee. Children usually have milk and cereals
with some biscuits or they just spread some jam on a piece of
bread with some butter. They also have an orange juice or
another fruit juice.

7. L u n c h (
An c i e n t R o me )
 The Romans usually had lunch at about 11:00 or 12:00 a.m.
Plebeians had lunch in porterhouse where they ate standing. They
ate “slow food”. They had vegetables, legumes, some bread and
some fruit. The lunch of Patrician families was longer. They ate
vegetables, cooked or brine fish, pigeon or patridge eggs, legumes,
some bread, and some fruit. They had very long banquets for
example a famous banquet was Lucullo’s banquet. Lucullo was a
Roman general that was famous for his great lunches.

8. L u n c h t o d a y
Today people can have different things for lunch so we aren’t going to say all
these things but just the most important ones. People can have a “starter dish”
of meat, fish, cold cuts, vegetables, cheese…
In Italy the main dish is often made with pasta (there wasn’t pasta in Roman
times because they didn’t know it). You can choose to eat pasta with tomatoe
sauce, seafood, vegetables… but there isn’t only pasta for main dish because
you can eat also a soup made with vegetables, legumes but there are also
some soup made with fish or you can eat bouillon. Sometimes we eat rice. We
eat it also with asparagus or mussels and clams.
After pasta, we usually have another dish with meat like roast meat, chicken,
sausages, veal, lunch meat, corned beef, shepherd’ pie…You can choose to
eat fish instead, like grilled fish, fry fish…You can have a side dishes with fish or
meat. For example you can eat french fries, green salad, mixed salad, potatoes
salad, corn salad, cole slaw…
We eat fruit at the end of the meal dish but some people prefer to eat dessert
and sometimes they don’t eat fruit. There are lots of desserts. We can’t list all of
them but you can have an ice cream, water ice, tart (like apple tart) and many
cakes made for example with chocolate, cream, fruit…

9. Some pictures about our lunch.

10. Dinner for plebeians
They ate a flour patty called olera, legumes, meat, vegetables and fruit.
They started to eat at about 3:00 or 5:00 p.m. because after dinner
sometimes people stayed toghether and at 6:00 p.m. so at sunset they
went back to their house.

11. Dinner for patricians
 There were 4 parts for the patricians dinner that was very long.
 These were:
 1) GUSTATIO that was like “starter” where they ate eggs, lettuce,
mushrooms…
 2)PULS when they ate a spelt or wheat patty with a side dish like fish and
legumes
 3)PRIMA MENSA where there were some fish or meat dishes
 4)SECUNDA MENSA where there were fresh fruit, nuts or desserts like
apples with honey.
During the dinner guests often made a toast to the owner, there were tumblers,
musicians and literate slaves read a literary novel. Guests brought food home.

12. Dinner today
We usually eat less than at lunch. We usually don’t have “starter” for dinner. If
you have already eaten pasta at lunch you shouldn’t take it for dinner. You can
also have rice or soup. You can have some meat or fish with a side dish of
salad (green, mixed,potatoes…). Then, you can have fruit and a dessert.
Special dinner
In Italy was created a famous dish called pizza so today people
sometimes eat pizza for dinner but if you want you can eat it also at
lunch. Today people sometimes go out for dinner and they go to
restaurants. In Italy there are lots of international restaurants where you
can eat traditional food of every nation. For example there are
Japanese restaurants that are famous for sushi or Egyptian restaurants
that are famous for kebab…

13. Pasta
This term is originated from Greek πάστα: flour with sauce. The legend
says that pasta is originated in China and Marco Polo (a famous Italian
explorer) took this special food to Italy. During the Middle Ages thanks
to a new way of cooking in Italy pasta dish was created. In Europe
people started to eat pasta with the hands but in Italy people used the
fork.

14. Special food in roman times
 Garum: was a spicy sauce, prepared
in the internal part of salty fish. It was
put in a big crate where they added
salt. Finally the sauce fermented.
 Mulsum: was a special wine very tasty
and alcholic. The Romans added
water, honey and spices to it.

15. We hope you enjoyed
this presentation,
bye bye