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It’s a somewhat ironic twist of history that the philosopher Epicurus’ name has been transformed into a noun describing a person who takes great pleasure in fine food and drink, often with a refined taste. After all, Epicurus’ stated idea of a ‘feast’ was a chunk of cheese. Turns out he was more Ben Gunn than Gargantua.
The Romans would likewise probably be a bit miffed that they’ve become a byword for gorging to excess. After all, the classic Roman virtues tended to emphasise stoicism, discipline and frugality. On the other hand, the sole surviving Roman cookbook includes recipes for roast parrot, flamingo braised in vinegar and peacock in a rich, peppery wine sauce. Perhaps not surprising, given the book is attributed to Marcus Gavius Apicius, a patrician of Tiberius’ rule. Apicius eventually killed himself when he ran out of sestertii for all those peacocks and parrots.
Leaving aside the flamingos and other exotic delicacies, though, Apicius’ book contains many recipes anyone familiar with Mediterranean cooking today would recognise.
Going through the recipes of the only known cookbook to have survived from the ancient Greco-Roman world, De Re Coquinaria, one thing is striking: much of the cooking the book describes feels surprisingly familiar […]
Precursors to contemporary dishes appear throughout – from amulum (a roux-like base), to sauces resembling vinaigrette, and bouillabaisse (a traditional fish soup originating in the port city of Marseille, France).
The work even includes early versions of coq au vin (though with fish rather than chicken), foie gras (using fig-fattened pig liver), scrambled eggs (with fish rather than bacon), pumpkin pie, and even French toast, with crustless bread broken into pieces, fried in oil and drizzled in honey.
Don’t expect the hyper-sweetened, American dessert-style pumpkin pie, though. The recipe from Rome is much more like the pumpkin pie my Maltese mother-in-law makes, only without the rice (imagine a flavour somewhat like dolmades, but with the occasional – unpleasant, to me – surprise of a chunk of extremely fishy fish).
The ancient Roman cookbook is a technical cooking manual, divided into 10 books, separated by topic and containing nearly 500 recipes, with many of them quite complex.
As with most ancient texts, it is believed it was copied over centuries, redacted, amended and edited, leaving the original cookbook shrouded in mystery. Two 9th-century copies of the cookbook are known to have survived – one is in the Vatican and the other at the New York Academy of Medicine in New York City.
Over 2,000 years later, Apicius’ cookbook still intrigues scholars and cooks as it has done for centuries, with its glimpses of Roman life.
Apicius himself gained lasting notoriety, wrote the late historian Phyllis Pray Bober, by killing himself when he realised there wasn’t enough money left to keep him in the extravagant culinary style to which he was accustomed. That style included creating a dish “from the crests of living cocks”, parboiling poultry before cleaning and plucking to “seal in the full savor of fat and juices” and killing pigs with doses of honeyed wine. He also fed dried figs to pigs in order to fatten their bellies for foie gras.
“The special flavor imparted to pork liver as a result of being ‘figged’ ultimately came to be applied generically to all liver (fegato in Italian),” Bober added.
Recipes have been panned for being over-spiced (possibly to cover up the taint of spoiled food), over-flavoured and over-the-top, reflecting the Roman aristocrat himself. Scholars note the book is for cooks by a cook: prior knowledge and training is assumed.
Yet its techniques and flavours reveal an unbroken thread from ancient kitchens to modern ones. Brined olives, pestos, fruit preserves, dried fish and cured meats all feel surprisingly familiar.
The Romans weren’t just conquerors: they were the original fusion cooks, blending Greek technique, North African spices and local produce into something that still tastes like home two millennia later. Next time you’re drizzling honey over French toast or nursing a glass of rosé, raise it to Apicius. The man may have died broke chasing peacocks, but he left us the cookbook that proves good taste never really goes out of fashion.
Just don’t try the parrot. Some traditions are best left in the history books.
