Book cover for Around the Roman Table: Food and Feasting in Ancient Rome by Patrick Faas

Around the Roman Table

Food and Feasting in Ancient Rome

2005 Released
371 Pages
6-7 Hours
Ebook Unavailable
Audiobook Unavailable
Hardback Unavailable
University of Chicago PressISBN 9780226233475
Translated by Shaun Whiteside
Craving dolphin meatballs? Can't find a reliable restaurant for boiled parrot? Have a hankering for jellyfish omelettes, sows' wombs in brine, sheep's brain pate, or stuffed mice? Look no further than Around the Roman Table, a unique hybrid cookbook and history lesson. A portrait of Roman society from the vantage point of the dining table, kitchen, and market stalls, Around the Roman Table offers both an account of Roman eating customs and 150 recipes reconstructed for the modern cook.

Faas guides readers through the culinary conquests of Roman invasions--as conquerors pillaged foodstuffs from faraway lands--to the decadence of Imperial Rome and its associated table manners, dining arrangements, spices, seasonings, and cooking techniques. With recipes for such appetizing dishes as chicken galantine with lambs' brains and fish relish, Around the Roman Table is ideal for food aficionados who wish to understand how the desire for power and conquest was manifested in Roman appetites.

"There are many misconceptions about the food of ancient Rome that Faas sets out to correct. The result is half cookbook, half history book and is entirely fascinating to both chef and antiquarian alike."--Washington Times

Patrick Faas

Patrick Faas writes a food column in the national Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. Shaun Whiteside has translated many books from French, German, Italian, and Dutch, including works by Freud and Nietzsche.

Shaun Whiteside

Translated by

Shaun Whiteside has translated over fifty books from German, French, Italian and Dutch, including novels by Amélie Nothomb, Luther Blissett, Wu Ming and Marcel Möring. His translations of Freud, Musil, Schnitzler and Nietzsche are published by Penguin Classics. His translation of the novel Magdalena the Sinner by Lilian Faschinger won the 1996 Schlegel-Tick Prize. His most recent translation from German is Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany by Norman Ohler. He lives in London.

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