Food
People living in Pompeii ate varied meals containing of vegetables, meat and fish. The poor Romans ate quite simple and plain meals, but the rich were used to eating a wide range of food courses using produce from all over the Roman Empire. Romans usually ate three meals a day. Those meals were breakfast (ientaculum), lunch (prandium) and dinner (cena). Cena was the main meal. They didn't sit down at tables to eat their food. They spread out on couches surrounding a low, square table. They also ate most of their meals with their fingers (but they did use spoons for some of the food, like soup, and had knives to cut their food into smaller pieces).
THE DIET OF A WEALTHY FAMILY
Breakfast usually would be bread with honey, a ricotta-like cheese and olives. Lunch would be bread and meat at home or a meal from one of the thermopolium (snack bars): sausages, , black pudding or whitebait, with lots of white bread. Dinner (cena) consisted of six or seven courses, going from antipasti to rich fish and meat dishes, ending with honey cakes, sweetmeats and fruit, all washed down with a lot of wine.
THE DIET OF A POOR FAMILY
Breakfast would be either nothing or a simple porridge of barley, millet or emmer wheat, mixed with scraps of whatever was at hand: vegetables, fish, olives or yesterday’s leftovers. Lunch would be a snack taken from one of the many thermopolia. Maybe some bread with salted fish, or a soup of lentils or chickpeas. Dinner would be more of the cereal made into a porridge or soup, served with foods that didn’t require cooking, a chunk of cheese, some raw beans, whole-wheat bread, a few figs and olive oil.
THE DIET OF A WEALTHY FAMILY
Breakfast usually would be bread with honey, a ricotta-like cheese and olives. Lunch would be bread and meat at home or a meal from one of the thermopolium (snack bars): sausages, , black pudding or whitebait, with lots of white bread. Dinner (cena) consisted of six or seven courses, going from antipasti to rich fish and meat dishes, ending with honey cakes, sweetmeats and fruit, all washed down with a lot of wine.
THE DIET OF A POOR FAMILY
Breakfast would be either nothing or a simple porridge of barley, millet or emmer wheat, mixed with scraps of whatever was at hand: vegetables, fish, olives or yesterday’s leftovers. Lunch would be a snack taken from one of the many thermopolia. Maybe some bread with salted fish, or a soup of lentils or chickpeas. Dinner would be more of the cereal made into a porridge or soup, served with foods that didn’t require cooking, a chunk of cheese, some raw beans, whole-wheat bread, a few figs and olive oil.