The main foods in Ancient Rome were bread, beans, spices, olives, a few vegetables, and meat. The daytime meals were very quick and plain. The breakfast was usually a piece of bread and a bowlful of beans or sometimes a small bowl of porridge. Lunches usually included a piece of cheese, bread or perhaps some olives or celery. Their daytime snacks were at an ancient Roman “takeout places” called thermopolia. These places served ready to go cold and hot snacks. Most poor Romans went to the thermopolia, and depended on it because they didn’t have kitchens. Wealthy Romans also sometimes bought their daytime meals at a thermopolia because it was fast and convenient. Some favourite drinks were plain water, very watered-down wine and hot water with herbs and honey, like tea.
Olives
Dinner was considered the most important meal and even poor Romans, who usually bought their meals at a thermopolium ate chunks of fish or meat served with asparagus and a fig for dessert. Wealthy Romans hosted elaborate dinner parties. The Romans also poured garum-which was a smelly, salty fish sauce-over many of their entrees. Some ancient Roman documents included recipes for mice cooked in honey and poppy seeds, roasted flamingos and parrots stuffed with dates, snails dipped in milk, and salted jellyfish stuffed with sea urchins.