KITCHENS AND DINING ROOMS AT POMPEII ... - Get a Free Blog

Community organization
Food was everywhere in Pompeii. Almost every city block had at least one, and often
more, commercial eating establishments, from bakeries to cook-shops such as lunch counters or
sit-down diners. Fifteen such eating establishments in the six insulae studied here served locals
and passersby (Fig. 2.2). People could walk in any direction to a conveniently located bar or grill.
Commercial eating establishments were, however, sources of food secondary to the food
prepared independently in individual homes. Salza Prina Ricotti's calculations for the houses of
Campania claimed that 40% of 'case povere', 66% of 'case agiate del medio ceto' and 93% of 'case
ricche' contained a fixed cooking surface such as a stove or hearth. 2 Consideration of the artifacts
increased the percentages in my Pompeian sample: 100% of the fifty-two houses and
(work)shop-houses in this sample showed evidence for either a fixed cooking installation, or
localized cookwares. 3 These figures suggest that every Pompeian home larger than ca. 80 m 2
had its own cooking area. Only in the smallest buildings, the (work)shops, is there doubt -- 43%
percent of these have some evidence for cooking and eating. 4 Pompeians took the majority of
their meals at their homes; even in the smallest (work)shop, a rough meal of porridge could
easily enough have been prepared with a single pot.
The poorest Pompeians must have visited the cook-shops more regularly than their
richer neighbors. It was not because the food was cheaper, but because social ties were generated
there. Commercial eating establishments were centers of interaction, not primary sources of
nutrition, and were visited before or after real meals at home. The warmed drinks and snacks
served there were social lubricants, engaging all comers in a common activity that fostered
interpersonal relations. Diners and lunch counters especially catered to persons hanging on the
lower rungs of the social ladder, and were thus described by the elite authors of literary texts as
undesirable places to be or be seen. 5 Certainly none of the largest houses in my sample had
directly attached commercial eating establishments, but a diner or lunch counter was always next
door or around the corner. 6 Owners of several small and medium size houses did not shy away
2 Salza Prina Ricotti 1978/80, 239.
3 All commercial eating establishments (lunch counters, diners and bakeries) had cooking apparatus. The
most tenuous evidence for cooking and eating on the premises of a house or (work)shop-house is in the
stable I.8.12 where bronze vessels were found fallen from an upper floor and wine amphorae were stacked
in one corner.
4 (Work)shops and their finds are poorly documented and published. About two-thirds of (work)shops (for
which the finds have been published) contained evidence for cooking on the premises (see chapter three, p.
129).
5 For literary views of commercial dining establishments, see chapter one, pp. 35-37, esp. n. 153.
6 I.4.5+25 (Casa del Citarista) had lunch counters nearby at I.4.3 and I.4.27. Diners I.7.13-14 and I.8.15-16 lay
just south of I.7.10-12 (Casa dell'Efebo). I.10.4 (Casa del Menandro) had adjacent lunch counters at I.10.2 and
I.10.13. Laurence 1994, 78-87 sees a similar pattern throughout the city. Wallace-Hadrill 1994, 175-186
reveals close relationships between house owners and those who operated lunch counters and diners in
Herculaneum.
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