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

dormice, deer, frogs, snails, and sometimes cattle), and seafood (including all varieties of
Mediterranean fish, lobster, squid, clams, oysters, and mussels). 12
The food resources that people actually choose to exploit depend in part upon their
mastery of agricultural sciences, and the level of knowledge and technology which they have to
collect those resources most abundantly and efficiently. 13 Where labor was specialized to the
degree that not every household produced their own food (as in first century A.D. Italy), the
range of food choices available in the markets and tabernae depended also upon economic factors.
In urban settings, food prices dictated the amount, quality, kind, and variety of food that a given
person could afford to consume. Poorer people ate smaller amounts of less nutritious and
cheaper food (cereals, vegetables, some fruit, olive oil and wine), richer folk ate larger amounts of
more nutritious and expensive food (adding meats, dairy products and seafood), and the poorest
of all ate whatever anyone else gave them (i.e. by begging or the public dole). 14
Foods depicted in the still life paintings of the Campanian cities and villas run the gamut
from eel, lobster and desserts to simple bread, cheese and fruit. 15 These pictures can and have
been used simply as sources for what foods were consumed, but on display in the context of a
house where people eat on a daily basis, they take on much more significance. Gowers says of
the simpler painted foods:
"...the meagre and rustic xenia of Pompeii -- a bowl of eggs, a brace of birds --
take their meaning from what they exclude. They are not grand or heroic art,
and they blot out the corrupt food that the moralists shun. In more senses than
one, they are pictures to be lived with; they sustain an illusion of innocent
hospitality." 16
They are also pictures to be presented, offering a guest a glimpse of the meal to come, the food
always in a perpetually fresh state, free from the processes of rot and decay, and free from
criticism like the idealized food the satirist offers at his own house. 17 The artist's concern for the
12 For the Mediterranean food resources used by the Romans, see Jashemski 1993, 405-407, Gozzini Giacosa
1992, 11-18, Brothwell 1988, Dosi & Schnell 1986a, 39-104, Salza Prina Ricotti 1987, 71-117, Jashemski 1979
passim, and André 1961 passim, who compile their lists from literary, artistic, and archaeobotanical sources.
13 See Ragni 1987, Greene 1986, 67-97, and White 1970, who provide numerous references on Roman
farming; Ward-Perkins & Claridge 1976, 52-54 briefly summarize the situation around Pompeii.
14 Garnsey 1991b attempts to identify the foods (and their nutritional values) eaten by the poor masses living
in Rome. See Purcell 1994, 649 for the connection between status and the dole.
15 The still-life was derived from Hellenistic models, and as a decorative motif akin to a literary technique, it
fluctuated in its form and popularity. By the mid first century A.D, it was present throughout the
decorative schema of wall painting. See Ling 1991, 153-157, Di Mino 1987 and Flower & Rosenbaum 1958, 9-
10; these include references to the basic works on still-lifes.
16 Gowers 1993, 34.
17 The Italian term for still-life, 'natura morta' is a oxymoron -- the food never 'dies'. See the unnaturally
pure meals of Juv. 11 and Hor. Epod. 1.52 (Gowers 1993, 200-202, 228).
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