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

Ovid, in referring to an ill-defined past, had in mind an atrium house type. But the idea that a
hearth was located at the entrance of the house makes sense in light of a passage in the Eclogues:
"Here is the hearth and thick pieces of pine, here ever a roaring fire, and the doorposts constantly
black with soot." 65 Cooking in one's doorway was evidently thought an ancient custom. It was
probably common enough amongst the poorer residents of (work)shops in the Imperial period,
where the only ventilation available for a cooking-fire was the front door, upon which smoke
traces would have been left. Cooking on the street is still practiced in parts of the Mediterranean
such as Tunisia, where terracotta and metal braziers contain the fire. 66 Varro, immediately after
describing the porter's lodge next to the front door of a country villa, gives reasons for placing the
kitchen at the front of the house (in primis [aedibus] ):
It should be seen to that the kitchen be moved to the front part of the house,
because in wintertime several things must be done there before dawn; food must
be prepared and eaten. 67
Collecting, preparing and eating food requires a convenient location; those leaving the villa in the
morning to work in the fields are able to pick up their breakfast as they walk out the door.
In atrio Servius claims that in times past, Romans ate and cooked their meals in the
atrium, and the effect of the kitchen-fire smoke lent its name to that space:
For as Cato said, the ancients used to feast on two courses in the atrium, whence
Juvenal remarked: "what ancestor of ours ate seven courses in solitude?"...And
the kitchen was there, whence the atrium was so-called, because it was black
(atrum) from the smoke. 68
65 Verg. Ecl. 7.49-50: Hic focus et taedae pingues, hic plurimus ignis semper, et adsidua postes fuligine nigri (Loeb
text, author's translation).
66 Modern terracotta braziers in Tunisia retain the basic form of types documented for the Hellenistic and
Roman periods (see Scheffer 1981, 84-89). Jashemski 1993b and Scheffer 1981, 96-103 have argued strongly
for the importance of cooking outside one's doors in the Mediterranean.
67 Var. R. 1.13.2: in primis culina videnda ut sit admota, quod ibi hieme antelucanis temporibus aliquot res
conficiuntur, cibus paratur ac capitur (Loeb text, author's translation).
68 Serv. A. 1.726: Nam ut ait Cato et in atrio et duobus ferculis epulabantur antiqui: unde ait Iuvenalis [1.94-95]
quis fercula septem secreto cenavit avus?...Ibi et culina erat: unde et atrium dictum est; atrum enim erat ex fumo
(Thilo & Hagen 1961 text, author's translation).
70