Roman Cookery: Ancient Recipes for Modern Kitchens

Roman Cookery unveils one of Europe's last great culinary secrets - the food eaten by the ordinary people of ancient Rome. Based on olive oil, fish, herbs and vegetables, it was the origin of modern European cooking and, in particular, of what we now call the Mediterranean diet. Mark Grant, reasearcher extraordinaire, has unearthed everyday recipes like tuna wrapped in vine leaves, olive oil bread flavoured with cheese, and honeyed quinces. Like an archaeologist uncovering a kitchen at Pompeii, he reveals treasures such as ham in red wine and fennel sauce, honey and sesame pizza, and walnut and fig cakes. The Romans were great lovers of herbs and Roman Cookery offers a range of herb sauces and purees, originally made with a pestle and mortar but here adapted, like all the dishes in this award-winning book, to be made with modern kitchen equipment. This revised and expanded edition includes previously unknown recipes, allowing the reader to savour more than a hundred simple but refined dishes that were first enjoyed more than two millennia ago.… (more)