What was typical agricultural produce in Rome or Greece roundabout 2000-3000ya?
score:5
An extensive source of info on what the Romans consumed can be found in The Private life of the Romans , Chapter 8 Food and Meals.
Some excerpts:
Porcius Vitellius Cicero puts into the mouth of the elder Cato the statement that to the farmer the garden was a second meat supply.
Fruits. Besides the olive and the grape the apple pear plum and quince were either native to Italy or were introduced in prehistoric times.
Every fresh extension of Roman territory brought new fruits and nuts into Italy Among the last were the walnut hazelnut filbert almond and pistachio, the almond after Cato's time and the pistachio not until that of Tiberius.
...We read of artichokes, asparagus, beans, beets, cabbages, carrots, chicory, cucumbers, garlic, lentils, melons, onions, peas, the poppy, pumpkins, radishes and turnips to mention those only whose names are familiar to us all. It will be noticed however that the vegetables most highly prized by us perhaps the potato and tomato were not known to the Romans. Of those mentioned the oldest seem to have been the bean and the onion...
...Cato pronounced the cabbage the finest vegetable known and the turnip figures in the well known anecdote of Manius Curius.
Plants in great variety were cultivated for seasoning. The poppy was eaten with honey as a dessert or was sprinkled over bread in the oven. Anise, cumin, fennel, mint, and mustard were raised everywhere.
Meats. Besides the pork beef and mutton that we still use the Roman farmer had goatsflesh at his disposal and all these meats were sold in the towns. Goatsfiesh was considered the poorest of all and was used by the lower classes only.
...Pork was widely used by rich and poor alike and was considered the choicest of all domestic meats.
Fowl and Game. All the common domestic fowls chickens ducks geese and pigeons were used by the Romans for food and besides these the wealthy raised various sorts of wild fowl for the table in the game preserves... Among these were Romans for food and besides these the wealthy raised various sorts of wild fowl for the table in the game preserves that have been mentioned 145 Among these were cranes, grouse, partridges, snipe, thrushes, and woodc**k. In Cicero's time the peac**k was most highly esteemed having at the feast much the same place of honor as the turkey has with us... Wild animals were also bred for food in similar preserves the hare and the wild boar being the favorites.
Fish. ... in early times fish was not much used as food by the Romans. By the end of the Republic however tastes had changed and no article of food brought higher prices than the rarer sorts of fresh fish. Salt fish was exceedingly cheap and was imported in many forms from almost all the Mediterranean ports.
Cereals ...Of those now in use barley oats rye and wheat were known to the Romans, though rye was not cultivated and oats served only as feed for cattle Barley was not much used for it was thought to lack nutriment and therefore to be unfit for laborers...In classical times wheat was the staple grain grown for food not differing much from that which we use to day.
Sorry about the length(and OCR errors), but I did say the source was extensive...The book is a great read to learn about the Romans, and it does exist as a free eBook and on the web.
Upvote:4
The basics would be the Mediterranian triad: Olives, wheat and grapes.
That does not mean that those were the only products cultivated, only the most important ones. I recall references to:
Other cereals as barley, rye and (in Eastern Mediterranean) rice
Lentils and other legumes
Fruits (not including oranges and other fruits introduced by Arabs and/or Crusaders about 1000 years ago).
As much fish as they could catch.
Apart from that, significant changes would be:
No rotation of crops nor fertilizers, which meant that after a harvest a field had to be left unproductive to replenish the nutrients.
The lack of large scale irrigation technology would have favoured the cultivation of crops that were less water demanding (which happen to be the ones of the Mediterranean triad).
More post
- 📝 How did Porfirio Diaz leave Mexico for Europe?
- 📝 How much armor did elephant units wear?
- 📝 Was American slavery economically advantageous primarily due to being able to also sell offspring?
- 📝 What is the original source of this 16th century image of a French town holiday with musicians in a tree?
- 📝 Has there ever been a society that viewed prostitution as a prestigious vocation?
- 📝 What was the device that general Birdwood was using in the "Gallipoli" TV series?
- 📝 Were early accounts of ancient child prostitution accurate?
- 📝 Did the Czech Legion bring POWs to Czechoslovakia? And if so, why?
- 📝 Why did Japanese samurai disembowel themselves?
- 📝 Must scopes have revealing reflections?
- 📝 Who are the WWII German Officers in this picture?
- 📝 Why does the amount of days in an year on average of the Gregorian calendar only have 4 decimal places (365.2425)?
- 📝 World War I Britain supplies cut
- 📝 What do we know about the organizational structure of the Library of Alexandria?
- 📝 Was the use of captured tanks an effective strategy for Germany?
- 📝 How did tobacco affect the English colonies economically during the 17th Century?
- 📝 Did hanging tyres from Mostar's bridge help at all to protect it?
- 📝 How is Bad-Tibira written in Sumerian?
- 📝 What are some other celebrated military failures, besides Gallipoli?
- 📝 What would've been the outcome of the Yom Kippur War had the UN not intervened?
- 📝 How much firepower did the British navy represent in 1940?
- 📝 Is there an accurate "World History Timeline" for all geographic areas?
- 📝 Were East Germans more acquiescent to Soviet domination than the rest of Eastern Europe and if so, why?
- 📝 Why did Russia support Serbia in the years leading to World War I?
- 📝 How did the pincer movement at the Battle of Cannae work?
- 📝 Did Peter the Great promote rights for women? If so, how?
- 📝 Can you help identify this European military uniform and medals?
- 📝 Are images of the original tablets for the Epic of Gilgamesh available online?
- 📝 Was it ever possible to see students with burka/paranji having education at the schools and universities of the Uzbek Soviet Republic?
- 📝 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic - Experience
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What was typical agricultural produce in Rome or Greece roundabout 2000-3000ya?
- 📝 What was the typical peasant's diet like in Europe during the High Middle Ages?
- 📝 What is the evidence to claim that political order in ancient Rome was sufficiently different under "kingdom", "republic" and "empire"?
- 📝 What happened to the coins in ancient Greece and Rome when monarchs changed?
- 📝 What was the typical range of travel of a Pennsylvanian resident for everyday life in the late 18th early 19th Century Pennsylvania?
- 📝 What was the population within the Aurelian Walls of Rome during its peak?
- 📝 What was the typical speed of a tramp steamship?
- 📝 What was the typical error with dead reckoning navigation?
- 📝 In WW2 USN ships, what was the weight of a typical boiler?
- 📝 What was the available level of agricultural technology in late 2nd century China?
- 📝 What are some settlements in Greece circa 2000 BCE - 1900 BCE?
- 📝 How can we be sure what the first day of the month was 2000 years ago and how can we determine which years were leap years?
- 📝 Did Adolf Hitler ever address the fact that his own appearance was almost an exact opposite of what he considered the ideal Aryan appearance?
- 📝 Why was the Council of Nicea held in Nicea rather than Rome or Constantinople?
- 📝 Was murdering a slave illegal in American slavery, and if so, what punishments were given for it?
- 📝 What was the historical context of the 2nd amendment to the US Constitution?
- 📝 During the breakup of the Soviet Union, on what basis was citizenship granted or withheld for each of the fifteen new republics?
- 📝 What led some people to (correctly) believe that there was no land under the ice cap at the North Pole?
- 📝 What was the status of Arab Christians during the crusades?
- 📝 What was the religion of the Arabic people before conversion to Islam?
- 📝 What was the purpose of Nazi extermination camps?
- 📝 What was wrong with Hitler's left hand?
- 📝 What was the internal Soviet reaction to the moon landing?
- 📝 What was the function of the walls of Jericho?
- 📝 What was the pound (unit of weight) initially equal to?
- 📝 At what point was the Byzantine Empire's decline irreversible?
- 📝 What was the reason for Soviet troops to withdraw from Yugoslavia in World War II?
- 📝 What was the point of horse armour?
- 📝 How was the United States able to produce excellent tanks in 1942?
- 📝 What would have been the typical drinks for a US farmer in the late 18th/early 19th century?