Roman cooking

Kristin and I made a meal based on Roman recipes today.  Well, mostly Kristin made it, and I helped.  She has all the cooking details, if you're interested, in a post on her blog:

Today Donald and I thought it would be fun to prepare an “authentic” ancient Roman dinner. I have several books on Roman cooking, most making liberal use of Apicius (the most famous ancient Roman cookbook author). I’ve found the most accessible and interesting to be Ilaria Gozzini Giacosa’s A Taste of Ancient Rome (translated by Anna Herklotz; original title was A cena da Lucullo). The author is a foodie with an archaeology background, and her goal was to take recipes from Apicius, Cato and other sources and provide a version that a modern cook could follow. The ancient sources tend not to provide a lot of detail. They’ll give the ingredients (most of them), and some vague clues as to preparation. America’s Test Kitchen it ain’t! Giacosa’s versions of the recipes should, theoretically, be doable in a modern kitchen.

It was a lot of fun, and I thought the result was pretty tasty.  It did take more work than I'd be willing to spend on cooking with any regularity, though.