Ancient Roman Lunch

I have just prepared and served an ancient Roman lunch to the Blandford Forum Clerical Society. To start: tisana barrica (Apicius 4.4.2), chickpeas, lentils, peas, and barley slowly simmered with leeks, coriander, dill, fennel, beet, mallow, and cabbage, and seasoned with fennel seed, oregano, lovage, asafoetida, and garum (the Roman equivalent of Thai nam pla). Tisana was highly esteemed both in culinary and medical circles. Thus, the second century AD physician Galen (Alim.fac. 1.9) writes at length about its soothing and digestible properties. To accompany the soup, boletinos artos (page 49 of my Roman Cookery: Ancient Recipes for Modern Kitchens), a soft white bread flavoured with poppy-seeds and baked in the shape of a mushroom; and panis cibarius, the standard spelt loaf, carbonised examples of which have been found in Pompeii, scored into wedges as shown on the photograph above. Afterwards, tyropatina (Apicius 7.13.7), a honeyed egg custard spiced with freshly ground pepper; dulcia domestica (Apicius 7.13.1), plump dates filled with nuts, rolled in sea salt, and cooked in honey; and melitoutta (pages 58-9 of my Roman Cookery: Ancient Recipes for Modern Kitchens) barley cakes sweetened with honey. The Blandford Forum Clerical Society has been meeting every month since 1834 to read out, translate, and discuss the first/second century AD koine Greek of the New Testament.