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  • A Handbook of Food Processing in Classical Rome: For Her Bount No Winter
  • Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow (bio)
A Handbook of Food Processing in Classical Rome: For Her Bounty No Winter. By David L. Thurmond . Leiden: Brill, 2006. Pp. x+294. $138.

D. L. Thurmond's Handbook of Food Processing in Classical Rome evolved from a simple question: How did Romans in the first century bce and the first two centuries ce feed themselves in Rome itself and across the empire? Much of the food supply needed to travel long distances without the benefits of sterilized packaging, refrigerated vehicles, or chemical and biological preservatives. Given a huge urban population in the city of Rome (estimated at over 1,000,000 at the end of the first century ce—pp. 1–2), severe limitations on the efficiency of transportation (despite 50,000 miles of major roads and 250,000 miles of improved roads—p. 2), and the difficulties of distributing food that would still be minimally digestible when doled out, we begin to understand the profound implications of food science for Roman culture in general.

Because our own food is available in vast quantities and varieties, it requires a conscious effort to step outside our frame of reference in order to understand how difficult it was in ancient Rome to put food into a form that would remain edible. Thurmond, who was a student of the eminent G. W. Houston at the University of North Carolina, has written a masterful book that tells the story of Roman food science meticulously and convincingly, using archaeological evidence and ancient texts to full advantage. The Romans adopted a diet of staple products that required a low degree of biological stabilization while providing the rudiments of human nutrition. Through trial and error, they discovered, assimilated, and disseminated techniques for processing foodstuffs that reached consumers in a reasonably safe and digestible state.

The book's six chapters cover the essentials of the Roman diet: cereals; olives; wine; legumes, vegetables, and fruits; animal products—milk, meat, and fish; and condiments. Each is filled with gems of classical learning and [End Page 844] scientific analysis. While some explanations of food chemistry are quite difficult for the lay reader, overall this is a readable and innovative study. Here, I offer examples of its sophistication and depth.

In chapter 1 we learn of the varieties of Roman cereals and why a certain wheat type (Triticum vulgare) became the most desirable for bread making. Thurmond includes a detailed analysis of the individual parts of the wheat grain as well as descriptions of techniques such as parching, threshing, and winnowing. In his section on ensilage, perhaps the least technologically glamorous part of the processing system for grains, he brings alive the critical importance of Ostia's storage facilities, the thriving grain import business, and the complex transport system from Ostia up the Tiber to Rome. He also treats the braying of porridge grains, milling of bread grains, bread making itself, leavening, and kneading—most of which took place in mills and baking facilities in the city of Rome.

Chapter 2 covers the history of the olive in the Mediterranean basin (there are trees still alive in Italy, Spain, and Israel—there called romi—that were seen by Roman legions in the first century ce—p. 74). We follow the movement of the olive from the ancient Near East westward to Greece and Italy and beyond, and every aspect of processing it into the finest oil, from tree cultivation to harvesting, cleaning, warehousing, pulping, and pressing the fruit to separating the oil and final clarification. Ancient sources like Cato and Columella offer testimony for every aspect of Roman olive-processing techniques.

Thurmond's longest chapter, his third, considers grape processing and the enormous success of wine as a food across time and space in the ancient Mediterranean area. He presents an excellent analysis of the biochemistry of wine (not for the fainthearted), of the grape harvest, and of the archaeological evidence for ancient wineries (torcularia vinaria) and pressrooms. He details what happened in the winery (treading grapes, pressing, fermentation, achieving sufficient alcohol levels—"chaptalization"—and practices for cellaring wines). And he...

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