primary homework roman food

Roman Food Facts: What Did the Romans Eat?

The Romans ate a varied diet consisting of vegetables, meat and fish. The poorest Romans ate quite simple meals, but the rich were used to eating a wide range of dishes using produce from all over the Roman Empire.

Romans typically ate three meals a day – breakfast (ientaculum), lunch (prandium) and dinner (cena). Cena was the main meal.

The Romans did not sit down at a tables to eat their meals. They spread out on couches around a low, square table. They basically ate lying down! They also ate most of their meals with their fingers (although they did use spoons for some of the dishes, such as soup, and have knives to cut their food into bite-size pieces).

Fruit and Vegetables

A range of different fruits and vegetables were eaten by the Romans. They would have had: carrots, radishes, beans, dates, turnips, pears, plums, pomegranates, almonds, olives, figs, celery, apples, cabbages, pumpkins, grapes, mushrooms and many more. Some of these fruits and vegetables had never been seen in Britain before the Romans invaded.

The Romans kept animals for their meat. The rich ate beef, pork, wild boar, venison, hare, guinea fowl, pheasant, chicken, geese, peacock, duck, and even dormice (served with honey). The poorer Romans didn’t eat as much meat as the rich, but it still featured in their diet.

Lots of seafood was consumed by the Romans. They particularly enjoyed shellfish and fish sauce known as liquamen.

Bread and Porridge

Bread was a staple part of the Roman diet. Three grades of bread were made, and only rich ate refined white bread.

Pottage, a thick porridge-like stew, was made from millet or wheat. To this the Romans would add cooked meats, sauces and spices.

The Romans liked cheese (which was mainly made from goat’s milk) and eggs (from a variety of different birds).

Romans didn’t know about sugar, so honey was used as a sweetener. Rich Romans also used salt, pepper and a range of spices to add flavour to their meals.

Roman Banquets – What did rich Romans eat?

Check out this video clip – it gives a really good sense of some of the foods that were available to rich Romans and how they would go about eating them.

What did the Romans drink?

Wine was the main drink of the Roman Empire. It was always watered down and never drunk ‘straight’. In addition to drinking wine, the Romans also drank wine mixed with other ingredients. Calda was drunk in the winter and was made from wine, water and spices. Mulsum was a honey and wine mixture.

The Romans didn’t drink beer and rarely drank milk.

Find out more facts about the Romans by visiting our Romans resouces page.

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A Roman Menu Facts & Worksheets

A roman menu facts and information activity worksheet pack and fact file. includes 5 activities aimed at students 11-14 years old (ks3) & 5 activities aimed at students 14-16 year old (gcse). great for home study or to use within the classroom environment., download a roman menu worksheets.

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Resource Examples

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Student Activities

• The importance of the cookbook De Re Coquinaria
• The important meals part of ancient Roman food and dining
• The elements of Apicius’ cookbook
• Foods and ingredients used in the ancient Roman menu
• Methods of Roman food preparation

Key Facts And Information

Let’s know more about a roman menu.

• Most ideas of what food was eaten and how they were cooked in ancient Roman society are got from the cookbook “De Re Coquinaria”, written by a young elite named Apicius.
• De Re Coquinaria (On Cooking) highlights dinner recipes consumed by the upper-class and wealthy members of the society.
• The three meals of the day in ancient Rome were ientaculum (breakfast), prandium (lunch), and cena (dinner).
• The heaviest and most expensive meal of the day was dinner or cena, and it could have up to seven food courses or fecula.
• Depending on the family’s wealth and the prestige of the guests, the star dish or caput cenae would have been fish, meat, or exotic animals such as ostrich or peacock
• Cereals, vegetables, olive oil, and wine were the four staple foods in ancient Rome.
• Dried peas and porridge were the main foods for the poor while meat and fish were staples for the rich.
• Fish sauce or garum was a nutritious sauce consumed by both the poor for their porridge and the rich in almost every recipe. Soldiers also drank it in solution.
• Grain was controlled by the state and was a primary food in the monthly food distribution or frumentatio for poorer citizens.
• Other foods distributed were pork, olive oil, and wine.
• Aside from growing their own supplies, Romans could also buy their food from private markets called macellum.
• Patrons could go to inns (cauponae) and taverns (popinae) to buy prepared meals while most well-to-do people still cooked their food at home.
• Roasting, broiling, and boiling using a brazier were the most common ways of cooking.
• Fruits and vegetables were pickled and fermented to create wine and other sauces.
• Wine or vinum was the Roman way to connect to their god and a practical method to purify their water. Wine diluted with water was preferred by the Romans.
• Bread-making was done by bringing one’s own dough to bakeries to use their oven.
• Other beverages were wine laced with spices or calda, honeyed wine or muslum, and vinegar mixed with water or posca.
• Romans were able to maintain a continuous supply of food for their large population through diverse agricultural practices, artificial farming techniques, and food preservation methods.

Apicius’ cookbook

• Marcus Gavius Apicius was a known member of the elite and a model gourmand (foodie) during the reign of Emperor Tiberius (14-37 CE) in Ancient Rome.
• While he was not a cook himself, his knowledge and love for food led him to compose the only known cookbook to have survived the ancient Greco-Roman world called “De Re Coquinaria” (On Cooking).
• The book contains over 500 recipes of extravagant foods, the location of the desired ingredients, and some notes on presentation of food and remedies for stomach aches.
• Written primarily for trained chefs and wealthy members of society, the recipes in Apicius’ cookbook reflect the height of the Roman empire and celebrate the extravagance and the fruits of their conquests.
• Expensive meats, use of slave cooks, and luxurious banquets and meals characterised the upper-class Roman society, which Apicius knew very well.
• In the end, however, his expensive lifestyle drained his household revenues and made it hard to continue his culinary lifestyle.
• Apicius’ downfall led him to commit suicide.

Roman meals and banquets

• Meals in Ancient Rome moved from lightest to heaviest based on the time of day.
• First came breakfast or ientaculum, consisting of just bread and salt but occasionally with fruit and cheese.
• The lunchtime meal or prandium consisted of fish or eggs with vegetables.
• Most people, at least those who could afford it, saved themselves for the evening meal or cena. The cena could be a grand social gathering lasting several hours.
• The famous pictures in history books of rich people eating at low tables with couches on three sides in a triclinium or dining room exactly depict a cena. It consisted of three parts served with an unlimited number of dishes for each.
• The first course, or gustatio, was served with eggs, shellfish, dormice and olives, typically paired with a cup of wine diluted with water and sweetened honey (mulsum).
• Following these starters was the main course or mensae primae, which may have included up to seven courses (fecula), including the star dish, the caput cenae.
• The main dish was generally meat or fish, with a variation of the most exotic dishes such as a whole roast pig, an ostrich, or a peacock, depending on the household wealth and the guests of the evening.

Foods and ingredients

• Ancient Mediterranean cuisine is considered to be one of the healthiest in history. It revolved around four staples: cereals, vegetables, olive oil and wine.
• Generally only the rich could afford seafood, cheese, eggs, meats, and many types of fruits on their table.
• The bulk of people’s diet was made up of cereals with wheat and barley as the primary ingredients in bread and porridge. Bread was a staple food in Ancient Rome, eaten by all social classes.
• Roman bread varied in quality depending on the kind of flour used. Some of the kinds of bread enjoyed by the Romans were round, flat loaves made of emmer and salt (lentaculum), fatty cake bread made from the seeds of wheat grain (artolaganus), and honey and wine-soaked bread (picenum).
• As for vegetables, the Romans grew beans, peas, onions, asparagus, mushrooms, turnips, and brassicas or cabbages.
• Poorer households mostly rely on dried peas.
• Olives and olive oil were a staple food and an important source of fats.
• Apples, figs, and grapes were the most commonly available fruits.
• Grapes were eaten fresh, and as raisins, and made into unfermented juice known as defrutum.
• Meat and fish were expensive for most Romans and so were commonly prepared in small cuts or sausages.
• Poultry and wild game such as rabbit, hare, boar, and deer were available from large enclosed areas of forests.
• Alternatives were pork, veal, mutton, and goat.
• A variety of birds such as geese, ducks, blackbirds, doves, magpies, and quails were also valued for their meat.
• Fish needed to be preserved as the supply was irregular.
• Fish sauce or garum was also famous, which was made from fish guts and small fish, which were salted and left in the sun.
• Garum production was a big business, especially in Pompeii.
• Aside from being a staple addition in their foods (the poor poured it into their porridge and the rich used it in every recipe), garum also helped soldiers to stay awake during their conquests as they drank it in solution.

Supply and distribution

• Being a huge city, Rome had different systems for food supply and distribution to ensure that people were fed.
• Most foodstuffs came from mainland Italy and the larger islands such as Sicily and Sardinia.
• In the Republic, magistrates were able to ensure food from subject provinces and allied states.
• Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, a populist Roman politician, was known for his agrarian reforms.
• He established a monthly quota or frumentatio of grain set at a reasonable fixed price for citizens.
• Grain was controlled by the state as it was a form of tax in Italy and Africa.
• A praefectus annonae was appointed to specifically oversee the regular supply of food, especially grain.
• When the empire started to weaken, rich private individuals and the Church took over some of the responsibilities of maintaining a regular food supply.
• Later, olive oil, pork, and wine were also given out as part of frumentatio for poorer citizens.
• Citizens could also buy their food at a private market called a macellum, if they did not grow their own supplies.
• One of the most famous and biggest locations for a marketplace was Trajan’s Market, a sort of ancient shopping mall in Rome.

Cooking and preparation

• Roman towns had inns (cauponae) and taverns (popinae) where people could buy prepared meals and enjoy a drink of cheap wine.
• However, these places were also known for lacking sanitation and for prostitution, so more well-to-do people still had cooking as a household activity.
• People would bring their own dough for bread-making to bakeries where they could use their oven.
• Using a brazier or an open furnace for burning, food was roasted, broiled, and boiled.
• Fruits and vegetables were pickled in either brine or vinegar or preserved in wine, grape juice, or honey to increase its shelf life.
• Generally, the art of good cooking was a matter of mixing condiments to create tasty and unique sauces using wine, oils, vinegar, herbs, spices, and meat or fruit juices.
• Wine or vinum was an important part of the Romans’ everyday life, from morning to evening, both on a spiritual and a practical level.
• As an all-natural process, wine fermentation connected the Romans to their gods such as Bacchus, the god of agriculture, wine, and fertility.
• They also used the cleansing properties of wine in their water, so a diluted mixture of water and wine was consumed even by infants.
• As a social symbol, it was also preferred to drink a watered-down version of wine as a strong, undiluted wine was a mark of barbarism and low class in Ancient Rome.
• As such, wine was a drink primarily tied to sophistication and class privilege.
• Other ancient Roman beverages were warm water and wine laced with spices (calda), honeyed wine (muslum), and vinegar mixed with water (posca).
• Posca was considered the common people’s energy drink with its mixture of acidity and slight alcohol content that reduced the bacteria and made it safer than drinking straight water.
• Ancient Rome, with its large population, utilised their knowledge of diverse agricultural practices, artificial farming techniques, and food preservation methods to ensure a sustainable supply of food.
• As today, access to particular quantity and quality of food depended on the social class and status of the Romans.
• The Republic, through its reforms and policies, was able to utilise their surplus of resources to cater to the needs of their people.
• The ancient Roman menu will always be known for its nutritious and sophisticated characteristics reflective of the triumphs of one of the most successful empires in history.

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Roman Food Facts & Worksheets

Roman food evolved over time from its ancient roman origins and was further altered by rome's expanding territory, search for worksheets, download the roman food facts & worksheets.

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Table of Contents

Over time, ancient Roman cuisine changed due to political changes. Like its expanding territory, a Roman menu also altered culinary habits and cooking methods. The three meals of the day in ancient Rome were ientaculum (breakfast), prandium (lunch), and cena (dinner).

See the fact file below for more information on Roman Food or alternatively, you can download our 25-page Roman Food worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

Geography of rome.

• The ancient Roman civilization thrived for over 1,000 years due to its geographical features. Rome is located on the Italian Peninsula near the Mediterranean Sea . The second largest river in Italy, the Tiber River, flows along with Rome .
• Facing west is the Tyrrhenian Sea, while on the northeast is the Alps and Apennine mountain ranges which served as a barrier for Rome from foreign invaders. It also isolated Rome from other cities in the peninsula. 
• Due to geographical proximity to the Mediterranean Sea, ancient Romans traded with people in Greece, Northern Africa, and Europe. Their access to the body of water made the Romans great shipbuilders.  
• In addition to its economy, Rome’s geographical location greatly affected their diet. Archaeological findings suggest the existence of lentils, coriander, dill, legumes, nuts, cabbage, chickpeas, and flax. 
• A diverse variety of fish and shellfish were also found. 

METHODS OF COOKING

• Using brine, vinegar, grape juice, or honey, fruits and vegetables were pickled to increase shelf life. 
• Ancient Roman homes had focus or hearths built into the wall. With the introduction of separate kitchens, the focus was used for religious purposes. At Pompeii, kitchens were usually small, and they had portable stoves and grills. Similar to a courtyard, some kitchens had no roofs to allow smoke. 
• Before the 12th century BCE, bakeries were the only establishments with chimneys. It became common in private dwellings after that. 
• There can be two ovens or furnus made of brick or stone in large dwellings. 
• The most common cooking methods in ancient Rome were roasting, broiling, and boiling. 
• From bakeries to common households, people baked bread. 
• A cookbook entitled De Re Coquinaria was written by Apicius, a young Roman elite. His book highlights over 500 dinner recipes consumed by the upper-class and elites of Roman society. People regarded cena or dinner as the heaviest and most expensive meal of the day. Some had fecula or seven food courses for dinner. 
• Most wealthy families eat caput cenae , which would have been meat, fish, and other exotic animals such as peacocks or ostrich. 
• The four main staple food in ancient Rome included vegetables, wine, cereals, and olive oil. The poorer population usually ate dried peas and porridge, while the richer Romans enjoyed meat and fish. 
• A macellum is a market where the Roman could buy food. Meanwhile, some could eat in cauponae or inns and drink in popinae or taverns. 
• Wine was the most common food to connect to their gods in the Roman way. It was also a practical method to purify their water. They laced wine with spices and honey. 
• For breakfast, ancient Romans ate bread and salt, occasionally with cheese and fruit. For lunchtime, fish or eggs with vegetables was common. 
• Those who could afford it often had extravagant and hours long cena or dinner.  
• Gustatio or the first course of a dinner meal was usually served with eggs, dormice and olives, and shellfish, paired with mulsum or wine diluted in water with honey. Meanwhile, the main dish was usually meat or fish. Eating exotic food was a symbol of wealth in ancient Rome. 
• While the rich people could generally afford many foods such as meat, seafood, cheese, and wine, all Romans enjoyed bread every day regardless of social status. 
• Romans grew their beans, mushrooms, turnips, cabbages, onions, asparagus, and peas. Apples, grapes, and figs were also available. 
• Poultry such as boar, deer, and rabbit were good alternatives for mutton, pork, and goat. Because of its irregular supply, fish were usually preserved. The guts of a fish and small fish are fermented with salt to make garum or fish sauce, traditionally used in seasoning porridge and other meals. One of the largest producers of garum was Pompeii. 
• In addition to locally grown fruits and vegetables, Romans gathered their food supply from mainland Italy and the islands of Sardinia and Sicily.
• While wild animals could be hunted in forests, grain was controlled by the state.
• From 123 CE, the state rationed about 33 kg of unmilled rice ( frumentatio) to about 200,000 citizens per month. 
• Unlike in Greece, beef was uncommon in Rome. Cows were prized for their milk and not their meat. For them, the meat of working animals such as cows and bulls is unappetizing and tough to eat. 
• Another symbol of Roman aristocracy was dormice. Dormice were usually presented and eaten in front of dinner guests as a delicacy. 
• Ancient Romans invested in oyster farming. Moreover, they also had snail and oak grub farming for food. 
• Nuts such as walnuts, almonds, chestnuts, hazelnuts, and pistachios were usually pulverized to thicken and spiced sauces. 
• There are varieties of wine mixture in ancient Rome. Passum is a sweet wine made of raisin. Malsum is a combination of wine and honey. Conditum is mulsum with added spices and matured. An example is conditum paradoxum composed of wine, honey, laurel, dates, saffron, mastic, and pepper. For ancient Romans, beer was for the barbarians. 
• Served with wine were desserts. With the absence of refined sugar to make sweet desserts, Romans typically ate fresh ripe fruits. Enkythoi was a Roman pastry similar to a sponge cake today. 
• Like Asian cuisines today, Roman food often had a sour and a sweet taste. Coffee, tea, and orange juice were later introduced to Roman drinks, and the Arabs only introduced coffee in 1600. Meanwhile, tea drinking in Europe only came in the 17th century. 
• As the Roman Empire expanded, their culinary habits also did. As their territory grew, their appetite was supplied with abundant resources. 
• They learned their baking skills from the Egyptians and the Greeks.
• They had broad and sophisticated knowledge in agriculture, farming, and food preservation, which helped sustain their food supply.

Roman Food Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle that includes everything you need to know about Roman Food across 25 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use worksheets that are perfect for teaching about Roman Food which over time evolved from its ancient Roman origins and was further altered by Rome’s expanding territory.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

• Roman Food Facts
• Geography Time!
• Roman Staple
• Around a Table
• Three Meals in a Day
• Based on Ingredients
• Eat Like a Roman
• Based on Pictures
• My Roman Bread
• A Meal Plan

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The Romans - Meals, Food & Farming

Subject: History

Age range: 7-11

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

24 May 2023

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3 activities:

• Roman Meals - Matching Worksheet (1-page)
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• Roman - Food & Farming worksheet (1-page)

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**THE ROMANS - 20 RESOURCES** Attached is a unit plan, PowerPoint's, activities, worksheets and more. Fully editable resources! . 1. Romans 'Mosaics' DT Project. 2. Romans - Roman Artefacts (4-page booklet). 3. The Romans - Legend of Rome (Romulus & Remus). 4. The Romans - 15 interesting facts. 5. The Romans - Fashion & Jewellery. 6. The Romans - Meals, Food & Farming. 7. The Romans - Queen Boudicca! 8. The Romans - Roman Calendar. 9. The Romans - Roman Clothing. 10. The Romans - Roman Education & Quiz. 11. The Romans - Roman Games & Races. 12. The Romans - Roman Housing. 13. The Romans - Roman Numerals / Mathematics. 14. The Romans - Roman or Celt? 15. The Romans - Roman Place Names. 16. The Romans - Roman Society. 17. The Romans - Roman Soldier Worksheets. 18. The Romans - UOW, PowerPoint & Vocabulary. 19. The Romans - What they did for us (their legacy). 20. The Romans - Roman Army Worksheet.

ROMANS UNIT OF WORK + 18 WORKSHEETS - 20 RESOURCES!!

**A great bundle of activities, presentations and Romans worksheets:** * A Romans Unit of Work, DT Project, PowerPoint, list of vocabulary and 18 worksheets: 1. The Romans - Legend of Rome (Romulus & Remus). 2. The Romans - Roman Artefacts (4-page booklet). 3. The Romans - 15 interesting facts. 4. The Romans - Fashion & Jewellery. 5. The Romans - Meals, Food & Farming. 6. The Romans - Queen Boudicca. 7. The Romans - Roman Army. 8. The Romans - Roman Army Spelling & Punctuation Task. 9. The Romans - Roman Calendar. 10. The Romans - Roman Clothing. 11. The Romans - Roman Education & Quiz. 12. The Romans - Roman Games & Races. 13. The Romans - Roman Housing. 14. The Romans - Roman Numerals / Mathematics. 15. The Romans - Roman or Celt? 16. The Romans - Roman Place Names. 17. The Romans - Roman Society. 18. The Romans - Roman Soldier Worksheets.

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Roman food facts for kids

Roman food was mainly obtained from the Mediterranean area and Gaul (now France ). Romans enjoyed foodstuffs from the trade networks of the Roman Republic and Empire . Keeping up the food supply to the city of Rome was a major political issue in the late Republic. It became one of the ways the emperor expressed his relationship to the Roman people.

Three meals a day was normal in ancient Rome, as today. In the morning, a breakfast called the ientaculum was served at dawn . Later, around 11:00 am, Romans ate a small lunch , and in the evening, they ate the cena , the main meal of the day. In the Empire period, the cena increased in size and diversity. It was now eaten in the afternoon. The vesperna , a light supper in the evening, was abandoned, and a second breakfast was introduced around noon, the prandium .

In the lower strata of society, the old routine was kept: it corresponded more closely to the daily rhythms of manual labor.

Originally flat, round loaves made of emmer (a cereal related to wheat) with a bit of salt were eaten; among the upper classes, eggs , cheese , and honey , along with milk and fruit were also consumed. In the Empire period, around the beginning of the Christian era, bread made of wheat was introduced. Later, more and more wheaten foods began to replace emmer bread. Poor romans ate bread, vegetable, soup and porridge. Meat and shellfish were a luxury, unless they lived in the countryside and could go hunting or fishing.

The bread was sometimes dipped in wine and eaten with olives, cheese and grapes. They also ate wild boar, beef, sausages, pork, lamb, duck, goose, chickens, small birds and fish. Romans liked to make mealtimes fun by roasting hare with wings stuck on them to look like a flying horse.

At dinner slaves gave guests small hot bread rolls to wipe their plates clean. Roman flour contained a lot of dust and bits and this made bread so coarse that it wore down people's teeth. The wealthier Romans liked to eat snails flattened on milk, peacock's brains and flamingos tongues.

Poorer foods

Roman drink, roman kitchens.

Among the upper classes, who did not do manual labor, all business was done in the morning. After the prandium , a visit would be made to the baths. Around 2 p.m., the cena would begin. This meal could last until late in the night, especially if guests were invited, and would often be followed by a round of drinks .

In the period of the kings and the early republic , but also in later periods (for the working classes), the cena essentially consisted of a kind of porridge, the puls . The simplest kind would be made from emmer, water, salt and fat. The more sophisticated kind was made with olive oil , with an accompaniment of assorted vegetables when available. The richer classes ate their puls with eggs, cheese, and honey and it was also occasionally served with meat or fish .

Over the course of the Republican period, the cena developed into two courses: a main course and a dessert with fruit and seafood (e.g. molluscs , shrimp ). By the end of the Republic, it was usual for the meal to be served in 3 parts: 1 course ( gustatio ), main course ( primae mensae ), and dessert ( secundae mensae ).

In contrast to the fine banquets , poor people ate the cheapest foods, so they had for breakfast grain made into twice-baked bread and porridge , and for lunch a vegetable and meat stew. The vegetables available included millet , onions , turnips , and olives with bread and oil on the side.

At dinner they had thin soup or meat with cheese, and a pudding of honey.

The Romans mainly drank wine , the main drink of the Empire, and water. The wine could be laced with spices and honey to improve the taste. Slaves poured wine and honeyed water in flasks . Slaves filled goblets with wine from large dishes. However, drinks such as milk were considered uncivilised and hence were only used for children, medical purposes and making cheese. The wine drunk across the empire was produced in Italy, Africa, Gaul, Spain and Greece. Beer was also drunk by Romans in Britain.

Roman kitchens were usually small rooms, simply equipped with built-in clay ovens and wooden cupboards. A charcoal fire heated a brick hearth , where the cook fried or cooked food in earthenware or bronze pots for baking or roasting. They placed meats in the ashes. The Roman kitchens were small compared to the one we have today. The kitchen would also have large jars of olive oil , wine, vinegar and fish sauces, as well as a mortar for grinding up spices. Only richer people had kitchens, although they didn't cook because their slaves did it. Despite the simple facilities, the cooks and slaves produced spicy dishes of shellfish , wild boar , fruits and sweets.

• This page was last modified on 9 December 2023, at 17:38. Suggest an edit .

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Romans primary resource

Discover the secrets of the roman empire and life in ancient rome.

This primary resource introduces children to Roman life and culture. Discover the secrets of the Roman Empire and what life was like for Roman citizens. What were the Romans known for? What made the Roman army so successful? How did they live?

Pupils will learn about how and where the Roman Empire started, who the rulers of Rome were and what went on in the famous Colosseum in our National Geographic Kids’ Romans primary resource sheet.

The teaching resource can be used in study group tasks for understanding aspects of Roman life, as a printed handout for each pupil to review and annotate, or for display on the interactive whiteboard using the illustrations and short snippets of information for class discussion.

Activity: Ask children to choose one of the subheadings in the resource and use the information and their own research to create their own comic strip based on that topic. They could also design their own statues of the Roman gods mentioned, in the style of the photographs shown in the resource.

N.B. The following information for mapping the resource documents to the school curriculum is specifically tailored to the English National Curriculum and Scottish Curriculum for Excellence . We are currently working to bring specifically tailored curriculum resource links for our other territories; including South Africa , Australia and New Zealand . If you have any queries about our upcoming curriculum resource links, please email: [email protected]

This History primary resource assists with teaching the following History objectives from the National Curriculum :

• Know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind.
• Know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world.
• Gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.

National Curriculum Key Stage 1 History objective :

• Pupils should be taught significant historical events, people and places in their own locality.

National Curriculum Key Stage 2 History objective :

• Pupils should be taught about: the Roman Empire and its impact on Britain

This History primary resource assists with teaching the following Social Studies Second level objective from the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence :

• I can discuss why people and events from a particular time in the past were important, placing them within a historical sequence
• I can compare and contrast a society in the past with my own and contribute to a discussion of the similarities and differences

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2018 Primetime Emmy & James Beard Award Winner

A History of Moscow in 13 Dishes

Jun 06 2018.

War, hunger, and some of the world’s great doomed social experiments all changed the way that Moscow eats.

Moscow, the European metropolis on Asia’s western flank, has always been a canvas for competing cultures. Its cuisine is no different. The ancient baselines of winter grains, root vegetables, and cabbage acquired scaffolding from both directions: eastern horsemen brought meat on sticks, western craftsmen brought pastries, and courtly French chefs came and drowned it all in cream.

History has a place on the plate here, as well: war, hunger, and some of the world’s great doomed social experiments from Serfdom to Communism to Bandit Capitalism all changed the way that Moscow eats. So in the spirit of all of those grand failures, we—a Russian chef and an American writer—will attempt here to reduce the towering history of this unknowable city to 13 dishes, with some Imperial past but a special emphasis on the more recent decades of culinary paroxysms as Moscow emerged from its Soviet slumber.

Olivier Salad

To visualize the long marriage between French and Russian cuisines, picture Peter the Great, on a diplomatic sojourn to Paris in 1717, a “ stranger to etiquette ”, meeting the 7-year-old boy-king Louis XV and lifting him in the air out of sheer elán. These things were simply not done, and yet, there they were. Peter’s joyful (and often envious) fascination with all things French took hold, among other places, in the kitchen. He brought French chefs back to his palaces, and then the lesser nobility followed suit, and when the first restaurants emerged in Moscow, they also spoke French. The Hermitage Restaurant, which was open from 1864 until history intervened in 1917, had a Francophone Belgian named Lucien Olivier as a chef, and he made a salad that was a perfectly unrestrained combination of French flavors and Russian ingredients: grouse! Veal tongue! Proto-mayonnaise! The ingredients now tend toward the pedestrian—boiled beef, dill pickles, various vegetables all bound with mayonnaise—and it has become a staple of Russian cuisine, especially on New Year’s. And yes, if you’ve ever seen the lonely Ensalada Rusa wilting behind the sneezeguard of a Spanish tapas bar, that is supposed to be a successor to the Olivier. But in Moscow, you should eat Matryoshka ’s version, which is not the original recipe but has some of that imperial richness: crayfish, quail, sturgeon caviar, and remoulade, all under a translucent aspic skirt, for 990₽ ($16).

There’s a type of expression around bottling things—bottled lightning, summer in a jar, etc.—that feels very apt here. What exactly is bottled with vareniye (jam)? A lot more than just fruit. These jams, which tend to be thinner than western varieties—with whole berries or fruit chunks in syrup—are bottled with a lot of Russian identity. There’s the Russian love of countryside. Deep dacha culture of summer cottages and personal orchards. Traditional naturopathy (raspberry vareniye taken with tea will fight fever). And above all, friendship is bottled here— vareniye made from the overabundance of fruit at one’s dacha is the most typical Russian gift, real sharing from real nature, even in the often-cynical heart of Europe’s largest megacity. Visitors who are short on lifelong friendships in Moscow can pick some up fine vareniye at any Lavka Lavka shop (we recommend the delicate young pine cone jam) or, curiously enough, at many Armenian stores.

Borodinsky Bread

The clinical-sounding title of Lev Auerman’s 1935 classic Tekhnologiya Khlebopecheniya ( Bread Baking Technology) doesn’t promise scintillation. But Auerman’s recipe for rye bread changed Russian bread forever. An older legend had it that the bread was baked dark for mourning by a woman widowed in the battle of Borodino in 1812, but the real birth of the bread came from Auerman’s recipes. A modification on sweet, malted Baltic breads, Auerman’s Borodinsky bread was 100% rye and used caraway or anise. The recipe has evolved a bit—today it is 80% rye and 20% wheat high extraction flour and leans more on coriander than caraway. But its flavor profile (sweet, chewy) as well as its characteristic L7 mold —a deep brick of bread—has made it easily identifiable as the traditional, ubiquitous, every-occasion bread of Moscow. You can buy it everywhere, but the Azbuka Vkusa high-end markets have a reliably good sliced version.

Buckwheat Grechka

Look closely at those Russians who have followed their money to live in London, or are vacationing in Cyprus or Antalya. See the slight melancholy that not even cappuccinos or sunshine can erase. It’s not because Russians are gloomy by nature; it’s probably because there is no real grechka outside of Russia and Ukraine, and that is devastating. Buckwheat grain and groats— grechka (or grecha in Saint Petersburg)—are deep in the culture. It’s a wartime memory: May 9 Victory Day celebrations feature military kitchens serving buckwheat like they did at the front. It’s a little slice of Russian history that lies somewhere between oatmeal and couscous. In Moscow, eat it at Dr. Zhivago with milk (180₽/US$2.90) or mushrooms (590₽/US$9.50), and rejoice.

Mimoza Salad

This fantastically expressive egg-and-canned-fish salad is a testament to Soviet ingenuity—it’s the ultimate puzzle to make a drastically limited food chain sparkle—and the universal human thrill of layering foods. The geological creation starts with a base layer of fish, then layers of grated cooked potato, mayonnaise, shredded cheese, grated carrots, sweet onion, diced egg whites and then capped with a brilliant yellow crumble of boiled egg yolk. It sits there on the plate, dazzling like the flowering mimosa tree it is named after. The taste? Well, it’s comfort food. Pick some up to go at any Karavaev Brothers location —the excellent deli chain sells it for 650₽ (US$10.40) a kilo.

It seems odd, almost impossible, to imagine a time in Russia before shashlik. It’s meat on a stick, something that all humans should have had on the menu since at least the time of Prometheus. But shashlik as we know it know—cubes of marinated meat cooked with vegetables over a mangal grill—didn’t really take off in Russia until the early 1900s. And due to a lack of suitable meat in much of the Soviet era (there were no meat cattle herds, only dairy), we’re starting the clock on shashlik in the late Soviet period. Despite its relatively recent (re)appearance, it is now the ubiquitous grill phenomenon of Russia, a welcome ritual of summer.

Much of Russian cuisine has borrowed heavily from Central Asia and further east over the millennia ( pelmeni anyone?), but plov is a striking example of an entire eastern dish making its way directly into Russian households. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and upheaval in many Central Asian Soviet Republics, mass economic migration to Moscow took off in the late 80s and early 90s. Central Asians today are the lifeblood of the Moscow labor force (part of up to 10-12 million Central Asian migrants living in Russia), and plov—rice steamed in stock with meat and vegetables—has jumped from the migrant communities to the homes of Muscovites everywhere. It has developed an unfortunate reputation for being a food that even finicky kids will eat, so there is a lot of harried domestic plov being made. But you can get a fully expressed Uzbek version at Danilovsky Market, online at plov.com , or at Food City—the surf-and-turf Tsukiji of Moscow.

The Big Mac

So many of the difficulties in American-Russian relations come down to one foundational attitude problem: The Americans (that’s half of this writing duo) were incredibly, distressingly smug through the entire fall of the Soviet Union. We mistook Soviet failure for an American victory, and that made all the difference. What does that have to do with a Big Mac? Well, when Russia’s first McDonald’s opened on Pushkinskaya in 1990 and 5000 people turned out to wait in line for the first taste of America, we back home in the states mistook it for culinary and commercial superiority. But there was something more complicated happening: Russians had been denied Western goods for so long and with such force that any outside identity was much-needed oxygen. And the long-term victory, as McDonald’s has continued to thrive in post-Soviet Russia, really belongs to the local franchise, which used higher-quality ingredients than in the U.S. and created a chain that was successful not because of its American identity but because of its Russian modifications. We wouldn’t recommend eating at any McDonald’s, especially not when there is Teremok for your fast-food needs, but having a soda in the original location is one way to sit and ponder the sin of hubris. And to use the free toilet and Wi-Fi.

The crown jewel of Levantine meat preparations, perhaps the single greatest street meat in the world: Shawarma. It first came to Moscow with a shawarma joint across from the Passazh mall, opened in the early 90s by Syrian cooks who dazzled masses with their sizzling, spinning, spiced meat emporium. Lines that stretched into the hundreds of people weren’t uncommon in those heady early days. And even though the original spot closed many years ago, Moscow shawarma only grew from there, mutating into the beast it is today, where you’re likely to find chicken, cabbage, mayo and a thin tomato sauce all combining to make the Levant a distant memory.

Fish Tartare aka Sashimi

One result of the aforementioned American smugness is that the West seemed surprised at how rapidly 1990s Russia assimilated some of the most hardcore capitalist traits, including but not limited to conspicuous consumerism. Moscow’s new elite was very, very good at that. What could be more conspicuous that recreating a restrained, exclusive seafood cuisine from Japan in the chaotic, landlocked megacity of Moscow? The very improbability of high-end sushi and sashimi in Moscow fueled much of its allure, and even though the trends have moved on from sushi, you can still tell the emotional attachment that the oligarch class has to those formative wastes of money. Sumosan restaurant started in Moscow back in 1997 and has since expanded to Monte Carlo and Londongrad , where they serve a dish that they call Fish Tartare, among others, in their restaurants and through their private jet catering service.

Blue Cheese roll

If the early elite sushi restaurants in Moscow were the frivolous edge of a food phenomenon, then Yakitoriya , a chain which started in the late 1990s, democratized it with affordable sushi rolls geared to local tastes. The Blue Cheese Roll, available now on their menu, seems like the apex (or nadir) of the Russianized roll: salmon, smoked eel, cucumber, cream cheese, Blue Cheese sauce. It might not be Jiro’s dream, but a true Russian middle class, one that can work honestly, earn meaningful salaries, and have a freaky sushi roll at the end of the week just like the rest of us—that’s something worthing dreaming for. Blue Cheese Roll, Yakitoriya, 417₽ (US$6.70)

If you’re American, have you ever wondered why tacos took over middle America but sopes remain virtually unknown? It’s curious how a country can assimilate some foods from their neighbors and but remain blissfully ignorant of others. That may explain what took place two years ago in Moscow, when the city seemingly discovered, as if for the first time, the bagged awesomeness that is khinkali , a soup dumpling from Russia’s southern neighbor Georgia. It became very trendy very quickly, and khinkali joints sprouted across Moscow like griby after a rain. But it wasn’t just that dish: what they were serving was a bit of the imagined southern, sybaritic lifestyle of the Caucasus, as promised in restaurant names like Est’ Khinkali Pit Vino ( Eat Khinkali Drink Wine ). Your best bets are at the stately Sakhli , around 100₽ (US$1.60) per soft, fulsome dumpling, or the more modernized Kafe Khinkalnaya on Neglinnaya Street , 100₽ (US$0.80) a dumpling.

We have named burrata—yes, that Italian alchemy of cheese and cream—the Perfect Dish of Moscow 2018, if only because it is the Dish of the Moment, ready to be enjoyed at the height of its faddishness now, and equally ready to be replaced when the city decides to move on. Read Anna Maslovskaya’s masterful breakdown of why—and where—to eat burrata in Moscow.

Top image: Olivier salad with chicken. Photo by: Kvector /Shutterstock

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The Perfect Dish: The Moscow Burrata

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