Jentaculum / Breakfast | Incocinapicii

Apicius’ honeyed bread

De Re Coquinaria, VII-296

Rucher en terre cuite , Villa Imgiebah, Malte, Ier siècle
URL : http://www.encyclopedie-universelle.com/abeille1/imgiebah-xemxija-malte-ile-rucher-rome-interieur-ruches.jpg
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Ingredients

Milk
Cooking Oil (preferably Olive)
Honey (preferably from rosemary)
4 slices of staled bread loaf cut in squares

Preparations

Use the slices of staled bread loaf or brioche bread, and cut it in four. Soak the squares of bread in a bowl containing a little bit of milk. The bread must only be lightly soaked and not gorged with milk and too soft. Then heat oil in a pan and fry the bread in it until it turns golden and crusty. Finally coat the fried squares generously with the Rosemary’s honey.

Bibliography

Apicius, De Re Coquinaria.
Robbins D., Roman times, 1995.

Honey’s archaeological and historical aspects

In the most common breakfast recipe of Roman Antiquity (see above) the main ingredients are milk and honey. It must not be forgotten that until the Arabic Conquest of Spain in the IX century, honey was the most common sweetener in the West. Then, honey was disregarded during the consecration of sugar until the XVIII century. During this period, it was used in the fabrication of medical drugs. From the XIX century until now it retakes its place of cooking sweetener in various cuisines. Nonetheless, honey’s production is endangered more each and every year by the environmental pollution and the global warming. This is why more and more beekeepers decided to go back to biological and traditional production techniques. Sometimes the techniques are not far from different than those used by the Romans. But how was the honey produced during Antiquity?

First of all it is interesting to note that the first traces of the use of honey dates back to the IX millennium B.-C. in Spain. On that subject, it is strange that nowadays some “honey hunters” in India are using pre historical techniques: they take the honey directly from the tree after having weakened the bees with the smoke from a torch. It is not until 2400 B.-C. that bee breeding can be found for the first time by Egyptians. From this period and until Rome’s origins honey was considered the God’s food by excellence. Even Aristotle was interested by honey’s origins and production’s techniques. From the III century B.-C. a rapid expansion of handbooks on beekeeping can be observed, in particular the work of Columelle in De Re Rustica. In this precious handbook of agronomy, the author informs us on the words used for “hive” in Greek and Latin: μελιττῶνες, « melittones » in Greek and alvarius in Latin. In Latin other words than alvearius can as well be found, such as alvearia, which appears in the Georgic of Virgil. Thanks to the “edict of Maximum” of Diocletian we know that the average price of honey was the same as the one of an amphora of wine of a very good quality.

Rucher en pierre , Villa Imgiebah, Malte, Ier siècle après J-C,
URL : http://www.encyclopedie-universelle.com/abeille1/imgiebah-xemxija-malte-ile-rucher-rome.jpg
Copyright Département Tourisme de Malte.

Until the XIX century, beekeepers used the same techniques of production as in the Antiquity. Near the Mediterranean

Sea the most common process consisted on realising cylindrical hives in ceramic and stones (see picture), which were placed in the middle of the wood or at the border of an agricultural field.

Bibliography

Columelle, De Re Rustica.
Pline l’Ancien, Histoire Naturelle.
Virgile, Géorgiques.

http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/erudits/varron/agriculture3.htm http://www.sito.regione.campania.it/agricoltura/pubblicazioni/pdf/apicoltura.pdf http://sphakia.classics.ox.ac.uk/beeconf/francis.html

Breakfast’s anthropology

As we do nowadays, when Caesar woke up at dawn over 2000 year’s ago after a long night sleep, he was hungry, and took his first meal of the day: the jentaculum. Nevertheless, most Romans only rapidly ate a little bit of bread or a sort of pancake with water. On the contrary, the wealthy, the patricians (as Caesar), had the possibility to taste to a different and copious breakfast everyday. Good eating was for them a way to show off everyone their social success. The etymology of the first meal of the day in various languages shows the different conceptions of this important moment of the day. In the northern countries (such as France, United Kingdom, or Germany) they call it “break-fast” or in French “petit déjeuner » (which means « small meal »). Thus, it is a rather short moment of time and which, few centuries ago, was similar to the Roman one: a little bit of bread with some water or wine.

In Spain the word used is “desayuno”, etymologically close to the French word “déjeuner” (lunch); which show the idea of a meal rather copious and rich. Nonetheless, in Latin the word collatio, is deriving from the verb confero (« contribute »). From the origins it was a family or friend’s meal during which everyone brought something to eat. In addition, in Latin there is a similar term used: colatio, meaning « soup ». This allows us to guess that Romans ate their breakfast with seemingly a drink (based on water or milk) with some solid elements such as bread or a sort of pancake, or a kind of porridge. However, there were numerous differences between breakfasts within the Empire. In North Africa they consumed more honey than in every other provinces, and the population was within the main producers of honey. In Germany they ate darker bread because other flour were used with wheat flour, in particular cereals in its husk.

Nowadays everything is mixed, in any restaurant or hotel the continental breakfast can be found, which is composed of a drink (coffee, cappuccino, milk, tea, hot chocolate, fruit juice, yogurts), with sweets (cake, crepes, jam, pastries), fruits, or even salted products such as cheese and delicatessen. Even if sometimes the local traditions are present, it can be noted that there is a side to the globalisation through the diffusion of the same ingredients all over the world. However, even if what we eat can rapidly change because of the way we live or other constraints, the most difficult thing to change is the way we are eating this meal. The breakfast is not only the first meal of the day, but also it represents a ancient cultural method allowing us to better understand the customs of our ancestors in various civilizations.

Bibliography