Ancient Roman Table Manners _ Etiquette

Say you find yourself in ancient Rome and you get invited to a banquet. What do you do? How do you behave? What are the table manners of an ancient Roman? Well I'll tell you as we make this dessert commonly served in ancient Rome, a cheese fritter known as enkitum. So thank you to Graza for sponsoring this video as we attend an ancient Roman dinner, this time on Tasting History. So last week I did a video on how to host a dinner party if you were in ancient Rome. Well today I'm going to tell you what you would do should you be invited to said party. Now there are lots of do's and don'ts that we'll get to but the first thing to know is that other than soup most of the eating will be done with your hands, and so I wanted to find a recipe that could be eaten with your hands, and so I found this recipe from Cato the Elder for enkitum. Make enkitum the same way as globi except that you use a vessel with a hole in the bottom which you can stream through into hot fat and shape it like the spira, coiling and turning it with two sticks. Spread and color with honey while still warm. Serve with honey or with mulsum. Now since these are fried in oil they're going to be too hot to eat with your hands right out of the pan so you'll have to wait to let them cool unless you are like a certain dinner guest described by the author Athenaeus. I remember a glutton so shameless that at the baths he used to hold his hand in boiling water and gargled hot water so that he became immune to heat. Consequently he was the only one who ate anything when the food came at dinner because everyone else had to wait for the food to cool off. That dear viewer is not good manners in ancient Rome or today. Now this recipe for enkitum is sort of a combination of two dishes that I've actually made before. The first is jalebi which is an Indian version of a sweet that can be found all over the Middle East and the Mediterranean, and the other is globi. Cato says that the dough is made the same way as globi and that's something that I made when I first started the channel and is still one of the more popular recipes in the Tasting History cookbook, and that recipe says that the dough or batter is made of soft cheese and spelt flour. So that is what you will need for this recipe. Two cups or 480 grams of ricotta cheese, and two-thirds cup or 80 grams of spelt flour. Though you can actually use any whole wheat flour that you want. Then a quarter cup or 85 grams of honey, some optional white poppy seeds, a popular topping for any honey covered dessert at the time, and about a liter of fat for frying. There were two popular fats for frying at the time either lard or olive oil, and I'm going to be using the latter. Specifically the high temperature cooking olive oil called frizzle sent to me from today's sponsor Graza. Graza produces high quality single origin olive oil from high-end Spain, and they have three different oils available. There's the flavorful sizzle best for cooking, drizzle which is a finishing oil not meant for cooking, and now they have frizzle which is meant for frying and other high temperature cooking. It has a neutral flavor and a higher smoke point than most olive oils so it can replace a lot of the oils like canola oil or grapeseed oil that you might be using for frying. It tastes better and it is cleaner, and it can be used for all sorts of high temperature cooking from air frying to deep fat or shallow frying like I'm going to be doing to searing a steak, and I love the squeeze bottle because it makes it just so much easier to dispense especially this one the drizzle which is a finishing olive oil, and right now you can get all three olive oils, frizzle, drizzle, and sizzle in something called the trio, and you will get 10% off the trio when you order it using my link in the description or click this QR code and use my code MAX10, and now before we get frying we need to actually make our batter. So start by sifting the flour into a large bowl and then add in the cheese and mix, and you want to mix it thoroughly until you have a nice smooth homogeneous batter, and the consistency is going to vary depending on the cheese and the flour that you use but I found that you want the texture of like toothpaste. There is probably a better culinary description that I could use a comparison but I'm sticking with toothpaste. Then the recipe says that the batter should be pushed through the hole in a bottom of a cup or a bowl. If you don't have that then a piping bag is actually going to work best and that's what I used. So fill a piping bag with the batter and then it is time to fry. So heat a pan with either lard or olive oil until it reaches between 325 and 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Then through about a quarter inch hole in the bottom of the bag pipe a spiral of dough. This is what the author Kato the Elder calls the spira. Let it fry for about a minute on that first side, and if it seems to be stuck onto the bottom of the pan just gently release it after about 30 seconds into frying. Any sooner and it won't be firm enough and it'll fall apart but if you wait too long it will burn. After about a minute of frying carefully flip it over and continue to fry on the other side. You're looking for a nice golden brown color, and really the hardest part is just keeping an eye on the temperature to make sure it stays in that 325 to 350 range. Once the enkitum is fully fried transfer it to a rack to drain over some paper towel and repeat the process until you have used up all the batter. This should make between 12 and 15 depending on the size. Now these would have likely been served near the end of an ancient Roman banquet but before you get there I think that we need to start at the very beginning. It's a very good place to start. So let me tell you how you're going to score an invitation to an ancient Roman dinner. If you want to be invited to a dinner in ancient Rome it's important not to seem over eager. Just as today it was seen as unbecoming back then. Though at least the poet Marshall is honest about his over eagerness. I angle for your dinner invitations. Oh the shame of doing it but I do it. And when he didn't get an invitation he got rather spiteful and he wrote about it in verse. Because you're always giving splendid dinners and never ask me I've planned my revenge. I'm so offended by now that if you beg me please come to my house on bended knees I'll... What will I do to you? I'll show up definitely a bit eager. Though if you are one of those people who has to angle for a dinner invitation and we've all been there then one of the best places to do it is actually at the baths because it was at the baths that most of the wealthy Romans spent the hours leading up to dinner. So there you're more likely to get one of those last minute invitations to dine even if you have to wear the host down like monogenies did. Whether you are in the hot room or anywhere else in the baths there is no escape from monogenies although you may try with all your might. When you pick up your towel which is dirtier than a child's crib he will declare it whiter than snow. While you are combing your thin hair he will say you are styling the locks of Achilles. He will praise everything, admire everything about you until finally after enduring a thousand tedious ploys you say come and have dinner with me. There's another type of person who can often score these last minute invites and it's not because they're begging and over eager or because of flattery but rather because they make good guests. They're witty, and charming, and good conversationalists. So should that be you then that might be the road you want to go down. I sup with anyone who likes it provided he has the good sense to invite me. There I make others laugh and there I praise the host who gives the feast, and if by chance anyone dares to say a word against him I arm myself for contest and overwhelm him. Then eating much and drinking plentifully I leave the house. These sort of guests were welcome at any dinner party of course though they did earn themselves the name of parasiti or parasites though I'm not sure that it was quite the put down then as it would be considered now, and a lot of people had these parasites accompany them to dinner to kind of prop up their ego. But you have to be careful because even as a parasite you can go overboard as was the case with the parasite of Dionysius who upon seeing Dionysius laughing in company with some friends laughed too even though he was some distance away from them. When Dionysius asked why he laughed when he could not overhear what they said he replied, I put my trust in you that whatever was said was funny. Of course if you are one of the wealthy guests who has been invited to dinner then you too can invite some of your own parasites and clients who depend on your patronage though to be a good guest you should keep it to a sensible one or two. Plutarch tells of one dinner where a guest named Philippus showed up with so many guests that the host was embarrassed for lack of food. Philippus' faux pas put himself into a bit of a quandary because it's rude to embarrass your host but it's also rude to uninvite guests who have already shown up to dinner. So instead he just told his guests to not eat very much until everyone else had eaten and then they can eat. Now provided you are invited to dinner it is rude to show up too early. Marshall actually complains of a friend who showed up at the fifth hour. That is the fifth hour after sunrise which is like 11 a.m for dinner. Your servant has not even announced the fifth hour and yet you have already arrived as my dinner guest, Kekelianus. My kitchen is still closed and chilly since the stove is without a fire. Better you should have come at dawn. Why wait until the fifth hour? If you want breakfast, Kekelianus, you've come too late. Of course just as rude is to RSVP that you are going and then not attend. I hate that and Pliny the Elder actually jokingly wrote to a friend who did this. What a fellow you are. You promised to come to dinner and then failed to turn up. You must pay the money I am out of pocket to the last sesterci and you will find the sum is no small one. But let's assume that you have the common decency to arrive and do so on time. What are you going to wear to dinner? Well it kind of depends on when in Roman history you're at and what kind of dinner it is. If it is a very formal banquet you are going to wear a toga kenatoris. This was an expensive toga made of thin white wool of the highest quality, fine dining dinnerware during the Republic though during the Empire the colored toga became far more popular for meals for to quote Albert from The Birdcage, one does want a hint of color. Now if your dinner is not overly formal and just kind of a nice gathering of friends then you'll probably just wear a synthesis or a kenatoria which is basically a dinner suit. It's better than a tunic but not nearly as nice as a toga. What you will not wear to dinner is a sword or any kind of weapon. Since the beginning of the Republic wearing weapons or bringing weapons to dinner was seen as very ill-mannered indeed and eventually this also applied to metal of any kind, even jewelry. Even their rings would come off before eating. Pliny the Elder said that when we are at table it is the universal practice we see to take the ring from off the finger. This comes to us from old religious observances though other writers describe people simply taking the rings off of their right hand which is the hand that they would be eating with and moving them to their left hand. So it probably varied at different times but still best not to bring a ring. And since you will be eating with your hands it is very important that they are clean but you don't need to worry about washing them before you arrive because when you do arrive and you cross the threshold with your right foot first, seen as bad luck to cross the threshold with your left foot first, then the servants of the host will come to you and rather ceremoniously wash your hands. Then as most people wore sandals and open-toed shoes during the time, and the streets could be rather dusty, they needed their feet washed as well. So often the servants would wash their feet and you wouldn't wear shoes to the actual dinner. Now there are some occasions where the servants went above and beyond and basically gave you a pedicure. During Trimacchio's feast in the first century book Satyricon some servants washed the guests feet as others knelt at our feet and with astonishing dexterity cut our toenails. And with your freshly cut toenails it is now time to eat, and there are a few things that you want to keep in mind. Things that you should not do at the dinner table, and you could be forgiven today for thinking that these were common occurrences among the ancient Romans because they've been spread around on the internet, but they tend to be the exception and not the rule. First off do not vomit at the table. Now it is true that some Romans practiced this, eating so much that they would purge their stomachs simply so they could eat more. Yes but unless you are the emperor I would refrain from doing this as most of the records that we have talking about this practice are indeed about the emperors. Like Suetonius wrote that the Emperor Vitellius would eat four full feasts every day, and this great amount of food he could indulge in due to his custom of frequently vomiting. He also wrote of Emperor Claudius that he was eager for food and drink at all times, and in all places. He hardly ever left the dining room until he was stuffed and his thirst quenched. Then he went to lie down at once on his back with his mouth open while a feather was put down his throat to make him vomit. But it's important to note that Suetonius did not really care for either of these gentlemen, and he told these stories not as things that you should be doing but to show their gluttony, and so it's not a very flattering portrayal of either emperor. And this was actually kind of ascribed to a lot of the really elite upper class. Seneca complained about it in a letter to his wife saying, from all over luxurious people import everything known to a finicky taste. Things are brought from the furthest ocean that a digestion ruined by delicacies can hardly take. They eat to vomit and they vomit to eat. They don't even see fit to digest the feasts for which they searched the whole world. So did some Romans do this? Yes, but does it seem like something that you should be doing at dinner? No, no it does not. And let me use this time to once again remind you that while the vomitorium was a real thing, it was not a room to vomit in. It refers to the passageway that allowed for quick evacuation of patrons from an amphitheater. Now something else that you should not do that many Romans did do is belch at the table. This too was ascribed to Emperor Vitellius when he once had dinner amongst the common people at an inn. He met with the travelers and asked them if they had got their breakfasts, and let them see by belching that he had eaten his. The passage suggests that among the common people this was a practice that was permitted, but the fact that it is called out by Suetonius infers that it was not permitted in polite society, and since you are at a dinner party you are among polite society. Though should you have the overwhelming urge to expel gas from your body at dinner, at least the Emperor Claudius thinks that that was preferable to holding it in to the detriment of your own health. It was once written that he considered passing an edict making it acceptable to break wind quietly or even loudly at the dinner table after he heard of a man who was so polite that he endangered his health by holding it in, and with that let us leave the realm of bodily functions and instead discuss that most grievous of offenses that one can commit at an ancient Roman dinner, and that is overt gluttony. People who eat too greedily of the communal dishes irritate those that are a little slower, and who can't quite keep up. I don't consider it a good start to a pleasant evening if there is mistrust, squabbling, pilfering, and elbowing among the guests. Such behavior is ill-mannered and rude. Marshall once again calls out his friend Kekelianus, that same friend who arrived at dinner at 11 a.m., for eating too greedily. Tell me what madness is this? While a whole crowd of invited guests is looking on, you alone, Kekelianus, devour the truffles. What curse shall I give you that is worthy of so large a stomach and throat that you may eat a truffle such as Claudius ate? Claudius was said to have died from eating a poisoned truffle or mushroom, a dish I actually made last year when I covered the history of royal taste testers. Of course the one that I made was not poisoned. Now while it is obvious that you shouldn't overindulge, and eat all of the food that is meant for other guests at dinner, it is also ill-mannered to take too much of that food to go. Something that again Marshall's friend Kekelianus was guilty of, and it makes me wonder why he kept inviting him to dinner. He wrote of his friend, whatever is placed on the table you sweep up left and right. You hide these things in your greasy napkin and give them to your slave to carry home. The rest of us recline at the table relaxed and inattentive. If you have any feeling of shame, Kekelianus, return the dinner to the table. It is not for tomorrow that I invited you to dine. The thing is while Kekelianus was clearly overdoing it, taking food at the end of a meal to go wrapped up in your napkin was not uncommon at all, and that reminds me another thing that you need to make sure you bring to dinner is a napkin. The Romans brought their own napkins to dinner, and there were two sizes. There was the sudarium which was small like a handkerchief, similar to a napkin that we would use today, and then the mappa which was much larger almost like a small tablecloth, and you would lay this on the sofa in front of you between you and the table so that when you're picking up food if you drop any it's not getting on the nice upholstery. Now both type of napkins could be a simple piece of cloth, but more often it was kind of a way to show off, and so they would be very nicely embroidered, or in the case of Trimacchio from Trimacchio's Feast he had a purple band on his, and that was the color that was really reserved for the imperial family, and with the niceness of these napkins it is not uncommon for once in a while they go missing. So I shouldn't have to tell you this, but it is rude at dinner to steal other people's expensive napkins. Acineus marucinus, you certainly don't use your left hand in a very polite way. While we sit here joking, and drinking, and not paying attention you are stealing our napkins. Do you think this is cute? Well you're wrong you ill-mannered fool. The behavior is ugly and vulgar, and so either expect me to write 300 scathing poems about it, or return my napkin to me. It is not the cost of the napkin that worries me, but that it's a souvenir from my drinking buddy. So don't be a glutton, and don't steal other people's napkins. I feel like even today those those would be common, common table manners, but there are some table manners in ancient Rome which today you might think are considered a little rude, like just throwing your trash on the ground. Whether it's a bone, oyster shell, or pit you just toss it to the ground when you're done, because as the meal goes on instead of placing your gnawed chicken bone back on the communal plate you simply toss it to the floor. Now sometimes the floor is plain concrete, but others are fine mosaics which today you would never dream of tossing trash upon, but in ancient Rome it was so common that they actually made floor mosaics that looked like it already had trash on it. Pliny the Elder talks of one of the finest mosaics he had ever seen being done by an artist named Sosus. He laid a mosaic known in Greek as the unswept floor due to the fact that it depicted the remnants of a banquet lying upon the floor. Another bit of etiquette in ancient Rome that you might find rather baffling is pouring water on the ground underneath the table, and Pliny the Elder explains why this is. He says if when eating we happen to make mention of a fire that has happened we avert the inauspicious omen by pouring water beneath the table. Now some table manners might only apply at some people's houses, so keep an eye out to see if there are any house rules written upon the walls. In Pompeii there was a homeowner who decided to write on the walls of his dining room that guests should keep your lascivious looks and bedroom eyes away from another man's wife, maintain a semblance of decency on your face, be sociable and put aside if you can annoying quarrels. If you can't go back to your own home. Perfectly acceptable house rules I should say, and I'm really frankly appreciative that he wrote them down so we can know what to expect because I bet there are lots of little pieces of ancient Roman etiquette that were never written down so we don't even know that they exist. So you being in ancient Rome at a dinner might see some things that are a little bit odd, and if that happens then you should just take a page out of the Satyricon when Petronius wrote that I cursed my own stupidity and quickly shut up to avoid others noticing that I am not accustomed to dining in distinguished company. And just keep in mind that while table manners are important what's really important is that you are there enjoying everyone's company and engaging in conversation. We invite one another to dinner not merely to eat and drink but to eat and drink together. Sadly I am alone in my kitchen right now so I will be eating all by my lonesome these ancient Roman fritters. So once all of your enkitum are fried drizzle a bit of honey over the top and it helps if the honey is slightly warmed then you can sprinkle some white poppy seeds as well or just go straight to eating. And here we are enkitum to be served at an ancient Roman dinner. Now he says that these could be drink with like a honey drink or mulsum. Honey drink probably being like a mead or mulsum which is honey and wine that's mixed together but I don't have those on me so I'm just going to have them as is. It's kind of falling apart, it doesn't hold together super well but here we go. That's really good. I um so it was crispy right when it came out of the fryer. Now they are soft so they will soften up very quickly but the flavor is really good. You know what it reminds me of is like like a healthy pancake batter but with honey on it. That's really good and the texture is fun because it's like a little squiggle. Stop eating, I'm gonna eat all these. Yeah I kind of didn't expect it to be as good as it is. Cheese is the main ingredient and yet it doesn't taste like cheese at all. Like I said it tastes like pancake batter but the texture is kind of like squishy on the inside. Like I said they were crispy on the outside. I wish I could have kept that but that lasted for all of like two minutes and they soften up. The cheese is really good. It just doesn't taste like cheese. I don't know. They're really good. You should make these. They're kind of tricky. I'm not gonna lie. About half of them that I made did not turn out well. It would come apart in the fryer and everything but even if you only get half then that's pretty good and they're worth making. So make these. Go to an ancient Roman dinner party if ever you find yourself in ancient Rome, and I will see you next time on Tasting History.