Foodways in Roman Republican Italy explores the production, preparation, and consumption of food and drink in Republican Italy to illuminate the nature of cultural change during this period. Traditionally, studies of the cultural effects of Roman contact and conquest have focused on observing changes in the public realm: that is, changing urban organization and landscape, and monumental construction. Foodways studies reach into the domestic realm: How do the daily behaviors of individuals express their personal identity, and How does this relate to changes and expressions of identity in broader society? Laura M. Banducci tracks through time the foodways of three sites in Etruria from about the third century BCE to the first century CE: Populonia, Musarna, and Cetamura del Chianti. All were established Etruscan sites that came under Roman political control over the course of the third and second centuries BCE. The book examines the morphology and use wear of ceramics used for cooking, preparing, and serving food in order to deduce cooking methods and the types of foods being prepared and consumed. Change in domestic behaviors was gradual and regionally varied, depending on local social and environmental conditions, shaping rather than responding to an explicitly “Roman” presence.

A love letter from two Americans to their adopted city, Tasting Rome is a showcase of modern dishes influenced by tradition, as well as the rich culture of their surroundings. Even 150 years after unification, Italy is still a divided nation where individual regions are defined by their local cuisine. Each is a mirror of its city’s culture, history, and geography. But cucina romana is the country’s greatest standout. Tasting Rome provides a complete picture of a place that many love, but few know completely. In sharing Rome’s celebrated dishes, street food innovations, and forgotten recipes, journalist Katie Parla and photographer Kristina Gill capture its unique character and reveal its truly evolved food culture—a culmination of two thousand years of history. Their recipes acknowledge the foundations of Roman cuisine and demonstrate how it has transitioned to the variations found today. You’ll delight in the expected classics (cacio e pepe, pollo alla romana, fiore di zucca); the fascinating but largely undocumented Sephardic Jewish cuisine (hraimi con couscous, brodo di pesce, pizzarelle); the authentic and tasty offal (guanciale, simmenthal di coda, insalata di nervitti); and so much more. Studded with narrative features that capture the city’s history and gorgeous photography that highlights both the food and its hidden city, you’ll feel immediately inspired to start tasting Rome in your own kitchen.

Discover the world-famous cuisines of Rome and Naples, and their surrounding regions in this collection of 65 authentic recipes.

Spaghetti with meatballs, fettuccine alfredo, margherita pizzas, ricotta and parmesan cheeses—we have Italy to thank for some of our favorite comfort foods. Home to a dazzling array of wines, cheese, breads, vegetables, and salamis, Italy has become a mecca for foodies who flock to its pizzerias, gelateries, and family-style and Michelin-starred restaurants. Taking readers across the country’s regions and beyond in the first book in Reaktion’s new Foods and Nations series, Al Dente explores our obsession with Italian food and how the country’s cuisine became what it is today. Fabio Parasecoli discovers that for centuries, southern Mediterranean countries such as Italy fought against food scarcity, wars, invasions, and an unfavorable agricultural environment. Lacking in meat and dairy, Italy developed foodways that depended on grains, legumes, and vegetables until a stronger economy in the late 1950s allowed the majority of Italians to afford a more diverse diet. Parasecoli elucidates how the last half century has seen new packaging, conservation techniques, industrial mass production, and more sophisticated systems of transportation and distribution, bringing about profound changes in how the country’s population thought about food. He also reveals that much of Italy’s culinary reputation hinged on the world’s discovery of it as a healthy eating model, which has led to the prevalence of high-end Italian restaurants in major cities around the globe. Including historical recipes for delicious Italian dishes to enjoy alongside a glass of crisp Chianti, Al Dente is a fascinating survey of this country’s cuisine that sheds new light on why we should always leave the gun and take the cannoli.

Looks at the dining customs, social traditions, and food of the Roman Empire, and includes recipes reconstructed for the modern cook.

Imagine the River Tiber as an alimentary tract. Picture a hungry saint. Think of erotic Renaissance fruit paintings, transubstantiation and a tiramisu café where magic issurelyon the menu... This highly original interpretation of Rome's history, culture, art and religion takes the form of a book about food that's not really about food at all. During his first two years in Rome, David Winner found himself in turn amazed and overwhelmed by its physical, historical and cultural vastness. Then a chance encounter with an extraordinary pudding provided him with the means to start digesting his surroundings. That evening he was struck by the significance of the Roman attitude to food: a unique and unequivocal relationship between sustenance and existence, where every last aspect of life is (and always has been) 'pickled in alimentation'. In Al DenteWinner takes us on a stroll through the city as he muses idiosyncratically on all things comestible and much else besides. Here we learn about Rome as metropolis and necropolis, about tasty vineyard snails and the food-and-sex scandal that sent Saint Jerome packing. The cinematic greats such as Argento, Fellini and Ferreri are discussed alongside historical political satire where grocery orgies were art and the penis was the subject of hagiographies. There are the bloodthirsty antics of an eighteenth-century executioner who worked for the pope, stories of immolation, architecture and artichokes, and a telephone interview with a nun who makes Eucharistic wafers. There's also a nice 1891 recipe for stewed lamb's head. Winner is a master of wit and diversity with a seemingly insatiable appetite for peculiar detail and disturbances on the cultural landscape. In Eat, Don't Eat his ability to explore the world around him as a series of interconnections provides an intriguing new portrait of a remarkable city - a veritable trifle of Roman bedrock and apogee, cosmos and counterculture to be devoured with gusto. Buon appetito...