Roman Cooking in Toulon: A Conference Reveals Ancient Recipes

At 5 p.m., in the auditorium of the médiathèque Chalucetin Toulon, Mathieu Guillou gives a conference entitled: “Cooking in Pompeii”, a dive into ancient Rome.

The backdrop

• Matthieu Guillou is an archaeologist by training. He is currently preparing a thesis at the Camille-Jullian Center laboratory, at Aix-Marseille University.
• It covers cooking andfood in the Roman West, which includes Narbonne Gaul, and on theculinary architecture. “I am interested in the differences between cuisines depending on the context of the buildings that house them”he specifies.
• “The heart of my study is the Vesuvian area. The eruption in 79 made it a snapshot of the daily lifeand a real open-air research laboratory »he explains to us.

To go further

• In Pompeii or Herculaneum, lava flows preserved the buildings but also the organic materials : wood as well as food scraps (pomegranates, figs, cereals, etc.).
• “There are dishes left for us. There focacciacade or lentil sausages already existed at the time. We observe an enrichment of recipesbut the same search for taste, balance”underlines the archaeologist.
• Same observation in the persistence of cooking methods and utensils. Moreover, the Provençal term Sartan reminiscent of Latin more : they both designate a stove.

What does this fit into?

• This conference is planned as part of the meetings at the Var Archaeological Center (CAV), a cycle of meetings hosted by the Chalucet Media Library.
• These are conferences free et open to all carried out by qualified archaeologists who come to present the results of work carried out in the field or in the laboratory.