Jul 11, 2015
816
by Andrea Carli
People in Ancient Rome didn't actually eat bread. Spelt porridge was a staple, and abundant wine a must to citizens living in the Roman Empire two thousand years ago. Just think that in 377 AD, an angry crowd burnt down the house of Lucius Aurelius Symmachus, prefect of Rome, merely for daring to even think of raising the price of wine!
As for the spelt porridge, it was similar to what's now called polenta, made of toasted or ground spelt, mixed with milk and paired with vegetables. It was only in the fourth century AD that city shops started to stock a kind of wheat called "Triticum," and bread came to be a part of the Romans' diet.
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