Food & Cooking

What’s for Dinner?

Roman soldiers couldn’t spend all day marching, guarding things, and looking impressive. Eventually, somebody had to make dinner.

A simple meal might be flatbread cooked on a hot surface, with beans, lentils, olives, cheese, dates, or whatever had come in with the supplies. Meat too: a chicken could be roasted, grilled, or stewed in a pot, once someone caught it. Grinding grain, tending the fire, and cleaning up afterward were all part of camp life.

There was no fixed menu. What soldiers ate changed with where they were and what had arrived.

An army marches on its stomach. Someone still had to fill it.