12 - Consumption, Nutrition, and the Grain Supply

Summary

Early studies on the grain trade in Rome and the Greek cities, and control of disorder that might follow breaks in supply, extended in the 1980s to patterns of agricultural production, fish supplies, and fish-processing, the latter based on a substantial archaeological record. Patterns of storage and consumption have been explored in tableware, drinking vessels, and in the ceramic and silverware record. Archaeology in recent years has extended valuably to botanical and zoological remains. An understanding of ancient mentalities, first developed in France, has opened up the thought world within which food and wine were consumed: the religious and mythological patterns and ideologies behind the symposium, meat consumption in temple precincts and other venues of consumption, much recorded in inscriptions on stone. This chapter reviews the evidence, emphasising the contribution of ancient writers on nutrition.