Fulvia at the table

At the end of the Republic, a wealthy matron like Fulvia dined reclining on couches (triclinium). It began with the gustatio (savory appetizers: eggs, olives, seasoned cheeses), continued with the mensa prima (meat, fish, and vegetable dishes), and ended with the mensa secunda (fresh fruit, honey cakes). Apart from the social meal, there were foods of piety (the libum offered to the Genius of the household) and the soldier's field bread, which Fulvia knew well during the war.

This fermented fish sauce is the soul of Roman cuisine: a drop goes everywhere, in savory dishes and sometimes even in sweet ones. A few elite warehouses produced a luxury garum, the *garum sociorum*, with which a lady of high Roman society seasoned her table.