Virgil at the table

The main meal of wealthy Romans unfolds in three courses: the gustatio (appetizers of eggs, vegetables, olives, and honeyed wine), the prima mensa (the heart of the meal: meats, fish, and vegetables), and the secunda mensa (fruits, honey cakes, and nuts). People dine reclining on couches (triclinium), and the meal is often accompanied by poetry and conversation.

Roman cuisine plays on the marriage of salty-fermented (garum, the ubiquitous fish sauce) and sweet (honey, the only known sweetener). This sweet-and-sour contrast marks almost every dish on the Augustan table that Virgil would have known, both in Rome and in his Mantuan countryside.