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Taste or Taboo: Dietary Choices in Antiquity

by Michael Beer

For many centuries, the meaning of food has been much more than merely nutrition on the table. The types of food a man eats, the ways in which he cooks it, the style in which it is served: all these carry their own significance, which is extended by contemporary and later observers to describe the identity of the unwitting eater.

This book looks at the way in which food was employed in Greek and Roman literature to impart identity, whether social, individual, religious or ethnic. In many instances, these markers are laid down in the way that foods were restricted, in other words, by looking at the negatives instead of the positives of what was consumed. Michael Beer looks at several aspects of food restriction in antiquity, for example: the way in which they eschewed excess and glorified the simple diet; the way in which Jewish dietary restriction identified that nation under the Empire; the way in which Pythagoreans denied themselves meat (and beans); the way in which the poor were restricted by economic reality from enjoying the full range of foods.

These topics allow him to look at important aspects of Graeco-Roman social attitudes, such as republic virtue, imperial laxity, Homeric and Spartan military valour, social control through sumptuary laws, and answers to excessive drinking. He also looks closely at the inherent divide of the Roman world between the twin centres of Greece and Rome and how it is expressed in food and its consumption. The chapter headings are as follows: The diet of the poor and involuntary dietary restriction; Vegetarianism; Beans; Fish; The dietary laws of the Jews; Restrictions upon alcohol; State control of food: Spartan diet and Roman sumptuary laws; Gluttony versus abstinence: the tyrant and the saint. 152p (Prospect Books 2010)

Review Quote

"This work will be of interest to scholars while remaining accessible to non-specialists. It employs a large number of primary sources, always offered in translation, and neatly summarises modern theories, making it a good starting point for those wishing to learn more about diet in antiquity. "

Jack Lennon, University of Nottingham
Bryn Mawr Classical Review (2011.01.07)

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