Ancient Beer

[Andrew Dalby]

Beer, cows milk and butter were all "looked down" upon.

Yes, agreed. But when someone offers you food and drink, do you look down on it and say 'That's un-Roman/un-British/un-American'? Or do you taste it? If I were a hungry and thirsty legionary, I'd try it, no matter what Cato might have said.

[Neos Dionysos]

Beer, cows milk and butter were all "looked down" upon.

Yes, agreed. But when someone offers you food and drink, do you look down on it and say 'That's un-Roman/un-British/un-American'? Or do you taste it? If I were a hungry and thirsty legionary, I'd try it, no matter what Cato might have said.

 

Obviously, but I meant in terms of Roman Elite etc, and those who had clear choices etc.

 

Like at a Senatorial gathering at one's home, if someone choose beer/butter/milk, (if it was even served), over wine and oil, then it would be looked down upon and seen as 'un-roman', but from a soldiers viewpoint on the frontier, you take what you can get and there's no second thoughts...

 

At least I would assume...

[Andrew Dalby]

Like at a Senatorial gathering at one's home, if someone choose beer/butter/milk, (if it was even served), over wine and oil, then it would be looked down upon and seen as 'un-roman' ...

 

OK, I admit it, I was avoiding your real point.

 

Beer is completely out because so far as we know it wasn't even made anywhere near where your Senators are having their convivium, and there would have been no way of transporting it to Italy from northern/central Europe (if anyone wanted to). So unless they travelled far from Italy, they would never encounter it.

 

Butter was also a rare thing in Roman Italy (without refrigeration it would be difficult to keep and to market it in Italy during much of the year) so it wasn't used much in cooking. No one in the whole ancient world, so far as I know, had the idea of spreading butter on bread or serving it with any other prepared food. That's not just an un-Roman idea, from the ancient point of view, it's completely alien. Looking at this matter from the producer's point of view, the only sensible long-term thing to do with milk was to make cheese from it. Cheese keeps. (How long? I'm off to Melle market tomorrow, and if the man from Saint-Romans is there with his four-year-old tomme de montagne I shall certainly buy another slice from it.)

 

Milk is different. It was marketed in the streets of Rome: the way to do this, without refrigeration, is to drive cows or goats through the streets and milk them on the spot. But I'm not too sure who would buy it and for what purpose. I never read of its being served at a City banquet, and it doesn't crop up much in recipes so far as I remember. Not so much un-Roman as rustic, countrified. Romans were proud of their farms and the very fresh produce they could get from the farm, but it wouldn't be possible to transport milk very far.

[Neos Dionysos]

Like at a Senatorial gathering at one's home, if someone choose beer/butter/milk, (if it was even served), over wine and oil, then it would be looked down upon and seen as 'un-roman' ...

 

OK, I admit it, I was avoiding your real point.

 

Beer is completely out because so far as we know it wasn't even made anywhere near where your Senators are having their convivium, and there would have been no way of transporting it to Italy from northern/central Europe (if anyone wanted to). So unless they travelled far from Italy, they would never encounter it.

 

Butter was also a rare thing in Roman Italy (without refrigeration it would be difficult to keep and to market it in Italy during much of the year) so it wasn't used much in cooking. No one in the whole ancient world, so far as I know, had the idea of spreading butter on bread or serving it with any other prepared food. That's not just an un-Roman idea, from the ancient point of view, it's completely alien. Looking at this matter from the producer's point of view, the only sensible long-term thing to do with milk was to make cheese from it. Cheese keeps. (How long? I'm off to Melle market tomorrow, and if the man from Saint-Romans is there with his four-year-old tomme de montagne I shall certainly buy another slice from it.)

 

Milk is different. It was marketed in the streets of Rome: the way to do this, without refrigeration, is to drive cows or goats through the streets and milk them on the spot. But I'm not too sure who would buy it and for what purpose. I never read of its being served at a City banquet, and it doesn't crop up much in recipes so far as I remember. Not so much un-Roman as rustic, countrified. Romans were proud of their farms and the very fresh produce they could get from the farm, but it wouldn't be possible to transport milk very far.

 

Thank you for clearing that up... I guess when I meant elite I also were thinking of generals and such on the frontiers, though I would think they would make sure they had a secure source of the 'luxuries' of Rome and that necessities of Rome as well.

[Andrew Dalby]

Like at a Senatorial gathering at one's home, if someone choose beer/butter/milk, (if it was even served), over wine and oil, then it would be looked down upon and seen as 'un-roman' ...

 

I guess when I meant elite I also were thinking of generals and such on the frontiers, though I would think they would make sure they had a secure source of the 'luxuries' of Rome and that necessities of Rome as well.

 

Not much real evidence known to me. You hear of generals who preferred to eat like the men, which no doubt boosted morale, but I bet that wasn't the case all the time. In military documents there may well be evidence for the importing of luxuries for officers who could afford it: I suggest a close look at those from Vindolanda that mention food, wine, etc. -- Vindolanda has cropped up on other threads here.

[Pantagathus]

No one in the whole ancient world, so far as I know, had the idea of spreading butter on bread or serving it with any other prepared food. That's not just an un-Roman idea, from the ancient point of view, it's completely alien.

 

AD,

 

I saw this comment of yours so I offer this excerpt from Strabo in regards to the mountain tribes in the north of Iberia (Cantabrians, Asturians, Vascons, etc):

 

"They also use beer; wine is very scarce, and what is made they speedily consume in feasting with their relatives. In place of oil they use butter. Their meals they take sitting, on seats put up round the walls, and they take place on these according to their age and rank." - Geography 3.3.7

 

Granted, he doesn't specify 'how' they use it instead of oil but the statement is so matter of fact as to not convey something completely alien.

 

I think of Ghee as used extensively in hot climates and consider that clarified butter (with moisture removed) has quite a bit longer shelf life than regular butter.

[Andrew Dalby]

I saw this comment of yours so I offer this excerpt from Strabo in regards to the mountain tribes in the north of Iberia (Cantabrians, Asturians, Vascons, etc):

 

"They also use beer; wine is very scarce, and what is made they speedily consume in feasting with their relatives. In place of oil they use butter. Their meals they take sitting, on seats put up round the walls, and they take place on these according to their age and rank." - Geography 3.3.7

 

Granted, he doesn't specify 'how' they use it instead of oil but the statement is so matter of fact as to not convey something completely alien.

 

I think of Ghee as used extensively in hot climates and consider that clarified butter (with moisture removed) has quite a bit longer shelf life than regular butter.

Thanks for the Strabo quote. I agree with you about ghee, and when the author of the /Periplus Maris Erythraei/ talks about the trade in butter in the Indian Ocean he certainly must mean ghee. But I never came across any source saying that ghee was made in Italy or Greece.

 

Considering how many ways olive oil was used by Italians and Greeks, the question you raise is interesting. Strabo seems to be talking about food uses (not fuel or body-cleansing or stored wealth, therefore) but he might mean as a cooking medium (perhaps the most likely one -- this difference between northern and southern Europe still exists) or a dressing for vegetables and other foods, or a vehicle for sauces, or, yes, as a dip for bread. Or all four, and there will be others I've forgotten.

 

But whichever he means, he is confirming in effect that butter was not used in these ways by Greeks and Romans. And I still think that the idea of spreading butter (or anything) on bread was alien to classical peoples. Can you find a text that proves me wrong there?

[Pantagathus]

Thanks for the Strabo quote. I agree with you about ghee, and when the author of the /Periplus Maris Erythraei/ talks about the trade in butter in the Indian Ocean he certainly must mean ghee. But I never came across any source saying that ghee was made in Italy or Greece.

 

Considering how many ways olive oil was used by Italians and Greeks, the question you raise is interesting. Strabo seems to be talking about food uses (not fuel or body-cleansing or stored wealth, therefore) but he might mean as a cooking medium.

 

But whichever he means, he is confirming in effect that butter was not used in these ways by Greeks and Romans. And I still think that the idea of spreading butter (or anything) on bread was alien to classical peoples. Can you find a text that proves me wrong there?

 

AD,

 

I shouldn't have abridged the quote as much as I did. Here is what came right before it and is why when I first read this in Strabo I had assumed he meant it was used with bread:

 

"For two-thirds of the year the mountaineers feed on the acorn, which they dry, bruise, and afterwards grind and make into a kind of bread, which may be stored up for a long period."

 

Here i'm just making an inference because 2/3rd's of the year is a long time to eat the acorn bread without any thing else. It makes sense that it was supplimented somehow and since he mentions the use of butter in close textual proximity that may be how. And by saying that I do not envision Cantabrians sitting there with a butter knife! Probably fried the acorn bread in it?

 

But you're right in that I have never come across an ancient writer actually saying that butter was used 'on' bread. If I ever do you'll be the first to know! However, as my signature currently states; "Absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence"

 

On a side note incidentally, in regards to the 'Greeks' I'm often uncomfortable generalizing them like with 'Romans' because I take that to mean actual Roman citizens who are civilized the same as the city dwellers of Rome itself.

 

Greeks remained a looser term in my opinion even into the Hellenistic period. Ozolian Locrians & Acarnanians were Greeks but from all I've read of them, they may just have been the kind of 'barbarian within' that would have used butter & not oil. But once again I'm just speculating...

Edited March 6, 2006 by Pantagathus

[Pantagathus]

OK, so here is what I've come up with so far in regards to our aside on butter (which Andrew probably knows quite well)...

 

The Greeks and Romans only really used butter (Bouturon,

Edited March 6, 2006 by Pantagathus

[Pertinax]

Heres Galen- " (cows milk contains) a third substance , an oily juice so people make from it a substance called butter ,in which can be clearly discerned through taste and observation how much oiliness it possess. If you smear it on any part of the body and rub it in , you can see that the skin is oiled just like olive oil. Moreover people in many of the old countries , where there is no olive oil use butter when bathing.. I often use it where suet is used for mixing poultices"

No culinary indications at all -and we seem to get the hint that educated readers might find this a novel substance and that the assumption is for usage as an adjunct to bathing (or that the natural assumption the reader would make is such when presented with some sort of consistently manufactured fatty product ( oh no! manufactured dairy produce!).

Edited March 6, 2006 by Pertinax

[Pantagathus]

Heres Galen- " (cows milk contains) a third substance , an oily juice so people make from it a substance called butter ,in which can be clearly discerned through taste and observation how much oiliness it possess. If you smear it on any part of the body and rub it in , you can see that the skin is oiled just like olive oil. Moreover people in many of the old countries , where there is no olive oil use butter when bathing.. I often use it where suet is used for mixing poultices"

No culinary indications at all -and we seem to get the hint that educated readers might find this a novel substance and that the assumption is for usage as an adjunct to bathing (or that the natural assumption the reader would make is such when presented with some sort of consistently manufactured fatty product ( oh no! manufactured dairy produce!).

 

That's why I find it interesting that Dioscorides mentions it as a food stuff as he wrote before Galen. I guess his medical writings didn't have an effect of Galen in this regard!

 

Could be because he was born in Asia Minor though and perhaps was more exposed to it.

[Pertinax]

Thats what I thought as soon as I saw the quote from Dioscorides-and I am also inclined to think of the "origin" of butter( in the "east") as being Scythian as (semi)nomadic peoples are no strangers to the use of fermented/processed milk based products.A portable high calorie stable fat source would be a valuable substance.

 

Dont forget Galen was a "celebrity Doctor" (and physician to Marcus Aurelius) a sort of cross between a Harley Street "name" and a media personality, OK we know a fraction of his work survives but "On Food and Drink" is a relativley coherent entity and the section on dairy has little else to say on butter. If we assume a readership either informed/educated and/or fashionable/superficial but literate , then the whole weight of his words seems to indicate a mild disinterest in a slightly obscure provincial product .Fashion applies to medicines and foodstuffs but I suggest that foodstuffs have a tendency to colonise a society if sufficient popular demand exists, so if the Plebs were eating any butter perhaps Galen would have made some marginal comment?

[Andrew Dalby]

Thanks for the Strabo quote. ... I still think that the idea of spreading butter (or anything) on bread was alien to classical peoples. Can you find a text that proves me wrong there?

 

AD,

 

I shouldn't have abridged the quote as much as I did. Here is what came right before it and is why when I first read this in Strabo I had assumed he meant it was used with bread:

 

"For two-thirds of the year the mountaineers feed on the acorn, which they dry, bruise, and afterwards grind and make into a kind of bread, which may be stored up for a long period."

 

Here i'm just making an inference because 2/3rd's of the year is a long time to eat the acorn bread without any thing else.

 

I heartily agree with that! /I/ would certainly put butter on it.

[Andrew Dalby]

Bouturon, ‘to pion tou galaktos’ in Greek & Butyrum in Latin ... Both words probably originated from Scythian which is where the Greeks were said to have imported theirs from.

 

Yes, I have heard that said before. The usual view, though, is that boutyron is a native Greek compound word. You can pick it apart and it means 'cow cheese'. I feel this makes a lot of sense, as a name invented by people who, themselves, got their milk from sheep and goats and were in the habit of making cheese with it. The logic is: this stuff seems vaguely like cheese, and it's made from cows' milk by those cattle-keeping people up north, so let's call it 'cow cheese'.

 

The Latin word is borrowed from the Greek, and modern words like English butter, French beurre, etc., are derived or borrowed from the Latin.

 

The Romanian word for butter has a different (but Latin) origin: it is unt, from Latin unguentum. This seems to confirm the point that Pertinax makes, above, with his quote from Galen. When classical authors say that central and northern Europeans used butter in place of olive oil, they really did mean to imply that they used it not just as a food but also as an unguent: 'in bathing' as Galen puts it.

Edited March 6, 2006 by Andrew Dalby

[docoflove1974]

The logic is: this stuff seems vaguely like cheese, and it's made from cows' milk by those cattle-keeping people up north, so let's call it 'cow cheese'.

 

A thought just sparked in my head: marscapone cheese.

 

For those not familiar with it, it's a soft Italian 'cheese' with the consistency of butter, and tastes damn close to it. Personally, I love spreading it on bagels (never was much of a cream cheese fan) and putting it in certain pasta dishes to achieve a creamy sauce. It's also a cows' milk cheese. Perhaps there was something similar in Greek gastronomy, and so they could make the leap?

 

Just a thought...now back to my tiramis