1

From Food and History 5/2 (2007) pp 41-66

Food and Meals in Roman Palestine: the state of research

Dr Susan Weingarten

Research Team

Sir Isaac Wolfson Chair of Jewish Studies Department of Jewish History, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel

weingml@post.tau.ac.il

Abstract

This paper is a survey of the state of scholarship on food in Hellenistic,

Roman and Late Antique Palestine. Thus the paper surveys the extant literature for the

food of Roman Palestine, both from Graeco-Roman sources and the Talmudic

sources, and traces the developments in scholarship on the food and dining practices

of this province, providing an annotated bibliography and directions for further study.

It also considers recent relevant archaeological finds – material, epigraphic and

papyrological. A brief explanation of the Talmudic sources is also included.

Key words

Food, dining, scholarship, Hellenistic, Roman, Late Antique Palestine, Talmud,

archaeology

In the last two decades much progress has been made in the study of Greek and

Roman food all over the Roman Empire. Meals and dining practices have fared well

too, and banquets have had their full share of scholarly attention. The Greek and Latin

literature has proved a rich mine of material. However, much of this literature was

written by the aristocracy and for the aristocracy, concerning food that was of interest

to the aristocracy, and thus contains relatively little information about everyday food

of ordinary people. The situation is rather different in the eastern Mediterranean

2

province of Palestine. Here we have at our disposal a further collection of

contemporary Roman sources in Hebrew and Aramaic: the Talmudic literature,

written by and for the Jewish communities. In contrast to the classical sources, these

contain a great deal of information about everyday food, since food laws and purity

rules connected with food, dishes and storage vessels were an important aspect of

halakhah (Jewish religious regulations). The Talmudic sources have been intensively

studied, both by traditional rabbinic commentators through the ages, and by more

recent academic scholars. However, the subject of the food itself, as opposed to

religious laws about food, has received very little attention until recently.

It is my intention here, therefore, to survey the extant literature for the food of

Roman Palestine, both from Graeco-Roman sources and the Talmudic sources, and to

trace the developments in scholarship on the food and dining practices of this

province,1 providing an annotated bibliography and directions for further study.

Archaeological excavations have proceeded apace in this area and their finds –

material, epigraphic and papyrological – will also be surveyed and analysed. The

survey will begin with the general works relevant to the local study, continue with

relevant Greek and Roman works and finally come to the subject of food in the local

sources. A brief explanation of the Talmudic sources will be found in this third part.

Wine, which is an important and major issue in itself, will not be covered here.

1. General Works on Food and Cooking Methods

1.1 Encyclopaedias and Reference Works

1 „Roman Palestine‟ refers to the province of Iudaea, later Palaestina, which covered areas of today‟s

Israel, the Palestinian authority, Egypt, and Syria. This is more or less identical with the halakhic

description of the area found in the Talmudic literature: „the Land of Israel.‟ When referring to this

halakhic concept the title will be capitalized as here.

3

Two recent encyclopaedic works on food and its history are Alan Davidson‟s

invaluable Oxford Companion to Food with extremely readable (if sometimes

idiosyncratic) articles on individual foodstuffs, different cuisines, cooking methods

etc., and the Cambridge World History of Food edited by Kenneth Kiple and

Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas which concentrates more on issues of nutrition and policy.2

A good overview of the food history of the Mediterranean and elsewhere is provided

by Flandrin and Montanari‟s Histoire de l’alimentation.3 For visual identification of

plants in colour The Oxford Book of Food Plants is useful.4

1.2 Cooking Methods

Although kitchens have changed out of all recognition since antiquity, many methods

of food preparation – frying, boiling etc – remain the same. Thus modern works on

cookery which include discussion of the properties of basic foodstuffs and the effect

of different methods of preparation on them can be helpful in the study of ancient

food. Prosper Montagné‟s masterwork on cooking, the Larousse Gastronomique, was

published in 1938 in Paris, updated half a century later by Robert Courtine and there

is now a new edition edited by a committee headed by Joël Robuchon. It remains the

basic work on many methods of food preparation and has been translated into

English.5 Where else, outside Apicius (7.2.1; 7.2.2), could one find instructions for

cooking udders (cf. Mishnah Hullin 8:3)? It should be noted, however, that the

Larousse is sophisticated and French in orientation and therefore does not cover many

more primitive cooking methods.

2 Alan DAVIDSON, The Oxford Companion to Food (2

nd ed., Oxford, 1999); K. F. KIPLE, K.CONEÈ

ORNELAS (eds), The Cambridge World History of Food (Cambridge, 2000) 3 J.-L. FLANDRIN, M. MONTANARI (eds) Histoire de l’alimentation. (Paris, 1996)

4 B.E. NICHOLSON et al., The Oxford Book of Food Plants (London,1985)

5 Joël ROBUCHON et al. (eds) Le Grand Larousse Gastronomique (Paris, 2007)

4

This sort of general work can be supplemented by a number of monographs on

individual foods. Since bread was the main food in the ancient Roman world,

Elizabeth David‟s English Bread and Yeast Cookery, for example, is particularly

helpful.6 Although it is based in an English ambience, there are many parallels to the

Talmudic sources on baking bread. Indeed, any serious study of pre-industrial

cooking methods is liable to contribute to our understanding of food preparation

practices in Roman Palestine, as does the reconstructionist cooking practised by Sally

Grainger described below.7

1.3. Food Chemistry

It is impossible to study food in antiquity without some understanding of the

chemistry of cooking, which, unlike many other factors, does not change over time.

The indispensable work for this is Harold McGee‟s On Food and Cooking: The

Science and Lore of the Kitchen, with details of the chemical structures of basic

foodstuffs and the chemical changes that occur when cooking them by different

methods.8

1.4. The Anthropology and Sociology of Food and Dining

The work of Claude Levi-Strauss, with his metaphor of „the raw and the

cooked‟ to denote „barbarian‟ and „civilized‟ has almost become a cliché.9 There is

now an awareness of the possible contribution of the work of anthropologists and

sociologists to food studies, which enable us to see a link between people‟s foodways

6 Elizabeth DAVID English Bread and Yeast Cookery (London, 1977)

7 Andrew DALBY, Sally GRAINGER, The Classical Cookbook (2

nd ed., London,2000); Sally

GRAINGER, Christopher GROCOCK, APICIUS: a critical edition with an introduction and English

translation of the Latin recipe text, (Totnes, 2006) 8 Harold McGEE, On Food and Cooking: the science and lore of the kitchen, (2

nd ed., New York,

2004) 9 Claude LEVI-STRAUSS, Le cru et le cuit, (Paris 1964)

5

and their perception of the world.10

Thus Mary Douglas in her Purity and Danger

looks at the forbidden foods of the biblical book of Leviticus in the context of the

human body and its boundaries.11

It is Douglas, too, who has famously analysed the

symbolic meanings of the different courses of a meal in „Deciphering a Meal.‟12

The

sociologist Jack Goody has noted how simple everyday cookery is generally carried

out by women in most societies, but when societies become more complex and

cooking becomes more specialized and is elevated to a „cuisine‟, male specialist

cooks take over from women generalists.13

Stephen Mennell in All Manners of Food

looks at how taste is culturally shaped and socially controlled, while Marvin Harris

has attempted to explain the cultural relativism of foodways in Good to Eat: Riddles

of Food and Culture.14

1.5 Women and Food

In the past, most scholars of Talmudic literature were male, both in traditional

Talmud academies (yeshivot) and in universities. When feminist scholars first turned

their attention to the talmudic texts, they were usually not interested in the traditional

functions of women within the domestic sphere, but in women as leaders of

synagogues etc. When they did turn their attention to such functions, it was the more

exotic and „ancient‟ ones that were dealt with, such as weaving.15

Books such as Tal

Ilan‟s Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine do not deal with the subject of food

10

For an attempt to use Freudian analytic psychology in the study of Jewish food and eating practices,

see Gérard HADAD, Manger le livre: rites alimentaires et fonction paternelle, (Paris, 1984) 11

Mary DOUGLAS, Purity and Danger: an analysis of the concept of Pollution and Taboo, (New

York, 1966) 12

Mary DOUGLAS, „Deciphering a Meal,‟ Daedalus, 101 (1975) 61-81 13

Jack GOODY, Cooking, Cuisine and Class: a study in comparative sociology, (Cambridge, 1982) 14

Stephen MENNELL, All Manners of Food, (Oxford,1987); Marvin HARRIS, Good to Eat: Riddles

of Food and Culture, (Prospect Heights, 1986) 15

See, for example Miriam PESKOWITZ, Spinning Fantasies: Rabbis, Gender and History,

(Berkeley, 1997)

6

and its preparation.16

Feminist scholarship on Greek and Roman literature, on the

other hand, has discussed such matters as the imagery of the „edible woman‟ (ie

metaphors of woman as food for consumption by men), in Athenaeus.17

No work has

yet been done on these aspects of talmudic literature.

2. Graeco-Roman Food and Dining

2.1 Food

2.1.1. Modern Translations and Studies of Ancient Sources

The major ancient work on food is the Deipnosophistai (The Philosophers at Dinner)

by the third century C.E. Athenaeus of Naucratis, near Alexandria in Egypt, who

wrote in Greek and was clearly a product of Greek culture. There is a seven-volume

Loeb Classical Library edition and full translation of Athenaeus by Gulick, now quite

old and not always reliable, but the new edition by Olson now appearing in stages

under the title of The Learned Banqueters will be indispensable.18 Quite a lot of new

work is being done on this author, particularly in connection with the Athenaeus

project at Exeter University. Some of this is collected in Wilkins et al.‟s Food in

Antiquity, while the fragment of Archestratus preserved in Athenaeus has been

published and discussed separately.19

Galen, a Greek physician who was active in the second century C.E. and who

visited Syria, was more interested in everyday food than aristocratic Latin authors

living far away in Rome. So we are fortunate to have three recent translations of and

16

Tal ILAN, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine: an inquiry into image and status, (Tübingen,

1995) 17

Madeline HENRY, „The edible woman: Athenaeus‟ concept of the pornographic,‟ in A. RICHLIN

(ed.), Pornography and representation in Greece and Rome, (New York, 1992) 250-68. 18

C.B.GULICK, (ed. and tr.), ATHENAEUS: The Deipnosophists (London/New York, 1927-41; S. D.

OLSON, The Learned Banqueters (Cambridge, 2007-) 19

John M.WILKINS et al.(eds), Food in Antiquity, (Exeter, 1995); John M.WILKINS, Shaun Hill,

ARCHESTRATUS: the Life of Luxury, (Totnes, 1994)

7

commentaries on his works on food: Singer‟s Galen: The Thinning Diet; Grant‟s

Galen: On Food and Diet; and Powell‟s Galen: On the Properties of Foodstuffs.20

While the Greek Athenaeus and Galen are closer in time, place and language

to Roman Palestine, the collection attributed to the Roman gourmet Apicius, which is

known as the De Re Coquinarea, is the nearest thing we have to a book of recipes

from the ancient world. The recipes, while also containing a mixture of remedies and

household hints, are mainly aimed at the preparation of rare luxury foods for the

aristocracy. The earliest edition with extensive and useful discussions of the food was

that of André.21

However, the new edition by Grainger and Grocock supercedes all

previous editions and translations, resulting from a collaboration between a Late Latin

philologist (CG) and the leading modern reconstructionist cook (SG), who has tried

out all the recipes and bases her discussions on practice as well as theory.22

Grainger

contributes to the scholarly discussions on the nature of garum and other Roman

fermented fish sauces previously dealt with by scholars of technology23

and

archaeologists, using her actual experience of process - and taste.

2.1.2 Modern Scholarship on Graeco-Roman Food

Beginning with the written sources, there are two distinct trends in modern research

into Graeco-Roman food: the literary and the realistic. Modern studies on Graeco-

Roman food can generally be divided into those which look at the literary

construction of food, and those which are interested in what people actually ate.

20

P. SINGER, GALEN: The Thinning Diet, (Oxford, 1997); Mark GRANT, GALEN: On Food and

Diet, (London, 2000); O. POWELL, GALEN: On the Properties of Foodstuffs, (Cambridge, 2003) 21

Jacques André, APICIUS : l’art culinaire, (Paris, 1974) 22

GRAINGER, GROCOCK, APICIUS … 23

eg Robert I.CURTIS, Garum and Salsamenta: production and commerce in materia medica, (Leiden,

1991)

8

Studies on the literary side, which are conscious of the literary and social construction

of food and eating habits, using food as a nuanced cultural mediator expressing the

mentalités of the respective society, include Emily Gowers‟ The Loaded Table and

John Wilkins‟ The Boastful Chef (2000).24 This is probably also the place to mention

Nicholas Purcell‟s analysis of how food can be used to reflect moral attitudes, in a

volume of the American Journal of Philology which is totally devoted to Roman

dining.25

It was, of course, a Frenchman who paved the way to an interest in real foods.

Jacques André‟s L’alimentation et la cuisine à Rome preceded the more recent wave

of scholarly interest by almost three decades.26

More recently Blanc and Nercessian

have followed in his footsteps and given us lavish illustrations.27

A more analytical

narrative has now been provided by James Davidson's Courtesans and Fishcakes: the

consuming passions of ancient Athens and Andrew Dalby‟s Empire of Pleasures.28

Dalby has also produced a very useful reference work Food in the Ancient World from

A to Z, where ancient authors, places and individual foods are listed alphabetically

with a list of ancient references for each entry and at least one modern article as an

introduction to the scholarly literature.29

However, Dalby as well as Wilkins and Hill,

authors of yet another Food in the Ancient World, should really have called their

books “Food in the Ancient Classical World”, since they hardly deal with any

material outside the classical Graeco-Roman sources.30

Both tend towards the Greek

24

Emily GOWERS, The Loaded Table: representations of food in Roman literature, (Oxford, 1993);

John M. WILKINS, The Boastful Chef: the discourse of food in ancient Greek comedy, (Oxford, 2000) 25

Nicholas PURCELL, „The way we used to eat: diet, community and history at Rome,‟ American

Journal of Philology 124 (2003) 329-358 26

Jacques ANDRÉ, L’alimentation et la cuisine à Rome, (Paris, 1961) 27

N. BLANC, A. NERCESSIAN, La cuisine Romaine antique, (Grenoble, 1997) 28

James DAVIDSON, Courtesans and Fishcakes: the consuming passions of ancient Athens, (London,

1997); Andrew DALBY, Empire of Pleasures: luxury and indulgence in the Roman world, (London,

2000) 29

Andrew DALBY, Food in the Ancient World from A to Z, (London, 2003) 30

John M.WILKINS, Shaun HILL, Food in the Ancient World, (Oxford, 2005)

9

rather than the Roman world, but within these limitations they are invaluable.

Wilkins, a historian writing together with Hill, a chef, expands the literary basis of

food studies, making excellent use of information from Plutarch and Galen. His use of

Galen means that he does not concentrate as much as other scholars on the food of the

aristocracy only. Galen is an excellent source for studying the food of the poor, and

here Wilkins‟ discussion complements the now classic work of Peter Garnsey.31

2.1.3 Archaeological Evidence of Graeco-Roman Food: An Overview

There are many details of food and foodways scattered over innumerable

archaeological reports. An excellent example of how to collate and analyse such

archaeological material for evidence of local foodways is provided by Hilary Cool‟s

Eating and Drinking in Roman Britain.32

In this work, Cool analyses the evidence

provided, among other things, by the relatively small amounts of animal bones and

relatively large amounts of pottery found in archaeological excavations in Britain. Her

study shows the questions posed by this sort of evidence and its limitations, as well as

what can be learned from it, particularly the contradictions between the pictures

obtained from literature and the archaeological evidence. Cool proposes more

analyses of food residues (using techniques like gas chromatography) and wear

patterns to help solve such problems. She does not, however, take into account a

practical obstacle: the cost of such sophisticated analyses of food residues. Within the

limitations discussed in her study (especially the lack of agreed standards for

quantifying finds), Cool has assembled data for a large number of different sites in

Roman Britain from the first to the fourth centuries C.E. She has been able to identify

31

Peter GARNSEY, Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World, (Cambridge, 1988).

Garnsey has written a number of other useful books relating to food in the ancient world: see now, for

example, Peter GARNSEY, Cities, Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity, (Cambridge, 1998) 32

Hilary E. M. COOL, Eating and Drinking in Roman Britain, (Cambridge, 2006)

10

a range of eating habits and preferences in different regions and to show how these

changed through time.

2.2 Roman Meals and Dining Practices

In the 1970s and 1980s, work on Graeco-Roman dining practices was somewhat

specialized, concentrating particularly on city banquets and on sacrificial practices,

especially in the Greek world.33

Recently new work has also been done on Roman

dining practices, beginning with Andrew Dalby‟s Siren Feasts, which was one of the

earliest in the recent trend of interest in ancient food in the English-speaking world.34

Dalby provides a broad overview of food and gastronomy from the prehistoric

Aegean to present-day Greece and Turkey, using mostly literary sources. In contrast,

Katherine Dunbabin concentrates only on Roman dining practices, using a

combination of literary, archaeological and pictorial evidence from wall-paintings and

mosaics in her seminal work The Roman Banquet: images of conviviality.35

This

volume contains the most important bibliographical references on the topic, including

her own earlier articles on subjects such as water-heaters, wine coolers and other

paraphernalia of feasting, and on slaves who served the diners at upper-class meals.

Dunbabin also discusses the issue of women‟s participation in banquets,

noting differences between Greek and Roman practice. Until recently, scholars

assumed that men reclined at meals while women sat, in Varro‟s words: „the

reclining position was deemed shameful in a woman.‟36

Dunbabin notes that Roman

art depicts women both seated and reclining, and concludes that actual practice almost

33

See the useful summary and bibliography by Pauline SCHMITT PANTEL „Banquet et cité greque:

quelques questions suscitées par les recherches récentes‟ MEFRA : Antiquité 97 (1985) 135-158. 34

Andrew DALBY, Siren Feasts: a history of food and gastronomy in Greece, (London, 1997) 35

Katherine M.D. DUNBABIN, The Roman Banquet: images of conviviality, (Cambridge, 2003) 36

VARRO, in ISIDORUS Orig. 20.11.9

11

certainly varied.37

Recently Matthew Roller has provided a sophisticated analysis of

literary and pictorial evidence for reclining women, and concludes that Varro‟s was

an antiquarian view.38

All these scholars concentrate, perhaps inevitably due to the

nature of the sources, on formal meals and the banquets of the upper strata of society.

Ordinary people are rarely mentioned.

3. Food in Roman Palestine

3.1 Food and Diet in Roman Palestine

3.1.1 Sources

Apart from the Greek and Latin sources of the Roman period discussed above,

Roman Palestine also has its own sources, written by local authors. These are known

as the Talmudic or rabbinic sources. There is some evidence of food and eating

practices in the New Testament, but little in Josephus‟ works (Jesus‟ „Last Supper‟

will be discussed below under the heading „Seder and Symposium,‟ while the Dead

Sea documents appear under the heading „Papyri‟).

What are the Talmudic sources? Apart from the religious laws found written in

the Bible, and in particular in the Pentateuch, Jewish tradition had further laws and

regulations, which covered many aspects of everyday life. These were originally

preserved orally, but were eventually written down in a collection called the Mishnah,

which was finally edited in Roman Palestine in the 2nd

-3rd

centuries of our era. There

is a further collection of laws, parallel to the Mishnah but of disputed date, called the

Tosefta. A further body of commentary and discussion by rabbis on the Mishnah grew

up and was eventually written down around the 4th

and 7th

centuries respectively, to

37

DUNBABIN Roman Banquet…23 38

Matthew B. ROLLER, Dining Posture in ancient Rome: bodies, values and status, (Princeton, 2006)

12

become the Palestinian (Jerusalem) and Babylonian Talmuds (PT and BT).39

These

collections contain mostly religious law (halakhah) but also moral and narrative

material (aggadah). There are also collections of Midrashim, exegesis of Biblical

texts. These compilations are known collectively as the Talmudic or rabbinic

literature.

The Talmudic literature contains a lot of references to both food and

foodways, scattered over the various compilations. The legal discussions on these

matters can also be very detailed, if particular halakhic problems arise. For example,

the halakhic Sabbath regulations include a ban on cooking on the Sabbath. This leads

to the question whether such practices as burying food in hot sand or keeping food

warm at the side of a fire should be considered „cooking‟ (Mishnah Shabbat 3).

Halakhic discussions of these questions contain a great deal of information about

methods of food preparation, and even if all the methods debated were not actually in

common use, they were certainly methods which were conceptually possible at the

time. The aggadic or narrative material also contains much information about food

and foodways, sometimes in the form of imagery rooted in the Bible but re-interpreted

in the terms of the Talmudic world. For example, the various stages of making bread,

a task commonly associated with women, are often used metaphorically for women

and their bodies: Job 31:10 uses women grinding flour as an image for committing

adultery; in the Babylonian Talmud, a statement attributed to Rabbi Yohanan, a

39

Citations of the Palestinian Talmud have traditionally been to tractate, chapter and halakhah.

However, since the standard version of the Palestinian Talmud to date has been the Venice printed

edition (ed. BOMBERG, 1523-4) academic works usually refer to this edition by page and column. A

new edition of the Palestinian Talmud has now been prepared according to the best manuscript, the

Leiden manuscript, by the Academy for the Hebrew Language (Jerusalem, 2001). This is the edition of

the Palestinian Talmud which has been used throughout this article. This new edition retains both

chapter and halakhah divisions as well as the pages and columns of the Venice edition. References to

the Babylonian Talmud are always to tractate and page number of the double-sided page and specify

side a or b of the page.

13

Palestinian rabbi of the third century, says that grinding is always an image for

sexuality (BT Sotah 10a).

3.1.2. Dietary Staples and Culinary Culture

The food eaten in Palestine in antiquity was based on what has been called the

Mediterranean triad: wheat, grapes and olives - which were made into bread, wine and

olive oil, the staples of the „Mediterranean diet‟ (but see Ferro-Luzzi and Sette for

discussion of the use of this latter term).40

For the other raw materials of the

Palestinian diet, the standard work has long been Immanuel Löw‟s multi-volume

work Die Flora der Juden.41

It is high time there was an update. On the early history

and cultivation of plants, Zohary and Hopf‟s Domestication of Plants in the Old

World is now the basic reference work.42

The food of ancient Palestine has received an uneven amount of attention. The

foods of biblical times have been looked at in some detail,43

but less interest has been

taken in the foods of later Hellenistic and Roman Palestine. From approximately 300

B.C.E. onwards, the land of Israel had been under Hellenistic and Greek influence and

this would have affected the local culinary culture as well. This is clear from many of

the terms for foods mentioned in the Talmudic literature, which have much more in

common with those from Greek authors than Latin ones (although it is true that Latin

culinary culture was also influenced by the Greek, as we see from the pages of the

40

A. FERRO-LUZZI, S. SETTE, „The Mediterranean Diet: an attempt to define its present and past

compositions,‟ European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 43 (1989) (Suppl. 2): 13-29 41

Immanuel LÖW, Die Flora der Juden, 4 vols. (Wien/Leipzig, 1924-34) 42

D. ZOHARY, M. HOPF, Domestication of Plants in the Old World: the origin and spread of

cultivated plants in West Asia, Europe and the Nile Valley, (3rd

ed., Oxford, 2000) 43

By eg Jean SOLER, „Les raisons de la Bible: règles alimentaires hébraïques,‟ in J.-L. FLANDRIN,

M. MONTANARI (eds) Histoire de l’alimentation. (Paris, 1996) 73-84; Athalia BRENNER, Jan-

Willem van HENTEN, (eds), Food and Drink in the Biblical Worlds, Semeia 86, (Atlanta, 1999)

14

collection of recipes attributed to Apicius). Thus it is not surprising that we find

parallels to Jewish Palestinian foods, mentioned in the Mishnah and the Jerusalem

Talmud, in Athenaeus and Galen. For example, isqaritin, bread baked over hot coals

(PT Hallah 57d) is found in Athenaeus (Deipnosophistae 3.109) as escharites, while

termita (barely cooked) eggs (PT Nedarim 39c) are found in Galen as tromita eggs

(6.769). Greek concepts of health and food as reported by Galen are sometimes

paralleled in Jewish attitudes,44

whereas parallels from the Roman world are not so

evident. Greek foodways do not seem to have been identical with Roman ones. It is

clear from Athenaeus that he was aware of different customs and traditions in

different places, and the Roman author Pliny also stresses the different geographical

origins of foods in his Natural History (passim, esp. books 20-32). James Davidson

has noted, for example, the Athenians‟ exaggerated love of fish.45

3.1.3. Rome and Babylonia

There are considerable differences between the foods and eating habits

mentioned in the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds, but unfortunately older studies

such as Krauss did not sufficiently separate these.46

Wheat, wine, and oil were used in

Babylonia as in Palestine, but in general foodways in Babylonia were somewhat

different from those in Palestine. Bread was the main food in both Palestine and

Babylonia, but the condiments used with it differed: the fish-based Graeco-Roman

sauce called garum or muries in Palestine, in contrast to the barley-based kutah in

44

Susan WEINGARTEN, „Eggs in the Talmud,‟ in R. Hoskings (ed.), Eggs in Cookery: Proceedings

of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, 2006, (Totnes, 2007) 270-281 45

DAVIDSON Courtesans…3-35 46

Samuel KRAUSS, Talmudische Archäologie, vol. 1. (Leipzig, 1910) 78-126

15

Babylonia.47

There also appears to have been much greater availability of meat in

Babylonia.

On a number of occasions, talmudic discussions indicate that Babylonian

rabbis simply did not recognize the Graeco-Roman food mentioned in the Palestinian

Mishnah. In the twelfth century C.E., the Spanish rabbi Maimonides already noted in

his commentary on the Mishnah that the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud

misunderstood the nature of the barely cooked egg called by the Greek name of

termita in the Mishnah.48

Parallels for Jewish Babylonian food are to be found in later

Arab sources from Baghdad of the caliphs, some of which can be dated to the gaonic

period (9th

– 10th

centuries), although there are methodological problems in comparing

everyday and luxury cooking. Perry and Waines have now updated the pioneering

work by Rodinson and Arberry on medieval Arab cookery and provided more

translations of texts.49

Cooper (1993) and Weingarten (2005a) have started to use

these rich sources for the analysis of the food of Jewish Babylonia as distinct from

Roman Palestine.50

3.1.4 Modern Research on Food and Diet in Roman Palestine

There are several very brief surveys of diet in Roman Palestine. All of them stress,

quite rightly, that the main food was bread, which made up perhaps fifty percent of

the volume of food consumed. The first and most comprehensive survey was made by

Magen Broshi, who also attempts to assess the daily calorie intake.51

Broshi lists the

47

Susan WEINGARTEN, „Mouldy bread and rotten fish: delicacies in the ancient world,‟ Food and

History 3 (2005) 61-72 48

WEINGARTEN, „Eggs…‟ p.276 49

M. RODINSON, A. J. ARBERRY, C. PERRY, Medieval Arab Cookery, (Totnes, 2001); David

WAINES, La cuisine des califes, (Paris, 1999) 50

John COOPER, Eat and be satisfied: a social history of Jewish food, (Northvale and London, 1993);

WEINGARTEN „Mouldy bread…‟ 51

Magen BROSHI, „The Diet of Palestine in the Roman Period: Introductory Notes,‟ Israel Museum

Journal 5 (1986) 41-56 (= Bread, Wine, Walls and Scrolls, [Sheffield, 2001], 121-143)

16

main foodstuffs and cites the basic sources (e.g. Mishnah Ketubot 5:5) for the daily

diet. Unfortunately, he does not analyse the talmudic sources in depth to determine

how food was prepared and what dishes were actually eaten, and nor did Dar a decade

later.52

Broshi has also produced a similarly useful brief survey of wine.53

Frankel‟s

survey of wine and oil production, while mostly interested in technology, has a useful

annotated list of different types of wine found in the talmudic literature.54

In his book on poverty in Roman Palestine, Gildas Hamel (1990) begins with

an overview of the food eaten.55

He stresses how close many people were to famine in

the first three centuries C.E. Hamel lists the basic foodstuffs, but also notes some of

the commoner cooked dishes such as miqpeh, a porridge usually made with pulses.

Claudine Dauphin, following Yizhar Hirschfeld, uses ancient Christian as well as

talmudic sources to look at the food of Roman Palestine, especially the Christian

monastic diet.56

Her work is flawed, however, by an absence of any attempt to assess

the historical reliability of her Christian sources. She does not, for example, cite

Veronica Grimm‟s work on Christian eating practices, which demonstrates clearly

that rhetorical considerations influenced hagiographical descriptions of monks‟ diet.57

Grimm, a pharmacologist by training, has pointed out that no one could possibly

survive on a calorie intake of five figs a day.

52

Shimon DAR „Food and Archaeology in Romano-Byzantine Palestine,‟ in WILKINS et al., Food in

Antiquity…, 326-336 53

Magen BROSHI, „Wine in Ancient Palestine: Introductory Notes,‟ Israel Museum Journal, 3 (1984)

21-40 (= Bread, Wine, Walls and Scrolls, [Sheffield, 2001],144-172) 54

Rafael FRANKEL Wine and oil production in antiquity in Israel and other Mediterranean countries

(Sheffield, 1999) 198-206 55

Gildas HAMEL, Poverty and Charity in Roman Palestine, First Three Centuries CE, (Berkeley,

1990) 56

Claudine DAUPHIN, La Palestine Byzantine: Peuplement et Populations, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1998) 492-

502 ; 508-512 ; Claudine DAUPHIN,„Plenty or just enough? the diet of the rural and urban masses of

Byzantine Palestine,‟Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, 17 (1999) 39-65; Yizhar

HIRSCHFELD, The Judean Desert Monasteries in the Byzantine Period, (New Haven and London,

1992) 82-91 57

Veronika GRIMM, From Feasting to Fasting: the evolution of a sin. Attitudes to food in Late

Antiquity. (London, 1996) 10-12; 160-1

17

Some research has been done on particular types of food, on sufganin

(possibly an early form of pasta), on condiments, on children‟s food, on wild foods,

on haroset (part of the Passover seder ritual), and eggs.58

In Hebrew there is Yehudah

Feliks‟ study on rice and Zohar Amar‟s fascinating book on eating locusts.59

Finally, a

brief but comprehensive survey which also takes an interest in preparation and dishes

eaten may be found in the chapters dealing with the Talmudic Age in John Cooper‟s

social history of Jewish food, Eat and be satisfied, which are divided into everyday

food and festive food.60

3.1.5 The Study of Kosher Food in Antiquity

The biblical book of Leviticus contains detailed lists of „clean‟ and „unclean‟ animals

and provides various dietary regulations and prohibitions (Lev. 11). The cultural

significance of these biblical injunctions has been discussed and interpreted in some

detail, in particular by the anthropologist Mary Douglas.61

The thrice repeated biblical

injunction not to boil a kid in its mother‟s milk (Ex. 23:19 and 34:26; Deut.14:21) has

also received attention from scholars of other ancient civilizations who have tried to

associate this practice with similar customs in adjoining cultures.62

This verse was the

58

Susan WEINGARTEN, „The debate about ancient tracta: evidence from the Talmud,‟ Food and

History 2 (2004) 21-39; WEINGARTEN „Mouldy bread…‟;

Susan WEINGARTEN, „Children‟s foods in the Talmudic literature,‟ in W. MAYER, S. TRZCIONKA, (eds) Feast, Fast or Famine: Food and Drink in Byzantium, (Brisbane, 2005) 147-160;

Susan WEINGARTEN, „Wild foods in the Talmud: the influence of religious restrictions on

consumption,‟ in R HOSKINGS (ed.) Wild Foods: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and

Cookery, 2004, (Totnes, 2005), 321-332; Susan WEINGARTEN, „Haroset,‟ in R. HOSKINGS (ed.)

Authenticity in the Kitchen: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, 2005,

(Totnes, 2006) 414-426; WEINGARTEN, „Eggs…‟ 59

Yehudah FELIKS,„Rice in Rabbinic Literature,‟ Bar Ilan 1 (1963) 177-189 (Heb. with Eng.

summary); Zohar AMAR, The Locust in Jewish Tradition, (Ramat Gan, 2004, Heb.) 60

COOPER Eat and be satisfied… 37-78 61

DOUGLAS, Purity…; Mary DOUGLAS, Leviticus as Literature, (Oxford, 1999) 62

M. HARAN, „Seething a kid in its mother‟s milk,‟ Journal of Jewish Studies 30 (1979) 23-35; C. J.

LABUSCHAGNE, „“You shall not boil a kid in its mother‟s milk:” a new proposal for the origin of the

prohibition,‟ in F. GARCIA MARTINEZ, A. HILHORST, and C. J. L ABUSCHAGNE, The

Scriptures and the Scrolls: Studies in honour of A. S. van der Woude on the occasion of his 65th

birthday, (Leiden, 1992) 5-17.

18

key verse used by the rabbis in building the complex structure of the Jewish dietary

laws separating milk and meat foods, and eventually dishes and even ovens and

kitchens. Recently David Kraemer has examined the Mishnah and Talmudim to trace

the development of these laws, and has analysed them for their cultural significance.63

It is difficult to know how widely these food laws were observed in Roman

Palestine, although Jews were certainly perceived by outsiders as having different

eating practices.64

Archaeological evidence of a scarcity of pig bones in Jewish, as

compared to non-Jewish settlements seems to confirm observance of the biblical

prohibition against eating pigs, although sometime this can be a circular argument and

Jewish settlements have been identified on the basis of the absence of pig bones.65

3.1.6. Archaeological and Epigraphic Evidence of Food in Roman Palestine

(a) Papyri

The Greek papyri of the second century C.E. found in the Judaean desert contain

some evidence about food. Some of the legal documents deal with agricultural

produce: wheat, barley, and lentils, which are measured in units called qabs as in the

Mishnah, and dates and vines growing around Jericho and the Dead Sea (e.g.,

PMurabba„at l. 90, 91; PNahal Hever l. 62, 64). These sources have been briefly

discussed by the respective editors of these papyri, who also note parallels such as the

particular varieties of dates mentioned by Pliny (Natural History 13.45).66

A fourth-century C.E. cache of documents found in Egypt and published in the

1950s (Papyrus Rylands 4) contains the accounts left by Theophanes, a tax collector

63

David KRAEMER, Jewish Eating and Identity through the Ages, (New York, 2007) 64

Menachem STERN, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, 3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1974-1984),

vol. 1: 436, 500, 550-554; vol.2: 19, 98-99, 159, 434-435, 628, 676, etc. 65

B. HESSE, P. WAPNISH, „Can pig remains be used for ethnic diagnosis in the Ancient Near East?,‟

in N. A. SILBERMAN, D. SMALL, (eds) The Archaeology of Israel, (Sheffield, 1996) 238-70 66

Hannah COTTON, Ada YARDENI, Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek documentary texts from Nahal

Hever and other sites with an appendix containing alleged Qumran texts (the Seiyal collection II):

Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, vol. 27, (Oxford, 1997) 217

19

from Egypt who journeyed through Roman Palestine in the early 320s. The

documents detail the food purchased for him every day at particular named places.

Lionel Casson was the first scholar to note the significance of Theophanes‟ references

to food.67

More recently, a new book by John Matthews analyses some of his

purchases and discusses the food, but concentrates mainly on the more detailed

accounts for Antioch, omitting the Palestinian part of the itinerary.68

The sixth-century C.E. papyri from the monastery at Nessana (Nitzana) also

detail agricultural produce – wheat, barley, wine, oil – but the monks also seem to

have been dealing with shipments of meat and salted fish, honey, almonds and garum

(PColt 47; 87 etc). Apart from the editor‟s comments and brief mentions by Dauphin,

I do not know of any further work on the foods mentioned in these documents.69

(b) Inscriptions

The Hebrew Bible mentions the so-called Mediterranean triad of wheat, wine and oil

many times (eg Deut.7:13; Psalms 4:8 etc.). Epigraphic evidence of the continuing

importance of these foods as the basis of the late Roman economy in Palestine is

provided by Greek inscriptions in mosaics from Caesarea, dated by the excavator to

the late fifth century C.E., mentioning these foods and wishing for God‟s blessing

over them. One of these inscriptions alludes to Deut. 7:13, „The Lord God will bless

67

Lionel CASSON, Travel in the Ancient World, (2nd

ed., Baltimore and London, 1994) 190-3 68

John MATTHEWS, The Journey of Theophanes: travel, business and daily life in the Roman East,

(New Haven and London, 2006) 69

C. J. KRAEMER, Excavations at Nessana III: Non-Literary Papyri, (Princeton, 1958) 141; 249;

DAUPHIN Palestine Byzantine … 499

20

your grain and your wine and your oil …‟, while the second inscription, alluding to

Psalms 4:8, adds fruit to the list.70

More evidence of food crops is found in the mosaic inscription (and its painted

counterpart on a plastered column) from the synagogue at Rehov, dated by its

excavator, Fanny Vito, to the fourth to seventh centuries C.E.71

The text resembles the

so-called baraita de-tehumin, a passage which deals with the halakhic borders of the

Land of Israel found in slightly differing versions in Midrash Sifre Deuteronomy (end

of parashat „Eqev), the Tosefta (Tosefta Shevi‟it 4:11), and the Palestinian Talmud

(PT Shevi‟it 36c; PT Demai 22b-c). This is the earliest extant version of any

Talmudic text (the manuscripts of the Palestinian Talmud all date to later times),

listing some thirty fruits and vegetables (some are repeated) included in the

restrictions that apply to the Sabbatical year, together with places within the

halakhically defined Land of Israel where these restrictions apply. Most research on

this document has concentrated on the place names rather than on the foods, with the

exception of Feliks.72

The English translation of the list of foods by Grafman is not

always reliable.73

The Rehov inscription also confirms the Mishnaic evidence (e.g.,

Mishnah Hallah 1) for the use of rice in Roman Palestine.74

(c) Images

Certain foods, particularly grapes and other fruits belonging to the Seven Species of

the land of Israel mentioned in Deut. 8:8, often appear as decorations or symbols in

70

A. SIEGELMANN, „A mosaic floor at Caesarea Maritima,‟ Israel Exploration Journal, 24 (1974)

216-221, esp. 218-9 71

F. VITTO, „Rehob,‟ in E. STERN (ed.) New Encyclopedia of Archeological Excavations in the Holy

Land, (Jerusalem, 1993) vol. 4, 1272-74 72

Y. SUSSMANN, „A halakhic inscription from the Beth-Shean valley,‟ Tarbiz 43 (1974) 88-158

(Heb.); Y. SUSSMANN, „The inscription in the synagogue at Rehob,‟ in L. I. LEVINE (ed.) Ancient

Synagogues Revealed, (Jerusalem, 1981) 146-151; Yehudah FELIKS, (ed.), Jerusalem Talmud:

Masekhet Shevi’it, (2nd

ed., Jerusalem, 2001) vol. 2: 447-456 73

R. GRAFMAN, „The Rehob Inscription: a translation,‟ in LEVINE Ancient Synagogues…pp.152-3 74

FELIKS „Rice…‟

21

Palestinian art: on architectural elements, coins, lamps, sarcophagi etc. We shall not

be concerned with these here. Foodstuffs of various kinds also appear in both Jewish

and non-Jewish cult contexts: there are schematic depictions of the Temple

shewbreads in the Sepphoris synagogue, while foodstuffs such as grapes, a duck, a

cock, and a goat are carried or led in the Dionysiac procession of the mosaic floor of

the so-called House of Dionysos in Sepphoris.75

Evidence about foods eaten may also be deduced from other mosaic depictions

in both Jewish and non-Jewish contexts. An example of the former, the mosaic of a

meal from Sepphoris, is discussed below. As to the latter, a third-century C.E. mosaic

from Syrian Antioch provides an excellent illustration of the courses of a formal meal

and the foods served.76

It may, of course, represent an ideal rather than reality, but it is

reminiscent of the Mishnaic picture of the Passover seder meal (see below).

A new mosaic find at Jalabiyye in the Gaza strip, apparently belonging to a

church, was excavated by Humbert and others.77

It has been called by them „la

pavement gastronomique.‟ It contains many vignettes of foodstuffs, but the

photographs published so far do not allow for clear identifications. The problem with

such depictions is that mosaic artists may have used common pattern books, perhaps

originating outside the province. Therefore the images do not necessarily represent

local foods, as is also the case with Palestinian mosaic depictions of animals not

found in Palestine (such as giraffes, found in the church mosaics on Mount Nebo in

75

Ze‟ev WEISS, The Sepphoris Synagogue: deciphering an ancient message through its

archaeological and socio-historical contexts, (Jerusalem, 2005); Rina TALGAM, Ze‟ev WEISS, The

Mosaics of the House of Dionysos at Sepphoris excavated by E.M. Meyers, E.Netzer and C.L. Meyers,

(Jerusalem, 2004) 77-85 76

F. CIMOK, (ed.), Antioch Mosaics, (Istanbul, 1995) 44-47 77

Jean-Baptiste HUMBERT et al., „Mukheitem à Jabaliyeh, un site Byzantin,‟ in Jean-Baptiste

HUMBERT (ed.) Gaza Mediterranéenne: Histoire et archéologie en Palestine, (Paris, 2000) 121-126

and 129

22

present-day Jordan).78

Only when the gastronomic mosaic is finally published will it

be possible to determine this issue.

(d) Pottery

Much pottery from the Roman period has been found in archaeological excavations in

present-day Israel and neighbouring countries. Many pottery vessels are described or

mentioned in Graeco-Roman and Talmudic sources. It is not easy to correlate the

material finds with the literary evidence and to deduce the culinary uses of the various

types of pottery. Brandt‟s study of pottery in Talmudic sources from the 1950s is

outdated and sometimes unreliable.79

A more recent catalogue of pots prepared by the

HaAretz Museum is much more helpful, with some convincing identifications of

forms described in the Talmudic literature, and a useful bibliography (Zevulun/Olenik

1979).80

David Adan-Bayewitz‟s study of pottery (1993) makes critical use of the

contemporary evidence in the Talmudic sources, but concentrates more on pottery

production, distribution, and trade than on the actual culinary uses of the pots.81

We

still need more analytic and synthetic studies of pottery like the one which Cool has

written on Roman Britain (see above).

(e) The Study of Food Remains

There is as yet no overall work which attempts both to analyse food remains

found in archaeological excavations and to synthesise the results to provide a picture

of how and what people ate in Roman Palestine. Nevertheless, archaeological reports

from individual sites have developed considerably over the last half-century, partly

78

Michele PICCIRILLO, The Mosaics of Jordan, (Amman, 1993) 135; 140-1; 146 79

Yehoshua BRANDT, Ceramics in Talmudic Literature, (Jerusalem, 1953) 80

U. ZEVULUN, Y. OLENIK, Function and Design in the Talmudic Period, (2nd

ed., Tel Aviv, 1979) 81

David ADAN-BAYEWITZ, Common Pottery in Galilee: a study of local trade, (Ramat Gan, 1993)

23

under the influence of the so-called „new archaeology,‟ which attempts to „explain

why, rather than simply describe the ways that.‟82 In the older archaeological

literature, little attention was paid to biological remains. The final report of the

excavations at Nessana will serve as an illustration.83

The osteological remains called

for no other comment than that the „usual domestic animals were found – sheep, pigs,

chickens, goats and the like, as well as a gazelle or two and a black rat.‟84

There is,

however, a scholarly note on fish bones from the so-called scarus, the parrot wrasse,

since this fish is actually named in one of the papyri found at the site, PColt 47.85

More recently, however, there have been far more sophisticated analyses of

the excavated material, including attempts at synthesis. The studies of Omri Lernau,

who has analysed fish bones from many sites in Palestine, exhibit a growing concern

with the wider picture, including maps of the distribution of certain fish, and

discussion of trade routes, differentiating between fish from the Red Sea and the

Mediterranean, as well as fresh-water fish.86

The presence in many Palestinian, Syrian and even Turkish sites from all

periods of bones of the Nile Perch raises a number of interesting questions.87

Was it

really more economic to import dried fish from Egypt than to use local products? Or

were the fish just used to fill empty export containers (e.g. of olive oil) on their way

back from Palestine? Is the presence of the heavy head bones by which one can

identify the otherwise anonymous pieces of salted or dried fish due to a demand for

82

T. R. LONGSTAFF, T.C. HUSSEY, „Palynology and cultural process: an exercise in the New

Archaeology,‟ in: D. R. EDWARDS, C. T. McCOLLOUGH (eds), Archaeology and the Galilee: Texts

and Contexts in the Graeco-Roman and Byzantine Periods, (Atlanta, 1997) 151-162 83

H. D. COLT, Excavations at Nessana, (London, 1962) 84

ibid. p. 67 85

KRAEMER Excavations…p. 141 86

Omri Z. LERNAU, „Fish Remains,‟ in Pau FIGURAS (ed.) Horvat Karkur ‘Illit: A Byzantine

Cemetery Church in the Northern Negev, (Beersheva, 2004) 335-349, esp.343 87

LERNAU, „Fish Remains‟… p.345; W. van NEER, A. ERVYNCK, „Remains of traded fish in

archaeological sites: indicators of status, or bulk food?,‟ in S. JONES O‟DAY, W. van NEER, A.

ERVYNCK, (eds) Behaviour behind Bones: the zooarchaeology of ritual, religion, status and identity,

(Oxford, 2004) 203-214

24

certain types of (biblically permitted) fish only? Lernau‟s analysis of the fishbones

found in the jars of fish sauce sent to Herod at Masada revealed only biblically

permitted species. Lernau‟s papers are at present scattered over many different

publications.88

It is to be hoped that they will be collected together and published as a

book to provide a better picture of the fish traded and eaten in Roman Palestine.

Serious publication of mammal remains began only in 1995, with Gillian

Clark‟s analysis of bones found in the 1985-6 excavations at Upper Zohar.89

Clark

notes details of butchery cuts on bones and patterns of wear on teeth, without

neglecting the total picture. She was aided by Liora Kolska Horowitz, who has gone

on to produce ever more sophisticated analyses of animal remains over the years, such

as her contribution to the final report of the Ramat HaNadiv excavations, „The Animal

Economy of Horvat Eleq‟ (Horowitz 2000).90

This is one of the sites where pig bones

were found, and this finding receives full discussion of its religious and ethnic

implications. It might be noted that pigs are amongst the few animals never neglected

in archaeological discussions of Palestinian sites.91

Recently Carole Cope has

attempted to identify what she calls an „early form of kosher‟ butchery practice from

bones found at the excavations of the Jewish sites of Gamala and Yodefat, destroyed

in the Jewish War of 67 CE and never resettled.92

Cope identifies bone cuts which

may indicate removal of the sciatic nerve, which was forbidden in biblical and

Talmudic sources (Genesis 32.33; Mishnah Hullin 7).

88

eg LERNAU, „Fish Remains‟…; Hannah COTTON, Omri Z. LERNAU, Yuval GOREN, „Fish

Sauces from Herodian Masada,‟ Journal of Roman Archaeology 9 (1996) 223-238

89

Gillian CLARK, „The mammalian remains from the early Byzantine fort at Upper Zohar,‟ in Richard

HARPER, (ed.), Upper Zohar: an early Byzantine fort in Palaestina Tertia, (Oxford, 1995) 49-84 90

L. KOLSKA HOROWITZ, „The Animal Economy of Horvat Eleq,‟ in Yizhar HIRSCHFELD, (ed.),

Ramat HaNadiv Excavations: final report of the 1984-1988 seasons, (Jerusalem, 2000) 511-28 91

Compare HESSE, WAPNISH, „Can pig remains…?‟ 92

Carole COPE, „The butchering practices of Gamla and Yodefat: beginning the search for kosher

practices‟ in S. JONES O‟DAY, W. van NEER, A. ERVYNCK, (eds) Behaviour behind Bones: the

zooarchaeology of ritual, religion, status and identity, (Oxford, 2004) 25-33

25

Vegetable food remains have been found in archaeological excavations and

surveys in caves in the Judaean desert, where they have been dated to the period of

the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-135 C.E.) by the documents, lamps and coins of this

period found in these caves. Research into these remains has been carried out by

Mordechai Kislev and his team.93

The food remains were for the most part dates,

olives, wheat and barley. By intelligent analysis of these remains and their

seasonality, Kislev was able to pinpoint September as the actual month when those

fleeing the battles must have taken refuge in the caves.

3.1.7 The so-called Jesus Diet: a caveat

It has become popular in present-day North America in some Christian circles for

people who wish „to follow Jesus in all his ways‟ to attempt to follow his diet. To this

end there is now a literature produced in order to answer the question: what would

Jesus eat? Unfortunately the historical material in this literature, both in electronic and

book form is generally characterised by its romantic and unscientific tendencies, and

the picture it gives bears only a superficial resemblance to what would have been the

diet of the poor in Roman Galilee.94

It is unlikely that most people could have

afforded the fuel to bake fresh bread every day, for example, or that it was economic

to transport fresh fish daily from the Sea of Galilee or the Mediterranean to

Nazareth.95

For a satirical treatment of this trend (with recipes), see Hutt and Klein‟s

93

Mordechai KISLEV,„Vegetal food of Bar Kochba rebels at Abi‟or Cave near Jericho,‟ Review of

Paleobotany and Palynology 73 (1992) 153-160 94

See, for example, D. COLBERT, What would Jesus eat? (Nashville, 2002); http://essenes.net/index-

jesusdiet.htm 95

COLBERT What would Jesus…pp.19; 35

26

Rezepte aus der Bibel: Einfach göttlich : vom paradiesischen Apfelkuchen bis zum

würzigen Passah-Lamm.96

3.1.8 Reconstructionist Research

Tova Dickstein at Ne‟ot Qedumim has started experimenting with the reconstruction

of ancient cooking methods depicted in Graeco-Roman and talmudic literature, using

specially built ovens and vessels, after the manner of Grainger.97

We eagerly await

publication of her findings.

3.2 Meals and Dining Practices in Roman Palestine

3.2.1 The Literary Sources

As in the Graeco-Roman world in general, bread was the main component of a Jewish

meal. Bread was eaten with some sort of side-dish (parperet) – salt at the very

simplest, or some sort of liquid for dipping into – and wine mixed with water was

drunk (cf. Mishnah Berakhot 6:5). Since drinking-water was sometimes polluted, the

wine acted as an antiseptic.98

The very poorest drank sour wine or vinegar mixed with

water (cf. John 19:29; Midrash Leviticus Rabbah 34:8) This tri-partite structure of the

basic meal is also found in Graeco-Roman sources: bread, opson (side-dish), and

wine.99

Tosefta Berakhot 4. 8 (among other sources) makes it clear that formal dining

practices, among some Jews at least, were also very similar to the practices of the rest

96

J. HUTT, H. KLEIN, Rezepte aus der Bibel: Einfach göttlich: vom paradiesischen Apfelkuchen bis

zum würzigen Passah-Lamm, (Köln, 2000) 97

DALBY, GRAINGER Classical cookbook… 98

DALBY Food in the Ancient World…p. 350 99

Ibid., p. 212

27

of the Graeco-Roman world.100

There was some sort of fixed structure and set of

expectations, including reclining on couches, hand-washing and mixing wine, which

were marked out as specifically Jewish by the saying of blessings over wine, bread

and side-dishes.

Apart from the Passover seder (see below), which has received most scholarly

attention, few studies have investigated the evidence of ordinary Jewish meals,

although there is a useful outline in Krauss.101

However, two recent Hebrew doctoral

dissertations analyse Talmudic evidence of meals. Zvi Peleg‟s thesis is a useful

collation of sources on meals and their archaeological contexts, with a short section

on foods.102

Ruhama Weiss‟ thesis takes material from Talmudic literature to make a

sophisticated analysis of rabbinical behaviour at meals, using anthropological theory

to identify what she calls the „meal test,‟ where rabbis engage in verbal sparring and

halakhic contests in the context of a meal.103

3.2.2 Images of Meals

Two Roman dining-room mosaics have recently been discovered at Sepphoris in

Galilee.104

Both of them are of the so-called T pattern, surrounded by blank panels

where dining couches were arranged along three sides of the room. The remaining

floor, in the shape of an inverted T, was covered with figurative mosaics. One of these

mosaics, from the so-called House of Orpheus, (see Fig. 1), dated by the excavators to

the second half of the third century C.E., shows this mythical figure surrounded by

100

DALBY Siren feasts; WILKINS, HILL Food in the Ancient World. 101

KRAUSS Talmudische Archäologie …pp. 26-63 102

Zvi PELEG, The Jewish Meal in the Period of the Mishnah and the Talmud in the Land of Israel:

reality, society and culture, (Ph.D. thesis, Bar Ilan University, 2004, [Heb, with Eng. summary]) 103

Ruhama WEISS, Food and Feasting as Indicators of religious and social Status in the World of the

Sages, (Ph.D. thesis, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 2006, [Heb. with Eng. summary]) 104

TALGAM, WEISS, Mosaics of House of Dionysus…; Ze‟ev WEISS,„“The House of Orpheus:”

another villa from the Late Roman period in Sepphoris,‟ Qadmoniot 36 (2003) 94-10 [Heb.]

28

animals in the stem of the T, with scenes from daily life below, in the bar of the

inverted T.105

The central scene depicts a formal meal on a C-shaped couch around a

three-legged table bearing unidentifiable food. There are four diners and three

servants, all wearing wreaths, and a large water-heater (authepsa). We know there

was large Jewish population in Sepphoris, but it is not entirely certain whether this

was the house of a Jew or not (the depiction of Orpheus does not necessarily exclude

a Jewish owner, since King David appears in the guise of Orpheus in a synagogue in

Gaza, albeit at a somewhat later period).106

This mosaic still awaits closer analysis

and the excavator‟s final report.

3.2.3. Seder and Symposium

Unlike most other foodways of Roman Palestine, the Passover seder meal and its

accompanying traditional text, the Passover haggadah, have come in for a great deal

of discussion. In the Second Temple period, Passover was celebrated by the

slaughtering of the Paschal lamb in the courts of the Temple in Jerusalem, where it

was eaten roasted, with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, as enjoined in the Bible

(Exodus 12.8 etc). After the destruction of the Temple in the year 70 C.E., the

celebration of Passover was moved into the home, and the Passover seder began to

take its present form (Mishnah Pesahim 10).107

Jewish scholarship has looked for the origins of the seder itself, and Stein in

the mid-twentieth century sought these in the Graeco-Roman symposium,108

citing

105

DUNBABIN Roman Banquet… pp.166-7 106

A. OVADIAH, 1981). „The Synagogue at Gaza,‟ in LEVINE Ancient Synagogues…pp.129-32 107

See on this J. TABORY, „Towards a history of the paschal meal,‟ in Paul F. BRADSHAW,

Laurence A. HOFFMAN, (eds) Passover and Easter: Origin and History to Modern Times, (Notre

Dame, 1999) 62-80; Baruch M. BOKSER, The Origins of the Seder: the Passover rite and early

rabbinic Judaism, (Berkeley, 1984) 108

S. STEIN, „The influence of symposia literature on the literary form of the Pesah Haggadah,‟

Journal of Jewish Studies 8 (1957) 13-44

29

parallels such as repeated hand-washings; serving lettuce as an appetizer; eating

haroset-like foods;109

reclining at the table; philosophical discussions; singing hymns;

a question-and-answer format and the presence of Greek loanwords in the text of the

Mishnah. This was countered thirty years later by Baruch Bokser, who, while

admitting the similarities in structure, pointed out that the rabbis were concerned to

stress the differences, rather than the similarities between seder and symposium,

particularly differences in the symbolism and meanings they attributed to the seder, as

opposed to the pagan symposium.110

According to the synoptic gospels of the New Testament (Matthew 26:19;

Mark 14:16-17; Luke 22:13-14), the Last Supper of Jesus took place at Passover, but

the descriptions are not identical with the form of seder proposed in the Mishnah.

Scholars of early Christianity differ as to whether the Last Supper can be identified as

a seder meal. Thus, although Hermann Strack and Paul Billerbeck in their

commentary on the New Testament use Talmudic material to point out the many

parallels between seder and Supper, and even devote an excursus to the Passahmahl,

Hans Lietzmann traces the Last Supper to two different, Christian origins: – the

liturgy of Hippolytus and that of the Didache, in his Messe und Herrenmahl.111

This

was countered by Jeremias, who re-investigated all of the proposed alternatives –

fellowship meals, Essene meals, „kiddush‟ meals (with blessings over food and wine)

– only to return to the Passover seder.112

Recently Dennis E. Smith in From

Symposium to Eucharist: the banquet in the early Christian world has attempted to

109

For haroset, see WEINGARTEN, ‘Haroset’…. 110

BOKSER Origins of the Seder… 111

Hermann STRACK, Paul BILLERBECK, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und

Midrasch, (Munich, 1922-28) vol.1, 988f; vol.4/1, 41-76; Hans LIETZMANN, Messe und Herrenmahl.

Eine Studie zur Geschichte der Liturgie (Berlin, 1926 [Eng. tr.: Mass and the Lord’s Supper, Leiden,

1979]) 112

Joachim JEREMIAS, Die Abendmahlsworte Jesu, (4th

edn., Göttingen, 1967 [Eng. tr.The

Eucharistic Words of Jesus, London, 1976])

30

harmonise all these approaches, and suggests that there was a common banquet form

in the ancient world which was adapted to various settings.113

Further controversy around the Passover seder and its origins has centred on

the afikoman, a term whose meaning is uncertain, but which is nowadays used for the

piece of matzah (unleavened bread) consumed in memory of the Passover sacrifice at

the seder. Jastrow and most other scholars have seen this term as the Greek loanword

for after-dinner entertainment – epi kōmon.114

However, the second-century Christian

writer Melito of Sardis, in his homily „About the Passover‟ uses the word

aphikomenon in the sense of „He who comes,‟ for the incarnation of Jesus (Peri

Pascha 66). The New Testament scholar Robert Eisler first proposed that the eating of

a piece of unleavened bread at the end of the seder could be paralleled by the eating

of the eucharist in early Christianity.115

This theory was violently rejected by

Lietzmann, who only published it in his journal under legal threat.116

The theory was

taken up and developed further by the Jewish scholar David Daube forty years later,

in a lecture given in St Paul‟s Cathedral in London and not widely disseminated.117

Daube suggests that the use of the afikoman under this name points to messianic

aspects of the Jewish seder which were adopted by Christians. Following publication

of this controversy by Carmichael,118

the Israeli scholar Israel Yuval has developed

113

Dennis E. SMITH, From Symposium to Eucharist: the banquet in the early Christian world

(Minneapolis, 2003) 114

Marcus JASTROW, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the

Midrashic Literature, (New York, 1950)vol.1 p. 104 115

Robert EISLER, „Das letzte Abendmahl,‟ Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 24

(1925-6) 161-192; 25: 5-37 116

Hans LIETZMANN, „Jüdische Passahsitten und der 0afiko/menoj: kritische Randnoten zu R. Eislers

Aufsatz über “Das letzte Abendmahl.”‟ Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 25 (1926)

1-5 117

David DAUBE, He That Cometh (London, 1966) 118

Deborah BLEICHER CARMICHAEL „David Daube on the eucharist and the Passover seder‟

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 42 (1991) 45-67

31

Daube‟s argument as part of his theory of mutual Jewish and Christian influences,

where the Passover seder is read as a Jewish „countergospel.‟119

4. Future Directions

A number of questions related to the subject of food in Roman Palestine have been

raised in the course of this survey. The way forward should by now be clear. The

Talmudic sources provide an unrivalled mine of information about food and

foodways. From them we should be able to make a serious critical historical study of

the food of Roman Palestine, to find out what was eaten by whom, and how it was

prepared. The material evidence of the remains of actual foodstuffs, as well as

depictions of food and meals, can now be correlated with the literary and

papyrological sources. Modern work on Graeco-Roman food can be used as models

for this, providing contextual material, but socio-economic distinctions between the

food eaten by the different strata of society have to be taken into account. Such a

study should help fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge of what ordinary people in

one of Rome‟s eastern provinces had to eat every day, as well as on special occasions.

119

Israel J. YUVAL, Two Nations in Your Womb: perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity

and the Middle Ages, (Berkeley, 2006) 68-91