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Material of cooking vessels
#1
Hi guys,

I recently read a world history book that mentioned roman food usually had a strange taste due to the type of metal it was usually cooked in. Is this true? Would it be lead or something similar?

Thanks.
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#2
Souds like a dubious assertion.

Roman cooking vessels were in their vast majority coarseware ceramic, which does impart a slightly earthy flavour if fresh. The finer the clay, the less that taste, and iut goes away with use.

Cupric alloy (bronze, brass and copper) vessels can impart a metallic taste if they are used to cook acidic foods. I have seen one patera that was coated (tinned? silvered?) on the inside which may have been intended to prevent this. The practice was certainly common later. However, most foods can be cooked in copper or brass without flavour problems.

Iron, too, can impart flavour if it is not properly seasoned. I fail to see how professional cooks would not know that, though.

Lead was used in industrial cookware (salt pans, pans for reducing wine etc). I don't know of any home cookware made of lead, and it would be awkward (it has a low melting point and is easy to damnage by inattention). Lead in contact with acids creates lead acetatem, which (I'm told) is sweet, and toxic. Maybe this was being referred to - IIRC the Romans knew that wine boiled in lead pans becomes sweet.
Der Kessel ist voll Bärks!

Volker Bach
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#3
They used lead in their solder, too, as did many peoples until relatively modern times. It wasn't known that lead was toxic and cumulative in ancient times.

Plumbum=Lead Plumber, plumbing. Lead pipes. This practice continued into the early 20th century in many areas.
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)

Saepe veritas est dura.
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#4
Yes, I thought of lead as an obvious candidate due to its toxicity and the ancients ignorance of this.

But I did find it strange they would continue to cook in metals that left a strange flavour in the food if there was a selection of metals available.

Then again, its quite a broad book, so there is every chance they got it wrong.
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#5
Remember that to them, it wasn't a "strange taste", it was what they were familiar with.

Copper oxides are likewise a metal poison, and can be transferred into foods that are acidic. Fruits, many vegetables, vinegars and some wines may pick up the oxides and bring them into solution, then the consumer eats them, and the metals are stored in his body. Tinning prevents that absorption. (Though not known to the Romans, aluminum likewise transfers into the foods. The jury is out as to whether that is harmful.)

Iron, on the other hand, does transfer, but is not poison. Iron cookware is one way to get an easy supply of nutritional iron.
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)

Saepe veritas est dura.
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#6
Quote:Remember that to them, it wasn't a "strange taste", it was what they were familiar with.

Copper oxides are likewise a metal poison, and can be transferred into foods that are acidic. Fruits, many vegetables, vinegars and some wines may pick up the oxides and bring them into solution, then the consumer eats them, and the metals are stored in his body. Tinning prevents that absorption. (Though not known to the Romans, aluminum likewise transfers into the foods. The jury is out as to whether that is harmful.)

Iron, on the other hand, does transfer, but is not poison. Iron cookware is one way to get an easy supply of nutritional iron.

Yeah I suppose you make a good point there. I did not know about iron cookware transferring though, that is very interesting. In places like Brazil we simply get our iron supply from daily supplements of black beans with rice (stapple brazilian food).

Actually, was rice known to the romans?
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#7
Quote:Actually, was rice known to the romans?

It was, but not as a staple food. Oryza is mentioned by Anthimus, Pliny and a few other places I can't recall, but as an exotic, unfamiliar grain eaten 'elsewhere'. Anthimus provides a recipe, but it isn't much of one.
Der Kessel ist voll Bärks!

Volker Bach
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#8
Quote:
MARCVS PETRONIVS MAIVS:2wh89bjr Wrote:Actually, was rice known to the romans?

It was, but not as a staple food. Oryza is mentioned by Anthimus, Pliny and a few other places I can't recall, but as an exotic, unfamiliar grain eaten 'elsewhere'. Anthimus provides a recipe, but it isn't much of one.

Ahh right, thanks Carlton. Suppose due to the lack of condiments and spices back then rice would have been quite uninteresting by itself, much as it still is today when cooked plainly.
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#9
Quote:
Carlton Bach:6mo5j86j Wrote:
MARCVS PETRONIVS MAIVS:6mo5j86j Wrote:Actually, was rice known to the romans?

It was, but not as a staple food. Oryza is mentioned by Anthimus, Pliny and a few other places I can't recall, but as an exotic, unfamiliar grain eaten 'elsewhere'. Anthimus provides a recipe, but it isn't much of one.

Ahh right, thanks Carlton. Suppose due to the lack of condiments and spices back then rice would have been quite uninteresting by itself, much as it still is today when cooked plainly.

It's more likely that it siomply wasn't widely grown in the Roman world. The Roimans did not want for condiments (they used different ones, but dull it wasn't), and they happily ate barley and wheat in cooked form. Rice doesn't seem to make its appearance as a major crop in the Mediterranean until the high middle ages (though we still don't quite have a good overview for the progression in the Muslim world).

Take cassava as an analogue: modern Europeans and Americans could make very appetising dishes out of it, but they generally don't, and it is not felt to be a lack.
Der Kessel ist voll Bärks!

Volker Bach
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