Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
A Roman Pepper Mill
#1
LacusCurtius, always the treasure trove for unexpected things, mentions a curious device, a pepper mill:

Quote:The pepper-mill. A mill for grinding pepper, made of boxwood, is mentioned by Petronius (molea buxea piper trivit, Sat. 74).

What kind of pepper that might have been? Hardly from the Indonesian spice islands. And in what way if any, could a pepper mill technically differ from the handmills for grain? We will hardly have to think of it as a burr mill, not?
Stefan (Literary references to the discussed topics are always appreciated.)
Reply
#2
Some form or species of pepper was used in Roman cooking, to the point that it was one of the three commodities required by Alaric when he lifted the blockade of Rome in 408. Obviously an expensive item. I would think the Romans also used salt mills to grind the coarse Trapani product.
Alan J. Campbell

member of Legio III Cyrenaica and the Uncouth Barbarians

Author of:
The Demon's Door Bolt (2011)
Forging the Blade (2012)

"It's good to be king. Even when you're dead!"
             Old Yuezhi/Pazyrk proverb
Reply
#3
Eleatic Guest wrote:
Quote:What kind of pepper that might have been? Hardly from the Indonesian spice islands. And in what way if any, could a pepper mill technically differ from the handmills for grain? We will hardly have to think of it as a burr mill, not?

Don’t know much about the ancient spice routes except that pepper and other spices were brought over from India via Egypt and even at this time may have originated in the Spice Islands and South-East Asia, but I think it had medical uses earlier on. Doctors used pepper as it acted as an irritant which stimulated secretion in the intestines and aided digestion. The following link to this web page might be of assistance summarising the early pepper trade, although it lacks sources, being a cuisine page. In regards to milling it I suppose the boxwood one described might have been an exotic oddity brought over from India by a rich Roman but for the rest the old mortar and pestle would have sufficed.

http://www.peppertrail.com/inner.php?men...index_id=1
Regards
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
Reply
#4
The Muziris Papyrus mentions pepper in the list of goods the Hermapollon was bringing back to Roman Egypt.
Reply
#5
Quote:What kind of pepper that might have been? Hardly from the Indonesian spice islands.

Black pepper (Piper nigrum) and long pepper (Piper longum) are both native to India and were well known in both Greek and Roman antiquity.
"Medicus" Matt Bunker

[size=150:1m4mc8o1]WURSTWASSER![/size]
Reply


Forum Jump: