Wheat Products

The Romans served a starch component to their meals just as we do: this was predominantly bread, the staple food and main ingredient of the meal for many people, though they would often eat it with some form of relish such as meat, cheese, or vegetables. Even at the elaborate dinners of the wealthy bread was served, though it would have been white and aerated as opposed to the dense, brown loaves of the lower classes. ‘White’ was the most desirable form of bread; sometimes chalk was added in order to bleach the flour and give it a whiter appearance. In everyday meals, flat bread was common and may have been the means by which certain foods were picked up with the fingers. Small pieces of bread are certainly a very efficient way of picking up food and keeping the fingers clean. These flatbreads were called lagana and a simple whole-wheat Indian bread recipe such as chapatti or roti is ideal. Lagana were used to make the dish Apician Patina which is a tower of flat bread layered with meat and fish in a sauce.