Stuffed or Wrapped Vegetables

Because most people grew vegetables and grains were also available, it was not difficult to create a combination that gave a new image and meaning to humble cabbages, vine leaves, and zucchini. Athenaeus speaks about “appetizers served in vine leaves” in The Deipnosophistai (written around A.D. 193), in which he quotes several writers and poets of classical Greece and Rome about the eating habits of their contemporaries and the different foods. Unfortunately we don’t find any stuffed vegetable recipes in the book of Apicius, the well-known Roman gourmet. He probably thought them good only for the poor and underprivileged, who could not afford to travel from Rome to Libya to savor some shrimp, as he did.