Restored Pompeii Kitchens Give Us An Idea Of How Romans Cooked

Restored Pompeii Kitchens Give Us An Idea Of How Romans Cooked

The ancient Roman kitchens of a Pompeii launderette were once again packed with pans and pots.In a new project that aim to give people a sense of how the daily life in the city was.

The kitchen provided food once for the hungry attendants of the three-storey launderette, Fullonica di Stephanus, before they were destroyed by a volcanic eruption in AD 79.

The Fullonica is where rich Roman patricians send their togas to be wash using clay and urine in huge baths.

Then the garments were rinsed, dried and special pressed in order to make sure that they returned without crease-free to their noble owners.

The kitchens inside Fullonica now appear just like 2.000 years ago, with a renovation which complete on Monday with metal grills, pots, pans, and metal crockery.

The new installment provides an interesting window on Roman cooking practices.

Instead of using gas or electric hobs, the Romans cooked their food over specially-made troughs, in which beds of flaming charcoal were placed.

Hunks of meat, fish and vegetables were then laid on grills directly over the coals, while soups and stews simmered away in pots and pans that were stood on special tripods to elevate them above the scorching embers.

All of the cooking equipment now on display was found in and around the kitchens when they were first excavated in 1912 by the then Superintendent of Pompeii, Vittorio Spinazzola.

Spinazzola initially left all the items in the kitchen, but his predecessors packed them away in storage or placed them in glass display cabinets in different areas of the site.

“We’re delighted the pieces have finally been put back on display where they were found and we’re certain they will be appreciated by modern tourists, eager to learn how people lived in antiquity,” said Massimo Osanna, the current Archaeological Superintendent of Pompeii.

As part of the same initiative, further examples of ancient Roman culinary practices were also given permanent exhibition at the city gym, the Pallestra Grande, on Monday.

Visitors can now marvel at a carbonized loaf of two-millennia-old bread and admire a metal pot containing the fossilized remnants of a bean and vegetable soup.