Food and baths
A Roman meal
However, Roman technology was not entirely concerned with military action. The Romans brought with them a whole way of life that in due course the Britons adopted with enthusiasm.
Celtic cooking had probably been a one-pot affair, such as a mess of potage to be shared by the household, but the Romans introduced the three-course meal.
A pudding made with fish sauce
They cooked meat, fish and eggs and brought with them apples, pears, apricots, turnips, carrots, coriander and asparagus. They brought recipes too - I can strongly recommend the kidneys stuffed with herbs and the fishy custard.
There are still the remains of the flushing lavatories that the Roman soldiers used at Housesteads on Hadrian's Wall, and at Bath you can still see a lead pipe that seems to have carried water under pressure to a sort of whirlpool bath. The word plumbing comes from the Latin word plumbum, meaning lead.
A strigil
The Romans were keen on bathing, but I discovered that most of the business of bathing was for pleasure and recreation, rather than for keeping clean. To clean off the dirt they went through a hot room in the baths, like a sauna or a Turkish bath, and then rubbed oil on their skin, and scraped off the mucky mixture of oil, sweat, and dirt, using a curved metal scraper called a strigil. I tried this out and found it remarkably effective, although I don't quite know how they managed to clean their backs - I think I would rather have a slave do it. Apparently Roman ladies used to collect the sweaty gloop from athletes and gladiators and use it in a face pack - but no one offered to try mine!
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Published: 2001-06-01
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