Level 3 - Life in Roman Sussex - Food & Drink

Food & Drink

Preparation

The methods of primary meat and cereal preparation - butchery and milling - remained essentially unchanged from the late Iron Age and through the Romano-British period. Usual butchery practice, as revealed by the examination of bones, was to lay the carcass flat and remove the limbs by the use of heavy knives and cleavers. These may then have been hung on flesh hooks such as the one from the Cattlemarket in Chichester. The milling of grain to produce flour continued to be done using rotary querns. However, there were also larger mills, using mechanically (animal or water) driven millstones to produce much larger quantities of flour. It is likely that the bakers in Chichester used the products of such mills.

The secondary preparation of food (i.e. getting it ready for eating) would most likely have taken place in separate kitchens, although there were undoubtedly many lower status dwellings where cooking and other activities all took place in one shared area. Cooking may have been carried out in a number of ways. A cauldron, used for boiling joints of meat or making pottage, could have been suspended over a fire using chains and pot hangers such as the one found at Chilgrove. Many kitchens probably had a raised hearth with a curb to hold in the burning charcoal. Gridirons like the one found at Maresfield and shown here would have sat on a bed of charcoal, with cooking pots placed upon it. Domed ovens were also used and were particularly suitable for baking bread or other small quanties of food.

An essential Roman cooking utensil introduced to Britain after the conquest was the mortarium, used for grinding and mixing and making sauces and soft cheeses. Initially mortaria were imported, and often bore the stamps of their makers, but thereafter they were generally supplied by Romano-British manufacturers, and are commonly found on Romano-British sites in Sussex. Other specialised cooking utensils found in the region include colanders, cheese presses, and a rare ceramic funnel from Wiggonholt that may have been used for steaming vegetables. The majority of coarseware pots found in the region would have been produced locally, from centres such as Wiggonholt and Arlington.