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(E2) 5A: Ubī est Scylax?

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(NB: Hints are provided for verba ūtilia and phrases or grammatical concepts that have not yet been covered by this unit. Hints are not provided for verba necessāria or grammatical concepts that have been covered by this unit.)

ad forum to the forum

nōbīscum with us

prope iānuam near the door

erat (he/she/it) was

nōs spectābat (he) was watching us

illum virum that man

fugiēbat he was hurrying

nōbīs for us

sequī to follow

invenīre to find, to discover

Ad Fontēs

What pastries would Valeria’s family sell? To follow Jewish Kosher laws, the ground flour for bread had to be from a mill owned by a Jew. It was also necessary to set aside part of the bread as an offering to God. Thus to provide for the needs of a thriving Jewish community in Ostia, it is logical to think that there was also a thriving Jewish bakery.

Roman Jewish treats gained a special popularity, and Rome readily adopted it into its own cuisine. Valeria could have sold treats such as cassola and pizza ebraica. Cassola is baked ricotta cheesecake that has a creamy texture on the inside with a firmer outside. This cake became so popular in Rome that, although this was originally a Jewish treat, it became Rome’s unofficial treat during winter holidays!

Dish with fresh ricotta and spinach side dish on the table

The pizza ebraica, also known as the pizza Romana, also gained popularity throughout the Italian peninsula. However, it does not have much in common with modern Italian pizza. Instead, this pizza is made of biscotti-like cookies filled with candied fruits, pine nuts, and almonds. This treat was served to celebrate the birth of a baby boy.

Bread was an important part of the Roman diet. How was it made? First, you needed grain. Grain would be brought to the part of the bakery with millstones to grind the bread. Either enslaved people or donkeys would work to turn the millstones and grind the flour. It would have been dusty work. It was also very precise work. The millstones had to be just the right size, or the grain would burn or not grind at all.

In your typical Roman bakery, you find lots of containers to hold water as well. Water was necessary to mix with the flour to make dough, and of course, also for drinking. Next, you would find kneading machines in a large bakery. It was very similar to a mixer that you can find in a modern kitchen or bakery. However, it would be operated by hand, not electricity.

After you’ve ground your flour, added water, yeast, and salt, and kneaded the dough, it is time to bake the bread. Roman ovens look rather like a pizza oven, but in a bakery that provided for hundreds or thousands of people, it was of course much bigger. It had a rounded dome, a wood fire on the floor, and a rotating grate over the fire on which the baker would place the bread to cook.

Did you know that Romans did not have refined sugar or butter? However, that did not stop them from creating delicious desserts and pastries! Roman pastries, cakes, and biscuits have a lot in common with pastries that we know and love today. Even treats such as Baklava and doughnuts had Roman predecessors!

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