Hello good readers and Happy New Year to you! Now that we’ve all spent two weeks trying to eat healthy again after the holidays, I trust that everyone is now ready to abandon all New Year’s dietary resolutions and join me for some high-calorie Roman comfort food?…. Good! Because it’s […]
Salvete amici! The season of stew is upon us and I couldn’t be happier! Up here in the northern hemisphere the days are growing cooler, nighttime is arriving earlier, and people are starting to naturally shift into the ‘home cocooning mode’ that tends to start as autumn sets in. During […]
Salvete amici! It’s officially autumn and summer is over but I’m okay with that! Really I am. I had a wonderful summer this year working at Pompeii with the Pompeii Food & Drink Project, eating out at Caupona, snorkelling over a 2,000-year-old Roman villa at Baia, and eating my way […]
Salvete Amici! Non semper erit aestas….It will not always be summer. Alas, winter is coming…. just like it always does. And just like that we’ll put the bathing suits and flip-flops away for another year and get out our woolens and fire-wood instead. But that’s okay! Because good things come […]
This summer I had the privilege of working on the Pompeii Food & Drink Project (PFaDP) for its final field season. For those who are not familiar with the project, Dr. Betty-Jo Mayeske and a team of archaeologists and historians have been painstakingly working at Pompeii (Pompei, Italy) for 17 […]
Halloumi is a firm, white cheese that is popular in Cypriot, Greek and Middle Eastern cooking. Historically it originated from the island of Cyprus during the medieval Byzantine period and is typically made from goat or sheep’s milk, but can also be made from cow’s milk as well. Like Greek […]
When I met my husband, one of the first things he told me about himself was that he was from a large Italian family that appreciated food. He told me that his mother, Helen Monaco, had raised him and his nine siblings cooking from a repertoire of Italian recipes that was comprised […]
Oh the humble, simple lentil. Small, nondescript and bland, this legume has always been a bit-player on the stage who rarely gets a chance to strut and fret his hour in the spotlight. Lentils may be a tad dull and bland, but they are inexpensive, filling, nutritious and very easy to make. […]
About the author:
Farrell Monaco is an award-winning Classical archaeologist and food-writer whose research centers on food, food preparation, and bread in the Roman Mediterranean. She writes regularly on the role of food and food preparation in Roman daily life on her site, Tavola Mediterranea, and publishes in both English and Italian. Farrell has also written exclusively for Atlas Obscura and BBC Travel. Her work has been featured prominently by National Geographic, Popular Science, The Atlantic, the BBC, The Guardian, The Economist, Esquire Magazine, SAPIENS Magazine, Verve Magazine, Saveur Magazine and Milk Street. In November of 2020, Farrell co-produced, wrote and presented a video on the history of the date palm fruit with The Getty Museum (Los Angeles, USA).
