'I'm Giles Coren - writer, restaurant critic and time traveller.
Once again, Sue Perkins is joining me on my gastronomic adventure.
Together, we've feasted our way through pretty much every period of history.
Each week we've been rigorously examined by doctors
before dressing up in period costume.'
I feel like an ornate cotton bud.
And travelling backwards in time through the culinary history of the world.
This week we're going back further than ever before.
2,000 years to the Roman Empire.
A time of togas and tantrums.
We'll be making clear our opinions on the food.'
It's really delicious.
Urgh!
'I'll be risking life and limb, trying to become a gladiator.'
That one's got foot and mouth.
'And we'll both be succumbing to the decadence of Rome.'
'For 500 years, until 476AD, the Roman Empire ruled most of Europe,
'spreading into Africa and the Middle East.
'The influence of the Roman period is still felt all over the modern world today.
'As members of a wealthy Roman family,
'Sue and I are able to indulge in the best Rome has to offer.
'I'm a senator in general, while Sue is a vestal virgin.
'So I'll be taking it easy in the bathhouse,
'Sue will be sacrificing a few chickens to please a pantheon of gods.'
To the victor, the chicken!
'And we'll be invading Britain to see what food the Celts have to offer.'
Let's rule Britannia.
'But first Sue and I are off to the University of Westminster
for a very 21st-century health-check.'
I think the word is vulnerable. Hello. Hello.
'We're stripping down for a very daunting experiment.'
Please do not touch the BOD POD during calibration.
'Using air pressure, this BOD POD machine will tell Sue and me
'exactly how much of our bodies are made of fat.
'Oh dear.'
Fat pigosity calculated.
'Now it's time to find out what effect a week of Roman living will have on us.'
Interestingly, in terms of the diet, it was actual pretty healthy
'cause there wasn't any processed food, it was fish, olive oil.
My hunch would be that, you know, that,
coupled with the fact that people used to exercise a lot,
there wasn't really anything in the way of sedentary activity -
you couldn't sort of log onto the internet or watch TV -
I think those two things would probably lead me to think
that you might even get a bit healthier when you're out there. Mmm.
Even if you're writing a letter you'd be chiselling it out of a piece of marble.
Yeah! And reading a book was quite heavy.
I've got the results here of the body fat percentage test that you both just had.
Sue, yours come out at 28.6%. Mmm-hmm...
And Giles, yours is 11.8%.
11.8% body fat?
Yes. So, I'm three times fatter than he is?
Well, it's not quite so simple. For men anything between 8 and 19 is normal,
so for you, Giles, that's pretty spot on.
And for yourself Sue, 21 to 33 is normal, so that's pretty good.
It'll be interesting to see you after you come back from Rome,
'cause I'd expect those to go down a bit.
We'll be in sparkling shape when you see us, we'll be fit and lean.
I've discovered that I'm physically perfect in every way,
so I'm looking forward to the weather being better
and lounging around in a toga,
smearing myself with olive oil and checking out the Roman lovelies.
'We begin our week in Rome in 48BC, during the rule of Julius Caesar.
'Most Romans lived in apartment blocks called insulae, but that's not our style,
'so we're living in the palatial Villa Monte d'Oro - a replica Roman villa.
'And, of course when in Rome...'
THEY SPEAK IN LATIN:
Yeah, very limited.
They don't do a lot of it in Croydon.
It's the sort of thing you could get killed for.
'As wealthy Romans, we have a team of 500 slaves, one of whom is our cook.
'Born in Italy, chef and cookery writer Valentina Harris
'will be preparing dishes based on Roman texts,
'including the recipes of Apicius, written during the first century AD.'
Salve. Morning. Good morning.
Nice to see you. And you.
Hello. Hello, slave. This looks gorgeous.
This is very luscious, isn't it? You're so lucky.
'For most people, the Roman diet was based around grains, vegetables and fruit.
'Eating meat and fish was a sign of extreme wealth and power.'
Of course, you're immensely privileged because you do get,
you know, lots of meat and guts and brain.
Oh, I feel the privilege.
The balls and all that and then all this lovely fish and everything.
Most people wouldn't have all that, they'd just, you know...
Why not? They were just too poor.
Ha! He can't conceive of people who aren't rich.
"What d'you mean, there are people that can't eat a boar's face for lunch?"
But there's a lot going on here. Look - the bread, you see, nice heavy bread.
And what's that? That's a spelt loaf, is it?
It's a Frisbee. That is a spelt loaf, yes.
'Spelt is an ancestor of modern wheat used by the Romans to make bread.'
So, of course, no sugar but you can dip your bread in the honey if you want.
Try this, try this. This was a very favourite herb, this is rue.
Well, I rue the day.
There you go. Oh! How to make a mythological beast.
That's never a herb, that's some terrible mistake. Isn't it?
That is Toilet Duck, is what that is.
It's really horrid.
So let me try and improve things here.
What about some lovage?
'Similar to celery leaf, lovage was a dominant flavour in Roman cooking,
'as were pepper and cumin.'
So it's off to breakfast now, I think.
Yes, breakfast and then we're going to invade Gaul. See you later.
'Both breakfast and lunch were informal affairs in Rome,
'often made up of leftovers from the night before.'
So, Puls Punica, a kind of porridge.
We've used Carthaginian Porridge, which was written down by Cato.
All I know about Cato is he said "Carthage is destroyed"
and that was great news for the Romans.
Well, the reason they destroyed it
is probably 'cause they made porridge like this which is cheesy.
Oh, it's cheesy.
It's like eating risotto out of a beehive.
It's cheesy, but then comes honey.
Oh, actually I quite like it. Do you? Mmm!
'Not having invented forks yet,
Romans would use spoons, knives and fingers to eat their food.'
I tell you what, I will bravely try the bread dipped in wine.
This is like medicine, 'cause it's non-diluted,
which they would have had the night before with water.
It's last night's bread which is stale which has to be rehydrated.
This is what they gave Jesus on the cross,
the bread dipped in vinegar. They went, "My Lord".
'Wine was central to the Roman diet and was exported around the empire.'
That's a quick breakfast 'cause I've gotta go and be virginal and stoke a fire.
SHE SINGS
'After breakfast, it's time for me to keep the fires of Rome burning
'in my role as a vestal virgin - priestess of the goddess of fire, Vesta.
'Young girls would be selected for this privilege,
'provided they were without physical imperfection and born to a free family.'
So, for anybody wanting to learn how to be a vestal virgin, it's simple really.
You either nominate yourself
or get your family to nominate you, aged about nine,
and the deal is for 30 years you're not allowed to have sex.
The life expectancy in Rome is 40,
which means you can start having sex a year before you die.
It's like a load of Barbara Cartlands being released into the environment saying,
"Come get me, I'm here, I'm free".
Not necessarily the pick of the crop, really,
the retired vestal virgin, but maybe, you know, the last year of life
put a smile on their face. Let's put it that way. Great.
Well, that's the first wood I'll see in 30 years.
If you slipped from celibacy during the 30 years,
you'd find yourself buried alive.
'While women had a reasonably high status in Rome,
'being a senator in general was a man's job.
'I'm recreating the solo banquet of Lucullus,
'one of the Roman army's great generals.
'With huge personal wealth, he was renowned for his gluttony.
'Eating alone one day, he was brought a very simple meal.
What in Hades?
Tonight Lucullus dines with Lucullus
and we're both hungry and bread will not do.
Get me food!
Just can't get the slaves these days.
'Lucullus was incensed,
'he saw dining with himself as no reason not to be served a feast.
'When the slave returned with lunch,
'he brought a suitably indulgent tray.'
Ah-ha! Now, that's more like it.
Thank you for your troubles,
I will come to your cubiculum later and treat you roughly.
I will start with a bit of red mullet.
Highly prized by the Romans 'cause it was so expensive.
A single red mullet cost as much as three horses.
I would rather eat three horses, frankly, at the moment.
'Patina was a cross between omelette and custard.'
Jellyfish highly prized by the Romans.
'Before cooking,
'the sting of the jellyfish is removed by soaking it in salt.'
That's really, really good.
'After filling their faces with monstrous meals,
'wealthy Romans would often find themselves overstuffed.'
HE BURPS
Feather!
'On occasion, they would have slaves tickle their throats with a feather
to unburden their full stomachs.'
Away, feed it to your friends.
After a hot morning, what purer food for a vestal virgin
than a vegetarian lunch?
In the early days of the empire, Romans ate little meat.
Instead, their diet was dominated by vegetables and grains,
they even invented the salad.
So, this is a turnip leaf with - oh, hello...
A couple of slugs have mated rather catastrophically on that,
so we'll give that a go.
It's got a lovage dressing.
Mmm. It's quite sweet...
and pokey.
Lots of pepper,
a lot of pepper, actually.
As if I needed to be hotter.
Thanks a lot everyone(!) What I needed was a little bit more fire.
OK, broad beans - this is a broad bean soup now.
Mmm, really nice.
Now, I shouldn't be doing this,
what with me being a virgin and not knowing anything about sex and everything,
but Romans were obsessed with broad beans
because they thought that an unpeeled broad bean looked like a vagina.
That's what they thought.
I'm not saying I think that, that's what they thought.
The mystery was then that they thought a peeled broad bean looked like a testicle.
What a sense of fun they had!
Loved to have gone to one of their dinner parties.
But after 30 years of tending the fires,
I've come to the end of my time as a vestal virgin.
SHE SINGS: # Vesta, you're the greatest...
# You're really good at stuff... #
There's only so much worshipping you can do.
# Vesta... #
With the main meal of the day only hours away,
I'm trying to work up an appetite after my feast
by walking down one of these newfangled roads
I keep hearing so much about.
Leaving the fires behind me,
I'm checking up on how Valentina is getting on,
making one of the most essential ingredients of Roman cooking - garum.
Now, I don't know if they haven't taken the bins out or something -
sometimes these Roman dustbin men can be a little tardy...
But something smells dead, rotting and awful.
It's the garum. I mean, it's rotted fish guts.
Well, when something's as good as this,
why wouldn't you wanna share it with the rest of the world?
See, we just remember the nice under-floor heating and the roads.
I know.
What we should have remembered was this bowl of Billingsgate leftovers.
That hasn't really, really started rotting yet, you know.
Right. Let's not let it.
That, to me, is nasal napalm.
It's just basically burnt all the hairs in my nostrils off.
So, I've got to just put it back into the barrel now.
With lots and lots and lots of salt,
and then I'm gonna tuck it into a really sunny corner
and just wait and it's just going to ooze, really.
Oh, yeah. Food's not food until it oozes.
'Cause that's what it does. It oozes.
You'd have used this like ketchup.
Right. You see, it would have been on everything from your eggs
to your suckling pig and your soup.
So, you've got eggs benedict and you just put that on the top?
The export of garum around the empire
was a major part of the Roman economy.
Leaving the fish to Sue, I'm dressing for dinner in a toga.
Or trying to.
Worn on formal occasions, togas were made
from a piece of cloth over five metres long,
and you really needed two people to hang one properly.
The main meal of the day was served mid to late afternoon.
Known as cena, it was a formal dinner of many courses
served in the dining room, known as the tricinium.
The Romans famously liked to recline as they ate.
The idea that you'd want to lie down while eating,
so your guts are completely twisted up,
it's very, very odd.
And also they thought that was the defining thing about posh people,
that they ate lying on their side,
and the plebs Romana ate sitting up like that
because they were so common. How common!
'And while we recline, Valentina is hard at work in the kitchen.'
I am going to poach hen's eggs.
This is some red wine.
Keep it reasonably tidy, let's have a look, see what happens.
One for Giles and one...
for Sue.
'Most Roman meals began with an egg course.'
You'd have to be really hungry, wouldn't you?
I mean, that's all you'd really say about it.
Well, let's see how they react.
Oh, look. It's a mensa.
'Each course was brought in on a new table
'and the latin word for course and table was the same, mensa.'
So that looks to me like a condom in wine.
I don't know what it actually is.
You really haven't got the hang of condoms, have you?
I was a vestal virgin. Oh, true.
Go on, you have that. You'll like it.
That really is... You are here to have an enterprising palette.
Eat it. It looks like placenta.
It's nice, what are you talking about?
It's a poached egg. You haven't had one of them.
Yes, I have. Look.
HE LAUGHS
What?
The purple and yellow and white is terribly pretty.
This is a quails egg only slightly cooked which I'm imagining I'm gonna...
I tell you what, napkins, did they have in the thing?
No, they actually had hand-eye coordination.
'Guests would often bring napkins so they could take home leftover food.'
This yellow goes very nice with my toga, doesn't it?
'Or clean up the raw egg.'
I've got egg up my nose!
I think that's called a facial.
I tell you what, I need some windscreen wipers sharpish.
I'm actually going to throw up.
SHE BURPS
Now, I think I'm just going to put in a lot more garum and mustard.
'Essential to Roman cooking was the mortarium,
'used much as we use a pestle and mortar.
'Many Roman sauces bear a strong resemblance
'to what we now know as pesto.
'But most Roman recipes don't tell us the amount of spices to use,
'which can cause confusion.'
I suppose I'd better taste it, hadn't I?
I don't quite know what's worse, actually.
The hit from the black pepper
or that kind of overriding taste from the mustard.
The mustard comes through really, really strongly.
I don't understand that.
'Oxyzonum chicken, which means sour chicken,
'is one of the very few Roman recipes with exact quantities,
'giving us a good idea of the Roman palette.'
This is an original, proper Roman sauce.
It's fabulous.
It's like really sour pesto.
Special Roman stuff.
It's the exact quantities.
Recipes in Rome never had exact quantities, but this one survived.
It's leeks and pine nuts. Delicious.
'Our final mensa is an apple patina,
'and not even dessert can escape the ubiquitous fish sauce.'
Oh, God, it's garum.
The reason I'm not eating anything
is 'cause you're getting in there first and telling me how rank it is.
Go on, eat it. Is it actually delicious?
If you'd told me that it was apple puree in which a goldfish had died...
Anchovy and apple goes together like a horse and carriage.
Mmm.
'Cena could go on for hours,
'and guests frequently fell asleep at the table.'
I've not been let in slowly into day one.
Everything immediately is just fish, fish, fish.
Then everything else has garum in it,
so it's really strong flavours and strong pepper.
So, today I've moved from a sexless firelighter
to Bacchanalian nuthouse with egg all over my face,
which isn't the first time, to be fair, that that's happened to me.
'Next morning, it's time for Sue and me
to do our civic duty and give out bread to the poor.'
D'you want some bread, bread, bread?
Bread?
'Annona, as this was known, was not only a way to relieve poverty,
'but also a way for politicians to court favour with the public.'
Grazie. Prego. Bread, bread?
'But this Roman version of state benefit
'became a drain on the empire's finances.'
'At one point, a third of the city's population was receiving free grain.
'Wearing my senatorial toga, it's good for me to be seen supporting the cause.'
Bread?
'Feeling good about my generosity,
I've come to ask for a few favours from the gods.'
'Built in 126 AD, the Pantheon was a temple to the hundreds of Roman deities.'
Pantheon meaning many, basically.
They don't just have one god or two gods, they have lots of gods.
Everyone's heard of the major gods -
you've got Juno and Neptune and Mars - but that just wasn't enough.
Why have big gods when you can have little gods for little situations?
Let's give a situation, OK.
You come to your front door and you've locked yourself out.
Now, here you could set up a prayer to Portunus.
You could say, "I've got a locked door."
But then Portunus might say, "Why is it locked? Is there something jammed?"
In which case you'd have to go to Cardea the god to say,
"Actually it's a threshold problem." Or, "The door hinges are a bit rusty".
Or you could pray to Carnea, instead of Cardea,
who is the goddess of door handles.
She's also the goddess of hearts,
which is useful if you happen to have a cardiac arrest at your front door.
One size fits all in that situation.
'Originally, the Roman diet was a simple one,
'and there were even laws restricting how much you could spend on a meal.
'But as the empire grew and spread across the Mediterranean,
'Rome became increasingly wealthy
'and imported extravagant food from its new provinces.
'One of the most important of these was Egypt,
'home to a certain Cleopatra.
'Cleopatra was notorious for seducing her Roman occupiers.
'In 48BC she was allegedly so determined to have Julius Caesar
'when he arrived in Egypt,
'that she smuggled her way into his palace, in a rug.'
Welcome to the Carpets R Us promotion.
Buy one, get a Queen Of Egypt free.
Do I have to buy one?
Right, you can have me or the carpet, it's up to you.
But I'm in hungry mood.
That asp has been getting on my nerves, that'll be the death of me, that will.
So this is dates, pine nuts - your classic Middle Eastern food.
I'm basically Claudia Roden in a metallic gold wig,
think of me like that.
But they've sprinkled something really nasty on it just to make it taste Roman.
'The Romans grew to love spices,
'and Egypt was the centre of the world's spice trade,
'providing the empire with delicacies such as cinnamon and ginger.'
Oh, that looks nice.
'Slaves would normally carve the meat,
'but ours seems to have done a runner.'
This is the first good knife I've used this week.
I wonder if it was when she saw Mark Antony carving mutton
into a beautifully prepared delicate dish of pumpkin spiced dates that she realised,
"I must be with him, this is love"?
A man that can handle a leg like that -
look at the care, look at the love, look at the attention.
Oh, the raw sexuality. God, I can hardly wait.
Come on, love, I'm yours.
Any longer and Rome will fall.
Oh!
I just fancied the fish, you never asked.
Fish and raisins, that's a devastating combination.
Looks like a fish that choked on a gooseberry bush and then cut open.
Mmm.
'After Caesar was assassinated in 44BC,
'Cleopatra started a relationship with Mark Antony.'
Mmm.
'She once bet him that she could spend
a million sestertius on one of their lavish meals
'- a huge fortune.'
If you paid a million for this, they had you.
They saw you coming a mile away.
Well... This...
That's a pearl worth about £3.
No, worth about a million sestertius, look. It never is.
And then what she did, she took it out,
she plucked it from God knows where -
some recess of her jewelled helmet - and popped it in vinegar,
whereupon it dissolved into a beautiful pearly white liquid.
'Cleopatra then cunningly drank the dissolved pearl,
'meaning that the dinner did cost a million sestertius and she'd won her bet.
'But the liaison came to an end in 30BC,
'when Antony's forces were defeated in a Roman civil war with Octavian.
'Both committed suicide,
'Cleopatra allegedly poisoning herself with an asp bite.
'After 10 years of construction, the Coliseum opened in 80AD.
'As members of the Roman elite,
'Sue and I have been invited to the grand opening.
'With room for 50,000 spectators,
the Coliseum was the largest stadium in the empire.'
When it's finished, it'll look great.
'Hosting animal hunts and gladiatorial games,
'it was a focal point for the blood-lust of the empire.'
Ah!
Come stai? Oh, Cleopatra! Caesar, go away.
'Hungry after all the bloodshed,
'Sue and I nip out for a snack at the interval.'
Buon giorno. Buon giorno. Due lagana, per favore.
'We're eating lagana, a Roman flatbread that's similar to a Mexican tortilla.
'Some claim that lagana was used in early versions of pizza.'
That's just sheep vomit and syrup.
'Or possibly of lasagne.'
Another 2,000 years and they'll have the hang of fast food.
Have it.
It tastes faintly of toga.
'My lasagne-like dish was made with layers of lagana and a filling made from fish,
'chicken and udder in an egg-based sauce.'
Probably not any worse than a ready meal lasagne that you might buy now.
So, they had flatbread and thought, this is boring,
so they put something on top of it and then they thought, that's even more boring,
let's create a sort of tower.
We'd better get back in for the second half.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Apparently there's...
a vestal virgin from Gaul who's got to fight a rhino.
Should be interesting.
'Inspired by my visit to the Coliseum, I've decided to give up being a senator.
'And become a gladiator.
'But before I'm let loose in the arena, I need to be trained.'
Are you ready for start the training?
Yes, absolutely. You're my Lanista, is that it? Lanista, yes.
I am the president of the school.
Oh. Right, so what are we gonna do? 'First up, sword fighting.
'Although spoilt rich kids like me
'would sometimes have a go in the arena,
'gladiators were generally slaves picked out by talent scouts.
'Gladiators would often fight to the death,
'and the winner could sometimes earn himself freedom from slavery.'
Argh!
Blimey.
Right. Now, we try to use the net.
'Next, I am training as a retiarius or net fighter,
'trying to catch my prey.
You are a fisherman.
Net and trident.
And you fight against me, I am fish.
Then you need to catch my helmet here with the net for win.
Oh, perfect, very good. You are a good fisherman.
Ah, yes.
You are a good fisherman! Perfect, come on.
Got him again. Again.
I've got the hang of this, I have a fish. Very good, you win.
Let's face it, if it comes to a crowd vote, I'm gonna win, aren't I?
It's all about a pretty face.
Old what's-his-face, the girls aren't gonna be screaming for him to be let go,
but they wanna see me fight another day.
Keep yourself buff, do your hair, doesn't really matter how you fight,
you'll probably walk away a free man.
'The night before the big fight, gladiators would feast
'on what might well turn out to be their final meal - the cena libera.
'Sue and I are sitting down to a meal of Roman luxury food
'that makes being thrown to the lions seem like the easy option.'
So this animal was killed
by having an omelette thrown at his brains, some of which stuck.
You see, that's not food, that is a B movie.
That's fine, try not to think about what it is.
Even if I didn't know, I'd just start eating it and I'd think -
I'm actually chewing my way through some poor dead animal's cranium.
I'm filling up on the brain omelette
because I don't know what's coming next. It could be worse.
The brain omelette... That's shell or something crunchy from inside the head.
I think that was its last thought that's just fused there.
'Romans believed that by eating an animal's organs,
'you absorbed its strength, so this should make me alert for my fight.'
You're not seriously going to fight? They'll kill you. I'll outwit them.
Bottom line is, you haven't had the courage
to have more than two mouthfuls of a brain omelette.
How are you gonna stand up there and face a charging zebra?
I'm not overdoing the fat before my big night.
Gladiators get fat, that's the whole point. You want visceral fat around you
so when the sword goes in
there's this sort of hovercraft of lard that deflects it.
So tomorrow, when I'm standing in front of 80,000 people,
he sticks a knife in me and brain omelette falls out of my stomach?
Can I offer you a testes dumpling?
It's a shame to separate them, isn't it? Yes, have two.
No. No, don't play with my food! If you want your own testicle,
you can but don't reach across and stab a knife in my testicles.
What I've got is udder pate.
Oh, pull the udder one. It doesn't taste of anything, the bollock.
Oh, dear.
Parmesan and nipple, that's got. Let me try that.
Help yourself. It's been a while since you've had nipple in your mouth.
Argh!
You actually ate it.
Raaaaar! Good girl. To be honest, after that plate of udders...
Urgh! ...I actually look forward to that. How can it be?
They give you that, then you look forward to the duck tongue.
'Exotic foods, like lark's tongues,
were a way for Roman rulers to express power and wealth.'
If I have a piece of duck tongue, will you not fight tomorrow? OK.
Promise? Yeah.
No, swallowing whole won't work.
Have a tongue.
Argh! Duck.
Oh, it's got a bone in it.
That's how you get the quack, don't you?
Quack! Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack!
It's not "quack-quack".
It's "quackers, quackers, quackers". Urgh!
'Having agreed that won't take part in a gladiatorial fight tomorrow,
'Sue and I decide to make a swift exit from Rome.'
That's the first time I had someone's tongue in my mouth
for the whole trip, so it's been worth it.
'In 55BC, Julius Caesar invaded an island
'at the far reaches of the empire.
'It would take all the military might of Rome
'to occupy the land known as Britannia,
'with an army that struck terror wherever it went.'
D'you wanna grab that?
I've got a picnic hamper and a couple of windbreaks, but I'll leave that.
So d'you like it?
It's the best I could get at the last minute on the internet.
No, it's all right. Shall we go and see if we can find a full Roman breakfast?
Or a small B&B with a grumpy old cow who makes us come home by 9pm.
'We've landed on the Kent coast in Deal,
'close to where Julius Caesar first landed in 55BC,
'expecting to find a country rich with tin and copper.
'However, he was ill-prepared for a full-scale invasion
'and the country did not fall to Roman occupation for another 100 years.
'Although Britannia, a Latin name given to us by the Romans,
'did not contain the riches they hoped,
'they did find a plentiful supply of oysters and seafood.
I don't understand Celt. We're just getting a load of symbols. What's that?
I've no idea what this means. All I want is a couple of mice.
There's a chicken Caesar salad. They must've known he was coming.
Slave, victus... Do you know what the English -
or the British, whatever they speak here - is for victus? Grub!
Now, I wonder what set of genitalia they compared that to?
If they thought the broad bean was exciting, my God, this is extraordinary.
Might be worth colonising this place if they've got oysters.
This is really nice.
'To this day, Roman settlements in Britain can often be identified
'by the huge number of oyster shells found close-by.'
Mmm.
My compliments to the slave.
It's very nice.
I like Britannia now.
In fact, let's rule Britannia.
Shall we move on out, then?
Yeah, yeah. Where'd you fancy going?
There's a place called Londinium where we've got a couple of tents up.
Oh, right, we'll send the slaves ahead to build the A23 and we'll get there quicker.
As long as there's no traffic on the MXXV. Yeah.
'With my Roman rank of legate,
'I am a leader of the world's first professional army.
'Soldiers were trained,
'paid and even given a pension after 25 years' service.
'Marching at a speed of 4mph,
'the army was well equipped with weapons
'and would set up impressive base camps wherever it went.'
D'you think in the Roman period camping, just like today,
was for losers who couldn't afford a proper holiday?
You know what? I said I wanted to go to Sardinia, it's hot there.
No, we had to go to Britannia.
Had to go and extend the empire, didn't you?
Had to make it bigger 'cause it's not big enough, it only goes to Gaul and Hispania.
I just want to get in and go to sleep.
Oh, God.
Gladiator coming in.
I'm turning over!
Stop hogging all the tent! You've got it, I can't even move.
You've got all the tent. I said to you, it's a one-person tent.
'After finally conquering Britain in 43AD,
'one of the first things the Romans did
'was to build a settlement inland from the coast.
'They named it Londinium.'
'Although the Romans may have conquered
or coerced most English tribes into submission,
'they were not ready for the flowing red locks
'and bloodcurdling battle cries of Boudica -
'Queen of the Iceni, a tribe based in Norfolk.'
Join the Iceni, fight the Roman Emperor!
Down with the Roman Empire! Down with it!
'Boudica had every reason to hate the Romans.
'After her chieftain husband died,
'the Romans stole her tribe's fortune and flogged her.'
Lock up your daughters, here comes Nero!
Promise you the Earth, but it don't mean nothing.
'In 61AD, she led an uprising of the Iceni that wiped out the Romans in Colchester,
'St Albans and London, killing around 70,000 people.'
You know what I'm talking about. Get the Romans out!
'And what better after slaying a few Romans
'than a traditional Iron Age meal?
This is your classic, quintessential Iron Age stew.
Immediately what strikes me is it looks like a lamb has dive-bombed
into a rather algae-fied pool.
Many things strike me about that. The main thing is this is just hedgerow food.
There's a bit of wild spinach and nettle.
There's none of the vegetable cultivars that we know now,
there's no beautiful bursting colour
with carrots or rainbow chard or broad beans or anything,
there's just nettle.
Mmm, lovely. And more sort of hedgerow food here.
Oh, look at that.
An English blackberry doused in cream.
Mmm, this is perfect.
Another way to show your disrespect for the Romans,
who brought along wine, "Oh, your posh wine, isn't wine delicious?"
Beer, English beer, ale.
That's more like it, really.
'Ultimately, Boudica could not defeat the invaders.
'The Roman army in Britain regrouped and defeated Boudica and the Iceni.'
You Romans come over here, you give us olive oil. I don't want your olive oil!
You may take my dignity, you will never take my mutton!
'Afterwards, reportedly, she killed herself.'
Urgh! What's this beer you're drinking?
'But while the Romans ruled with a rod of iron,
'they also brought their culture and food to Britain.
'Interested to learn how the Romans influenced the British diet,
'Sue and I have invited together some local Celts
and one fellow Roman for dinner.
'Joining us is the author Harry Mount,
'Jenny Hall from the Museum Of London,
'chef Lawrence Keogh and Italian food supremo Antonio Carluccio.'
We should be lying down, but the snails would play havoc with my toga.
It tastes of onion and nothing else.
Oh, I think it tastes a bit grassy.
It does taste grassy. There's a sort of turfy kind of quality.
'Along with snails, asparagus was one of the many foods
the Romans introduced to our shores.'
I'm glad the Romans brought it, because without it
we'd just be looking at some fried egg on a plate.
And that would be a tad dull.
'Food was used by the Romans as a way to win over the hostile Celts.'
The way the Romans conquered the British was through dinner parties.
Really? They took the British chiefs to dinner parties and they were
converted by the love of dinner parties, hot baths and temples.
And all these British chiefs
thought that they were being incredibly civilised,
but in fact it was slavery. Anyway, that's how they did it.
They enslaved them via the dinner party. Exactly, yeah.
We've all felt that. Main course comes, you can't wait to get out.
'This meal might sound very British, but leeks, turnips and peas
were brought here by the Roman invaders.'
Would you like some?
'And the Romans loved to hunt wild British boars.'
This pork is fantastic.
There's a very strong flavour of sage. Which they brought in.
They brought sage, rosemary...
They presumably brought parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
The British folk scene was really rubbish until the Romans arrived.
Because they just had nothing to sing about.
They just sang "Turnips, turnips, turnips and turnips"
Apart from food, what other sorts of things
did the Romans give us? Table manners.
The language, the legal system.
They had a coinage system that went round the whole empire,
so a bit like the Euro today.
The baths. The baths, yes.
But the problem with all these things was
that when the Romans left Britain, a lot of that disappeared.
I hope we gave them something too,
apart from the cold weather and chlamydia. Moving on.
To Roman Britain.
ALL: Roman Britain. Salve!
It's funny 'cause you think of a roast pork and crackling
with roast vegetables as a quintessentially British thing,
but it turns out that it's an entirely Roman thing.
Frankly, we wouldn't have had a Sunday lunch
or indeed any other pukka pork-out meal without them.
'Next morning I head off to another symbol of civilisation
'the Romans brought to Britain - the bathhouse.
'The bathhouses showcased Roman ambition and sophistication.
'Massive furnaces would spread heat under the floors
'and between the walls to create sauna-like hot rooms.
Being in a bathhouse, you're aware
that the Romans would have brought the trend to Britain
for a bit of Roman climate,
'cause walking around in a skirt and sandals all day is pretty cold in England.
Clearly, it's also brought hygiene because, you know, they want to make a thing...
In the ancient world, the idea of being clean in itself
was not that big of a deal,
but to be able to socialise and eat and drink and hang out
and feel that weird delirium that you get from sweating
was obviously part of the package.
'In the absence of soap, wealthy Romans
would have their bodies rubbed with oil to clean them
'before it was scraped off with a metal strigel.
'After cleansing and opening the pores in the hot rooms,
'it's time to plunge into the ice cold waters of the frigidarium.'
Argh!
I'm not surprised the Romans died out.
That is cold, that is cold.
Testiculus retractus.
Oh, I've turned back into a child.
'Bathhouses were also hotbeds of sexual licence,
'and I'm keen to learn more about what went on behind Roman closed doors.
'Sitting down with us to eat some Roman aphrodisiacs is Charlotte Higgins -
'author of a book on Roman love.'
Have you got womb on your plate?
There you go.
In it goes.
Mmm, who'd have thought?
'One assumes the Romans saw the eating of womb
as a way to increase one's fertility.'
It's all right.
It tastes like rubbery scrambled egg. You're right. It's eggy tripe, basically.
We're sitting down to eat this and it's a far cry from the Rome that we imagine,
which is this debauched, heady, sexual paradise.
I think two things were going on in Rome.
On the one hand, there was this wonderful, fin de siecle
decadent party circuit.
Witty, urbane, feast-filled culture going on.
On the other hand, there is a sort of seam of Roman culture
that's rather disapproving of all that and says,
"Rome only got where it is today by going to bed early,"
and this luxurious element was seen as damaging.
'The Romans used honey as their main source of sweetness
and also believed it to be an aphrodisiac.'
Ah, I'm much more likely to want to have sex after this than the womb.
Mmm, that's nice, that is.
So was there romance, or was it all just bare naked shagging?
They really invented the idea of the relationship.
But the idea of a sustained relationship with one person
that goes all the way from fancying them through to intense mutual love,
through to kind of torture and breaking up with them,
the whole arc of the relationship, you see that in Roman poetry.
The Romans basically invented the whole painful construct of monogamy.
Yeah, totally.
'All this talk of love is making me homesick.'
I'm gonna head back to Rome, if that's all right.
I've got the burn on, you know.
Anyway, you coming?
I'll come to watch. Yeah? Thank you. You have a great time.
'And so our time in Britannia is at an end.
'We've returned to Rome in 68 AD,
'just as my friend the Emperor Nero
is about to be driven from the throne by a military coup.
'Many Romans disapproved of his extravagant lifestyle -
'a decadence that was to plague the Roman Empire
'as strict morals gave way to debauchery and overindulgence.
'As one of his followers, I'd better enjoy myself while I can,
'because when Nero falls, so will I.'
Sue and I are throwing an extravagant final feast tonight,
and have told Valentina to spare no expense.
There's the pig. In go luganega sausage.
Just making sure that we're gonna be able to seal this closed.
'Unknown to Giles, I'm heading out for a secret and illicit rendezvous.
'I'm taking part in an orgy.'
To the Gods of E.coli!
Ow, missed!
'Seen by some as a sign of the increasing decadence of Rome,
'bacchanalia orgies were not based around sex.
'They were gatherings where women would meet
and make sacrifices to the wine god Bacchus.'
To the victor, the chicken.
'Eventually, the Roman senate banned these orgies, seeing them as debauched.
'Drums would whip people up into a state of ecstasy
'and they would be possessed by the spirit of the wine god.
'Of course, sometimes sex did play a part in orgies,
'but I don't know where they found the energy.'
'As guests arrive for our final Roman feast,
'they have their feet washed to remove their earthly bonds.
'We're being joined by historian Adrian Goldsworthy,
'modern Roman food expert Angela Pagano
'and finally by Kenneth Cranham, who played Pompey in the hit TV series Rome.'
'Valentina is busy in the kitchen
'preparing one of the most famous of Roman dishes, or close to it.'
These are our dormouse stand-ins.
Unfortunately, in Italy they don't actually eat dormice any more,
other countries do, but not here.
The Ancient Romans did and they'd have been wonderfully fattened up
with lots of nuts and delicious things to make the meat taste really good,
so there'd have been sort of, like, a little rabbit
and once it's skinned and everything
it ends up looking like that and there's not a lot there.
I mean, that's not very much meat at all, is it?
I can't bear the fact that their little claws
are sort of appearing out of the foaming honey.
I'm going to have terrible dreams about this.
'Our meal is based on the fictional Trimalchio's feast
from Petronius' Satyricon,
'published in the first century.
'One chapter of which paints a picture
'of the extravagant eating habits of wealthy Romans.
'And men wearing make-up was certainly seen as decadent.
'Our latest trophy is this blonde slave from Britannia,
all the rage in ancient Rome.'
I'm gonna go for a sausage.
'This feast is as much about theatre as it is about food.
'The pomegranate seeds below the sausages represent burning fires.'
Hickory dickory dock, this mouse came running up any clock...
So why don't you have a little nibble?
I'd like my lord and master to sample it first. Are you tempted?
Oh, come on. Look at you.
Look at the saliva just traipsing down his chin.
You say exactly right. Kiddy sick.
What? The tail smells of child sick.
It reeks of nausea, it really does.
Anyway, tuck in.
How do we know that they ate dormice? Is this a myth?
No, no, no, they talk about it.
Every now and again, a politician comes along and tries to ban luxuries
because the Romans are becoming too soft and decadent,
but it doesn't last long.
Blimey. Oh, dear.
Oh, my word. What's that? What is it? Is it a quail?
It died in ovo, I think.
Have we all got the same, or is it like Christmas crackers?
It's like a fortune cookie. You open it up and you say, "Sorry the quail's dead".
Mmm. It's delicious.
The quail's good. That is an impossibly delicious quail.
This is the fish that swims through the pepper sauce
and this is representing the sea, 'cause it's a bit green,
and you can see that the fish in cooking has rather spoilt.
I mean, it's not looking nearly as nice as it did
when it was a nice, big, fat raw fish.
So, the object of the exercise now
is going to be to cover it with lovage to represent the scales.
Fish in a jacuzzi, this is.
That's sort of quite impressive.
It's a full aquarium, isn't it?
It's in an aquarium in which all the fish died 'cause nobody changed the water.
Yeah.
What have you got there? It's delicious. It's just frightening to look at.
'With no slaves in sight, it's left to me to carve the hare.'
It's a little overdone, I think.
Hare today, hare tomorrow as well, by the looks of it!
Oh, it's the Barbarians. Attack.
Quick, I've got a spoon.
And my toga's coming off.
No, you can't let a woman do that
'cause it'll slip out of her greasy hands and cut someone.
I've got bare feet!
I'm breaking through!
I've got through the crust.
Here, have a wing.
Each guest gets one little suckling pig, you see,
and they're made out of bread dough.
It tucks in there with its mummy
and they may well laugh next door.
They have no idea what's coming next.
Oh, a suckling pig. So Trimalchio fashion, Giles, are you gonna cut this baby?
Well, you don't know what's in there, do you? It could be four and 20 blackbirds.
Right in we go.
'In the Satyricon, Trimalchio plays a trick on his guests
'by accusing the chef of having not gutted the pig.
'The slave slices open the stomach
and instead of the guts coming out, it's sausages.'
I've never held a dead pig whilst it's in the recovery position before,
waiting for James Herriot here to pull out something...
Oh no!
Oh, I wondered where my pearls had gone.
Oh, fabulous, yeah. It's the pig that keeps on giving.
It's like pork Curly Wurly.
Any more in there? Ah!
Oh, yes, there was. It's practically Damien Hirst, isn't it?
Slice of warm buttock for you, there. Yes.
There you go. I think that's very good. Oh, excuse fingers. It's delicious.
'Decadent as always, Sue decides to wear hers.'
And it goes so well with your dress!
It's my first warm necklace! I tell you what,
that is providing the most fabulous orthopaedic heat
to my lower neck area. Marvellous.
Also Sue's been finding this whole toga thing a little bit chilly.
BURPING
Oh dear. The force of it took my necklace off.
'Though some now consider it bad manners,
belching at dinner was perfectly acceptable in Rome.'
That belch could have been measured scientifically.
'In the kitchen, Valentina is preparing the crowning moment of the feast.'
I think it might be time to turn my attention to the calf's head.
I've been boiling her all morning, and here she is now.
I've got one hand inside her mouth
and one on her skull at the back.
You see, 'cause the skin has kind of slipped forward exposing a bit of the...
bone at the back.
Oh, look at that! Here comes the entertainment.
'Extravagant to the end, we're not even going to eat the animal heads.
'Our slaves will merely present them as a sign of our immense wealth.'
Now it looks like it's smoking a bent Cheroot.
Looks like a really louche chain smoker.
It's a pretty debauched pig. It died from smoking, yeah.
This one is just the prettiest, prettiest thing.
I'm sorry, you beautiful thing.
Lovely, pretty little calf.
And that's not bad, either.
I'll see you later, obviously. Usual time.
'Slaves had no rights of their own.
'Being available to have sex with their owners
was perfectly acceptable and often the norm.'
Well done, you. Lovely entertainment.
You'd think we could have got some dancing girls.
They're stuck in traffic so we got the boar's head.
'Many Romans disapproved of these displays of wealth and debauchery,
'which no doubt contributed to the decline and fall of the empire.
'Indeed, our sheer decadence has infuriated the gods of Rome...
'who choose to punish us ruthlessly.
'Elagabalus was the most decadent emperor of them all.
'He allegedly murdered guests at a party
'by smothering them in falling rose petals,
'and the gods have chosen the same fate for us.
Realising the party is over, the guests leave the gluttonous and lifeless bodies.
Back in London, Dr Panja hopelessly waits for his patients to return,
but Giles and Sue will never learn
that they have both increased their body fat by around 1%.
Such was the scale of their gluttony.
Maybe it's better this way.