Christmas Miscellany 2025: Farrell Monaco and Marc Meltonville FSA скачать в хорошем качестве

Christmas Miscellany 2025: Farrell Monaco and Marc Meltonville FSA

Out of the Patera and into the Fire: Libum in the Roman Archaeological Record by Farrell Monaco This presentation highlights a carbonised wheaten cake which was excavated from the archaeological site of Herculaneum in 1874. Circular in form, and featuring a geometric impression on its surface, the cake is one of only a few ‘pastry’ remains in the Roman archaeological record. The lecture takes an interdisciplinary approach to explore the cake in detail alongside other sources of supporting evidence from the literary, pictorial, and archaeological records, before concluding that the cake provides previously unidentified evidence of wheaten dough being baked inside of a vessel. The presentation also proposes that, in addition to the purposes of libation and ablution, paterae should be interpreted as pastry making vessels and the cake should be acknowledged as archaeobotanical remains of the sacred Roman offering known as ‘Libum’. Farrell Monaco is an award-winning Roman archaeologist, baker, and writer whose research centers on bread and pastry in the Roman Mediterranean. She holds a BA (hons) and MA (hons) from the University of Leicester and is currently a PhD candidate and Honorary Visiting Fellow at the same institution. She writes regularly on the role of bread and food preparation in ancient Rome on her website, Tavola Mediterranea, and for Atlas Obscura and the BBC. Her work has been featured prominently by National Geographic, Popular Science, The Atlantic, the BBC, The Guardian, The Economist, Esquire Magazine, Saveur Magazine, and Atlas Obscura. She won the Roman Society’s MA Dissertation Award in 2024 for her work on ‘Libum‘. Reconstructing a Tudor Brewery: Making 16th-century Beer by Marc Meltonville FSA The project FoodCult, run by Trinity College Dublin, is looking at nutrition in the 16th century. It was asked if a beer from the 16th century could be analyzed for its protein, carbohydrates and any other interesting factors. To have 16th-century beer you need the same ingredients and equipment as they had 500 years ago; to do this you will need to make a Tudor brewery. The team, led by Professor Susan Flavin along with Food Historian Marc Meltonville FSA, worked to reconstruct the beer, using ingredients sourced from across the UK including yeast grown by the microbiology department of Cork University. A raft of craftspeople were engaged to make all the equipment and items needed to produce the beer, informed by period documents for methods and process. The whole team came together at a small 16th-century building in Sussex and the brewing began. The results of this, and now phase two, shed new light onto drinks of the past. This lecture looks at the research and reconstruction needed to make that a reality. Marc Meltonville works as a consultant Food and Drink Historian researching and lecturing on many diverse subjects across the UK and the world. He is currently a Research Fellow at the Cultural Heritage department of the Royal Agricultural University, Gloucestershire and lectures for the Royal Collection Trust, London. Marc is working with the FoodCult Project, based at Trinity College Dublin, continuing to research, and use a recreated Tudor brewery. Twice a year Marc works as a Heritage Distiller for the George Washington Distillery in Virginia. Practical cookery experimentation is being done in conjunction with the Weald & Downland Living Museum. His latest book, The Tavern Cook, is published by Prospect Books. This lecture was sponsored and hosted by the Society of Antiquaries of London in its apartments at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London. The Society recorded the proceedings and, with permission of the speaker(s), made them available online here, and on its website at www.sal.org.uk. All rights reserved.