Dishes from Roman Hispania Reach Haute Cuisine

Jesús Segura is the chef of the Casas Colgadas restaurant, located in the iconic building of the same name in Cuenca. Holder of a Michelin star and a Repsol Sun, he has now embarked on a new project: applying his culinary creativity to dishes from Roman Hispania. To achieve this, he has joined a project at the Roman archaeological site of Noheda, located in the small village of Villar de Domingo García (Cuenca), with a population of 215.

The diet of those who inhabited this villa between the 1st century BC and the 6th century AD will form the basis of his new dishes, while also helping researchers learn more about the diet of those Roman inhabitants of Cuenca. The diet of the "domini" or wealthy villa owners, as well as that of their servants and slaves, an aspect of Roman history that has been little studied until now. "We have studied seeds, found a large accumulation of animal bone remains in the rubbish dumps of the domini and also of the poorer population, and discovered a high consumption of donkey meat among the poorer classes," explains Miguel Ángel Valero, professor of Ancient Archaeology at the University of Castilla-La Mancha and director of the excavations at this site.

A small necropolis with bone remains that retain collagen has also been found in Noheda and is being studied by researchers from the University of La Coruña. "We want to know what diet and diseases they had, and we will know because when a person dies, their fluids decay under the coccyx area and sometimes those remains persist, which can help us reconstruct their diet," says Professor Valero. This discovery is complemented by another of great importance: two ceramic bowls containing oil residues that are being analysed at the University of Málaga.

The findings and analyses in Noheda already provide clues about the diet of those who inhabited this Roman villa. The "domini" usually consumed preserved fish; game meat - wild boars, deer, partridges, and rabbits; chicken, suckling pig, kid, and lamb. Meat that was typically eaten roasted and accompanied by wine from Syria. In contrast, the poor ate oxen, donkeys, sheep, and goats, but of advanced age. When these animals were too old to work in the fields or provide wool and milk, they were slaughtered. To tenderize their meat, they had to be boiled or stewed. This could have been the origin of the current morteruelo from Cuenca, a pâté made from crushed pork liver, game meat, paprika, and breadcrumbs, which becomes a thick paste of high caloric value.

The diets of both social classes also abounded in cereals, legumes, and local fruits and vegetables. The seeds found in Noheda attest to this, as do the mosaics that can be visited at this site. Known internationally for housing the most spectacular figurative mosaic of the Roman Empire, Noheda preserves rooms of the residential building with rich mosaics and a thermal complex. Some call it the Spanish Pompeii.