Ancient Roman street food?

[nancylebov]

This discussion of food and fantasy left me wondering-- I've heard that in ancient Rome, a lot of people didn't cook, they bought street food.

cheloya said that you wouldn't get meat on a stick unless there was industrial meat production to make the meat cheap enough. This doesn't sound implausible to me, but I'm curious about historical evidence. Drifting away from ancient Rome, how old is the shish-ka-bob? Did it used to be a luxury?

Fantasy food reference: The Stars Dispose by Michaela-Roessner has traditional Renaissance cooking (recipes included in the book) with magic mixed in. Offhand, I can't think of much fantasy where the magic influences the cooking.

Comments

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Sausages have the advantage that you can make them from poor cuts of meat, including the offal, and they can still taste pretty good.

I've encountered before the idea that most city* homes wouldn't have been equipped with kitchens until relatively recently, say around the Renaissance. So eating out was de facto necessary.

*And town, though "towns" as such are mostly a late medieval invention in Europe.

(Sorry we didn't get your call earlier. I really should be in bed--in 3 minutes, it will be over an hour from now.)