14
votes
Accepted
What is "old" in the age of a wine?
I have found three ways of referring to the age of wine, the first of which is the most common and simplest:
An adjective such as anniculus, bimus etc.
quadrimum Sabina, o Thaliarche, merum diota
...
- 8,721
12
votes
Breakfast, lunch, dinner?
Classical Latin
Roman Republic
According to the Guide Romain Antique, by Jean Dautry, Georges Hacquard and Olivier Maisani, from the second century BC the Romans had 3 meals a day only one of which ...
- 2,332
11
votes
Accepted
What verb is wine made with?
Cato Maior devotes a large subsection of De Agri Cultura to wine. You can read the entire text here, and as can be expected, he sticks to very simple verbs:
general:
making: vinum Graecum sic facito
...
- 1,470
11
votes
Accepted
Is there oil without olives?
The current communis opinio is both Latin words oleum and oliva were borrowed from Greek, which, in its turn, are of Pre-Greek origin (e.g. Beekes 2009/2016, Ernout & Meillet 2001); cf. Miller ...
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11
votes
Accepted
Cibus sanus — healthy food?
I think you are right that sanus more correctly describes a healthy state, whereas saluber/salubris seems to be preferred to describe those things which bestow health. Some examples:
Climate:
ex ...
- 8,721
10
votes
Breakfast, lunch, dinner?
Here's a summary of the article "Meals" written by Professor Gutsfeld (Université de Lorraine) for Der Neue Pauly - if you're serious about Latin or classical studies, you should already know what it ...
- 11.7k
9
votes
Accepted
What is "menu" in Latin?
I think that both index and tabula ciborum work as calques but I can’t find any evidence for either in classical sources. Indeed, I can’t find any information about whether there even were menus at ...
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8
votes
What is "old" in the age of a wine?
There is a direct quote for this situation in the Satyricon, where Petronius just uses annus in the genitive plural:
Statim allatae sunt amphorae vitreae diligenter gypsatae, quarum in cervicibus ...
- 1,470
8
votes
Accepted
Preparing food "al dente"
Pliny NH XV has palati gratia. It's not exactly al dente, of course, but at least it indicates that taste was referred to the palate, rather than the teeth:
oleum ipsum sale vindicatur a ...
- 18.2k
7
votes
Accepted
What is a ball as in meat ball?
Why not globus or globulus? Each is a word that basically means a spherical mass. The former has a wide range of uses, and would be a reasonable choice, but for 'meat ball' I should prefer the ...
- 18.2k
6
votes
Accepted
What exactly was a pastillus?
I can't actually find any reference to pastillus meaning a type of bread.
The OLD defines it as a medical term meaning "a pastille (either swallowed or applied as a medicament)".
I have done a ...
- 8,721
5
votes
Accepted
Latin words for various types of diets (carnivore, vegetarian, vegan, etc.)?
Does Latin have words for the various types of diets, e.g., "vegetarian," "vegan," etc.?
Not really. There is certainly plenty of discussion of diets in Latin literature, whether for health or ...
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5
votes
Accepted
What are oranges in Classical Latin?
According to Quicherat’s French-English dictionary, you can say malum aureum or aurantium for translating orange.
An interesting discussion about the Citrus Aurantium can be found in this book (in ...
- 2,332
5
votes
What exactly was a pastillus?
What you remember from years ago is probably as good a description as you will find.
Dictionaries usually agree that a pastillus was a small, round object baked from flour, which some describe as a "...
- 18.2k
5
votes
Accepted
Were mushrooms vegetables to Romans?
Apparently yes.
Although I haven't found any explicitly Roman source, all evidence point to fungi being considered plants at their time, and into the XX century. This is what I have found so far:
...
- 11.6k
5
votes
Accepted
Crêpes and crêperies
Both my English-Latin Dictionaries suggest Laganum (plural Lagana).
Smith: laganun ex ovo frictum [explic. pancake (made with egg) fried.]
Ainsworth: laganum.
Like "Crêpe" it is a borrowed ...
- 8,693
5
votes
Accepted
Putting "spread" on a bread in Latin
Savoury spreads:
An earlier question on pesto gave two invented answers. Another is
Gentleman's Relish, an anchovy flavoured spread that used the mock Latin description 'Patum Peperium,' (also the ...
- 8,693
5
votes
Accepted
What was the standard ancient term for a thermopolium?
pŏpīna is the one, borrowed from Oscan or Umbrian, and cognate with (native Latin) coquina. Indeed, a Packhum search gives no results for thermopolium and 54 results (59 matches) for popina - note ...
- 4,528
5
votes
Cibus sanus — healthy food?
I think the first problem here is that there are far more references to gourmandising in the classical sources than to the effects of food on health. Think, for example, of Horace Sat. II, iv passim, ...
- 18.2k
4
votes
Crêpes and crêperies
My dictionary (which I did not have access to when asking the question) also suggests laganum, and that word seems indeed very suitable.
I have therefore accepted Hugh's answer.
One can indeed refer ...
- 116k
4
votes
Greatly fruitful in Latin?
To add to the previous suggestions, the first word that came to my mind was almus, -a, -um, which Lewis and Short glosses as:
nourishing, affording nourishment, cherishing (poet. epithet of Ceres, ...
- 42.6k
4
votes
Accepted
A word for national and other cuisines
According to OLD, coquina means 'The art of cookery.' It's (ultimately) the origin of, e.g., Italian cucina, which means both 'kitchen' and 'cuisine.'
Update: I also see that, for culina, which has '...
- 20.5k
4
votes
Accepted
What is plant-based or vegetarian food?
I had thought that the adjective (h)olitorius, from the noun (h)olus, might work, since the meaning is 'of or concerned with vegetables.' But after looking at the attestations in the dictionaries and ...
- 20.5k
4
votes
Putting "spread" on a bread in Latin
A good verb for spreading seems to be pandere.
From "spread" one can derive "spreadable", and such derivations are widely attested in classical Latin:
facilis < facere
fragilis < frangere
...
- 116k
4
votes
Cibus sanus — healthy food?
Just based on the meaning of the word, salutaris might be a better choice. I'm not sure if it was ever used that way but it seems to make more sense.
- 8,732
3
votes
What is "old" in the age of a wine?
I believe that there's no difference between specifying the ages of people, and those of anything else.
The verb I would choose here is conficio:
Hoc vinum est XL annos confectum.
- 18.2k
3
votes
A word for national and other cuisines
Cuisine is just a fancy word for prepared food. Why not simply cibus Nepalanus?
- 18.2k
3
votes
Accepted
How to translate "pesto"?
The word pistatio already exists; OLD defines it as 'the action of ramming down,' which sounds quite unappetizing.
In the entry for pistare that is linked to in the question, the attestation provides ...
- 20.5k
3
votes
A word for national and other cuisines
Coquina is the feminine of coquinus “pertaining to cooking”, and is used, in late texts only, to mean “place for cooking, kitchen”, but also “the art of cooking”, in effect “coquina ars”. The forms in ...
- 18k
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