The Roman Military Presence and Its Impact on Culinary Preferences in Britain

This essay approaches archaeological studies through an historian’s lens, using dietary analysis to explore the degree of homogenisation and integration in Roman Britain. By employing the term “Romanisation” to describe dietary changes towards a palate more similar to that typically enjoyed by army, this essay focuses on the relationship between the army, urban Romano-Britons, and natives by looking at their shared food cultures. Moreover, dietary studies have been underutilised in historical research because of a reluctance to pursue an interdisciplinary approach when undertaking analysis on integration between different groups in society. By using Cool’s classifications of food categories, this paper shows that there was significant overlap between the three social groups regarding food preferences. Additionally, there was an observable diachronic and spatial trend to integration levels. Sites located closer to military sites tended to mirror their culinary preferences with the army to a greater extent, and faster. Furthermore, across the entirety of the Roman occupation phase of Britain, there was a general shift across all social groups, including natives, towards a more homogenised diet which incorporated some elements of the gastronomic preferences of the army, as well as locally available foodstuffs. Finally, whilst meat consumption saw the most marked shift towards a standardisation of tastes, there was an identifiable trend of homogenisation across all foodstuffs analysed.