SALLY GRAINGER
(Food Historian, preparing Roman banquet)
The coxcomb on a cockerel, the little, red feathery thing - apparently that was a great delicacy. Larks tongues: something I have no desire to cook, but they used to eat them. The Romans would eat anything that moved.

GUY DE LA BÉDOYÈRE
If you want to understand the impact of Roman culture on Britain just look at the food they introduced: after all, we are what we eat.

SALLY GRAINGER
This is a very traditional way of baking fish, by wrapping it in vine leaves. Now first I'm going to stuff it with a few herbs, and that's bay leaves and fennel. This recipe actually comes from a very old text, it's roundabout 350BC.

GUY DE LA BÉDOYÈRE
Sally Grainger is an historian who has researched the ways Romans prepared food and the kinds of recipes they used.

SALLY GRAINGER
It works by providing such a thick layer of leaves that even though they may burn on the outside it's the perfect insulation for the fish.

As a chef and Roman food historian I wanted to experiment with the actual cooking equipment that the Romans had and it's become a hobby. It's become something we do all summer. It's exhausting, it pays a little, and it's great fun.

(Raking the fire) It's pretty fierce! Imagine the poor Roman slave who has to do this all day. I've been doing it all day and I feel absolutely kippered. We're having an olive relish, which dates from around 150BC - it's quite early and it has fresh coriander, mint and rue with oil and vinegar and it's marinated for two or three days and absolutely beautiful. And then we're having a whole roast lamb, which has been dressed with a mixture of coriander seed, pepper, honey and wine, as it was being turned. We have a whole baked salmon and lots of wine, and ale, of course, which the Romans drank too. I think Roman food, with all the cumin and coriander tastes like a sweet curry. Sweet and sour using oil, wine, vinegar. Fish sauce and honey is the basis for most of the Roman sauces, so there're very sweet, they're also very spicy.

(Tasting cooked salmon) Mmm, heaven, that's wonderful.

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