Lunch Club provides affiliates of the Stanford Archaeology Center with a community-oriented forum for engagement with current issues in archaeology. On October 30, 2024 we will host Dr. Aaron Brown from Stanford University.

Abstract:

The procurement of foodstuffs and the making of one’s daily meals represent age-old preoccupations for the majority of people around the world. What we choose to make and how we choose to make it says a lot about us as individuals and members of specific groups. Within an archaeological context, the investigation of culinary practice can shed valuable light on social structures, household economics, the individual tastes of ancient persons, and other aspects of daily life in the past. This talk takes a close look at the mechanics of meal-making in first-century Pompeii and considers some of the socioeconomic factors influencing the technical choices of home cooks within the town. To reconstruct the steps in this daily dance, one which was especially delicate for the town’s many enslaved cooks tasked with appeasing their enslavers’ palettes, we have at our disposal a rich array of material and textual sources from Pompeii and the wider Roman world. Following an overview of this evidence and some of the interpretive challenges posed by the Pompeian material, I turn to the vessels and utensils making up the kitchenware assemblages of several houses in Pompeii, presenting the initial findings of an ongoing, long-term study of use alterations (i.e., physical or chemical changes to the body of an object resulting from use) exhibited by these implements. Emerging from this analysis, conducted in conjunction with the Pompeii Artifact Life History Project (PALHIP) with authorization from the Parco Archeologico di Pompei, are new insights into object functionality, habits of practice, and the complex interplay of factors shaping culinary decision-making in the kitchens of the Roman Empire.

Bio:

Aaron Brown is a newly appointed Lecturer in the Department of Classics at Stanford University specializing in Roman and Italic material culture with particular interests in ancient foodways, craft production, the life histories of artifacts, the Roman household, and the lived experiences of the non-elite. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in Italy and has been involved in several research projects investigating various aspects of daily life in and around Pompeii since 2014. He currently serves as the Assistant Director of the Pompeii Artifact Life History Project, a long-term research initiative designed to shed light on the life histories of portable objects recovered from a series of previously excavated domestic contexts in Pompeii with an eye towards reconstructing consumption patterns and social dynamics within those properties. He also serves as a ceramics specialist for the excavations of the Pompeii I.14 Project, investigating several interconnected properties involved in the food service industry and other commercial activities on the eastern edge of the town.