Blog #4

This week I went to a Chinese restaurant near the campus in order to try something other than Italian food. The food was pretty good. I think my food was much better than my friend’s because I ordered only Vegetarian items. I was surprised that their “Chinese” food was not really Chinese but a combination of all types of Asian foods. I ordered vegetable samosas, vegetables, edamame, avocado sushi, and vegetable spring rolls. The menu had many Indian, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Taiwanese influences. My friends who ordered Orange Chicken were surprised that instead of getting fried chicken in a sweet sauce like in the United States, they got chicken strips with literal orange slices on top. Overall the restaurant was good and it was nice to have a change of pace from our regular meals.

This week we read about the food of the middle ages. The Romans originally ate the Mediterranean Triad, olives, grapes, and wheat, however, when the Barbarians took over, these meal staples were replaced with meat, dairy, and butter. Christianity continued to try and push the importance of the Mediterranean diet by making religious days where you could not eat animal products. We learned in class that this could occur almost every three days, so people were forced to incorporate the olive oils, grapes, and wheat into their diet. However, with the Barbarians came a much higher demand for meat. Pigs were a popular choice and sometimes cows if they had an old one die. We learned in class that the population began to decline so people began moving to cities. As people began moving to cities, the Saltus began to grow making it easier to hunt for meat. Fish was sourced in fresh water and it was not nearly as popular as meat. It was used mostly to make up for the protein lost when the church said you could not eat meat.

This is an extremely interesting lesson for me because I try to live by the Mediterranean diet most of the time. I do not eat meat so I try to eat a lot of olive oils and I eat a lot of grains. I do, however, have to incorporate a lot of high-fat dairies and occasionally I will eat very light fish. It is interesting that my diet is a combination of the Roman diet before they were taken over by the Barbarians and the Barbarian diet, minus the meat.