Located in sunny southern Italy, the ancient Roman city of Pompeii was perfectly positioned between lush vineyards and fertile plains to one side and the bountiful waters of the Bay of Naples to the other.  “Last Supper in Pompeii”, a major exhibition in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, told the city's amazing story.

In an earlier post ("Daily Meals in Tudor England") mention was made of "Collop Monday", the day before Shrove Tuesday, in connection with the origins of breakfast.  More recently we produced "Scotch Collops" for English Heritage's "Elizabethan Pageant" at Kenilworth Castle, but what is a "collop"?

In 1563, Elizabeth I granted Kenilworth Castle to her childhood friend and favourite, Robert Dudley, the soon to be Earl of Leicester.  She visited four times during "progresses" through her realm. For English Heritage we recreated recipes fit for an Elizabethan pageant.

Most people are familiar with the idea of eating breakfast, lunch and dinner. In Tudor England, those of means and social status likewise ate three times a day, but this had not always been the case.

The first episode of Britain's Most Historic Towns aired on April 8th, 2018 on Channel 4.  We had the pleasure of working alongside the team from IWC Media to produce the Roman dining experience for host, Prof. Alice Roberts, and West Cheshire Museums curator, Liz Montgomery.

Tastes of History ran a workshop for the volunteers at Plas Mawr, an Elizabethan townhouse in Conwy, North Wales to teach something of food and dining in the Tudor period.  From the questions we fielded, it became evident that a précis of the etiquette expected at a wealthy Tudor table might be of interest.

Connoisseurs of Roman cuisine may be familiar with the recipes of "Apicius".  Indeed, "Apicius" was the inspiration for the Roman recipes in Tastes Of History's recent post "Fast Food or Dinner Party", but just who was he?  Did he really write the first cookbook?  And was he really a skilled Roman cook?

Although World War II began in September 1939, it was not until January 1940 that rationing in Britain began. Cooks had to become increasingly inventive so here are some wartime recipes you might wish to recreate.

For the large majority of people living in the Bronze Age to the middle Iron Age, meals were commonly stews, porridges and soups cooked in open pots, probably accompanied by bread. Here, then, are some recipes fit for communal feasting.

There are many recipes from Georgian Britain that could be adapted to recreate your very own pirate banquet. We have selected just a few to whet your appetite. So, eat up m'hearties and try some Tastes Of History from the Golden Age of Piracy...Yo Ho!

Hosting your own medieval feast may require some effort, but creating the right atmosphere and dressing the table need not be too difficult. Light some candles, let the wine, beer or mead flow freely, add a little background mediaeval music, and enjoy these recipes.

Many of the Roman recipes we have reproduced have been taken from “De re coquinaria” (“On the Subject of Cooking”). This is a collection of menus, dishes and ingredients attributed to a Roman author (or authors) known to us as “Apicius”.

Given their Mediterranean roots, Roman cuisine was influenced by, and in turn influenced, the ancient Greeks.

In October 2017 and again in February 2018, we stretched our culinary expertise further back in time to the Neolithic period to support English Heritage’s “Feast Exhibition” at Stonehenge. Here are the recipes.

A pre-history of lactose intolerance.

The discarded bone of a chicken leg, still etched with teeth marks from a dinner thousands of years ago, provides some of the oldest known physical evidence for the introduction of domesticated chickens to the continent of Africa.

In every issue of BBC History Magazine, picture editor Sam Nott presents a recipe from the past. In this article, from December 2015, Sam recreates a delicate chewit - a meat and fruit pie enjoyed in the 16th-century.

In the summer of 2015 archaeologists from the University of Edinburgh attempted to recreate a style of Stone Age cooking based on their discovery of a 9,000 year old barbecue pit.

A brief history and description of common ingredients, in this case, the common pheasant.

A brief history and description of common ingredients, in this case, tea.