The gastronomic status of cheese in Rome (2nd century BC - 2nd century AD)

Despite its apparent simplicity, cheese was associated with strong symbolic stakes in Rome. Its manufacturing process made it a metaphor for the process of civilization, despite its link with the world of shepherds, and served as a model to understand the formation and evolution of the foetus in the maternal womb. It was obviously a food consumed daily by the people in the countryside as well as in the city, during meals of the day (jentaculum, prandium) or at any other time. But if its use in the recipes of the "haute cuisine" was marginal, it always appeared in the evening meals (cena) or the aristocratic banquets, in one or more of the three services. The soft texture of fresh cheese and the salty taste of hard cheese appealed to the Romans, as well as the modulation of its flavour by perfuming or salting, in keeping with the "illusionist" principle of "haute cuisine". The existence of a list of the best cheeses of the Empire attests that some of them were involved in a logic of classification and hierarchy, typical of the gastronomic approach.