The poor of the cities were often discouraged from cooking in their own homes, often shabby flats, for fear of fire. For this purpose, Roman fast food joints known as thermopolia, sprang up. Here common people could obtain a hot meal for a cheap price. The tavernas also catered to the common people. Here you could buy alcohol as well as a hot meal. For a bronze follis or two you could obtain salted fish, beans and coarse black bread, washed down with cheap acidic wine. If you had a few extra folles you might also be able to obtain the attentions of the dancing girls, as prostitution was often one of the services offered by the tavernas, in spite of the supposed prudery of the times. An effort was made to limit the time tavernas could be open to prevent mischief especially on Sundays and during Lent. Even so, tavernas continued to offer diversions such as dice, singing, cock fights and of course sexual entertainment.

If you had enough coin, you could afford a specialty drink such as phouska. Those who catered to foreign tastes, might offer the drinks of their choice. The Norse Varangians from Russia and Scandinavia as well as Anglo Saxons, disenfranchised after the Norman Conquest in England, favored the strong fermented honey drink, mead and so as men from the northern lands flooded Constantinople in search of a position in the famed Varangian Guard, honey mead came to be a popular offering in the tavernas. A Varangian might have lingered for a while in such a taverna, as Sven does here:

Sven found himself again in a taverna as the late afternoon light lengthened the shadows. He hurt all over. He turned again to wine for solace, as well as a favorite past time of his: listening to the conversations of others. The taverna keeper lit the oil lamps swaying from the rafters on their chains. Sven basked in the glow they cast over the well-worn wooden tables and benches. He liked tavernas. They stank of wine and reeked of the odor of unwashed humanity. But they were pleasant places overall for people watching. Two infantrymen played at dice in a corner for bronze coins. Men creaked over the wooden floor boards, rattling the tables and making the wine slosh in his cup. Behind him, three men sat down at a bench opposite the door. Without looking at them, he could tell they were better educated and better paid than most of the men within the confines of the establishment. He could tell that one man was quite a bit younger than the others, but higher in status. They all spoke a higher dialect of Greek, not the peasant variety spoken by most others there. They ordered better wine than he himself drank. It was phouska, a drink flavored with cumin, anise, fennel and thyme. It had never been to his taste. He closed his eyes and sipped his own harsh wine. 

The ambassador, Liutprand of Cremona mentioned in a previous post who objected to garum,  also did not care for Byzantine wine which he described as “mixed with pitch, resin, and plaster was to us undrinkable”.  Perhaps the ambassador was merely difficult to please.   He must have been alone in his assessment, as Byzantine wines were much favored by Western Europeans.  He may have been referring to Retsina, a type of wine that got its unique flavor from sealing the wine jars with pine resin.

Next we will look at dessert, everyone’s favorite! Let me know your thoughts below.

Sources:

The Complete Works of Liudprand of Cremona (Medieval Texts in Translation) Liudprand (Bishop of Cremona)

Tastes of Byzantium : The Cuisine of a Legendary Empire by Andrew Dal

Daily Life in the Byzantine Empire by Marcus Rautman