[Sca-cooks] Roman Cuisine Served at Pompeii

[kingstaste at mindspring.com]

This is so incredibly timely.  I am doing the last session of my Roman
Britain class next Thursday, culminating in "The Roman Banquet".  Anybody
got some good ideas for entertainment I can put on?  I have one parent that
is a medieval history professor/author (R. Barton Palmer - anyone know his
work?) that is willing to come in and recite some latin and translate it.  I
hope he'll do something the young kids can appreciate.  The teens are doing
an improv class, I thought I might give them a situation to work from, A
funny thing happened on the way to class today...
I don't have a menu yet, but I gave out some simple recipes today that they
could choose to do as homework assignments - stuffed dates, chickpeas in
saffron, cocumeres, gratina lemone (I told them they could cheat and buy
lemon ice - although one student says he has a sorbet maker and wants to
make his own :).
	I have a 24'x24'~ish cinderblock lunchroom with plastic tables and folding
chairs, complete with foosball tables and vending machines.  There is a
small kitchen off of this room.  Also several other classrooms off of it as
well as an entrance to the restroom and pool area.  So much for atmosphere.
	For set-up, I plan to put one of the plastic 6-foot folding tables on the
floor (legs retracted).  Then set up three thin mattress pads along three
sides of the table with a nice Roman mosaic tablecloth I bought at Pastimes
in England to cover at least the table part, other cloths over the pads.  I
told everyone to bring a pillow or cushion to recline on.  The remaining
side of the table will be for service and to watch entertainments.  Some of
this will be supplied by the kids, but it would be nice to add some other
extras myself.  Keeping in mind that I have to finish sewing two costumes
for them this weekend and get all the food ready.
	I do not have the resources to serve food mixed with nuggets of gold,
pearls or semi-precious gems (although a chip necklace wouldn't be too
costly, and taken apart would provide plenty of suitable nuggets, depending
on what the stones were...), and lark's tongues - although a perennial
favorite and oft-asked for, are probably not available in metro Atlanta.
I'm not entirely sure about that, but I doubt it.  Last night I read
something about servants placing a replica of a skeleton on the banquet
table, encouraging the guests to move the parts about and interact with it.
So something mechanical that can be looked at and played with would be
interesting.  I introduced a dice game during the first class called Shut
the Box, and I'll make sure they have the grids out with die to play that
with, as well as some versions of Knucklebones.
	What else can I do?
	Christianna