10 Disgusting Dishes the Romans Found Delectable

The Roman palate was quite different than our own. The things they found delicious would make you want to gag.

Dormice

The Romans had a special place in their hearts for dormice, the small, furry rodents similar in size and shape to field mice. They ate them both as savory appetizers and as a sweet dessert dipped in honey and sprinkled with poppy seeds. Every well appointed Roman kitchen had a terracotta jar for keeping dormice alive in preparation for butchery. That way the sound of an upcoming meal could be heard skittering around the interior of the jar as dinner was being prepared.

Garum

Often referred to as the Roman equivalent of catsup, this popular condiment was used on everything from meats to desserts, but it wasn’t made of tomatoes, which were unknown in the Roman world. Garum was made by fermenting fish intestines with salt and leaving it to dry for months in the sun until the enzymes from the fish's digestive tract broke down the fishes flesh, creating a pungent liquid that would make a modern person hurl, but which made a Roman lick his lips in anticipation.

Lungs

These days the consumption of animal lungs are banned in many countries for fear of contamination, but that didn’t stop the Romans from scarfing them up. The lungs of pigs, sheep and cows were used as the casings for a kind of sausage that consisted of liver, kidneys, or brains. Toss in a little red wine with some herbs and pine nuts and you were eating like a king. Indeed, lungs were considered a delicacy at the tables of high status individuals with access to sacrificial animals whose innards were especially prized.

Bird Tongues

Nothing says “oooh, yum” like flamingo tongue. That might have been the advertising slogan for one of the most prized delicacies of the Roman world. Enjoyed by the rich and the famous, flamingo tongues supposedly had the subtle flavor of shrimp about them due to the flamingo's diet. Nightingale tongues were also favored by Romans and believed to improve the singing voice of the diner. The Romans also ate parrot tongues, lark tongues, and duck tongues. It seems no bird was safe. The number of mute birds flying around the Roman skies must have been considerable.

Blood Pudding

When an animal was bled at slaughter, the smart Roman chef would collect the blood and make a pudding of it, filling an animal intestine with blood and offal and serving it up to an appreciative audience. The American stomach lurches at the thought, but Europeans know this Roman delicacy still exists today in the form of black pudding, enjoyed by the Poles, Irish, and Brits. Perhaps there's a franchise opportunity.

Giraffe, Ostriches and Camels

When you have access to an animal as strange and exotic as a giraffe, you simply must find a way to eat it. Anyway, that must have been the thinking when the Romans came across the giraffe in Africa. Evidence from a recent archeological dig in Pompeii suggest Roman diners were enjoying roasted giraffe. They also apparently enjoyed ostriches and camels. When it came to eating rare and exotic animals, the Romans seemed to equate rarity with good eating and were keen to consume anything that was difficult to track down and kill.

Jellyfish and Sea Urchins

If you’ve ever been stung by a jellyfish, the idea of putting one into your mouth might seem a bit off putting, but not to the Romans. They patiently cooked away the stinging cells and added the jellyfish to omelets and other dishes as a textural contrast to the main part of the meal. They also made a popular fish pâté that included jellyfish, and, as if the Roman palate could not get enough stinging marine invertebrates to satisfy them, they also noshed on boiled sea urchins.

Parrot Heads

No, the Romans did not eat Jimmy Buffet fans, but two thousand years before the Florida troubadour blew out his flip-flop and stepped on a pop top, Romans were eating the actual heads of parrots. This seems to have been an example of taking things too far. As noted above, wealthy Romans favored eating bird tongues as delicacies. Hence, to out-do your rivals and show you were even wealthier than them, you went further and ate the entire head. Perhaps flamingo heads were too tough, and maybe nightingale heads didn’t sit well on the stomach, but for whatever reason, the Romans seemed to settle on the parrot head as the preferred bird head for consumption.

Dolphin Meatballs

Dolphin meat is toxic today due to the high levels of the mercury in it, but in Roman times it was edible. Nevertheless, the Romans seemed to have skipped right over the edible part and gone straight for the nearly inedible skin. That’s right, the Romans never saw a noxious, unpalatable body part they didn’t want to chow down on. In the case of the dolphin, they rolled up the skin into balls and made meatballs out of it. With a little wine, olive oil, and garum paste they created a super fishy tasting dish that would leave them belching contentedly into the night.

Sterile Sow’s Womb

When it came to eating disgusting things that are nearly impossible to digest, you have to admire the Romans’ commitment. Sterile sow’s womb was particularly demanding. First, you had to neuter a sow before it reached breeding age. Then you had to slaughter it. Then you had to brine the womb in bran before grilling it over an open flame. The amount of work that went into making sterile sow’s womb made it a delicacy fit only for the elite, but for a people willing to track down a giraffe or boil away the stingers of a jellyfish to get something to eat it was no trouble at all.