Describing crops grown in the fertile coastal areas in the first century A.D., Susan Raven, the author of "Rome in Africa" (Routledge, 1993), mentioned "exotic fruit and vegetables such as pomegranates and truffles that appealed to Roman tastes".
The most imposing ruin of the early Roman imperial period is the Colosseum, erected in the first century A.D. Now, at excavations 11 miles east of Rome's city center, archaeologists think they are catching a glimpse of Roman tastes in monumental architecture much earlier than previously thought, about 300 years before the Colosseum.
After classical literary studies and a course in drawing, he was placed in the studio of Joseph-Marie Vien, a history painter who catered to the growing Greco-Roman taste without quite abandoning the light sentiment and the eroticism that had been fashionable earlier in the century.
Not everyone can get to Beaucaire to visit Herve Durand's Roman winery and taste his recreated Roman wines, known as mulsum and turric ulae.
Ever since the ancient Romans acquired a taste for cloves, commodities have played a big part in Indonesia's economy.
The Romans brought a taste for extravagance, as Apicius's De Re Coquinaria shows with its recipes for boiled ostrich and flamingo.
They come from the squat party scene, and leader Roman Pappak's tastes were formed by the cassettes he bought at pirate music kiosks in post-communist Poland.
The drawing had a mosque-like courtyard with a fountain and balconies and palms, in a mixture of Islamic and Roman and Ottoman tastes.
Which was beans, wild greens and herbs, pasta, small amounts of cured meat, offal and sheep's cheese; ingredients that were then brought together cleverly, with Roman appetite and good taste, into a distinct cucina povera ("poor cooking", though it tastes anything but).
As with many high-profile launches, tomorrow sees an advance opening ceremony for 300 special guests, chosen at random for a taste of Roman café society, according to the Italian news agency Ansa.
