A grand day out at Fishbourne Palace

Cheers Big JW, it was a great afternoon at the thoroughly underestimated Fishbourne Palace. I was surprised at the sheer scale of the construction, I knew it was a sizeable building but failed to grasp the colossal magnitude of the place. Today there is little to see apart from a few walls and floors, spectacular mosaics would be more a accurate description of the remaining floors. Even though only a portion of the West wing has been preserved you can still get a feeling of the majesty that was once evident at Fishbourne.

The reason for the visit was an attempt to throw some light on the subject of Roman cooking in general and sausages specifically. All in all a very successful day our, not only we see a reconstructed Roman garden complete with vegetables, medicinal herbs, culinary herbs and ritualistic plants but we managed to take in a sausage and has meal at a pub.

It is sup rising to learn how many fruits and vegetables which form such a staple within our day to day cooking were introduced by our ancient Italian friends; Parsnips, beetroots, apples damsons and pears for example, indeed a great many herbs were also brought across by the Romans. I also managed to pick up a couple of good books which will help in tracing the Roman sausage trail.