Like every other teacher, we have also changed our expectations to match the realities of a pandemic and virtual teaching at our school. We had been preparing as a department to teach Via Periculosa with our students. We ultimately decided to scrap reading it online with the hope that we would be able to better teach it in the fall–whatever that may look like. The solution we came up with was to talk about travel, which would have been our segway into Via Periculosa, and food. Let’s start by talking about the Romanum Ientaculum, the Roman breakfast.
We were preparing our students to be able to read about what the Romans ate for breakfast and what they also liked to eat or did eat for breakfast. In our department of four teachers at our upper schools, we each wrote stories about what we like to eat for breakfast and recorded short videos related to breakfast to help reinforce breakfast-related vocabulary. We aren’t teaching synchronous classes, so this was how we could introduce the vocabulary and offer comprehensible input to our students.
If you are interested in the video my husband and I produced, we have a short video of our camping breakfast (we live on a mountain a mile from the national forest) and one I made at home. Here are the supplemental stories that we wrote: my own and my husband’s. (Yep, we’re both Latin teachers who work at the same school; we even met in a Latin class). My colleague Magister Kem put together a video and a reading that are essentially odes to the power of coffee. (Wait for the end of the video for some serious giggles). If you are looking for something more challenging, you can check out my other colleague, Magister Smith (who creates Coquamus) and his video on tea and oatmeal.
We also have materials available for lunch and for dinner.
Romanum Ientaculum: Vocabulary
We introduced this vocabulary for our students. Some of them had already seen coffee, tea, and milk before in class but hadn’t quite acquired it. This vocabulary list ended up being a little overly ambitious, so I would trim down the vocabulary to better suit your needs. I’d personally recommend cutting waffles (it’s quite long), sausage, juice, and toast (ditto).
Students don’t need to know every possible food served for breakfast to be able to talk about what they ate and what interests them. We had already introduced comedo and bibo to our students in anticipation of teaching Via Periculosa.
- Ientaculum, ientaculi, n. – Breakfast
- Lac, lactis, n. – Milk
- Cafea, cafeae, f. – Coffee
- Thea, theae, f. – Tea
- Succus, succi, m. – Juice
- Ovum, ovi, n. – Egg
- Cereale, cerealis, n. – Cereal
- Puls avenacea, pultis avenaceae, f. – Oatmeal
- Panis tostus, panis tosti, m. Toast
- Lardum, lardi, n. – Bacon
- Batata, batatae, f. – Potato
- Pomum, pomi, n. – Fruit
- Farcimen, farciminis, n. – Sausage
- Lagana, laganorum, n.pl. – Pancakes
- Lagana lacunata, laganorum lacunatorum, n.pl. – Waffles
Romanum Ientaculum
Rōmānī antīquī comēdērunt ientāculum, sed Rōmānum ientāculum erat dissimile ientāculō quod nōs comedimus. Rōmānum ientāculum nōn erat magnum, sed parvum. Americānum ientāculum est magnum! Fortasse est maximum!
Ientaculō, multī Rōmānī comēdērunt pānem. Nōn comēdērunt pānem tostum, et certē nōn comēdērunt lāgana aut lāgana lacūnāta. Sī Rōmānī fortūnātī erant, Rōmānī comēdērunt pānem cum melle. (Rōmānī nōn habēbant saccharum!)
Ientculō, Rōmānī nōn comēdērunt lārdum, et nōn comēdērunt farcimen. (Rōmānī quī habēbant multam pecūniam poterant comedere lārdum et farcimen quia carnīs erat pecūniōsa!)
Rōmānī nōn numquam comēdērunt pōma ientāculō. Palmae sunt pōma, et palmae Rōmānōs dēlectābant. Quā dē causā, comedere palmās ientāculō erat optimum!
Palmaene tē delectant? Vīsne comedere Rōmānum ientāculum?
- Saccharum – Sugar (Several of my students wrote that they didn’t want a Roman breakfast because they didn’t have sugar!)
