Hi everybody! For a schoolproject I am writing a short report about the food that was sold at the Thermopolia in ancient Rome. Do you have any helpful information or sources on this subject? Thanks in advance!
It's a somewhat difficult question because recipes were generally only written down for aristocratic households until the last few hundred years. However, we do have some surviving menus (written on the walls) in places like Pompeii.
Typical foods for the lower classes who couldn't afford their own kitchen and staff would be hot sausages, dried meat, cheese (optionally sweetened with honey), fish and squid (there are accounts of it being wrapped in paper as takeout), lentils, nuts, dried fruit, boiled meat, and simple stews. The typical condiment for everything savory was garum, a fermented fish sauce not dissimilar from modern Thai fish sauce.
The typical drink would have been wine, watered down in a 3:1 ratio of water to wine; I've tried this before and the resulting beverage looks like wine but tastes like water with the barest hint of wine in the aftertaste. This wine would be served in a cup equal to about 1 pint and serve as a refreshing alternative to plain water. Better venues would serve hot mulled wine with spices and honey.
If you want something more complicated, the entire Roman cookbook Apicius is available for free online to read. These were recipes for households, but the simplest ones could have possibly been sold to the public.
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