If I were suddenly transported to Rome in 168 CE, the first thing I would do is panic, since the Antonine Plague would be raging and I have not been inoculated against smallpox. Once I recovered myself, however, I would have four gustatory goals: (1) to try a Trojan Pig, (2) to eat the most expensive eel I could find, (3) to recreate the Shield of Minerva, and (4) to drink a chalice or two of Falernian wine.

The Romans were inordinately fond of the...tender parts of female pigs, and knew a surprising number of ways to prepare these dubious delicacies. I am not quite adventurous enough to try sow vulva, sow womb, or sow teats (all of which are well-attested - in fact, the emperor Lucius Verus was falsely rumored to have been poisoned by a sow's womb), but I could certainly stomach a Trojan Pig. This was a roast pig whose innards had been replaced by sausages (tied, in a very Roman touch, to look like actual entrails); when the pig was cut open, the sausages would spill out, like the men in the Trojan Horse. I imagine, for some reason, that pork so prepared would taste rather like turducken.

The Romans paid incredible prices for eels (murenae), which they sometimes kept as pets; infamously, Augustus' friend P. Vedius Pollio flung disobedient slaves into his pool of ravenous eels (and then, at least according to Tertullian, served the eels to his guests). A less vicious owner insisted on (somehow) giving her favorite eel earrings. Other Romans raised eels in specially-designed fishponds for sale, knowing that the demand and the price were always high. I would rather like to try the best eel my cinnamon could buy with some of the rich sauces Apicius describes.

The most decadent dish I know from Roman literature was devised by the famous glutton (and short-lived emperor) Vitellius. According to Suetonius, Vitellius once served a massive platter at a banquet, which he called "The Shield of Minerva:"

"In this [platter] he mingled the livers of pike, the brains of pheasants and peacocks, the tongues of flamingos and the milt of lampreys, brought by his captains and triremes from the whole empire, from Parthia to the Spanish strait" (Vitellius 13.2)

Everything about this dish disgusts me, but morbid curiosity would more or less compel me to try it.

Finally - and this is the one pleasure that I could not, with sufficient money and poor taste, recreate now - I would like to sample the famous Falernian wine. This sweet white wine, grown in the hills south of Rome, was aged for up to 20 years in resin-lined amphorae before being sold to the most discriminating class of customer. Certain vintages were famous - above all, that of 121 BCE, the year of Opimius' consulship. "Opimian" wine - or rather, wine marketed as such - was preserved for centuries in the cellars of the very rich. A few bottles may have conceivably have still existed in the imperial wine cellars as late as 168 CE. The wine would have been undrinkable by then, but there's nothing like vinegar to wash out the taste of flamingo tongue...