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There is no denying the presence of meat or cheese within the legionary diet. https://twitter.com/RomanCaerleon/status/1302966589747331074
Evidence from our own Legionary Baths at Caerleon,published by Dr Terence O'Connor (1986),points to the late- 1st century AD consumption of light snacks of mutton chops, trotters and chicken,with some evidence for larger meat joints of cattle, sheep and pig. Foul was predominant.
Later on, during the later 2nd century and 3rd century AD, there appears to have been a shift from small snacks to large joints, including cattle and pig, but where foul and sheep still make up a large proportion of the remains.
Both Usk and Caerleon in South Wales have produced fragmentary Roman pottery cheese presses
A single olive stone dating to the later 2nd or early 3rd century AD was also recovered from the drain sediments of our Fortress Baths. Davies (1971: 131) notes that legionary soldiers consumed black olives preserved in wine must.
'Wheat - which could be made into bread, porridge or pasta - pork, cheese, salt and sour wine' are listed as staple foods of the legionary soldier by Richard Brewer (2000. Caerleon and the Roman Army. Cardiff: National Museums and Galleries of Wales, 33).
The earliest certain references to recognisably modern pasta in Italy are credited to the 13th and 14th centuries AD by Silvano Serventi & Francoise Sabban (2002. Pasta: the Story of a Universal Food. New York: Columbia University Press, 10),
noting that earlier descriptions of deep-fried dough and lasagne-like recipes from antiquity contain the ingredients but probably produced different products to what we would recognise as a pasta today.
