ABSTRACT
Jews were dispersed throughout various parts of the Roman world, predominantly in Palestine but also including important populations in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and Rome itself. Both the documentary corpus and archaeological record from Palestine in the Roman period are abundant. The culturally privileged foods of Jews in Palestine – echoing biblical and Roman preference – were bread, wine, and olive oil. Meat surely constituted a part of the Palestinian Jewish diet, but to what extent and on what occasions is subject to considerable debate. Common wisdom, repeated by most who have written on the Palestinian diet of this period, suggests that, for all but the wealthy, meat was a relatively rare dietary item, consumed only on special occasions. Perhaps the most important question pertaining to the Jewish diet in the Roman world, in Palestine and elsewhere, relates to the pig taboo; that is, the degree to which Jews were distinguished from their neighbours by their refusal to eat pork.
