ABSTRACT
The technology of food preparation became much more relevant with urbanisation when large amounts of food were required by denser populations. Between its harvesting in the countryside and its appearance on a table, most food had passed through many hands and processes to make them edible and to increase their shelf life. Processing was necessary for many foods: combs into honey, milk into cheese, grain into beer, and wine into sauces. Much food was preserved by smoking, salting, and sealing. Flour, olive oil, and wine all needed fairly complicated preparatory treatment, for which ever more efficient and specialised machines were developed that were operated by skilled professionals.
Simple mortars and pestles and saddle-querns gave way to the superior efficiency of the rotary quern, which in turn gave way to the larger hourglass-shaped rotary mills powered by donkeys or slaves. Similar machines evolved for extracting the liquid from olives and grapes. From a simple flat stone rotated over a trough full of olives, the technology for crushing and pressing evolved into one of the most mechanically advanced in antiquity, imaginatively employing the principles of rotary motion, the lever, the wedge, and the screw to make the tasks easier and more efficient. The development led to olive mills like the trapetum and to beam-presses whose force was exerted by windlasses or screws.
