The way we Romanians cook at home is more varied and regional than what you get in the country’s restaurants, which generally serve a pretty standard menu across the country. We have old traditions of preserving and of cooking with seasonal fruit and vegetables, influenced by observing 180 days of fasting annually (fortunately not all in a row). Even when we do cook with meat or fish, our dishes often feature spring onions, leeks, chard, spinach, courgettes, aubergines and tomatoes, and there are constant culinary nods to the Roman empire, too: leeks, so loved by the Romans, are the culinary symbol of Oltenia in the south of the country; we still bake ash bread under a dome-shaped earthenware lid called a testum, known locally as a țest, much as they did in Pompeii; we add vinegar, a Roman favourite, to our soups; and we use lots of lovage and parsley, which flavoured many ancient Roman dishes. But the similarities stop at garlic, which Romans hated, and which we love.
