A sumptuous Roman banquet. The "gustatio" was the aperitif before dinner
The habit of the aperitif , still so widespread and appreciated today, has its origins in Ancient Rome.
That's right:the aperitif also belongs to that large group of "inventions" bequeathed to us by our ancestors of the Urbe.
At the time it was called gustatio and consisted of a preview of the dinner based on tasty snacks able to stimulate the appetite and generally accompanied by a few good sips of mulsum, an aromatized wine with a high alcohol content.
However, it should be noted that the gustatio it concerned exclusively the sumptuous banquets with a large number of participants, who thus, between one bite and the next, also found a way to socialize.
It goes without saying that in the lower strata of the population, where bringing a meal to the table every day was anything but simple and obvious, this custom was completely unknown.