Food in the Talmudic Literature: Graeco-Roman and "Iranian" Contexts

Named foods and dishes are to be found throughout the Talmudic literature. In the case of the Jerusalem Talmud, many of these have been identified with contemporary Graeco-Roman foods. However, less attention has been given to the `Iranian` context of a number of foods that appear in the Babylonian Talmud.

It has been proposed recently that rival displays of power between the Roman emperor and the Sasanian King of Kings in the third to seventh centuries were partly played out through the rituals and symbols of their respective imperial banquets. In the talmudic literature, the table of Rabbi Judah haNasi and its desirable foods is compared specifically with that of the Roman emperor `Antoninus,` while the even more exotic table of the exilarch is compared to that of the Sasanian King Shapur. The imperial contexts of these high-class foods are confirmed by Roman, Greek and Middle Persian literature.

I suggest that this reflects a trickle-down of the imperial rivalry between Rome and Persia, which is echoed in the rivalry between the two Jewish leaders, expressed here through their food.