‘It smelled like toffee apples’: how I recreated the 2,000-year-old Pompeii pizza

Our Rome food correspondent has a go at making the meal depicted in a newly discovered ancient fresco

At first glance it certainly does look like a pizza. The well-risen and golden crust, sunken centre blushed pink and white, a bright green leaf across the top. Looking at the roughly 2,000-year-old fresco that emerged during excavations at Pompeii, the colours leap out: the silver tray and wine goblet, the yellow orbs and rubble of nuts.

Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the director of Pompeii, this week announced the latest find in the city buried by ash after the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79: not exactly a pizza, but possibly related. He explained that the fresco was a common one in ancient Pompeii, that the food depicted was focaccia, fruit and a goblet of wine, collectively known as xenia, hospitable offerings to guests – a Greek tradition adopted by the Romans, the ancient equivalent of tea, biscuits and giving visitors the comfy part of the sofa.