A detailed revelation of what was eaten in the court of the Eastern Roman Empire, accompanied by colourful descriptions of the sights and smells of Constantinople and its marketplaces.

For centuries, the food and culinary delights of the Byzantine empire - centred on Constantinople - have captivated the west, although it appeared that very little information had been passed down to us.

Tastes of Byzantium now reveals in astonishing detail, for the first time, what was eaten in the court of the Eastern Roman Empire - and how it was cooked. Fusing the spices of the Romans with the seafood and simple local food of the Aegean and Greek world, the cuisine of the Byzantines was unique and a precursor to much of the food of modern Turkey and Greece.

Bringing this vanished cuisine to life in vivid and sensual detail, Dalby describes the sights and smells of Constantinople and its marketplaces, relates travellers' tales and paints a comprehensive picture of the recipes and customs of the empire and their relationship to health and the seasons, love and medicine.

For food-lovers and historians alike, Tastes of Byzantium is both essential and riveting - an extraordinary illumination of everyday life in the Byzantine world.

Andrew Dalby is a classical scholar, historian, linguist and translator most well-known for his books on the history of food, in particular the Greek and Roman empires. Siren Feasts, Andrew Dalby's first food book, won the Runciman Award and his second, Dangerous Tastes, won the Guild of Food Writers Food Book of the Year in 2001. He is also the author of The Classical Cookbook and Empire of Pleasures as well as biographies of Bacchus and Venus.