Serving eggs to start a meal was so common in Ancient Rome that they had a saying that said “ab ovo usque ad mala," which meant "from eggs to..." what?

In Latin, a "malum" was an apple, and "mala" was the pluralization of that word. So "ab ovo usque ad mala” meant "From eggs to apples," which was a phrase signifying a whole meal. One such exotic use of eggs was serving fig-peckers, a type of small songbird, by marinating it in peppered egg yolk and then stuffing into the egg from a peahen. Mmmm...decadent.

Asked by Tom Cohen · Last updated 5 years ago · 1.2K views