‘Foodways’ is a word more in use in anthropology than in ancient history or classical archaeology. As an expression of how food has fundamental social connotations, foodways have long been a focus of study in anthropology, as seen for instance in Jack Goody's influential Cooking, Cuisine and Class (1982). In the study of the ancient world, however, food, while important, has not had the attention that it deserves. In part this is a product of the relatively limited ancient literature, with its focus on elite recipes and wealthy banquets, or on ethnographic descriptions of Celtic feasting, etc. Volumes such as J. Wilkins et al. (eds), Food in Antiquity (1995), have paved the way in broadening the agenda in the social context of ancient food production and consumption, but much remains to be done. Archaeology has a lot to offer in this respect, as the volume under review seeks to demonstrate.

Laura Banducci takes a specific period — that of the late Republican transition from regional Italian cultures to a more uniform exposure to Roman culture after the Second Punic War — and a specific region — Etruria, to apply an archaeological foodways methodology and draw some general conclusions. The methodology is two-fold, largely devoted to analysis of cooking and table wares in pottery, and secondarily to the environmental data derived from animal remains in refuse deposits. Archaeobotanical studies are also used, to a more limited extent than the faunal studies.

Three sites are used as case studies, details of which form the bulk of the volume: Musarna, inland from Tarquinia; Populonia, on the coast south of Livorno; and Cetamura del Chianti, between Florence and Siena. All these had Etruscan origins (relatively late in the case of Musarna, dating to the fourth century b.c.), and also deposits of material dating to the target period of the third to first centuries b.c. In terms of the methods used to examine this material, the ceramic analysis is less concerned with origins and trade than with forms, usage and wear. This is a fruitful line of approach that can provide good data on changing patterns of food and drink consumption. Banducci's development of a system for analysing sooting and use-wear on cooking and preparation vessels is helpful in understanding which forms were placed in or near fires and how the vessels were used. She does not use the new technique of lipid analysis of the fabric of the pottery, which can inform us on whether a pot was used for cooking animals, fish or vegetables — this will undoubtedly be of great assistance in further research in this field of study.

The results show that Roman cultural influence manifested itself in different ways on each site. Populonia appears to have been quite conservative in keeping early patterns of usage and consumption through into the late Republic, while the other two sites had different trajectories in the adoption and use of display tableware, etc. The animal bones, too, show varying patterns in the take-up of what is regarded as the classic Roman Italian high (but often very young) pork diet. In other words, localism seems to have won out over homogenisation across early Roman Etruria. This is a conclusion that can clearly be tested against further data from a wider range of sites, both geographically and chronologically. Banducci's work gives us a good basis for understanding Roman influences within Italy, and more specifically Etruria. However, this region may have been a special case in the sense of being so close culturally to Rome throughout early Republican history. Etruria, Latium and Campania together form the heartland of early Rome's development, leaving more peripheral parts of Italy, such as Magna Graecia or Cisalpina, somewhat different in their foodways, as the work on animal bones by the reviewer, Michael MacKinnon, Angela Trentacoste, Jacopo De Grossi Mazzorin, Claudia Minniti and many others has clearly demonstrated.

The volume is generally well structured, with a few slips in the bibliography, and strangely, omission of some of the footnotes (nos 133–139). That said, Banducci's contribution to this field of study has given us a clear and integrated study of changing patterns in food preparation and consumption. More combined ceramic and faunal/botanical analyses are needed to build a more comprehensive picture of regional and changing foodways within the Roman world.