Sally Grainger
Sally Grainger is an English food historian specialising in Roman recipes.
Early life and education
Grainger left school aged 16 with no O-levels, and worked as a pastry chef. She later gained four O-levels and two A-levels, including ancient history, at evening classes, and at the age of 30 started to study for a degree in ancient history at Royal Holloway University of London. There, at a toga party for which she had created food using Roman recipes, she met historian Andrew Dalby who suggested that they co-author a book.Career in food history
Grainger has worked with museums and television companies as an expert on Roman food, appearing on shows including Time Team and Neil Oliver's A History of Ancient Britain. She has a particular research interest in the Roman fish sauce garum, and studied for an MA at the University of Reading where her dissertation topic was "Roman fish sauce: an experiment in archaeology".Grainger published The Classical Cookbook, coauthored with Andrew Dalby, in 1996; a revised edition was published in 2012. Together with her husband Christopher Grocock she published a translation and critical edition of Apulius' Roman cookbook in 2006.