Although there will be no cooking on the site, visitors will be directed to a local restaurant where some of the ancient specials will be offered. Kits with the ingredients will be sold to visitors in the area around the restaurant with instructions on how to cook Roman specialties. Researchers have tried to revive the city’s food by replanting - in the restaurant’s garden and in other open spaces - the fruits and vegetables that were part of the Roman diet: figs and olives, plums and grapes, as well as poppy, broom (a flowery bush), bramble (a prickly shrub) and mallow (an herb). Starting Thursday, visitors will do more than stroll around the restaurant’s tables and gaze at the kitchen tools that have stayed where residents left them when they were surprised by the eruption. The eruption killed thousands of people, but a 20-foot-deep (6-meter-deep) cocoon of volcanic ash kept the city almost intact, providing precious information on domestic life in the ancient world. Pompeii was originally settled around the 7th century BC by the Oscan peoples. Pompeii, preserved ancient Roman city in Campania, Italy, that was destroyed by the violent eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. However, in 79 AD, disaster struck the city when it was buried under 20 feet of ash and debris from the eruption of the nearby volcano, Mount Vesuvius. Pompeii’s busiest restaurant was buried with the rest of the prosperous city when Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. The city of Pompeii was a major resort city during the times of Ancient Rome.
