Farrell Monaco is an experimental archaeologist and food-writer whose research centers on food, food preparation, and food-related ceramics in the Roman Mediterranean.
Farrell is well known for her experimental archaeology projects where she painstakingly recreates Roman recipes using instruction and ingredients sourced from the archaeological, written and pictorial records. Her experiments and recreations are published on her site, https://tavolamediterranea.com, and have been spotlighted by The Atlantic, Atlas Obscura, the BBC, The Guardian, National Geographic, The Economist, Verve Magazine, The Getty Museum and The Ancient History Encyclopedia.
In 2019, Farrell Monaco was awarded the John Wacher Dissertation Prize in Roman Studies by The University of Leicester, and the Best Special Interest Food Blog Award by Saveur Magazine.
Farrell currently sits on the Media Relations Committee of the Society for American Archaeology and is an active member of EXARC, a global organization of experimental archaeologists. She resides in Malibu, California with her husband and 2 dogs. In her free time, she bakes bread in her wood-fired ceramic oven and is building a Pompeian kitchen on her property. Her efforts to install a donkey-powered rotary grain-mill remain fruitless but she will continue to try to find inroads.