What Did Jesus and the Apostles Eat at the Last Supper?

Over the years, many classic meals have been depicted in art andfilm, but Leonardo Da Vinci's最后的晚餐might just be the most famous.While many continue to investigate the painting's religious symbolism and value as art, others are looking at the famous mural for clues about something else: What were Jesus and his apostleseating?

There are a number of theories regarding the circumstances surrounding the Last Supper, an event that Christians now celebrate onMaundy Thursday, but there are a few things we can agree on: Attendeesdrank wine and ate unleavened bread, butthe Last Supper wasnota traditional Passover Seder. Other details are a bit murkey, but here are our best guesses about what was (and wasn't) eaten at the Last Supper.

According to Christianscripture, the practice of taking Communion originated at the Last Supper. Jesus is said to have passed unleavened bread and wine around the table and explained to his Apostles that the bread represented his body and the wine his blood.

Deuteronomydescribes Jesus's homeland as "a land of olive oil and honey; a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity." Common crops included grapes, figs and pomegranates. However, these foods probably wouldn't have been available fresh in early spring. The dinner certainly could have included dried figs, as well as staples like olive oil and honey.

In 2007, Pope Benedict XVannouncedthat there would have been no lamb served at the Last Supper. The then-pope theorized that the Last Supper took place before the ritual sacrifice of the lambs, which was a common Passover tradition in Jesus's time, and therefore it was Jesus himself who took the lambs' place.

While the Last Supper occurred just prior to Passover itself, that doesn't mean that Jesus and the Apostoles weren't enjoying a few Passover dishes. According to a2015 report由一群意大利archaeologists,a number of typical Seder dishesmade appearances at the Last Supper including bitter herbs with pistachios and a date charoset. Other dishes, like cholent, a stewed dish of beans cooked very low and slow, and olives with hyssop, a mint-like herb, were commonly eaten on a daily basis and might have appeared at the Last Supper.

After the painting's most recent restoration, which took 21 years and ended in the late '90s,additional dishesappeared on the table for the first time, including one that seemed a bit out of place—eels with orange slices. While this certainly wasn't a common dish in Jesus' time, eels and oranges were a common pairing in 15th-century Italy and were two items that appeared on Da Vinci's own preservedgrocery lists.