Which Roman author recorded the fried dough ball recipe called globi?

The Roman author who recorded the fried dough-ball recipe called globi was Cato the Elder, also known as Marcus Porcius Cato.

The recipe appears in De agri cultura, or On Agriculture, usually dated to the second century BCE. Cato instructs cooks to mix cheese with spelt, form the mixture into balls, fry them in hot fat, then coat them with honey and sprinkle them with poppy seeds.

Globi were not modern ring doughnuts: they were small, unleavened fried balls, more like sweet cheese fritters or doughnut holes. Their inclusion in a farming handbook shows how practical Roman agricultural writing could also preserve household food traditions.

Apicius is a common mix-up because De re coquinaria is the best-known surviving Roman culinary work. It is associated with Roman recipes, but the globi passage comes from Cato. Virgil and Pliny the Elder also wrote about food and agriculture, yet neither is the author of this recipe.