When someone hires you to cater for a Roman orgy, explains Corky White, you should visit a library. That's what she did, one day in the late 1970s, when a Harvard professor asked her to provide the food for an intimate gathering at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

White is now an anthropology professor at Boston University, specialising in people's odd relationships with food. Back then, she was a caterer, specialising in much the same. "Often, this meant making dishes for the first time," she says. "I took on every challenge, but a Roman orgy was a whole different kettle of fermented anchovy sauce."

White consulted many old texts, leaning heavily on Apicius, a Roman recipe collection assembled during the late fourth or early fifth century CE. The book's formal name is De Re Coquinaria (On Cooking), but the word "Apicius" has become associated with a decadent passion for food.

During its many centuries of existence, the Roman Empire enjoyed a tremendous variety of culinary and social practice so White felt she could choose daringly. She opted for delights that were intriguing – and still obtainable:

"With no orgy cookbook in front of me, I had to use my imagination. Honey cakes seemed to epitomise the evening, and I made them in buttocky shapes drenched in a nut-honey mixture."

"Nightingales' tongues? Nowhere in our most exotic butchery were there packets of these. I thought, what would a nightingale's tongue resemble ... little, slippery, wormy ... snails! Periwinkles from Chinatown! With a hatpin, I plucked each of the little buggers out of their chambers and stir-fried them with garlic and green herbs."

On the appointed evening, White delivered her delicacies. "The house was free of furniture, the floors laid with oriental carpets and strewn with pillows. Incense wafted from standing brass braziers ... I took the food into the kitchen. Our host said: "Just leave directions for the servers," and I swore inwardly: surely you'll let me just watch? As I left the doorbell rang, and I opened it to a pair of perfectly matched and fetchingly attired male undergraduates, wearing tiny chitons that barely covered their toned bodies in draped cloth. They even sported Demetrius and the Gladiator sandals, trussed up the legs." And that was that, for the caterer.

The house, near Harvard Square, can lay claim to being the home of the modern Roman orgy.

• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize

• What would you serve at a Roman orgy? Tell us below