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It is just possible that the extinct ancient spice known as silphium, (also known as sirpe, silphion, laserwort, or laserpicium), so valued by the Greeks and Romans for its medicinal and culinary properties, has been rediscovered. It’s quite an appealing idea, but also very difficult to prove. We have so little solid information about what Silphium tasted like. No ancient author describes the flavour at all, only acknowledging that it smells better than the Median kind, asafoetida, and we know that one stinks to high heaven so it’s not a lot to go on! It must have tasted pretty special to have acquired such a reputation but it may not be that simple. In this post I am going to lead you through the culinary journey we are taking (and still taking) to understanding this discovery and the experiments we engaged in to judge the properties of this newly rediscovered spice in Roman food. It is clear that the medicinal qualities of these resins were paramount to the ancients and it will be through medical advances that this resin will be most beneficial. It is not entirely certain how much true culinary value we can attribute to this plant today.

‘Laser, a juice which distils from silphium, as we have already stated, and reckoned among the most precious gifts presented to us by Nature, is made use of in numerous medicinal preparations.’ Gaius Plinius Secundus, Naturalis Historia 22.101.1

Silphium 101

But first we should deal with the basics of silphium. If you are here you probably know quite a bit about the spice already, so I’ll try not to be too longwinded! There are many sites that provide all the material and detailed descriptions. If you are still fond of real books the basics can be found in Andrew Dalby’s Food in the Ancient World: From A to Z (2003:303) The wiki page is extensive and more than adequate: Silphium – Wikipedia. The plant is understood to be a member of the ferula species which includes 190 plants that provide many valuable resins and thus spices, including asafoetida, (ferula asafoetida) – also known as ‘devil’s dung’ or hing – which of course replaced silphium when it became extinct, and various other species, particularly sagapenum (ferula Persica and ferula szowitziana), a plant that currently provide resins that are used to adulterate asafoetida. Sagapenum generates less sulphurous resins and so one might say that adulteration is the wrong term, as the blending process may actually tone down the devil in the hing. One of the pleasant resins, Galbanum (ferula gummosa), provides a resin which is one of the most valued in the perfume industry. Most if not all ferula species seem to provide a form of resin, and it is their perfume that is most valued today. The aroma can be delightful or repulsive or neither, while the taste of many of these resins is bitter and disagreeable. They are not natural culinary spices, and that is the crucial question we have to contend with. Did silphium actually taste good or did it smell so good that the natural bitterness was tolerated? Our first experiments certainly suggest this may be the secret to silphium resin. The smell of the fresh resin was delightfully fresh and green – floral, in fact – similar to galbanum and, and when burnt also reminiscent of frankincense. When we were able to taste that smell without bitterness it proved to be very appealing but also elusive. It was also easily destroyed by heat and time as well as hidden by the complex flavours of many Roman recipes.

‘The Cyrenaic, even if one just tastes it, at once arouses a humour throughout the body and has a very healthy aroma, so that it is not noticed on the breath, or only a little; but the Median and Syrian are weaker in power and have a nastier smell.’ Dioscorides, Materia Medica 17.3.22 (about AD 50).

The Syrian and Median mentioned here along with the more familiar Parthian varieties are, as we can guess, forms of ferula species that generate sulphurous resins that were collectively known as ‘silphium’ too, after the extinction event, and these are known to us as asafoetida. This generalisation of terms makes precise identification challenging. As the recipes we rely on are largely in Apicius and the date of this text is obscure, we cannot know to what extent cooks expected all or most the recipes to be made with asafoetida, because silphium itself had long since died out completely. A rare recipe states ‘Laser sauce: you dissolve Cyrenaican or Parthian laser in warm water blended with vinegar and liquamen‘ (1.30) This probably implies a very old recipe rather then access to silphium in the 4/5th century, the purported date of the finalised recipe collection.

‘For a long time now the only laser brought to us has been that originating in Persis, Media and Armenia, plentiful but much inferior to Cyrenaic and moreover adulterated with gum or sacopenium or bean-meal’ Pliny The elder HN 5 33

The claim that silphium had been found came from Prof Mahmut Miski, a pharmacologist whom I have subsequently met and worked with on this project. He is a professor in the Faculty of Pharmacy, Istanbul University , where his role is to discover new drugs, and the ferula species was his special area of study. I made contact after reading about his early research back in 2018. Mahmut had found a ferula species called Drudeana growing in plain sight in the Anatolian mountains of south eastern Turkey. Mahmut considered it significant that it was an area that claims hereditary links with the Sultanate of Rum, largely populated by conquered Byzantine Christians who still considered themselves Byzantine ‘Romans.’ Stories from the late empire in the 5th century AD had suggested that plants had been transplanted successfully to Turkey, though these had never been taken seriously. ‘Synesius, a Cyrenian aristocrat and bishop of Ptolemais, claimed that he had seen the plant itself and sent lots of silphion juice to his friend Tryphon in Constantinople’ (Miski 2021: note 19). The assumption should be that this was the second rate silphium i.e. asafoetida, as there is rarely any distinction made in the use of the term.  

Terminology is always key and sadly there is little clarity. to it Silphion is the normal Greek term for the plant, while the resin is referred to as sirpe and laserpicium or laser in Latin and opos or just silphion in Greek. The early Greek sources make far more use of the whole plant. The stalks, kauloi, were both boiled and baked, and Aristophanes tells us that sailors who consumed this would characteristically break wind on their fellow rowers afterwards. We know that in the 5th century BC Cyrene specifically exported silphium stems, while the trade in the juice (i.e. resin), though probably included, is unmentioned. The leaf, maspeton,  and the root were also consumed widely and were apparently pounded in a mortar into sauces. ‘There are two kinds of opos, ‘juice’, one from the stem, one from the root, hence called kaulias and rizias‘ (Theophrastus 6.3: Athens 310 BC).

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Ferula Drudeana resembled silphium in many respects: it looks exactly like the illustration on coins, its seeds and leaf are the same, and the root fits the description in Theophrastus. The plant’s lifecycle fits the description, the resin appears to be harvestable in the same way ,and the resin has the potential to be delightful.

For Mahmut, the conviction that the ancient medicinal properties of silphium were potentially present in the resin of the plant that he had discovered was the root of his suspicion that this was actually silphium. Initially for him the culinary aspect were secondary to the potential for drugs. There have been dissenters of course, fellow scientists who dismiss Mahmut’s claims. Time will tell, as it will be a long and complicated process to judge this new species. Read Mahmut’s article below!!

Next Chapter in the Legend of Silphion: Preliminary Morphological, Chemical, Biological and Pharmacological Evaluations, Initial Conservation Studies, and Reassessment of the Regional Extinction Event – PMC (nih.gov)

Tasting silphium in Istanbul

Our first meeting took place in the spring of 2022 when we all – that is, Mahmut Miski, Taras Grescoe, a food writer who had become just as absorbed and fascinated by the discovery, and myself – met up in the Botanical Gardens of Istanbul.. Check out Taras’ new book which includes a chapter on our journey to discover silphium: The lost supper: searching for the future of food in the flavours of the past:

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/taras-grescoe/the-lost-supper-future-food/

The plan was to cook with the first harvest of the resin and also with the root, as many recipes appear to want that rather then the resin. It is very likely that those recipes in Apicius that use the root will actually mean the root of asafoetida rather than silphium. There is currently no trade in asafoetida root, and despite endless attempts to communicate with growers and traders I have failed to make contact with anyone who could help me with this. There is a hint that a cheap and rarely-traded powdered asafoetida available in India is actually made from the ground up thin root slices that are cut in order to stimulate the flow of resin. My attempts to buy this are ongoing. If by any chance someone reading this can help, please please get in touch! I expect that the root would be relatively weak in the sulphur flavour found in the asafoetida resin.

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The first harvest of resin in the spring was fresh but tiny – a miniscule amount in fact – as we had failed to consider that the resin should be taken after the summer’s heat. With hindsight it was more flavourful than the resin that I was subsequently sent after being in storage for 6 months. Even so it was quite subtle. I chose numerous dishes including a lamb tagine with dried plums (8.4.1), a laseratum (1.30) – a simple sauce, roasted quail (Vinidarius xxx), a Alexandrian style goude (3.4.2.). I don’t have recipes to share yet but will do shortly as a new book is forthcoming. We discovered that roasting destroys the flavour, unlike asafoetida which improves considerable after a good roasting! We found that the best option was the lamb with fruit, as this brought out the floral notes. The simple laseratum gave the best clean flavour, which was appealing , there is a delicate flowery scent which reaches the taste buds as some thing similar to artichoke and it was very green. We were excited and felt we had achieved something even if it was rather less than the great revelation that we wanted.

Silphium tasting #2

6 months later and a substantial amount of the resin became available after a summer to cook the roots in the ground and mature the plant. However Mahmut was unable to send it to me directly as the whole thing had become rather politically sensitive. It sat in storage for at least 6 months before we could meet up and exchange samples. The detailed description of the harvesting process from Theophrastus is as follows:

The root has a black skin which they strip off. Its collectors cut in accordance with a sort of mining-concession, a ration that they may take based on what has been cut and what remains, and it is not permitted to cut at random; nor indeed to cut more than the ration, because any surplus spoils and decays with age. Exporting it to Piraeus they prepare it as follows: after putting it in jars and mixing flour with it they shake it for a long time — this is where its colour comes from; and thus treated it remains stable.

The team who collected the root for us could not do this, and it was not possible to do it subsequently . We are not sure what Theophrastus means by the term ‘spoils and decays in terms of the flavour,’ but as you will see the flavour was difficult to discern the 2nd time, and even more so than in the experiments in Turkey. The bitterness was most apparent in every dish as if the time and in fact the heat had destroyed the flavour.

It arrived here in my Hampshire home in the spring of ’23 and it stayed tucked away in a cupboard for some time, as I was unsure, nervous and apprehensive about testing it again, and I was right to be so as you will see when you watch the film. I wanted to make an event of the tasting and that, I think was an error. I invited guests from around the world and made much of the event. I cooked the same dishes as in Istanbul and as I was expecting 8-10 people I did much of the preparation in advance so that I could play mine hostess. Ha Ha ! I won’t do that again. It was very apparent that time in every respect had altered the flavour. The time spent in storage in Turkey, the time spent at my house and the time spent blended in the pre-prepped food had almost destroyed that delicate flavour we had hoped for. All that many of us could detect was bitterness. It was also clear that heat, cooking heat, interfered with the delicate balance. I found that some sauces when I made them tasted fine, but subsequently when gently reheated gave nothing in the way of flavour. Fresh resin freshly blended or stabilised as described in Theophrastus would seem to be the best option, and when this is achievable I think we could then begin to see that something as wonderful as we expect and want silphium to be has been found.

Now and only now will I post the You Tube film so you can watch our guests at the tastings.

https://youtu.be/-Mkm7tn_2mM

Every best wish to all of you and thank you for your continued interest and support!

Sally Grainger

Welcome back to A taste of the ancient world . Our film of ancient fish sauce is ready! All I can say is that life gets complicated not just for me but also the for Rod, our wonderful camera man. We have been plagued by gremlins in the film which caused huge delays and we had to call on experts help to untangle it. As I am sure you will agree it was worth waiting for and we simply could not have ditched this version and stated again (we did consider this) as its just too good this way.

Garum Masterclass v1 3 – YouTube

The film explains the basics of fish sauce but in order to catch all who have come here without seeing the film or who are confused by all the different approaches to fish sauce that are out there, here is a very basic Roman fish sauce 101. I have kept the references to a limit but you can find them all in my book The Story of Garum: Fermented Fish Sauce and Salted Fish in the Ancient (routledge.com)

Ancient fish sauce seems to have begun in and around 5th century Greece as a cheap simple fish paste derived from small fish such as sardine anchovy and many related small species commonly called small fry. It was consumed by the poor fishermen and people of similar class and may initially have been cooked but this is not quite clear. If this kind of paste is left to settle it forms into a liquid as well as a paste and it seems that the value placed on the liquid increased so that over time what was considered garos evolved. The liquid garos began to be used alongside oil, wine and vinegar to flavour foods prepared in a 4th century house according to Philoxenus (Athenaeus 1.6a) and it is later described as a ‘tasty cooking liquid’ by Alciphon who is writing about 4th century BC Greek Middle Comedy, though he was writing in the later empire (Grainger 2021: 49). Hellenistic cuisine developed around the idea of blending fish sauces with oil and wine into dipping sauces which were later served largely at the beginning of the meal to tempt the appetite. These compound sauces were called oenogaros, after the Greek oenos for wine. This term is transliterated from the Greek hence oenogarum. These techniques of cooking with fish sauce and also blending sauces formed the basis of a Mediterranean cuisine which arrived in Republican Rome in the late to mid 2nd century BC. This fashionable cuisine was embraced by the elite and aspiring classes in Rome who began to use fish sauce widely and demand high end products from larger species rather then the sauces made with small fry. Garos naturally became garum as the term was simply transliterated. Alongside garos, halmer or a fish brine, later called muria in Latin, was also utilised in Greek sauces and this also came to Rome as part of the Hellenistic cuisine. So far so Good! Garum was now a sophisticated product made from Spanish mackerel, according to Martial and widely consumed at table in the pre-mixed oeneogarum dressings. Pliny tells us that this sauce was nut brown in colour, amber in varying shades dark to light depending on age and as I have discovered varying exposures to light and air results in oxidation which darkens the sauce. Its becoming clear, is it not, that Roman fish sauce is not really Roman and this is at the heart of all the problems modern historians faced in trying to understand the various products gathered under the term garum.

The trade in fish sauce expands exponentially as the demand rises. By the late Republic fish sauce factories in Spain are shipping vast quantities to the bay of Naples and Rome and by the early empire North Africa and Portugal are also producing in quantity. The demand has become widespread and among the middle and lower classes too and particularly the army, as it is through the military supply chain that much of the fish sauce made in Spain and north Africa travels to the military bases in Northern Europe including Roman Britain.

In this frenzied consumption of garum among the masses, the elite were looking for a way to take their fish sauce to another level, and it is that need to differentiate that spurs the notorious gourmet Apicius to oblige by inventing a sauce made entirely from the blood and viscera of mullet (HN 9.66.4). Mullet and eel breeding was a new fad in places like Baiae in the Bay of Naples, attested by the surviving fish ponds. Stories abound of fish breeders treating their fish like pets but ultimately they were bred for the table and the processes involved in cooking these fish seem to have become a little perverted. Dinners, we are told by Seneca, watched the fish swim in a garum seasoned cooking liquor which presumably was brought to a very gentle poaching heat so that, we are told, the colour changes to the skin could be observed (Quaest Nat 3.17.2.9). The fish were then consumed as fresh as possible, the viscera only being discarded at this point. Pliny tells us that Apicius devised a sauce made of mullet blood and viscera but clearly this is material taken before they were cooked. Its name then was garum sociorum . This is variously translated as garum of the allies, or companions, the allies were believed to be the trading groups from Spain who were subsequently commissioned to make this special sauce. This is now unlikely and in fact the term was coined with reference to the dish as first devised by Apicius, that is, a fish sauce generated from mullet blood and viscera was used to add to the cooking liquor that the mullet were cooked in, but also potentially serve with and so ‘their companions’ were just other mullet, served in or with a hydrogarum= water flavoured with garum. This garum was naturally very different from the earlier versions, it was black and bloody according to Galen and had a powerful metallic taste from the iron in the blood and I believe it was unsuited to the basic cooking process. It was, from references in satire, a table condiment which the dinner had some control over. It was also extremely difficult to produce as the process of bleeding fish was not easy as you can imagine. The mackerel, now used to produce this sauce in bulk in Spain – yes it took off despite the odd taste – were caught particularly in Cartagena in the region of Murcia as the mackerel in that region were prolific and a technique of bleeding the fish on board the boat was likely developed, though we are not told precisely how this was done as they are silent on the matter. It would have been sensible to coin a new term for this sauce or retain the sociorum at all times but this is not what happened. The elite appear to have appropriated the term garum with and without a descriptor for this new sauce and a new term had to be coined for the old sauce, which, I am sure you can guess was liquamen. Presumably the manufacturers were either compliant or even complicit in this change of terms. Either way after this change, which we can only loosely date to about 10BC-10AD, ceramic amphora vessels containing fish sauce appear with labels (tituli picti) for both garum and liquamen. Prior to this change there was no need to label fish sauce vessels with complex terms as there was only one cooking sauce alongside the trade in salsamenta ,salted fish which generated the fish brine muria.

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Written material is slower to recognise the change so we have numerous mentions of garum in texts such as Pliny, Columella, the publication of which span the change but which rely on earlier Greek sources before the development of this kind of garum and clearly mean to refer to the original garos/garum. Garum sociorum doesn’t last very long as we will see below but it does cause problems later as the very fact that a different garum had existed seems to have passed many ancient writers by, while in modern amphora scholarship the distinction between the two sauces is not well understood but is essential in interpreting the amphora labels. Many Greek medicinal and veterinary texts translated into Latin in the late empire did not comprehend the differences while others did so some would translate garos into liquamen, some would translate it into garum. This is the reason why the recipes in Apicius reflect the correct usage ie garos = liquamen as it is clear many of the recipes were originally written in Greek. When indicating fish sauce the recipes use liquamen with barely a mention of garum beyond the compound phrase oenogarum.

For about 200 years garum from blood and viscera was consumed among the elite but did not figure greatly in the wider cuisine of either Rome or Greece. It appears from numerous references in poetry to be far more important than it actually was. It was an odd anomaly in Roman culture, and died out quite rapidly after Christianity spread as the overt consumption of blood was prohibited. Once it had ceased to be consumed generally people seem to have reverted to using garum to refer to the original Greek sauce. I bang on about the distinction in my book and hear because it is necessary to separate the standard whole-fish sauce of daily cooking, utilised by all classes from the sauce that was the epitome of perverted luxury made from fish blood??.

To complete the picture of the development of fish sauce into the Byzantine and medieval period see below.

The most reliable recipe that survives for fish sauce is in a Greek Byzantine agricultural manual called the Geoponica compiled in the 10th century but made up of material that is dated from a much wide period including material from the Hellenistic and Republican periods. Andrew Dalby has produced a good translation Geoponika | Prospect Books. A further recipe from a 2nd century AD Latin agricultural text by Gargilius Martialis is less reliable for various reasons best left to my book (Grainger 2021 18-25). The two sources together give us a good idea of what was involved.

Full recipes here: https://www.atasteoftheancientworld.co.uk/the-geoponica/

Gargilius Martialis recipe for fish sauce

Garos/liquamen/garum

Whole small and medium sized fish (anchovy sardine mackerel, cut open unless small enough to dissolve quickly) combined with salt levels that are either low c.12-15% or indeterminant but a good deal higher, They are allowed to disintegrate and dissolved using some little natural heat, indigenous or additional digestive enzymes and time. The result was a liquor and a fish paste called allec. Fermentation takes up to three months, either open to the warmth from the sun where evaporation is regularly replaced with either wine or brine or in an enclosed vessel where no extra liquid is added until after the first sauce is removed. It was possible and even necessary to re-brine the residues to extract 2nd and even 3rd sauces which were not necessarily 2nd quality as this depended on the size of the fish, duration of fermentation and when it was fully filtered as I explain in the film. Both methods result in  a rich amber liquid potentially high in protein yet relatively low in salt. The secret to a high quality sauce concerns the length of time that the liquor is left unfiltered of its fish paste. The vessel below on the left contains what I have defined as a flos sauce. Archaeologist and linguists differ as to the meaning of flos. The arguments are best left to the book, but I have demonstrated that the longer the sauces are left together the taste improves due to higher nutrition. The paste effectively continues to dissolve into the sauce as long as they are left together. The sercrte therefore is to not filter until the last minute.

Modern fish sauce substitutes

I now want to deal with the whole issue of what to use in Roman recipes instead of S.E.A. sauces, when you also don’t want to make your own. S.E.A. are now largely inadequate because too strong in flavour, too sweet and too salty. They just disappoint. For years it was all there was but now the options are legion as we shall see

Colatura di Alici

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This was traditionally a salted fish brine, a muria in ancient sauce terms, light in colour and taste without the varying levels of intensity of umami flavour that is generated when sauces are fermented whole. As there are no degestive enzymes it is much harder to extract the muscle protein and convert it to a liquid state. This product was made in the region of Cetara and surrounding villages in the Bay of Naples. Initially the anchovy were beheaded cleaned and deboned in one action: Snap off the head of the anchovy and pull down, the viscera and spine with some of the vertebrae comes away and you are left with a nice neat fillet. Its still bloody so it is then mixed with course salt over night to draw out the blood. The liquor that forms: a bloody brine is discarded. The fillets are then washed and layered in a neat spiral in barrels and jars while salt is sprinkled (but not weighed) over each layer. The barrel is covered and compressed with stones and left to age for a varying degree of time, up to three years in some instances and as little as 6/8 months in others. I believe the shorter ferments involved the consumption of the anchovy while the longer involves discarding or reusing the fish in other ways. The liquor that forms was originally used as a local seasoning while the anchovy themselves were consumed separately. It seems that from ancient times there were potentially two different sauces i.e one aged where the fish was not utilised and one much shorter where the fish were consumed or as colleagues have suggested it may be that the process has changed in recent years. It has been suggested that the manufacturers realised there was a culinary market for the liquor and began to change their technique. The sauce was left for longer and the anchovy was not preserved for consumption but every drop of water was extracted from the flesh and in fact extra brine is some times now added to maximise the harvest of finished sauce. Some techniques involve mashing the fish by hand to maximise the extraction while the tradition is to compress only.

Colatura di alici is a clean product with limited fermentation whether from bacteria or enzymes compared to a whole fish sauce and so much of the protein in the fish remains in solid form unless aged. It may be that over the extended aging time most of the protein will be extracted. The flesh of the fish contains less powerful enzymes while bacterial action also contribute to the liquefaction processors. The variety known as Nettuno is aged for three years apparently and as a result probably made the traditional way.

Small batch Colatura being made

The basic recipe is about 120 kg of anchovies, 60 kg salt and yields about 10-12 litres of sauce. This is quite a low yield compared with other sauces. The residue as I hope I have demonstrated in the video would go on to make at least the same amount without reducing flavour.

The aging, maturing and darkening of the sauce resulted in relatively greater umami but as the fish essentially remains solid state we are still dealing with an aged muria. It is entirely possible that ancient muria was also aged for up to three years as we find many labels on amphora associated with mackerel and tuna which do seem to suggest that the fish were aged for that long. I have always questioned how it would be possible or desirable to consume fish aged that long in brine.

Muria becomes garum

This is where it gets very much more interesting. In strict Jewish food laws it was stipulated that fish were supposed to be ritually slaughtered in the same way as meat and the blood drained away and the flesh cleaned with salt, just as we have seen that colatura is prepared, in order to comply with the prohibition on the consumption of any blood at all. These laws were not always complied with even in Roman Palestine as we find that rabbis would often argue about these restrictions. Traditional forms of fish sauce were consumed by Jews and they appear to only want to ensure there was no shell fish involved in the process. The orthodox view was always that the blood of fish was prohibited. In the Roman West this original Jewish prohibition had not taken hold and ceased to be enforced very soon after Christianity began and only persisted in relation to overt consumption of blood from meat animals. However in some Greek, Cypriot and Syrian orthodox churches the prohibition was retained and often enforced. In these circumstances no one ate fresh fish that had not been salted first to draw out the blood. Clearly a traditional fish sauce with retained viscera was obviously forbidden (never mind the bizarre blood viscera sauce – garum sociorum, which of cause dies out precisely because all forms of early Christianity rejected such overt blood consumption). In fact the equally valued muria became the sauce of choice in these communities. So, for orthodox Christianity in the East muria actually becomes garos, as they begin to call it garos. Colatura was therefore also a legitimate form of ancient garum fish sauce and a suitable substitute for it in communities where the whole fish sauce was forbidden. The salt levels of the modern Colatura is always going to be too high for me, but as muria/garos was seemingly used in exactly the same way as liquamen i.e. in larger quantities one needs to just be careful about the quantities you use.

It has taken some time to gather together all the different options that are now available. I currently have at least 6 different colatura di alici, all of which are largely similar to be honest. Light amber in colour, weak in that nitrogen flavour of protein that you would get from a dissolved sauce but high enough in umami and with varying levels of salt. In terms of taste the lower the salt levels the more the taste of the protein is apparent. The one factor that is universal is that it is eye wateringly expensive compared to any S.E.A sauce (South East Asian) and given the yield is so low this is not surprising.

Garum Lusitano

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Making umami inside 2,000-year-old ruins – CAN THE CAN

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This is one of my favourite sauces – apart from my own of cause! – a fabulous sauce developed through the dedication of a chef called Victor Vicente who runs the Can the Can restaurant in Lisbon. The Sardo river at Setubal has been famous for sardines for centuries. In Roman times the area was known to produce salt and also preserve their fish to trade widely within the empire. Many fish sauce factories were built on a spit of land known as Troia, near to Setubal. Its a serf and beach resort now but in-between the hotels are numerous fish sauce factories

Victor Vicente made his fish sauce inside the original Troia vats while enclosed in large food grade bags. The fish were subject to same conditions and utilised the same kind of salt and sufficiently low that there necessary bacterial fermentation could take place. The process closely mirrored the ancient technique and the result were amazing. It has a light fresh yet rich umami kick with just enough salt to allow you to add a little more of it to oenogarum sauces. He now manufacturers many different types including mackerel and tuna. I strongly recommend Victor’s sauces though it has to be said that the cost at 5.50E per 50ml is expensive but reflects the considerable expertise that has gone into making it. The small glass bottles now come with dropper dispensers which reflects the tiny amounts of sauce that you are expected to consume at any one time and this is not in keeping with the reproduction of a Roman meal which would probably require 4-5 bottles.

Escata

ESCATA (escatafood.com)

‘Pere Planagumà culinary career has embraced the most radical of avant-garde gastronomy (El Bulli, El Celler de Can Roca), the finest traditions of classical French cuisine (La Tour d’Argent in Paris), renowned stalwarts of Catalan cooking (Mas Pau, Les Cols) and now his own project, Rom, in Roses. Always curious, always investigating new flavours and preparations, Pere Planagumà has now created Escata, his own version of the legendary Garum sauce’.

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Pere considers his sauce a true ancestor of the ancient traditions. He has reformulated garum ‘for the modern palate utilising unique and ancient techniques to bring this seasoning to you. Use to add and balance flavour across sweet and savory.   An Umami nuke!’ I like that phrase very much. Its described as the essence of anchovy and when I first encountered it, it was made from anchovy waste material which was a major environmental contaminant at the port, where he sourced his anchovy for the restaurant, i.e. the head, spine, viscera and residual blood matter. Based on my definition of fish sauce in the ancient world this is not an authentic sauce but it does generate an umami kick and has some of the more intense flavour associated with a true garum ie a metallic taste. Its great that such waste material is utilised to create a gourmet product yet the costs are reasonable as expected at £5.50 120g.

Flor di garum

This fish sauce is manufactured in a collaboration between the departments of Food Technology and archaeology at the University of Cádiz jointly with the university of Seville. Scholars from Cadiz have been studying the Roman site of Bologna for many years as it was one of the first fish sauce factories to be studied in detail. Fish sauces and salted fish was manufactured there from the early first century AD.

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The team of scientists and archaeologist under auspices of Dario Bernal Casasola turned to the Latin recipe attributed to Gargilius Martialis for their fish sauce. This is an enclosed production process that uses whole small and medium sized fish such as anchovy and sardine, quite substantial amounts of salt – the recipe states 2 fingers between each layer of fish, which almost results in a 50/50 ratio that is even higher than a S.E.A sauce – and also many herbs. The resulting sauce is intensely flavoured with umami and protein. It has that ‘umami nuke’ that we heard about from Pere but because of its excessive salt I believe it cannot be used in oenogarum. The team behind it admit that ‘ A few drops of Flor de Garum are enough to flavor a dish’. It is as intense as Red boat in many ways. The Cadiz company El Majuelo in collaboration with Professor Victor Palacios from the food technology Dept. at Cadiz have also begun to experiment with others forms of fish sauce. Flor di garum are now making a true garum sociorum. It is of such a dark hue that it ios clear they have made a true garum with tuna blood. The terminology refers to the red blood colour. I am going to order some and post a separate blog on these blood viscera sauces, so watch this space for reviews!

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The online prices vary a great deal – and for all these sauces too- but my most recent search resulted in 28.90 E per 100ml of the standard sauce , while the dark red tuna variety was 100ml 32,00€. More details about this below.

Flor de Garum Red Tuna ancient sauce Rome 100ml – Arqueogastronomía (arqueogastronomia.com)

Garum di tonno salsa di pesce

Garum of Tuna Sicilian High Quality 100g | eBay

I have just discovered this one made in Sicily by a company called SICILIA BEDDA CAPACI. By its colour and also from the description we are looking at a true garum sociorum. They freely admit that they have used blood and viscera from tuna to make this sauce. An exciting prospect to taste it. Once again watch this space!!

Welcome to the new video. It is worth waiting for. Parthian chicken is one of the simplest dishes in Apicius, easily made in a modern setting. Its very tasty indeed and demonstrates that asafoetida was and is delicious in the right recipe.

I have previously researched the roasting technique I use here, using the clibanus – portable two piece oven/casserole, in a blog for the British Museum. From Parthian chicken to flat breads: experimenting with a Roman oven – British Museum Blog

This discussion was posted during the exhibition  Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum from 2013 at the British Museum. (For some reason the first section of this blog has disappeared of the web and I have failed so far to find the original doc as it was three computers ago! ) The original vessels were found in the store at the Naples archaeological museum by Paul Roberts current Roman curator at the Ashmolean, during preparation for the exhibition in 2012 and I was subsequently able to have the vessel replicated by Chris Lydamore, in order to experiment with them.

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More about that stinky spice..

There are times when consuming asafoetida is a glorious experience where you find complex garlicky pungency with spice elements and a sweetness that is quite magical but there are other times when the flavour seems to grate on the pallet and to my mind it spoil many a Roman sauce and understanding why is a complex issue and one that has intrigued me for years.

This recipe is one of the few that works for me and I thoroughly recommend it. Its very simple and straightforward.

6.8 3. Parthian chicken: draw the chicken from the rear and cut it into quarters. Pound pepper, lovage, a little caraway, pour on liquamen, flavour with wine. Arrange the chicken pieces in a ceramic dish, put the sauce over the chicken. Dissolve fresh laser in warm water² and put it straightaway on the chicken and cook it. Sprinkle with pepper and serve.

Modern recipe

1 medium chicken, 1/2 tsp lovage seed, 1 tsp caraway seed, 1/2 tsp asafoetida powder or a small lump of resin the size of a pea, generous black pepper, 250ml sweet wine, 1-2 tbsp olive oil, 3 tbsp fish sauce

Joint the chicken and place in an oven dish. Dry roast the seeds and the asafoetida resin together, grind together with the pepper. Add the liquids and pour over the chicken. Roast in the normal way and baste regularly to crisps the skin.

The Latin calls for laser vivum which reflects a fresh resin recently harvested and able to melt and dissolve as I demonstrated on the video. I do not expect many of you will be able to access this kind of asafoetida. The dry aged resin does dissolve eventually in hot water but it can also be dry roasted and ground and I find this is beneficial as it caramelizes the flavour .

Below I have cut the information about asafoetida from my Apicius volume:

Silphium Also known as laserpicium, laser, sirpe. See asafoetida. The miraculous spice of legend, uniquely grown in Cyrenaica in northern Libya, it was said to have great healing powers, to be an aphrodisiac and digestive. According to Pliny, it was never properly cultivated and eventually died out through over-cropping. He also tells us that, within his memory, the last stalk was delivered to Nero, suggesting a date of AD 41–68 for its extinction.1 In the time of Alexander (c. 328/7 BC), the asafoetida that eventually replaced silphium in the kitchen had been identified in Afghanistan and used as a tenderizer for meat by his soldiers. 2   Given this early date for the recognition of asafoetida as a substitute, it is not impossible that both varieties of the spice were available in Rome together for some time before silphium proper died out.

Asafoetida – Parthian laser Ferula asafoetida, family umbelliferae. Also known as ‘hing’, ‘devil’s dung’ and ‘food of the gods’: the resin or gum obtained from the root of a plant native to Afghanistan. It is available in the UK, imported from India as a powder. The resin is ground and mixed with bean meal or flour; it is weaker in flavour and has a shorter life than the pure resin (which is less readily available here). In Apicius, laser is either from Cyrenaica in North Africa or from Parthia (Iran/Afghanistan/Iraq/Armenia). African laser was known as silphium but, confusingly, writers also called the other types of resin from Parthia silphium or laser . When silphium became extinct in the mid-first century AD, products from the plant from Parthia replaced it: there are recipes in Apicius which give the reader a choice, but the majority of recipes give no indication as to whether Parthian or African laser was intended.

In the countries of origin the stalk, leaf, resin (opos in Greek) and the root were consumed. The root and resin are likely to be the only products that travelled to Rome. In Apicius various terms are used to indicate this plant and we cannot be certain of their meaning or derivation. It seems clear that silphium was the name of the plant in Greek, but it was also the word used for the root. Galen tells us that ‘people call the root of silphium by the same name as the whole plant’.3 In Apicius the recipes also talk of laseris radix, ‘laser root’, which is equated with silphium in 3.4.1. It is our belief that the dried root and resin reached Rome and were both used in cooking and may have contributed to the demise of the original African spice. One of Columella’s recipes confirms this distinction. He lists the ingredients for an oxyporium which include seminis unciae duae laseris radicis quod silphium Graeci vocant (1½ oz of laser root which the Greeks call silphium).4 He then lists an alternative kind of digestive, which he suggests is made more valuable if mixed with the previous one, ‘but if you have Syrian laser rather than silphium you will do better to add ½ oz of it.’ We think that Syrian laser is the resin and that it is being suggested as an alternative to the root and in much smaller quantities. The resin has a powerful, pungent flavour and would be used in far smaller quantities than the root, hence the need to reduce the quantity. We cannot be certain about these products, but suspect that the root was a far more common item of commerce than the resin, and that the statement silfi id est laseris radicem found at 3.4.1 in Apicius should be taken literally: when silphium appears in (some) of the recipes it does mean the root.

I have never been able to taste the root and I suspect that it was somewhat less intense in flavour and this difference is the explanation for the fact that some recipes work with the resin while others seem to fail. It is also not clear to what extent the root and resin from asafoetida differs from that of silphium in terms of flavour. The true silphium is said to be far less pungent and to be almost sweet in flavour without that sulphurous edge that is such an acquired taste. These issues would seem to be the reason why asafoetida alone often disappoints.

In Latin sirpe, laser and laserpicium are all terms for the resin. In Apicius the resin can be uiuum – ‘living’ – which we interpret as the fresh resin, which is moist and still in the process of drying out. It would have been unadulterated and unground, and liable to decay: it was apparently unstable and did not travel, according to Pliny.1 This is in contrast to a fully dried resin, which had been shaken with bean meal to ‘fix’ it for travel. Both these kinds of laser were dissolved in warm water, though the dried variety takes some time, as our own experiments have confirmed. Laser uiuum must surely have been the most expensive variety, followed by the pure resin, unground. The resin could also be pre-ground before sale, as Pliny suggests when he says that Parthian laser was often adulterated and of a much inferior quality. It is likely that the variety of laser most readily available then, as today, would have been a pounded resin mixed with flour or bean meal in various quantities depending on quality.

New research on Silphion . A new article recently made available on Open access has revealed that there is the possibility that silphium has survived in Anatolia Read it here Plants | Free Full-Text | Next Chapter in the Legend of Silphion: Preliminary Morphological, Chemical, Biological and Pharmacological Evaluations, Initial Conservation Studies, and Reassessment of the Regional Extinction Event (mdpi.com)

For the purposes of reconstructing the recipes, whether they call for silphium or laser or laser radix or laser uiuum, the cook has little choice but to use the resin sold as ‘asafoetida mass’ from Indian shops or the resin which is pounded and mixed with bean meal and turmeric and known as hing. This is precisely what the Romans of the first century AD did too. Alternatively, any acquaintance you may have who travels to the Middle East or India should be cultivated. Whichever form of the spice is available to you, care must be taken, as the spice can ruin a dish if used to excess.

Grocock and Grainger 2006 Apicius page 331f)

1 Pliny, HN. 19.35-38, 22.100-6; Theophrastus, History of Plants 6.3, 9.1.7; see also Dalby, Food in the Ancient World, pp. 303-4.

2 See p. 333 n. 3 above; Dalby, Food in the Ancient World, p. 20.

3 Galen, Commentary on ‘Diet in Acute Diseases’ 15.877-8, a ‘Hippocratic’ text of the late fifth century. See particularly Andrew Dalby, ‘Silphium and Asafoetida: evidence from Greek and Roman writers’, in Spicing up the Palate: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 1992 (Totnes, 1993), pp. 67-72

4 Columella 12.59.4.

Hi all

This time we have tackled the eponymous Roman burger. The pounded meat pate wrapped in caul fat, which clearly isn’t a burger, but the link with modern fast food is useful nonetheless. I recently discovered just how divided the US and the UK is in relation to our common language. I called these items faggots after the British delicacy with a long tradition. Chopped meat and offal bound with breadcrumbs and wrapped in caul fat before often being spit roasted and served in a rich gravy. The caul fat adds a wonderful flavour and also holds the chopped meat in a ball. This is why I chose faggot as the term to define isicia in this context. This is not what it means in the US but we wont go there…. Isicia itself is a complex term that defines definition with a single English phrase. They or it is effectively meat either chopped or pounded into a fine paste and then formed into various shapes and cooked They are made of any and all kinds – lamb, beef, chicken, , offal, sea food and fish. The mixture can be used to make individual balls or flat shapes and it can also be cooked as one large piece which is then cut up into pieces. In Britain there are hideous ready made food items which are described in the small print as ‘chopped and shaped.’ It basically means a cheap poor quality processed meat that is formed into shapes associated with sausages, burgers chicken nuggets (yuk!) and the like. I loath such things but I should really have a little more perspective. The Roman were doing such things centuries ago! More on the nature of these things later but first the recipe

Apicius 2.1.7 ‘Forcemeat faggots’ you pound chopped meat with fresh white breadcrumbs soaked in wine, with pepper and with liquamen: if you wish you can pound crushed myrtle berries with them . You shape the faggots with pine nuts and pepper placed inside. Wrap them in caul fat and roast them with caroenum .

Much of the meat would have been low quality and cut from the carcass after the best meat had been removed. It required first to be cut up and then pounded to tenderize it. You don’t have to pound if a food processor is to hand though it does make a much wetter and softer paste which requires more bread and less wine. I did forgot to add the whole peppercorns to the mixture in this film.

The recipe is pretty simple but the origin and evolution of the term interest me far more. The Latin term is very flexible but it also means that we have to use a number of English terms depending on the context: meat balls, faggots, forcemeat, paté, stuffing, meat paste, chopped or minced meat (bearing in mind that the Roman did not appear to mince as such technology is absent), the list is endless. The term seems to be, uniquely in culinary terminology, of Latin origin from inseco/insectio meaning to cut up. This does not mean that the concept of finely chopped and shaped meat was unknown in Greek cuisine but we do not appear to have a dedicated term for it until Latin sources. In the 2nd century AD in Athenaeus isicia was ‘ chunks of meat cut up fine and worked into a paste with pepper’ (ix. 376d). He is writing in Rome but in Greek, where the fact that isicia was Latin was definitely seen as vulgar and non pc by the Greek guests at the imaginary feast. That is was a common place item and well understood was acknowledged because Paxamus, another culinary writer working in Rome but writing in Greek, in the late 1st BC/early 1st AD had already mentioned isicia. 500 years later and contemporary with the our Apicius, Macrobius’ encyclopaedia has a dedicated passage on the ill effect of isica on the digestion. I include it in full as it appeals to my British sense of humour.

” Please explain why it is hard to digest isicia – I mean the dish that got the name insicium from the process of cutting up (insectio), then lost the n to get the name it has now isicium – even though the thorough grinding involved on its preparation should have done a lot to aid in its digestion by removing whatever was heavy in the meat and largely completing the process of breaking it down…

Darius replied ‘ The thing that causes you to suppose that this food’s digestion is cared for in its preparation is just what makes it difficult to digest. For the lightness that the grinding producers causes it to float in the moist food it encounters……so too when it is tossed in water right after it has been ground and shaped, it floats……furthermore, while the meat is ground quite energetically a lot of gas becomes wrapped up in it and the belly has to dispose of that first, so that what remains of the meat can finally be digested when it is free of gas!” (Macrobius Sat 7.8.4)

Who knew that one could find such a detailed description of the causes of that scourge of post Christmas lunch: the stuffing fart!?

Seneca has little time for these labour intensive items. “Simple meats are out of fashion, and all are collected into one; so that the cook does the office of the stomach; nay, and of the teeth too; for the meat looks as if it were chewed beforehand: here is the luxury of all tastes in one dish” (Seneca On a happy life XI. 203).

In Diocletian’s Price Edict, isicia appears to be listed as a pre-prepared mixture of chopped or pounded meat either of beef or pork.1 Thus defined, it is raw and formless. When isicia occurs in Apicius it does not appear to mean this flavourless formless meat, but appears to have been made up with potentially fish sauce and pepper at least, which seems in addition to have a specific shape which I have assumed is round: therefore ‘meat ball’ is the basic concept indicated by the term. These could just as easily be flat and the concept becomes a burger.

These forcemeat shapes can be wrapped in caul fat (omentum) from which they are named (2.1.4, 6,7). In the recipes for minutal, which we define as a ‘stew’ or ragout, made of various components but invariably flavoured with isicia and other kinds of meat, we find the words isicia minuta (4.3.4), isiciola minuta (4.3.5), isiciola ualde minuta (4.3.2). The question is, are these small, smaller and very small! meatballs, following the model found in Apicius Book 2 where the isicia are cooked in a specific but undefined shape; or are they made into meatballs of a regular size, cooked and then chopped into these various sizes of piece; or (as we thought in our edition of Apicius is the forcemeat very finely reduced or ground into a paste, not unlike a course pâté, which is added to the minutal raw and it flavours and to some extent thickens the sauce as it cooks? If the forcemeat is uncooked when it used, as appears to be the case, then the latter theory seems the most likely. The name minutal seems to corroborate this, and suggests that the dish should be regarded in the modern sense of a ragout of mince.

1 Diocletian’s Price Edict 4.14 (ed. Laufer p.104).

Welcome back after a pause in film making. (I had first proofs of my book to contend with and these films do take so much more time than I imagined). I am also entirely reliant on and extremely grateful to Rod for all production and editing and he had other things to do!

The idea of libum functions on many levels in the ancient evidence . It can be a generic idea of ‘cake’ of potentially many different recipes and styles or it can be the specific sacrificial cheese-cake that is found in the recipe that survives in Cato’s agricultural manual. It is not always clear from the evidence whether we should always think in terms of the Cato recipe, which appears in this manual precisely because such cakes were considered necessary to please the gods and allow the farm to prosper. It rather depends on the context. The earliest sources such as Varro, define these cakes entirely as sacrificial offerings:

‘Libum cake because  after it was cooked as an offering there was an offering of some of it to the Gods before it was eaten’ Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.106.3

they are so named because part of them are offered to the gods at sacrifices, and part eaten by the celebrants. That these cakes were made sub testu with a testum – a portable oven for baking single cakes, one at a time and therefore fresh – is made clear by Varro too

‘Testuacium (libum)’ testum cake because it was baked in an heated testum as even now the matrons do this at the Matralia‘ (in celebration to Mater Matuta in June)

The Roman God that was originally given these cakes was called Liber unsurprisingly! In ancient Roman religion Liber was the equivalent of Bacchus, and was similarly associated with wine, fertility and freedom. Ovid explains why Bacchus is offered honey cakes, it is simple that he delights in sweet things. (Fasti III.735). He also asked why it was that old women make these cakes: It is because at the time of the first popular strike in Rome, the plebs fled to the sacred mount in 494BC and as they had no bread they survived by being fed cakes served hot to them by Anna Perenna (Ovid fasti III. 670). He also explains that old women continued to traditionally make these cakes to sell fresh at festivals.

In comparing the town and country style of living Horace says

‘like the priest’s runaway slave, I reject libum, I want bread and prefer it to honied placenta’ Horace Ep 1. 10. 10

That priests owned slaves that worked for them at the temple precinct is made clear and also clear that these slaves were fed on the sacrificial cakes left by the celebrants. The reference to placenta is intriguing. It is another sacrificial cake from Cato’s agricultural manual which has both a religious significance as an offering and also a potential place at the feast – we shall return to placenta in the months to come.* Other sources talk of birthday ‘libum’ again ‘offered’ as part of the religious celebration of birth and its anniversary, but also brought as a gift, dripping with honey and one has to assume desirable, and consumed by the family (Tibullus, Elegiae 1.7.54). What seems clear from the experiments so far is that when made with fresh cheese, consumed freshly baked, and with warmed honey they are quite exceptionally delicious and fit for a feast but when allowed to go cold and when made with firmer cheese and courser flour they are some what stodgy and dense and as a result far less appealing.

75. Recipe for libum: crush 2 pounds of cheese thoroughly in a mortaria. When it is thoroughly crushed, add 1 pound of wheat flour or if you wish the cake to be more dainty 1/2 pound of fine flour, and mix thoroughly with the cheese. Add 1 egg and work the whole well. Pat into a loaf shape, place in leaves, and bake slowly on a warm hearth under a testum’

Bear in mind that 1 ancient pound is equivalent to 12 of our ounces so the recipe works out as follows.

2 Roman pounds = 24 oz = 1lb 8oz cheese. = 650 gm cheese 1 Roman pound = 12 oz flour = 325 gm flour OR if finer cake required 6 oz flour or = 160 gm 1 egg

A full modern recipe is at the bottom of the page.

Cato’s recipe comes in two qualities depending on the quantity and quality of the flour added and also the cheese. One could end up with a beautiful delicate soft cake dripping with honey or a hefty dense course and salty loaf that might and probably did hang around on the alter for some time and some of the offerings may never have been consumed in reality. A standard cake is made with 2 lb of wheat flour and we may assume that, as the other kind of flour is finer, the standard cake was probably made with a courser grade of flour and even whole-wheat flour. The alternative finer flour is not only finer but it is added at half the quantity of the whole-wheat version.

What can we say about the cheese ? It is likely to be goat or sheep’s cheese simply because cows were not milked as much as today. i could of sought out either but i was luck to have access to goats milk in the village. A goats cheese could be fresh and sweet or salty, crumbly and aged. I have replaced the cheese with various substitutes in the past mascarpone as I tried in the first film and ricotta – which is by far the best for trying this at home – and as you will see with the second film a freshly made goat or sheep cheese is best of all.

We are surely looking for a Queso fresco here which can be mild, soft, or some what crumbly and similar to a mild feta. Its also called pot cheese and farmer cheese, Indian paneer and Eastern European quark, all of which are defined as ‘new’ and with a short shelf life. A harder saltier cheese is possible too but this necessarily has far less moisture and with that single egg as well – that I have such problems with – the resulting cake is going to be a pretty firm and dense again. Add the concept of a course whole-wheat flour and the denseness increases again. The recipe for the flat cake known as placenta * includes detailed instruction to render a cheese suitable for making cakes and while this is not included in the libum it is interesting to consider the nature of the cheese before the process begins.

‘soak 14lb of sheep’s cheese (sweet and quite fresh) in water and let it soak, changing the water three times. Take out a small quantity at a time, squeeze out the water thoroughly with the hands, and when it is quite dry place it in a bowl. When you have dried out the cheese completely, knead it by hand to make it as smooth as possible. Then take a clean flour sifter and force the cheese through it into the bowl’ (Cato de re rustica 76)

This is quite a c0mplex procedure to engage with even with a cheese purporting to be sweet and fresh, and one has to imagine a cheese stored in brine or one that is firm in texture and crumbly in order for this to be necessary.

I have most often made this cake with a ricotta but I have also used feta and as with the first film a mascarpone. This makes a very rich but quite flat cake. It does require more flour to prevent the cake from spreading but then it loses its soft texture. For the purpose of duplicating this at home ricotta is best by far but the feta is interesting too. The cake using feta is salty and firm and one might say a savoury option as apposed to the soft honey cake. This is how I originally interpreted these cakes in the Classical cook book. We were very lucky to find that our neighbours kept a few goats and were willing to be filmed. Cheryl Jackson was a great sport and helped immensely with advice about cheese making. Incidentally that glorious view she has over her valley is the same valley as ours, we share that sense of peace that comes with woodland living.

To make the cheese I employed the simplest basic method I could find, which could not be include on the film. I warmed 4pts of the milk to 27°C (80°F), added an acidifier – 3-4 tsp vinegar, lemon juice, or in the case of the instructions from Columella, the milky juice from freshly torn fig leaves – and waited for it to coagulate. The latter was not as easy as it sounds as the juice is very difficult to extract in that quantity and I gave up after a while of waiting and added a little extra lemon juice and it curdled straight away. 2 tsp of salt is also added at this point.

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After leaving the milk to cool and coagulate I passed it through a muslin sieve and left it to fully drain for a 3-4 hours. At this point you can gather the edges of the muslin up and tie in a knot. Place weights on top such as a few cans to express as much whey possible. I left mine under weights for 12 hours but you can leave it for long and remove vastly more moisture. At this point I used my cheese but one can envisage a cheese that has been salted more heavily, stored in brine and even dried out and allowed to form a thin crust. Such cheeses were almost certainly made for sale at markets for others to use and had to be salted to preserve them. I suspect in the case of our sacrificial cakes, the cheese was largely made fresh for the purposes of making the cake offerings in a domestic and rural setting where goats and sheep were available but cheese had to be purchased in an urban setting.

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Previous libum from re-enactment days.

A modern recipe using ricotta.

325 gm ricotta 160 gm or 80 gm of plain white flour . or 160 or 80 gm of whole-wheat flour 1 very small egg (you can use a standard size and use half but its not really necessary) 3 tbsp of honey warmed

Beat the cheese, add the flour, well sieved if using plain flour, using a spoon combine and then lightly knead. add the egg and stir to combine. Cover your hands in flour and form into a ball. To duplicate the baking technique – to get that lovely crust – try using a le creuset casserole dish. Preheat the oven to 200 ° C. Place the casserole, clean and dry, in the oven and heat for at least 45 mins. When ready to bake, place bay leaves on the base of the casserole and put the cake on top. Return the lid and place in the oven for 25-30 mins, After 20 mins check the colour and setting texture of the cake. Meanwhile warm the honey. When golden brown and set take the cake out and put on a plate. Cut into 8 pieces and pour the honey over. Sprinkle with pepper too it makes it especially delicious and eat as soon as possible!

Try using feta instead of ricotta. soak the cheese in water and change a few times. Beat smooth and even sieve as described for the placenta * above. Use the same ratio of cheese to flour and bake as a savoury cake and serve with smoked meat and pickles.

* The name of this cake and its origins is fraught with problems as we are inevitably compelled to think of the human organ that feeds the embryo. Its a long and complicated story which we will attempt to tell when placenta becomes the topic of a film.

As we may move into a possible lockdown in the next few days in the UK and the rest of Europe is dealing with this growing crisis in a similar way I send best wishes to all. Take care to be safe. Hands, face space.

Sally Grainger xx

Greeting to all. Thankyou for the increasing views and comments. It has been quite a rollercoaster as the need to create a film at least every fortnight to keep up with demand is quite an ask. I have hardly had a chance to stop and breath since we started. Rod my camera man, editor, graphic artist and occasional director? has been adding wonderful credits and titles to the films and we have plans to involve filming the process of sourcing local ingredients from suppliers of the rare and exotic. More of which anon so watch this space.

These patinae are so interesting as they can be simple and commonplace food for the masses and also elite dining fare depending on the ingredients. Eggs do appear to be fairly readily available. Egg shells are found in many urban sites within the empire in waterlogged conditions and it would seem that in modest urban settings keeping chickens would not have been that difficult in terms of the economic outlay. The frittata would seem to be ideal as easy meal for ancient people living simply as it can be cooked with relative ease and can turn very modest left overs into a hot meal with just a small fire. You can find very simple vegetable frittatas using nettles and other forms of Mediterranean weeds so common in Greek cuisine and with minimal spices such as pepper. Pepper was far more readily available among the middle ranks and even lower orders than was once believed. For a more delicate custard you can find such things as the tough ends of asparagus and even old curled up vegetables leaves being used. The juice is extracted and the residue thrown away.

At its most basic the principle seems to be that all manner of ingredients – often largely left overs of high or low quality – are combined in a dish and eggs, often flavoured with a combination of pepper, oil, wines and liquamen: a basic fish sauce which is described as an oenogarum, are poured over the ingredients and the whole is set in or over embers until firm. These oenogara sauces will have an entire film and blog post soon so keep watching. The finished patina can be cut up and eaten with the finger so this dictates the number of eggs and the volume of the other liquids as these are often not stipulated. There are a few recipes that do stipulate the ingredients precisely and in a number of these recipes, such as the asparagus patina 4.2.6 and 4.2.4 this is described as fusilis soft. This results in a very soft savoury custard which must be eaten with a spoon.

The idea of a patella seems to be very similar to a patina as eggs are used in these too. Both terms are Greek in origin and so must be the food itself. A patellam thyrotaricam (Apicius 4.2.17) was a Greek dish using salt fish and cheese set with eggs which was familiar to Cicero, who identifies it as common fair (cf. Cicero, Ad. fam. 9.16.7, 9; Ad Att. 4.8.1). He claims that he was content to eat this kind of thing until invited to a fancy feast by his friends Hirtius and Dolabella. Both terms were often used to convey a kind of ceramic dish that these items were both cooked and served in (sometimes it is difficult to know whether the word is meant to convey the food or the dish itself). Some patinae and some patellae are made without eggs and instead just adding a sauce to the left overs and heating them, which can be a little confusing. It seems to have been a habit to name these side dishes because of their role within the meal regardless of the ingredients. These dishes were round shallow and course ceramic with a curved base with minimal contact with the surface beneath. They didn’t stand up without support from the embers beneath.

The cooking technique used for these kind of frittata are varied, Some recipe simple say cook it, others say allow it to thicken. There is some suggestion that rather than a frittata some must have resembled scrambled egg in that they are stirred and may have been rather more difficult to eat without a spoon or bread. The technique I used with this frittata is illustrated with two recipes 4.2.33 and 4.2.36. In the former apple puree and cooked brains are blended with eggs and an oenogarum (made with pepper, liquamen and wine) and the mixture poured into a greased patinam which is then placed in the embers and the cook is instructed to allow the hot embers to be above and below. It is hard to imagine such a thing without a lid and a particular lid with a turned up edge to protect the content from ash. These vessels are recognised from archaeological finds across the empire. The drawing below is based on the North African ware form 465 and 766 in Riley, 1979

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An illustration of this technique from our edition of Apicius with grateful thanks to the artist Dan Shadrake. He is a very fine graphic artist.  https://www.facebook.com/Dan-Shadrake-101930678253648 At the time it had not occurred to me that the lids recess could also take embers but it is in fact a crucial part of the technique. At the other end of the culinary divide you can find elaborate elite patinae such as the patinae Apiciana (4.2.14) which has udder – eventually I am going to get my head around udder! -, chicken meat, flaked fish, figpeckers or thrush breast meat and ‘quaecumque optima fuerint’ whatever finest quality things there may be – left over from another feast. They are complex structured cakes that may be turned out or cut within the dish. This is the recipe that has connections to the idea of a lasagne and is made with what we call a proto pasta. I have plans to cook this on film so we will postpone any discussion.

Here is one of the original recipes from the film, it is repeated at 4.2.16 with virtually the same Latin.

[4.2.2] aliter patina uersatilis: nucleos nuces fractas; torres eas et teres cum melle pipere liquamine lacte et obis; olei modicum.

4.2.2. Another patina, omelette-style: roast pine nuts and broken nuts and pound them with honey, pepper, liquamen, milk and eggs; add a little oil.

Hear is the modern recipe from 4.2.16 called Honey nut omelette from Cooking Apicius which is designed to be cooked at home on modern equipment.

30 g flaked almonds 30 g walnuts or hazelnuts 30 g pine kernels 1 tbsp honey 40 ml white wine 40 ml milk 1 tbsp fish sauce – I advice Red boat fish sauce buy it here 4 eggs Generous freshly ground black pepper 1 tbsp olive oil

Combine all the nuts and roast them in a medium oven until lightly coloured.  Shake them a few times to ensure an even colour.  Grind them or process until you have a coarse texture and combine with the pepper, milk, wine, honey, oil and fish sauce and the eggs and beat together.  If you are baking the patina, grease a ceramic dish with olive oil and pour the ingredients in.  Bake in a medium oven (350°F, 180°C, gas 4) until firm to touch. Allow to cool a little and serve covered in warm honey. Sprinkle with ground pepper.

The following is the recipe for one of the soft patinae using asparagus juice to make a lovely green custard. The gallery below takes you through the process in pictures from left to right

4.2.6. Another patina of asparagus: put in a mortar the trimmings of asparagus which are thrown away, pound them, pour on wine and strain them. Pound pepper, lovage, green coriander, savory, onion, wine, liquamen and oil. Pour the liquor into a greased dish and if you want stir eggs in over the fire so that it thickens, sprinkle with ground pepper.
(4.2.7.) This is how you make a patina from wild herbs, black briony, mustard greens, or cucumber or spring greens. If you want, put a layer of fish or chicken beneath.

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Don’t forget to subscribe on You Tube and please do request your favourite recipes and I will attempt a reconstruction.

Hi to all my new friends and subscribers.

It has been amazing to find that within one week of posting the first film on You Tube I have had so many views and subscriptions. The first film was a real experiment in that I simply did not know what would happen. Thankyou for your interest and enthusiasm Here is the link to the YouTube film if you have come to my site direct. The recipe and a brief discussion about the techniques are below.

We (Rod Hughes my camera man and I) have a plan to make one film a week but that may be difficult to fulfil over time and while I am told consistency is everything there will be weeks when we wont be able to. As I write I have 5 in the bag so we should be ok for a while! Rod has a production company – Golden eye productions – and is a craftsman in many media. He is a sculptor designer film maker and bladesmith. Check his site.

https://www.rodhughes.org/

Our production values will improve too as we progress. Rod is experimenting with opening and closing titles and we have already added music. Please check out the music of Michael Levy, a very innovative Lyre player who has composed music in a Roman style and we will use his music often as he has been kind enough to allow me too.

https://www.ancientlyre.com

https://www.ancientlyre.com

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7Dx2vFEg8DmOJ5YCRm4A5v?si=emacIH9CRieFNGXRUyJ9

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ1X6F7lGMEadnNETSzTv8A

And finally to the sauce….. This sauce has always been my favourite as it encompasses the essence of what the Roman liked to taste. Its dense and rich, sweet, sticky and moreish. It reminded me of a satay sauce and that is what dictated the amount of nuts. It can also be a thinner sauce – more like our concept of sauce – but I suspect most of these kinds of sauces that contain nuts or fruit in Apicius and beyond were designed to be thick sticky and clinging so that guests could pick up the meat pre covered.

[8.1.4] in aprum assum iura feruentia facies sic: piper cuminum frictum apii semen mentam timum satureiam cneci flos, nucleos tostos uel amigdala tosta, mel uinum liquamen acetum, oleum modice.

8.1.4. You make hot sauce for roast boar like this: pepper, roasted cumin,
celery seed, mint, thyme, savory, safflower, roasted pine nuts or roasted almonds, honey, wine, liquamen, vinegar, a little oil

This is my adapted recipe from Cooking Apicius Prospect books. This is the modern kitchen version and assumes you will probably use a food processor. (You can find a supplier for a Roman mortaria here)

26  Toasted pine kernel sauce for roast boar or pork Apicius 8.1.4

100 g pine kernels

1 heaped tsp cumin seeds

1 level tsp celery seed

generous freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp dried mint or 2 tsp fresh mint

½ tsp dried thyme

½ tsp dried or fresh savory ( or 1 tspn thyme if no savory)

a good pinch of saffron strands

1 tbsp honey

1 tbsp fish sauce – Red boat (Buy Red boat here

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

2 tbsp olive oil

60 ml white wine

Place the pine kernels in a dry frying pan and put on a medium heat.  Toss and shake the pan regularly until they are an even light brown colour.  Take care not to burn them  as the taste will be bitter.  Tip them out and cool them.  In the same pan put the cumin and celery seed and roast them until they give off their flavour.  Grind them in a mortar or coffee grinder with plenty of pepper.  Put the herbs, saffron and the cooling pine kernels in the mortar and pound or process the mixture to a fine texture.  Add the honey and the oil and pulse or grind again.  Tip out into a small pan and add the vinegar and fish sauce. Blend smooth and bring to heat.  Assess the consistency and add the wine to achieve the correct consistency. If you want to serve it separately add more wine and if you are going to use like I did it needs less wine to remain sticky and clinging.  Taste.  Adjust the seasoning if necessary: It should be neither not too sweet not too sour.  Cook a piece of pork, chops are ideal or use wild boar meat and finish the meat in the sauce. Alternatively serve the sauce separately, hot with pieces of roasted meat with cocktail sticks or do as the Roman and dig in and get sticky.  

Notes

The savoury is available dried but you can simply increase the amount of thyme as they tend to taste very similar. Safflower is a member of the daisy family is known as American saffron. It has little or no flavour but adds a colour and was often used as an alternative. Its not readily available and ironically in this age it can be replaced with saffron.