It took me a few weeks to build up the courage to make this dish. I've tried a few simple Roman dishes, namely boiled Farro with olive oil. I cheated and added salt, garlic powder, and tomatoes ... not authentically Roman, but who cares. But back to the reason I have delayed in making this dish: asafoetida. Yes, it does smell like it reads -- fetid ass. The stuff stinks like a dead mouse left in a desk drawer. It scared me and I am not afraid of much (except spiders). Asafoetida (Ferula assafoetida) is a spice derived from the root of a fennel-like plant and is also known as Devil's Dung. That pretty much sums up the smell. Anyway, I built up the courage and since I have twelve pounds of chicken thighs (which I despise) mistakenly purchased because someone (who shall remain nameless) thought they were chicken breasts, I decided to give it a go. Here is the recipe from Apicius: "pullum aperies a naui et in quadrato ornas, teres piper ligusticum carei modicum, suffunde liquamen, uino temperas. conponis in cumana pullum et condituram super pullum facies. laser uiuum in tepida dissoluis, et in pullum mittis simul et quoques. piper aspersum inferes." Translated ... "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 water and put it straightaway on the chicken and cook it. Sprinkle with pepper and serve." Given that Apicius provides no measurements with his recipes, I did an internet search and found the following recipe at www.parthia.com: Ingredients: 4 pieces chicken (breast or leg) ground black pepper 6 fl oz (3/4 Cup/170 ml) red wine 2 tablespoons (30 ml) garum (liquamen; substitute Vietnamese nuoc mam) 1/2 teaspoon laser (substitute asafetida powder or 5 drops asafetida tincture) 2 teaspoons chopped fresh lovage or celery leaf 2 teaspoons caraway seeds Directions: Place the chicken in a casserole dish and sprinkle it liberally with pepper. Combine the wine, fish sauce and asafoetida, add the lovage and caraway seeds and pour over the chicken. Cover and bake in a pre-heated oven at 375° F (190° C/gas mark 5) for 1 hour. Half-way through the cooking time remove the lid to brown the chicken. Serve with a little of the sauce poured over the meat. As you can imagine, when cooking using recipes from some odd 2,000 years ago, some of the ingredients must be substituted. This was the case with the laser, garum, and lovage. For the laser, asafoetida powder was substituted. Vietnamese fish sauce was substituted for the garum. I couldn't find a decent substitute for lovage so I substituted the dried fruit of ajwain. Some sources say that ajwain is the dried fruit of lovage, other sources disagree. I should have listened to the sources that disagreed. Modern Ingredients When I applied the cooking sauce, the pepper was washed away. Next time I will pound the pepper into the chicken as Apicius recommended. Pre cooking You can usually tell whether or not something will taste good when cooked if it does not smell foul pre-cooking. Despite the presence of asafoetida and fish sauce the chicken had a pleasant aroma once all the ingredients were assembled. During the cooking process a delicious aroma, which was unlike anything I had experienced, began to permeate the house. The aroma was faintly reminiscent of East Indian cooking, but very different. Post cooking Not a pretty dish, but during the cooking process the wine-colored cooking liquid turns a brownish which is more appealing to the eye. I don't like to eat wine-colored chicken. The predominant flavor of the cooked chicken is the asafoetida which lends a fried onion flavor to the dish. The wine adds a subtle flavoring and I don't taste the fish sauce, carroway seed, or black pepper at all. Unfortunately, the ajwain fruit has given the dish a slightly bitter flavor. Ajwain has an extremely strong petrolchemical aroma before it is cooked and is not pleasant at all in the dish. The other thing I noticed about the dish is that it is not salty at all. This could be because my fish sauce was too old -- I noticed that salt crystals had precipitated and were visible in the bottom of the bottle. I ended up adding a pinch of salt to my chicken and ate it with a side of farro and fresh tomato (I know ... un-Roman!). Despite my complaints about the dish, I recommend it and I will cook it again. Next time though using fresh fish sauce, fresh lovage, and chicken breasts.
Ancient Romans were acutely in tune with their personal health, here are 8 tips that you should know
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Make bread fit for a pharaoh and a sweet treat out of tiger nuts.
Yes, I have returned again to my favorite book, Pleyn Delit. I made this recipe last month while doing a public historical cooking demonstration. It was perfect for such a demo -- I had one pot over coals simmering the lamb and another pot softening the apricots. I could easily lift the lid to show visitors what was going on, and the resulting scent wafted to their noses and made them wish it was ready to eat. The original recipe points strongly at Arabic origins: the lamb, the seasonings, the apricots, and the almonds, plus the optional rosewater all say "I'm from the exotic East!" It is quite easy to make and not as sweet as the apricots might suggest. Mishmishiya -- "Lamb Stewed in Apricot Sauce" (Recipe #80) Cut fat meat small, put into the saucepan with a little salt, and cover with water. Boil, and remove the scum. Cut up onions, wash, and throw in on top of the meat. Add seasonings: coriander, cumin, mastic, cinnamon, pepper, and ginger, well ground. Take dry apricots, soak in hot water, then wash and put into a separate saucepan, and boil lightly; take out, wipe in the hands, and strain through a sieve. Take the juice, and add it to the saucepan to form a broth. Take sweet almonds, grind fine, moisten with a little apricot juice, and throw in. Some colour with a trifle saffron. Spray the saucepan with a little rosewater; wipe its sides with a clean rag, and leave to settle over the fire; then remove. The redacted version: 2 lbs boneless lamb, in chunks 1 tsp salt 1 - 2 onions, finely chopped 1 tsp each ground coriander, cumin 1/2 tsp each ground pepper, cinnamon 1/4 tsp ground ginger 1/2 lb dried apricots, soaked in boiling water for 15 minutes, boiled 5 minutes, and pureed in a blender 2 oz ground almonds 1 tsp rosewater optional: 1/4 tsp pulverized mastic, pinch of saffron As directed in the original translated recipe above, cook the lamb with onion and seasonings over a low heat, covered, until tender, at least 1 hour. Meanwhile, prepare apricot puree. Moisten ground almonds with a little of the puree, and add, with the rest of the apricot mixture, for the last few minutes of cooking. Sprinkle on rosewater. Remove from heat, cover, and let stand in a warm place at least 5 minutes before serving. No spices were in this picture. The only lamb available to me at the store today was lamb chops, and I managed to get one pound of meat cut from the bones. So I did a half recipe. I think it is important to cut the lamb into bite-sized chunks and remove most of the fat. The lamb, thinly sliced onions, and spices (sorry, no mastic) all went into one pan, were covered with water, and placed on the stove. I had the heat up high until it started to bubble, then I turned it down to a barely simmering state. At the demonstration, I put a lot of charcoal around the pot until it steamed, then I pulled away the coals until I barely saw bubbling. I need to point out that the mixture of spices already made my mouth water, before anything started cooking! Meanwhile, the apricots were soaked in hot water (nearly simmering) for most of the lamb's cooking time. Yes, I know I didn't follow directions but I was replicating what I had to do at the demonstration -- blenders just aren't an Elizabethan cooking implement and sieves are pesky to use in the outdoors, so I simmered the apricots until they were falling apart, then I put them into my big mortar and mashed them with my pestle until they were pretty smooth. My modern blender made the apricot puree an easy task, although not as fun as using a mortar and pestle. At the demo, I tend to lose track of time so I think the lamb simmered for at least two hours. It was certainly tender and the water had converted to a luscious broth. Today I simmered it for an hour and the meat was ready. It was hard to wait the five or so minutes after mixing but I know it is important to allow the flavors to blend. At the demo, it allowed the stew to cool enough so people could taste it without burning their mouths. Lamb broth, just before the puree was added The Verdict Mixing the lamb and onion broth with the pureed apricots and ground almonds created a stew with a thick sauce at the demo and a somewhat thinner one at home. The spices compliment the fruit and creamy nut flavors. The lamb is delicate yet meaty and the onions are an excellent background flavor and texture. The broth brings them all together but still supplies a richness. Oh yes, most definitely a success. At the demonstration, when the stew was ready I was surrounded by visitors who wanted a taste. I gave them each a spoon and suggested they get a piece of meat along with enough sauce to get the flavor of it all. I suspect my sauce was thicker there because I had to guess at the right amount of apricots and I probably used more than the recipe called for. The other possibility is that at home I used more water to simmer the lamb than I did before. The reaction was unanimous: "This is delicious!", "Oh WOW!", "Really good!", and "What was that recipe again?" were the comments I heard. Even the self-proclaimed "picky" eaters liked it. Just so you know, I didn't use rosewater in the demonstration dish. I know that rosewater is an acquired taste and if you are not expecting it or accustomed to it, the floral scent can shock your taste buds or nose. But I used it on today's recipe and I liked it, although I would probably use a lot less even just for myself until I am more used to it. One last comment: If all the meat is eaten and there is still sauce left, don't despair! Just sop it up with chunks of bread because that is an excellent combination, too.
For a long time, medieval medicine has been dismissed as irrelevant. This time period is popularly referred to as the “Dark Ages,” which erroneously suggests that it was unenlightened by science or reason. However, some medievalists and scientists are now looking back to history for clues to inform the search for new antibiotics.
“Make a savillum thus: Mix half a libra* of flour and two and a half librae of cheese, as is done for libum [another kind of cheesecake]. Add 1/4 libra of honey and 1 egg. Grease an earthe…
It has been over a year since I last blogged about ancient Roman cooking, even though I have tried a few more recipes in the meantime, as people who follow me on Twitter or Facebook have probably n…
Do you imagine that all ancient Romans spent their time indulging in lavish banquets? Ordinary people ate ordinary meals that were not very different from what we eat today.
Instead of cookbooks, Romans passed down their recipes by word of mouth and through stories, like Roman Cheesecake.
As mentioned in a previous post (see here), I organised a small banquet at home on the occasion of the Saturnalia festival. I love ancient Roman food, and I tried a few more ancient recipes for thi…
Step back in time with us and taste fresh cheese made the Roman way using a recipe that is 2,000 years old.
After L’s successful guest post in October, my younger daughter told me today that she also wanted to write a guest post for A Merrier World (not that there’s ever a hint of sibling riv…
Do you imagine that all ancient Romans spent their time indulging in lavish banquets? Ordinary people ate ordinary meals that were not very different from what we eat today.
Bake like an Egyptian - bread ingredients, loaf shapes and baking methods in ancient Egypt
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BEER BATTERED SLICED APPLES COVERED IN POWDERED SUGAR.
Age-old cuisine, from soup to sweets.
We've finally hit a recipe with an ingredient list the length of our collective arms, making this the perfect opportunity to test the theory that the Romans liked to over-season everything. We've also finally hit a recipe with that infamous fish-sauce garum, or more accurately liquamen - there are differences between the two which I'll go into in a later post. I was browsing through Sally Grainger's Cooking Apicius, as I am wont to do these days, and spotted her Pork and Apricot Minutal. This sounded so delicious that I immediately went in search of the original recipe, which is as follows: Put some oil, wine, liquamen (fish sauce), diced cooked pork shoulder, and finely chopped onions in a saucepan. When the onions are done, grind some pepper, cumin, mint, and dill, and add to the pan with honey, passum (raisin wine), a splash of vinegar, the juices from the cooked meat, and more liquamen. Remove the seeds from some fruit and add this fruit to the pan. Bring the mixture to the boil, and when cooked, skim the fat from the top, bind everything together, sprinkle with pepper, and serve. - Apicius, 3.6 This differs somewhat from Grainger's take on the minutal. I have decided to stick to the original recipe's ingredients and methods whilst using Grainger's ever-useful measurements. I have also, as you can see from the last post, used tracta from Cooking Apicius as the thickening agent for this dish. Without further ado, let's start this hearty stew. Pork and Fruit Minutal Ingredients 500g Pork Belly 1 Medium Onion Several Scallions/Spring Onions 300ml Water 375ml White Wine 2 tbsp Fish Sauce (nam pla) 50ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil 1 tsp Cumin Seeds 1/2 tsp Black Peppercorns A Few Sprigs of Fresh Mint A Few Sprigs of Fresh Dill 1 tbsp Set Honey 2 tbsp Red Wine Vinegar 1.5 tbsp Raisin Wine A Handful of Dried Figs and Apricots. 3 Tracta Discs Method Preheat the oven to 180°C. Rub the pork belly with olive oil (not from the 50ml of olive oil) and salt, and cook in the oven for approximately half an hour or until done. When finished, leave to cool. Add the water, wine, fish sauce, and olive oil to a saucepan, then bring to the boil. I advise giving it a taste, just because it's so deliciously unusual. When it is boiling, add the onions and the pork, and reduce to a simmer. Whilst the onions are cooking, toast and grind the cumin seed and the black peppercorns. You know that they're toasting once the cumin starts giving off its distinctive smell. Don't overdo it! Chop the mint and the dill up together also. Add the above to the pan alongside the honey, vinegar, raisin wine, and a splash of fish sauce. Give it a stir, bring to the boil briefly, and let it simmer once more. Add in the roughly chopped dried apricots and figs. Take three of the tracta sheets you fought so hard to make, and watch that hard work turn to nothing as you break the tracta up into fine pieces. Add the tracta to the pan whilst stirring. Stir for maybe 5 minutes and watch the minutal thicken. Taste for flavour, season if necessary, and serve with a loaf of freshly baked bread. Notes My liquamen was simply a shop bought nam pla or fish sauce. You'll find it alongside the Asian food. If yours is too dark or too salty then you can adjust the salt levels by mixing it with white grape juice reduced to half of its original volume. The passum was a nightmare to find. Grainger likens it to a modern raisin wine, but says that a dessert wine such as a Muscat, which I have used, will work too. Tracta are a nightmare to make - if you can't be bothered, add some cornflour instead. Results There are not enough adjectives in the English language to describe the beauty of this minutal. The acid from the vinegar and the sweetness from the different wines made it almost tingle in the mouth. The delicate flavours of the dill were surprisingly distinctive, and the mint provided a subtle background to the meaty, savoury aspects of the dish. Because the figs and apricots were only briefly stewed they retained a lot of their fruity flavour, and it was nice to alternate between bites of pork and bites of fruit. The texture was, thanks to the onions and tracta, quite creamy, which meant that it clung well to the bread I ate the dish with. To those who say that the Romans overseasoned everything I say try this dish - I have never before seen ingredients compliment each other so well as they do in this recipe. The flavours are at once homely and exotic, leading to a profoundly satisfying meal which I will serve for years to come.
Do you imagine that all ancient Romans spent their time indulging in lavish banquets? Ordinary people ate ordinary meals that were not very different from what we eat today.
Ancient Romans were acutely in tune with their personal health, here are 8 tips that you should know
It has been over a year since I last blogged about ancient Roman cooking, even though I have tried a few more recipes in the meantime, as people who follow me on Twitter or Facebook have probably n…
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In England, there was a long tradition of medical texts written in the vernacular beginning in the ninth century. These texts showed a surprising array of health remedies for women, including prayers, charms, incantations, and herbal concoctions.
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Butter Photo by: Lord-Williams Ar, samneh , samn, Eng. 1. butter. northern provinces, such as Soria and León, always, have been famous ...
To learn more about Rosemary's work please click on the cover. My novel, Grace, Lady of Cassio, begins in 1331 during the reign of Edward III. It will be published in August 2022. At heart I am a historian. My novels are rich in historical detail that requires intensive research, some of which I am sharing in this blog. Medieval Recipes Lemon Rice With Almonds Grated skin, juice and pulp of1 large lemon. (I use an organic one.) 1 cup ground almonds. 1cup rice. 2 cups water. ½ teaspoon salt. ½ teaspoon of cinnamon. 1 tablespoon butter. 2/3 cup of currants. 1 cup dry white wine. (I use apple juice.) 1 cup fresh peas. Garnish. 12 teaspoons of honey. (I use organic honey.) Put the water, rice, salt, cinnamon, butter and lemon in a non-stick saucepan with a lid. Stir once while boiling it for 10 minutes until most of the fluid is absorbed. Simmer the almonds and currants in the white wine or apple juice for 7 minutes then add it to rice fluffed with a fork. Stir in fresh peas (sometimes I use frozen peas) simmer for 5 or 7 minutes, adding a little boiling water if the rice sticks to the bottom of the saucepan. Garnish each portion with honey. Vegetable Gruel 2 cups wheatgerm or buckwheat groats. 2 tablespoons butter. 4 cups milk. 1cup half inch slice of peeled carrots, ½ cup peeled, diced fresh parsnip, 1 cup raisins, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon powdered ginger, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, ½ teaspoon dried sweet basil, 6 tablespoons honey ( I prefer organic honey), 3 tablespoons plum jam. Melt the butter in a non-stick saucepan. Add the groats and stir for 2 or 3 minutes over a low heat, then add the other ingredients, except for the basil, honey and jam. Simmer slowly for 20 minutes. To serve, ladle the gruel into bowls, put a tablespoon of honey in the centre and a dessertspoon of plum jam in the middle. Sprinkle the basil around the edges. Serve hot. Pears with Carob Cream 6 firm, edible pears. Juice of 1 fresh lemon. (I use an organic lemon.) 2 heaped tablespoons carob powder. (A substitute of chocolate, available from health food shops. 2 tablespoons sugar (I prefer soft brown sugar) or honey (I prefer organic honey) ¼ teaspoon salt, 1 cup double cream/whipping cream. Cut the pears in half with their skins on and scoop out the core area with a sharp knife, dredge each half with lemon juice. Bake pears in a 350 degree oven for 7 or 10 minutes and allow them to cool. Beat the cream, salt and carob powder together until it is thick. Pipe or spoon the carob cream onto the pear halves. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or more before serving. rosemarymorris.co.uk http://bwlpublishing.ca/morris-rosemary
People can try the biscuits at Leicester's Jewry Wall Museum this weekend - or make your own with this recipe
A Worcestershire historian has compiled a book from monk recipes found in Evesham Abbey.
Step back in time with us and taste fresh cheese made the Roman way using a recipe that is 2,000 years old.
The Latin 'C' was pronounced like our 'K'. Kai-sar, Kik-ero, Pla-kenta. Hopefully that little bit of knowledge allays all fears, worries, and squeamishness, because now that we know the name, it's time to meet the dish. Placenta is variously linked to Lasagne, which it resembles in form, Baklava, which is a tenuous link at best, and Pizza, which is just plain crazy. If anything, its closest modern relative is the Romanian Plăcintă, which I've both tried and enjoyed. Placenta is a 'dessert' made from layered cheese, honey, and pastry, but really it is much more than the sum of its parts. It was offered to the gods themselves as a form of bloodless sacrifice. I am currently working on several posts about the role of food in Roman religion, so will deal with sacrificial cakes in more depth there. For now, I merely wish to stress the significance of the dish we're about to attempt. Our recipe for placenta comes from Cato (the bloke with the bread) in his work on agriculture. Varro, another Roman who wrote an agricultural treatise, questioned this (On Agriculture, I.2.25-28) - why include a recipe for a semi-religious pastry in a work on how to tend the farm? Farming, and Roman life in general, revolved around religious rituals, so perhaps Cato recorded the recipe for that reason. Or perhaps he just fancied a nibble on something nice after a day spent telling slaves how to work the land. Whatever his reasoning, we ought to be thankful that the recipe survived for us to make today. To make placenta. Moisten 2 pounds of flour, then knead it and make a thin crust. Macerate 14 pounds of sheep's cheese in water, changing the water three times. After, take the cheese out a handful at a time, squeezing it dry, before placing it in a bowl. Once all the cheese is dry, knead it until smooth again, before forcing it through a sifter. Add 4.5 pounds of good quality honey and mix it all together. Lay out your crust on top of some oiled bay leaves, and construct the placenta as follows. Place a layer of tracta on top of the crust, then cover it with the cheese and honey mixture, before adding more tracta. Repeat this until the mixture is finished. Place a single layer of tracta on the top, fold over the crust, and prepare to cook it. Prepare the hearth, add the placenta, then cover it with a crock. Heap hot coals on top of this. Cook slowly, checking it two or three times along the way. When it is cooked, smother it in honey. - Cato, On Agriculture, 76 For once, we have actually been told how much of each ingredient we need! Unfortunately, Cato is either a) really hungry, b) cooking for the whole of Rome, or c) sacrificing the placenta to the whole Pantheon of Roman gods. Cato Feeding Rome Needless to say, we'll be toning down the quantities a little bit. The other thing we'll be dropping is the maceration of the cheese. If you macerate something, you break it up in water - the reason it was done in this recipe was to remove the salt from the cheese. I tried this with cheddar and it worked very well indeed, but we'll be using Ricotta, which practically is water anyway. Macerating that will leave you with a bowl of cheese flavoured water, which you don't want. Finally, I used a mixture of spelt and white flour for the crust - I figure that since this would be sacrificed to the gods themselves, the Romans might make a bit of an effort to get some decent, refined flour. Anyway, the gods are getting impatient, so let's start cooking! Placenta Ingredients Spelt Flour Plain White Flour Several Dried Bay Leaves Extra Virgin Olive Oil Ricotta Cheese Runny Honey Tracta Water Methods You need to judge what size of placenta you are making, and what you'll cook it in - this will determine how much of each ingredient you'll need. I've opted to use my Tajine, but you can use any old casserole dish or baking tray. You want to make enough 'crust', as Cato calls it, to wrap the whole way around the tracta/honey/cheese layers. To make this, sieve your spelt and plain flour together, then add water and mix into a dough. Knead well, then roll it out as thinly as possible on a floured surface. Mix the honey with the cheese, tasting as you go. If you're using cheddar, as half my mixture was, add it to water and break it apart with your hands. Alternatively you can grate the cheese and add it to the water. Grab handfuls of this and squeeze all of the water out - this leaves the cheese with a subtle flavour. Do not mix Ricotta with water, as you'll be left with nothing. Oil all of the bay leaves, then arrange them in the bottom of your cooking dish. Oil this dish too, to prevent sticking. Place the crust on top of these leaves. Oil each of the tracta. Place one on top of the crust. Spoon some of the cheese/honey mixture on top of this. Place a tracta on top of this. Continue until it is lovely and layered. You want to finish with a tracta on top. The finished product should bear some resemblance to a lasagne. Fold the crust over, cutting off any excess dough as required. You do not want this crust to be too thick, as it won't cook thoroughly, and will be very stodgy indeed. Garnish with an oiled bay leaf. Either add your tajine lid (having seasoned it as required), or construct a foil tent over the top of the placenta. This stops the pastry getting too crispy. If using a tajine, set it into a cold oven and raise the temperature to 150 Celsius. Otherwise, preheat the oven to 150 Celsius and place in. Cook for 1 hour/1.5 hours depending on size. Remove, serve, and enjoy. Don't forget to set some aside for the gods. Results Whilst cooking, this smelled divine, but after trying some I'm not entirely sure what the gods saw in it. The problem, I think, lies with both the tracta and the crust - both feel just a bit too stodgy. Having done some more research into tracta, I'm not convinced that we need to dry it completely before use. Thankfully the excess liquid from the ricotta softened it sufficiently, but I just feel that it can be done better. As such, until we solve the tracta mystery, you might want to send your placenta to the gods, rather than the dinner table. Other than that, the cheese and honey made a nice team, giving the dish a savoury sweetness. The bay leaves, however, which created such a nice aroma when cooking, added little to the taste. At least they looked the part. All in all, eating this reminded me of eating a stack of savoury pancakes - if that's your thing, then maybe this is the Roman recipe for you. EDIT: I remade the recipe with modern pastry HERE, and it was amazing!
