In the introduction to his book, ‘Around the Roman Table’ (Macmillan, 2003) Patrick Faas wrote:

"The proof of the pudding is in the eating. This makes it hard to appreciate ancient Roman cuisine because we cannot taste the dishes made by cooks who lived two thousand years ago. We can admire Roman architecture because some of it still stands. Amazing works of glass, metal, stone and clay have been excavated. The achievements of Roman artists have remained a constant inspiration to others down the generations. Roman and Greek aesthetics have influenced countless fashions. But what we know of Roman cooking is often referred to with horror. …. [But ] if we take the Romans at their own word their culinary artistry was very sophisticated.

It may be a little over-ambitious to attempt to revive Roman cooking to their high standards: it isn’t easy to equal great art. Try painting a fresco like the ones found in Pompeii, or writing a poem in Latin in the style of Virgil. If you think that’s hard then imagine trying to imitate an art form in which you can’t experience the original."


There exists only one fairly complete collection of recipes from the Roman period: 'Apicius' sometimes also known by the title 'De re coquinaria' - On the Subject of Cooking. This dates from about the late 4th century AD and was written in vulgar Latin and in a style which suggests that it was to be used by working cooks rather than, say, being a collection of recipes gathered together by a dilettante epicure. Who actually wrote the original is unknown although the eponymous title would appear to derive from Marcus Gavius Apicius, a famous Roman gourmet and lover of fine food, who lived in the 1st century during the reign of Tiberius.

Out of the several hundred recipes in the collection very few give quantities, indeed many are little better than simple lists of ingredients. How, then, is one to judge just what the resultant dish actually tasted like?  For example Apicius’ recipe (Ap. 336) for a sauce to accompany roast pork says to mix together, "pepper, caraway, lovage, roasted coriander seed, dill seed, celery seed, thyme, oregano, onion, honey, vinegar, mustard, garum and oil."  But how spicy was it? Was it firey hot with pepper and mustard or was it a subtle sweet/sour blend of herbs and spices? Did one or two flavours dominate or was it a more balanced mix? And was this intended merely as a condiment to enliven the roast meat, or was it a sauce liberally coating the slices of cooked pork?

When attempting such dishes in the modern kitchen there is inevitably the temptation to season as one would today - perhaps guided by modern Middle Eastern, Indian or Chinese cuisine - and so primarily to produce something that is acceptable to a modern palate. This is the usual approach used by most cookery writers claiming to give recipes that recreate ‘authentic’ Roman dishes. But I’m more interested in trying to discover what the food the Romans themselves ate really tasted like. As said above a major problem is the lack of quantities in surviving Roman texts. However I have found about a dozen recipes in Apicius which do give fairly precise quantities and so I think we can, at least in part, answer some of these questions.

But before we approach the recipes, first a few preliminary comments about Roman measures and ingredients.

The Roman pound, or libra, was equal to 0.721 of a modern Imperial pound, or approximately 11.5 ounces. It was, however, divided into only 12 ounces, or unciae, whereas the modern pound is divided into 16. Accordingly, the Roman ounce and modern Imperial ounce are very close in weight. Similarly the Roman pint measure, or sextarius, was equal to 0.96 of an Imperial pint. The following gives Roman measures compared to Imperial and Metric measures.

libra (a Roman pound) – 0.72 lb or 11.5 ounces – 328.9g
semilibra (1/2 Roman pound) – 0.36 lb or 5.8 ounces – 164.5g
uncia (a Roman ounce 1/12, Roman pound) – 0.97 ounce – 27.4g
scripulum (a scruple 1/24 Roman ounce) – 0.04 ounce – 1.14g

sextarius (a Roman pint) – 9.61 pint or 19.22 fl oz – 546 ml
hemina (1/2 Roman pint) – 9.61 fl oz – 273 ml
quatarius (1/4 Roman pint) -  4.79 fl oz – 136 ml
acetabulum (1/8 Roman pint) – 2.39 fl oz – 68 ml
cyanthus (1/12 Roman pint) – 1.58 fl oz – 45 ml

…. there was also  the delightfully named coclearum, meaning literally a ”snail’s shellful”, which wasn’t precisely defined but was intended to mean something like a small spoonful.

Both recipes include that ubiquitous Roman ingredient garum (also called liquamen), that is, the very popular, salty, fishy, liquid condiment made from fermented fish. True garum is no longer produced but very similar fermented fish sauces are still made, particularly in South-East Asia, and accordingly one can use Vietnamese nuoc cham or Thai nam pla, obtainable from an Asian groceries.

Recipe I calls for laser which was the dried gum obtained from the silphium plant. Silphium is believed to have been a type of giant fennel which originally flourished in the province of Cyrenaica (modern Lybia): it was the country’s principal export and became a national symbol, appearing on the local coins and reliefs. The plant itself was eaten, the stem boiled or roasted, but the juice extracted from the roots and base of the stem was more important. This was laser. But the plant proved impossible to cultivate and so had to be gathered from the wild. Unfortunately it was harvested with such zeal by the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans that by the 1st century AD it was probably extinct, at least all along the southern coast of the Mediterranean. One of the last plants found, rather than being left to possibly propagate, was dug up, brought to Rome and ceremoniously presented to Nero, who had it cooked.

Thereafter Roman cooks had to fall back onto substitutes, which the less affluent had always done because of the high price of the real stuff. A closely related plant, Ferula asafoetida, called by the Romans 'Parthian silphium' grew in Persia and neighbouring lands, and this was the main substitute for the extinct silphium, and as a paste or powder, asafoetida, or heeng in Hindi, is still used in the cuisine of north India, Afghanistan, Iran and parts of the Middle East. Although considered much inferior to silphium, asafoetida still commanded high prices and so Roman cooks in poorer households often simply substituted garlic, which is an option for modern cooks if having trouble getting asafoetida.

Recipe II specifies the meat from ficedula birds (also known as beccafico birds). The ficedula is a small migratory songbird of the warbler family resembling a nightingale. The Latin name literally means figpecker and these birds were regarded as a delicacy by both the Greeks and Romans who snared the birds in Autumn when they were fattened up on figs and other fruit prior to their migration to Africa. They are of course protected these days.

Anyway here are two relatively simple, everyday-type recipes from Apicius that, most importantly, give fairly precise quantities.

Recipe I - Pullum oxyzomum (Ap. 241):
olei acetabulum maius,
laseris satis modice,
liquaminis acetabulum minus,
aceti acetabulum perquam minus,
piperis scripulos sex,
petroselini scripulum,
porri fasciculum.

In translation and with the quantities given in modern metric measures,

Chicken oxyzomum :
[olive] oil “a good” 70ml,
Asafoetida (substituting for laser) “a little is enough”
Liquamen “less than” 70ml
Vinegar “much less than” 70ml
Pepper – six scruples (7g)
Parsley – one scruple (1g)
A stalk of leek


Recipe II - Aliter patina de asparagis frigida (Ap. 125):
Accipies asparagos purgatos, in mortario fricabis, aqua suffundes, perfricabis, per colum colabis. Et mittes in caccabum ficedulas curatas. teres in mortario piperis scripulos VI, adicies liquamen, fricabis, postea adicies vini cyathum unum, passi cyathum unum, mittes in caccabum olei uncias III, illic ferveant, perunges patinam, in ea ova VI cum oenogaro misces, cum suco asparagi impones cineri calido, mittes impensam supra scriptam. tunc ficedulas compones coques, piper asperges et inferes.

Cold asparagus (another way)
Take cleaned asparagus, grind in a mortar, and drench with cold water. Drain in a colander. Set aside meats prepared from ‘figpecker birds’. Grind in a mortar six scruples (7g) of peppercorns, moisten with liquamen and mix [to a paste]. In a pan heat this mixture with one twelfth of a ‘pint’ (45ml) of wine, one twelfth of a ‘pint’ (45ml) of raisin wine, three ‘ounces’ (82g or about 60ml) of [olive] oil. Then in an oiled dish put six eggs seasoned with the wine sauce and asparagus [puree]. Place this on the hot ashes in the thermosodium [a charcoal-burning heater like a small brazier used to provide steady heat to dishes] and then put on this the mixture described. Then mix in the meats. Cook. Sprinkle with pepper. [Cool] and serve.

.... I'll let you know how I get on.

Fascinating as ever, MM, thanks. I'm interested in the substitution of asafoetida (obtainable in all good supermarkets) for silphium as it is used in Indian cookery by some Hindu castes instead of alliums which are forbidden on religious grounds. This would suggest therefore that silphium tasted more oniony/garlicy than fennelly which would make sense since they didn't just choose to use ordinary fennel, or even celery, which would seem to be the obvious substitute if it was the aniseed flavour they wanted.

Wasn't the search for silphium one of plot points of one of Lindsey Davies' novels, the one set in North Africa?

ferval wrote:

I'm interested in the substitution of asafoetida (obtainable in all good supermarkets) for silphium as it is used in Indian cookery by some Hindu castes instead of alliums which are forbidden on religious grounds. This would suggest therefore that silphium tasted more oniony/garlicy than fennelly which would make sense since they didn't just choose to use ordinary fennel, or even celery, which would seem to be the obvious substitute if it was the aniseed flavour they wanted.

Wasn't the search for silphium one of plot points of one of Lindsey Davies' novels, the one set in North Africa?

Yes you're right, asafoetida doesn't have a fennel taste/smell at all, it's definitely more like strong garlic ... one could even liken it to rotten garlic as I find it has quite a musky, almost fungussy smell, although that might be because my jar of asafoetida is quite old. It is certainly to be used rather sparingly ... which is another reason why my jar of the stuff in my larder has been there for so many years. Silphium, and asafoetida once silphium was unobtainable, were expensive imports to Rome, and so less affluent cooks substituted with ordinary garlic.

I'd forgotten the Lindsey Davis story ... was it 'Two for the Lions' in which, as I recall, Falco went to Tripioli.

PS Here's a silphium plant depicted on a silver drachm from Cyrenaica (c. 300 BC):

That's the one. When we were being shown round the museum in Tripoli - it's enough to make one weep in retrospect - by one of the profs from the university he recommended that book as an excellent and remarkably accurate introduction to the wild animal trade in Tripolitania.

A Taste of Ancient Rome - Part II.

Recipe I - Pullum oxyzomum.

For the liquamen/garum I used Vietnamese nuoc cham, and in place of the laser I used powdered asafoetida, both obtained from a local specialist asian grocer. For the vinegar I used a good red-wine vinegar. Despite giving exact quantities Apicius still fudges a bit with his liquid measures when he qualifies the stated "one acetabulum" (70ml) quantites each for oil, liquamen and vinegar, by saying respectively “a good”, “less than”, and “much less than”, … and so I used 70ml of oil, 60ml of liquamen and 50ml of vinegar. For the “stalk of leek” I used just the white bit, so ended up with about 70g in total. For Apicius's “a little is enough” of asafoetida, I interpreted this, equally imprecisely, as “a pinch” ... I'll leave that up to you whether you prefer an Imperial or Metric, "pinch".

Apicius gives no instructions but I think we can safely assume one should crush/chop the leek and parsley, grind the peppercorns, then mix all together with the liquid ingredients, bring to the boil and simmer for a bit, before serving with a boiled or roasted chicken broken into pieces for eating by hand.

From the ingredients it sounds very similar to a modern vinaigrette dressing and I thought it would be quite thin and runny, and had expected the oil and vinegar to separate out. However with the mashed leak, and after boiling for a few minutes, it was thicker and more consistent than I had expected (though the oil did still tend to separate out). Nevertheless it is still clearly a dipping sauce for dunking pieces of chicken eaten with the fingers, rather than a sauce to cover pieces served up in a dish. In total I ended up with about 250ml, or a third of a pint, of sauce, which is enough for about four to six small individual bowls ... although of course if dining in formal Roman style we would be reclined on the couches of the triclinium, using our hands, and with each dish shared between several neighbouring diners. I had mine, alone and unshared, as an accompaniment to some plain, grilled, un-boned chicken thighs.



Given the amounts of all the other ingredients I thought the tiny specified amount of fresh parsley - by weight it is only a seventh of the amount of pepper -  and so got rather lost amongst everything else. Is the one scruple of parsley an error and should it perhaps read six scruples? The mix contains quite a lot of pepper but the pepper certainly didn’t dominate at all. If anything it had a sharp oniony/vinegary taste, but nicely rounded with the deeper, musky flavours of the fish sauce and asafoetida. The flavour of asafoetida in particular might come across as a bit unusual to modern European palates (especially if one is unfamiliar with north Indian cuisine) but again it wasn’t overpowering. All in all a slightly unusual combination of flavours, though not bizarrely so, and certainly not disagreeable, and the sharpness actually went very well with the inevitably slightly fatty/oily taste of the grilled chicken pieces.  As well as being suitable for a dipping sauce it would work equally well as a condiment sauce to be splashed onto other dishes, such as eggy tart of recipe II.


Recipe II - Asparagis frigida.

The quantity of asparagus is not stated but for six eggs a good-sized bunch seemed appropriate. Roman asparagus was probably closer in form to thin wild asparagus rather than the modern, stocky, cultivated stuff (wild and cultivated asparagus are exactly the same species, it’s just that the modern commercially grown stuff has been improved by selective breeding to give stockier spears). For purists you can still readily find wild asparagus in southern France, it is in season now (early May), and although generally somewhat weedier, it has exactly same taste. I used two bunches of fresh, shop-bought, green asparagus (not the blanched white stuff), but used only the tender tips and discarded (to the stock pot) the more solid lower stalks. I ended up with about 600g of washed asparagus which I then finely chopped,and then mashed to a purée in a mortar.

Ficedula birds are of course protected these days. I considered using the breast and thigh meat of commercially reared quails, but frankly since we’re only talking about small morsels of meat added to what is primarily a vegetable and egg dish, in the end I just used small pieces of chicken thigh meat. Indeed this must surely have been what many Roman cooks did, especially when it wasn’t the season for figpeckers. Figpeckers are rather small birds so basically you would only get two bite-sized breasts plus the two, even smaller, thighs. I used four chicken thighs which I skinned, deboned and cut into roughly 1cm cubes (about 300g meat in total). These pieces I lightly fried in oil for a few minutes just to ensure they were cooked (this was probably unnecessary).

The Romans recognised various types of wine: red and white, sweet and dry, old and young, etc,  but for this recipe Apicius doesn’t specify what wine to use, so I used an ordinary white vin de table, and for the raisin wine a sweet amber-coloured Muscat de Rivesaltes which is made from grapes left on the vines to naturally dry and concentrate the sugars (ie it is a raisin wine).

For the garum, as in the first recipe, I used Vietnamese nuoc cham sauce. The principal seasoning however is obviously pepper. The recipe calls for 7g of peppercorns to be ground in a mortar, which sounds like quite a modest amount until you realise it equates to about one and a half level teaspoons of pepper.

Apicius very rarely gives instructions to add salt. This may be because, then as now, salt was an almost ubiquitous seasoning and so it was simply left to the cook's discretion, or it may be because many of the ingredients used in the Roman kitchen were already quite salty. Garum in particular is very salty and goes into most dishes in Apicius, including this one. Accordingly I added no additional salt.

Other than that I basically followed Apicius's instructions ... and so I dry-fried/roasted the ground pepper for a few minutes in a pan, and then moistened it with garum to get a paste. In a bowl I mixed the wines, olive oil and lightly beaten eggs, then stirred in the pepper paste and asparagus purée. I poured this mix into an oiled ceramic dish (for authenticity I used an unglazed, terracotta plant-pot saucer, 20cm in diameter x 2cm deep), and finally put in the pieces of meat. Then I put it to cook. I did consider cooking it over charcoal on the BBQ, but in the end opted to heat it on the hob, very, very carefully as I wasn’t using a modern oven-proof dish. I finally finished it off in a medium hot oven until the middle had almost completely set and the top had browned a bit. I tasted a slice of it hot, but then left the rest to cool and properly set, as per the original recipe.



Unsurprisingly, given the principal ingredients, it tasted rather like a Spanish omelette made with asparagus but no potatoes. The flavours of the wine and fish sauce were not individually evident at all with the overall flavour being of asparagus and egg. The large quantity of pepper was clearly evident but though the dish certainly had a peppery bite it was not unpleasantly ‘spicy hot’, and no more than you would have got from a modest dash of Tabasco.

Thanks, MM, for a distraction from the (mostly) calamitous local election results. I've used asafoetida in curries but then you really can't discern the taste among rhe other spices but you sure can smell it when you open the jar.
Tonight I have been looking at Gutenburg's first English translation by Joseph Dommers Vehling and I see that the foreword proposes that liquamen can be translated as broth.

Take liquamen for instance. It may stand for broth, sauce, stock, gravy, drippings, even for court bouillon — in fact for any liquid appertaining to or derived from a certain dish or food material. Now, if Apicius prescribes liquamen for the preparation of a meat or a vegetable, it is by no means clear to the uninitiated what he has in mind. In fact, in each case the term liquamen is subject to the interpretation of the experienced practitioner. Others than he would at once be confronted with an unsurmountable difficulty. Scientists may not agree with us, but such is kitchen practice. Hence the many fruitless controversies at the expense of the original, at the disappointment of science  
I love that last sarky comment.  

Here is the entry for the chicken dish, our opinionated chef/translator makes his own suggestion as to method:


238] CHICKEN SOUR                               PULLUM OXYZOMUM

A GOOD-SIZED GLASS OF OIL, A SMALLER GLASS OF BROTH, AND THE SMALLEST MEASURE OF VINEGAR, 6 SCRUPLES OF PEPPER, PARSLEY AND A BUNCH OF LEEKS.

G.-V. [laseris] satis modice.

These directions are very vague. If the raw chicken is quartered, fried in the oil, and then braised in the broth with a dash of vinegar, the bunch of leeks and parsley, seasoned with pepper and a little salt, we have a dish gastronomically correct. The leeks may be served as a garnish, the gravy, properly reduced and strained over the chicken which like in the previous formula is served in a casserole.

If the liquamen was indeed stock then I could see this as a pretty classic braised chicken  but I'd sauté the sliced leeks with the chicken.


Is your translation markedly different, I see it uses different recipe numbers? This one seems decidedly dated, early 1930s I think, so I'm sure there's better available. i do like the dictatorial Fanny Craddock style though,

This is his take on the asparagus fritatta, or was it more of a set custard as in the second recipe - another asparagus  
custard? With that egg to liquid ratio it must have been a right pig to stop the eggs scrambling.


[132] ANOTHER COLD ASPARAGUS [and Figpecker] DISH      ALITER PATINA DE ASPARAGIS FRIGIDA

COLD ASPARAGUS PIE IS MADE IN THIS MANNER [1] TAKE WELL CLEANED [cooked] ASPARAGUS, CRUSH IT IN THE MORTAR, DILUTE WITH WATER AND PRESENTLY STRAIN IT THROUGH THE COLANDER. NOW TRIM, PREPARE [i.e. cook or roast] FIGPECKERS [2] [and hold them in readiness]. 3 [3] SCRUPLES OF PEPPER ARE CRUSHED IN THE MORTAR, ADD BROTH, A GLASS OF WINE, PUT THIS IN A SAUCEPAN WITH 3 OUNCES OF OIL, HEAT THOROUGHLY. MEANWHILE OIL YOUR PIE MOULD, AND WITH 6 EGGS, FLAVORED WITH ŒNOGARUM, AND THE ASPARAGUS PREPARATION AS DESCRIBED ABOVE; THICKEN THE MIXTURE ON THE HOT ASHES. THEREUPON ARRANGE THE FIGPECKERS IN THE MOULD, COVER THEM WITH THIS PURÉE, BAKE THE DISH. [When cold, unmould it] SPRINKLE WITH PEPPER AND SERVE.

[1] Tor.

[2] Lan. and Tac. ficedulas curtas tres; Tor. curtas f.—three figpeckers cut fine. G.-V. F. curatas. Teres in ... (etc.)—Prepared F.

[3] List. six; G.-V. id.

[133] ANOTHER ASPARAGUS CUSTARD                      ALIA PATINA DE ASPARAGIS

ASPARAGUS PIE IS MADE LIKE THIS [1] PUT IN THE MORTAR ASPARAGUS TIPS [2] CRUSH PEPPER, LOVAGE, GREEN CORIANDER, SAVORY AND ONIONS; CRUSH, DILUTE WITH WINE, BROTH AND OIL. PUT THIS IN A WELL-GREASED PAN, AND, IF YOU LIKE, ADD WHILE ON THE FIRE SOME BEATEN EGGS TO IT TO THICKEN IT, COOK [without boiling the eggs] AND SPRINKLE WITH VERY FINE PEPPER.

[1] Tor.

[2] Reference to wine wanting in Tor. We add that the asparagus should be cooked before crushing.


Next time I want to see your version of boiled ostrich.

The trouble is that Apicius itself is very vague, the recipe for Pullum oxyzomum (Ap. 241) is little more than a list of ingredients:

olei acetabulum maius - “a good” 70ml of olive oil,
laseris satis modice - “a little is enough” of laser,
liquaminis acetabulum minus - “less than” 70ml of liquamen,
aceti acetabulum perquam minus - “much less than” 70ml of vinegar,
piperis scripulos sex - six scruples of pepper,
petroselini scripulum - a scruple of parsley,
porri fasciculum - a leek.

So while the measures are more or less defined, the method is still largely open to interpretation. Note also that the version of Apicius that has come down to us derives from a 10th century transcription, itself copied from two separate parts of what appear to have once been one work, and these two parts were almost certainly copied, independently, not from the original but from copies, or even a copies of copies ... with all the potential for error and re-interpretation that implies. There's also an abbreviated 'pocket Apicius' which was transcribed in the 8th century plus a few other fragments which also appear to come from Apicius, although they don't all contain the same material and so it is likely that there never was  'standard' Apicius because the contents changed and were adapted differently over time.

One thing that does seem fairly certain is the Romans' inordinate fondness for pepper. Of other recipes in Apicius that give precise quantities there’s also this one which is somewhat similar to recipe II above. It is for a sort of fruit omelette but yet again containing a relatively large amount of pepper. Elderberries are not in season at the moment (the bushes have only just started flowering here) but I intend to try this one when I can get some fruit. I’m interested to see how the pepper/sour fruit/egg combination works.

Patina de sabuco calida et frigida (Ap. 128)
accipies semen de sabuco, purgabis, ex aqua decoques, paulum ex siccabis, patinam perunges et in patinam compones ad surcellum adicies piperis scripulos VI,   suffundes liquamen, fricabis, postea adicies liquaminis cyathum unum, vini cyathum, passi cyathum, teres, tandem in patinam mittes olei unc IV, pones in thermospodio et facies ut ferveat. cum ferbuerit, franges postea ova VI, agitabis et patinam sic obligabis cum obligaveris, piper asparges et inferes.

Hot or cold elderberries
Take elderberries, clean them, cook in water, and drain in a colander. Grease a dish and arrange the elderberries with a small stick. Add six scruples (7g) of pepper, one-twelfth ‘pint’ of liquamen, and the same of wine and of raisin wine. Blend, then put four ‘ounces’ (110g) of [olive] oil into the [elderberry] mixture. Place the dish on the thermospodium (see recipe above) and heat. When the dish has cooked, break six eggs into it, stir and so thicken. Sprinkle with pepper and serve [either hot or cold].

ferval wrote:

Next time I want to see your version of boiled ostrich.

I can get ostrich from my frozen food supplier ... but not a whole one you understand and anyway I haven't got a pot big enough.

Another two, rather more complex recipes, are the following, which are perhaps more typical of grander Roman cooking in that they use a much greater variety of herbs and spices to give a complex blend of flavours. These recipes, however, call for several ingredients which are none too common as culinary herbs these days, at least not in western Europe. I'd be game to give them a go but it might take me a while just to gather together all the ingredients.

Aliter assaturas(Ap.272)
petroselini scripulos VI, asareos scripulos VI, zingiberis scripulos VI, lauri bacas V, condimenti satis, laseris radicis scripulos VI, origani scripulos VI, cyperis scripulos VI, costi modice, pyrethri scripulos III, apii seminis scripulos VI, piperis scripulos XII, liquaminis et olei quod sufficit.
 
[sauce to accompany] Roast Meats
[Grind together]
Parsley six scruples (7g)
Hazelwort six scruples (7g)
Ginger six scruples (7g)
[Add] Five laurel berries
Laser root six scruples (7g)
Oregano six scruples (7g)
Cyperus six scruples(7g)
Costmary “a little”
Pellitory three scruples (3g)
Celery seed six scruples (7g)
Pepper twelve scruples (15g)
Liqamen and [olive] oil “as much as it will take up”

Or the very similar,

Aliter assaturas (Ap. 274)
piperis scripulos VI, ligustici scripulos VI, petroselini scripulos VI, apii seminisscripulos VI, anethi scripulos VI, laseris radicis scripulos VI, asareos scripulos VI, pyrethri modice, cyperis scripulos VI, carei scripulos VI, cumini scripulos VI, zingiberis scripulos VI, liquaminis heminam, olei acetabulum.
 
[sauce to accompany] Roast Meats
Pepper six scruples (7g)
Lovage six scruples (7g)
Parsley six scruples (7g)
Celery seed six scruples (7g)
Aniseed six scruples (7g)
Laser root six scruples (7g)
Pellitory “a little”
Cyperus six scruples (7g)
Caraway six scruples (7g)
Cumin six scruples (7g)
Ginger six scruples (7g)
Liquamen half a ‘pint’ (280ml)
[Olive] oil one-eighth of a ‘pint’ (70ml)

From the glossary to my copy of Apicius as well as some gardening books, plant encyclopedias and herbals .....

Ligusticum is lovage which is probably the least unusual of these old herbs and can sometimes be found as a perennial pot herb in garden centres. Both the seeds and leaves have a pronounced yeasty, celery-like taste.

Cyperum is a sedge the most commonly-known member of the family being Cyperus papyrus from which papyrus ‘paper’ was manufactured. But Apicius almost certainly intends the plant Cyperus esculentus, which is also known as the chufa sedge, nut sedge, or earth almond. Native to the lands around the Mediterranean it is still cultivated in some places for its edible tubers, which can be eaten whole, dried and ground as flour, or pressed to extract the oil. The flesh of the tubers, whether fresh or dried, has a slightly sweet nutty flavour, hence the name earth almond.

Asarum is the plant (Asarum europaeum) variously known in English as hazelwort, foalbit, wild spikenard or wild ginger, although it is not related to either true spikenard or true ginger. It grows wild throughout Europe (except the UK and Scandinavia) and its leaves have a strong peppery taste. It was used medicinally as an emetic and cathartic, and was also sometimes utilised as a cheap adulterant in snuff. It is probably mildly toxic.

Costum, (Tanacetum balsamita), otherwise known in English as costmary or alecost, was widely grown in herb gardens up until at least the 17 th century, principally for its medicinal uses against stomach problems, melancholy and ‘female hysteria’, but also as a pot herb because of the spicy-sweet balsamic flavour of the leaves. In England it was once a popular flavouring for beer, hence the name alecost.

Pyrethrum or pellitory in English (Anacyclus pyrethrum) is a tall, straggly, daisy-like plant native to the Mediterranean. Somewhat like chilli or mustard, the sap induces heat, tingling and redness when applied to the skin, and so it was sometimes used by the Greeks and Romans as a ‘hot’ food spice. The flavour is akin to chamomile (a closely related plant) which would be a reasonable substitute although chamomile lacks pellitory’s spicy heat. Despite its Roman name, pellitory actually contains hardly any of the chemical pyrethrum, a powerful insecticide which occurs naturally in other plants of the same family.

Laurel berries should of course be from the true laurel or bay tree, Laurus nobilis,  rather than any other species of laurel whose berries and leaves are often toxic. Bay leaves are of course readily obtainable from supermarkets, but the hard berries rather less so. If struggling to get hold of any true laurel berries a few cloves would give a similar flavour.

On dish-of-the-Day for 17 December in celebration of the Roman winter feast of Saturnalia, I proposed a couple of recipes for sweet Roman desserts originally described by Cato in his book 'De Agricultura' (On farming). I now intend giving these a go.

Cato the Elder, or Cato the Censor, or in full Marcus Porcius Cato (234–149 BCE) was a Roman soldier, senator and historian known for his conservatism and opposition to Hellenisation. He had served as a competent military commander in Spain, an honest govenor of Sardinia, and when appointed censor back in Rome had strived against corruption and what he saw as lapses in morality. His crusade against sleaze even went so far as to expel one man from the senate for no other reason, so it was said, than that the man had kissed his own wife when someone else was watching - the someone else being their daughter. He also had a strong aversion to decadent Greek culture, that was then invading Rome (ironically after Rome's conquest of Greece), and which he believed was sapping the vigour of Roman youth,  although ever the pragmatist he still urged young Romans to learn Greek. He was certainly a competent and practical-minded man, whether as a statesman or farmer, but his contemporaries often saw him as a strict, parsimonious puritan, or even just a brutally hard-headed, money-obsessed, businessman, such as with his advice to get rid of slaves as soon as they got sick or old:
"[The master of a farm] must aim for profit: sell oil when it will pay; sell surplus wine and grain; sell aging oxen, less-yielding cows, less-yielding sheep; sell wool, hides, old carts, old tools, old slaves, sickly slaves, and anything else surplus. The master has to be a selling man, not a buying man."


Cato the Elder, possibly, maybe not.

He wrote 'De Agricultura' in around 160 BCE  as a collection of notes jotted down as words of wisdom for anyone who was planning to invest in a farm. The topics covered seem to be the ones that had most concerned Cato himself when he first set up as a land-owner: choosing a good business, keeping it profitable, managing slave labour, looking after livestock, where to build a new farmhouse, how to equip the estate for profitable wine and olive oil production, the calendar of jobs that will need to be done together with the appropriate religious rituals that should be performed throughout the year, and so forth.

Additionally, for all who are interested in ancient food, there is also a fascinating long section of recipes. These are not generally recipes for lavish dinners but are mostly for preserving meat and vegetables, how to bulk out expensive ingredients with cheaper ones, making sweetmeats and preserves for store or sale, making medicinal concoctions and in peparing and handling wines. They are a rather miscellaneous collection, sometimes delving almost obsessively into one subject - there's a whole chapter entitled "in praise of cabbage" - but then suddenly diverting to another topic. But nevertheless  all these recipes and instructions relate to items that could be made on a farm, either for ready use, to store for winter, or to sell at the nearest market for ready cash, and so are rather more homely than the fancy banquet and dinner party dishes described by other ancient writers.

One of Cato's recipes that I'd mentioned in relation to Saturnalia was for globi - a type of sweet, proto-cheesecake bite and which, somewhat ironically given Cato's antipathy to all things Greek, is basically a Roman version of Greek-style patisserie:

LXXIX Globos sic facito. Caseum eum alica ad eundem modum misceto. Inde quantos voles facere facito. In ahenum caldum unguen indito. Singulos aut binos coquito versatoque crebro duabus rudibus, coctos eximito, eos melle unguito, papaver infriato, ita ponito.

Globi to be made thus: mix the cheese and wheat flour [the word used is alica which usually refers to emmer wheat or spelt] the same way, make as many as desired. Pour fat into a hot copper vessel, and fry one or two at a time, turning them frequently with two sticks, and remove when done. Coat with honey, sprinkle with poppy seeds, and serve.

That very first instruction "mix cheese and wheat flour the same way" might be assumed to mean the same as the previous recipe, but one has to go back several recipes to find one that mixes flour and cheese. This is a recipe for libum, which was a type of rather un-cheesy cheesecake that was often used as a religious offering (libare means "to offer to the gods") whether accompanying a sacifice at the temple or as a more homely ritual offering to the household god, or otherwise just eaten on special occasions. (In it's bread-like and ritualistic nature, Roman libum is almost like a eucharist wafer, abeit five centuries before Christianity).

So here's Cato's recipe for libum:

LXXV Libum hoc modo facito. Casei P. II bene disterat in mortario. Ubi bene distriverit, farinae siligineae libram aut, si voles tenerius esse, selibram similaginis eodem indito permiscetoque cum caseo bene. Ovum unum addito et una permisceto bene. Inde panem facito, folia subdito, in foco caldo sub testu coquito leniter.

Make libum by this method. Break up two pounds of cheese well in a mortar. When they have been broken up, put in a pound of wheat flour, or if you wish it to be more delicate, half a pound of fine flour and mix it well together with the cheese. Add one egg and mix together well. Then make into bread, place leaves beneath, and cook slowly on a hot hearth under an earthen pot.

So my plan was to make a batch of libum dough, then use half to make a libum cake and the other half as the basis for some globi.

Notes.
A Roman pound, a libra, is reckoned to have weighed about 328g - I rounded this up to 330g - and so for the basic libum mixture I used 660g cheese, 330g flour and one egg.
As said above alica usually refers to wholegrain emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum) or spelt (Triticum spelta) both old wheat species which are rather difficult to obtain these days. I used ordinary general purpose bread flour from modern wheat (Triticum aestivum) - a 50% wholemeal/white flour mix.
Cato's libum recipe includes an egg but his globi recipe does not mention any egg at all unless it is implied when he says "mix the cheese and alica the same way," as the libum, ie mixed with an egg. I'm not sure what is correct here but as it's only one egg it won't impart any flavour when mixed in with a kilo of flour and cheese and finally doused in honey. It would also help to bind the mixture, so I decided to keep it in the globi mix.

Romans made and used numerous different types of cheese but here Cato, since he just refers to it as caseum with no qualifying remark, almost certainly intended it to be a soft, fresh, un-aged and probably un-salted, curd cheese. The mayor of my village makes superb sheep cheese (both a fresh curd cheese as well as a pressed and aged hard cheese) but unfortunately, it being winter, with little grazing in the fields and the lambs only just starting to be born, he's not making any cheese at the moment. Fresh goat curd cheeses are readily available in supermarkets and feta, paneer, cottage cheese or ricotta would also do (although ricotta is actually a whey cheese but the texture is similar). In the end I decided to make my own acid-set curd cheese. From 3 litres of full-fat cow's milk, to which I added 150ml white wine vinegar, I got, after pressing overnight, 450g of cheese:

     

I needed 2 Roman librae of cheese (660g) so made up the difference with some shop-bought fromage frais de chèvre. To this I added the 330g of flour and the egg. I then handed it all to my trusty kitchen slave to do the labourious mixing and kneading: his name is Moulinex and he's from Gaul. Depending on how moist the cheese is it might require adding a little more flour or conversely more moisture: I found I had to add about half a cup of the left over whey to get the required stiff but still moist dough. The dough was kneaded for about ten minutes and then left to rest for about 20 minutes before being divided into two: one half to make libum the other for the globi.

LIBUM
For the libum I worked the dough on a lightly floured surface into a round boule and then on a whim decided to decorate the top with some pine nuts - they're not in Cato's recipe but whole pine nut kernels, pignons in French, were a common ingredient in Roman cooking. Cato says to "place leaves beneath, and cook slowly on a hot hearth to bake", and in a similar cheese and flour cake/bread recipe he specifies using bay leaves (from the bay laurel - Laurus nobilis), so that's what I used, covering my baking tray with a layer of fresh bay leaves. Cato says to bake covered under an earthen pot, but I cooked uncovered so I could see how it was progressing, however to partially replicate Cato's covered steaming bake I lightly sprayed the boule with water a few times in the first 10 minutes just to keep the initial humidity up and so get a better crust.

I cooked it for 60 minutes at 180°C, then turned it around in the oven and cooked for a further 20mins at 170°C, by which time it had risen a bit (from internal steam as there's nothing else to make it rise), the top had browned and the bay leaves were crisped, browned and getting close to charring.

GLOBI
The other half of the cheese-flour mixture I rolled out into a long sausage shape and then divided up to make spherical balls, each about one inch in diameter, ie roughly the size of a golfball. I got ten balls from this half of the libum mix. Cato doesn't specify the oil for frying - it would most commonly have been pork lard or olive oil. I used sunflower oil as it's cheaper, but it also has a higher smoke point than olive oil and so is a bit more forgiving, especially if, like me (and Cato), you don't possess a cooking thermometer. I deep fried the balls, two or three at a time, until golden brown: it took about about eight to ten minutes for each one and while frying I kept the balls constantly moving, both to get an even colour and to avoid them sticking to each other. Again, although there is no raising agent, the balls swelled up a bit and after 5 minutes or so started to float in the oil rather than sit on the bottom.They didn't 'spit' while frying but NB one ball did suddenly burst open and splattered hot oil everywhere, so take care. When each ball was light golden brown I removed it with a slotted spoon and set to drain/cool on a wire rack. When cool I rolled each globus in honey (warming the honey a bit helped get a more even coat) and then scattered on the poppy seeds.

And so here we are, my libum and globi:



The libum is quite heavy although I was surprised by how much it actually rose just from the internal steam - and as you can see from the photo the loaf actually has several large cavities within it, which is almost certainly down to the kneading/shaping technique (I blame Moulinex: you just can't get the staff these days). It's not a fancy bread by any means and in flavour and texture is rather like a heavy, rustic, pain de compagne, but baking on the bay leaves did impart a mild and pleasant additional flavour. Having tasted it still warm from the oven, I then had some with honey, which did seem to go very well with the earthy, rustic flavours, and ancient writers nearly always associate libum with honey. The poet Ovid (43 BC-18AD) writing of Roman religious festivals talks of a libum infused with clear honey, and he then traces the origin of these cakes back to mythology and to the discovery of honey by the god Bacchus. Meanwhile Horace (65-8 BCE) tells the tale of a temple slave who ran away because he was so sick of all the honeyed cakes given as temple offerings, while he just wanted some good plain bread instead.

The globi of course are already drizzled in honey; and very nice they were too. Again the basic bready balls are fairly bland but the crispy fried coating, and of course the honey, livens them up a lot. The poppy seeds don't really add anything being just for decoration. Cato never specified the size or shape of his globi, although by their name I think it's fairly safe to assume they were intended to be spheres rather than flatter discs like Indian puris. If made too large they certainly wouldn't cook through to the centre before the surface started to burn and they would probably then also be more prone to the crust splitting as they expanded. All in all I reckon my ones, at about one inch across (uncooked, they expand about 10% on cooking), would probably be close to the upper practical size limit. I think I might try again with slightly smaller balls. I might also try adding some additional flavouring to the basic dough mix, such as caraway, coriander, ginger, chopped rosemary or just some black pepper, again all common Roman flavourings. Nice though they were I think Cato was missing an opportunity here especially if he was intending to sell them at the local market: the Romans did seem to like their food spicey as well as sweet.

There's a Greek comedy by Antiphanes, quoted by Athenaeus (Ms 449c), which included a brisk exchange between a wordy gourmet, waxing lyrical about his food, and a more down-to-earth eater:
"The streams of the tawny bee, mixed with the clotted river of bleating she-goats, placed upon a flat receptacle of the virgin daughter of Zeus, delighting in ten thousand delicate veils - or shall I simply say cake?"
"I'm for cake."

Indeed. So who's for some Roman cake?

Superb post, MM - what we come to Res His for.

May I have some nice Roman cake, please - and may I use that lovely cake fork? Is it silver? (Or is it just a serving fork?)

I believe it's called a pickle fork or maybe a relish fork, but I think it's only in electro-plated nickel-silver so probably 20th century. It was my mother's but I think she only got it from a charity shop sometime in the 1990s: I certainly don't ever remember it as a child. It's not very Roman and indeed I'm not sure how common small table forks were in Roman times. Personal table forks only started to become used in Europe, in Italy first, towards the end of the Renaissance - as opposed to the big, usually two-pronged sturdy iron kitchen forks, or the cruder cooks' meathooks, that had been used for hoisting things out of large cooking pots for centuries. However my globi were so very sticky they certainly needed something.

PS
I'm now doing another of Cato's recipes - mustacei - but as so often with recreating these ancient dishes, some of the ingredients require a degree of pre-preparation as they cannot just be bought from the supermarket. So it might be a couple of days yet.

The other of Cato's recipes that I put on Dish-of-the-Day for 17th December, to mark the first day of Saturnalia, was for must cakes or must buns. As well as reportedly being light, sweet-spicy little appetizers suitable for a gustatio, ie the first  'starters' course of a roman banquet, they are also particularly appropriate as they seem to have sometimes been an accompaniment to one of the main dishes (mensa prima) very often served at Saturnalia dinner parties, that is, roast pork. The fourth century cookbook attributed to Apicius ('De Re Coquinaria' - On Cooking) gives a recipe for roast pork which is specifically to be served with pieces of must cake. Moreover pork in one way or another was always the most common meat eaten in Rome and indeed 'meat' is often synonymous with pork. But pork also had a particular religious association with the feast of Saturnalia.

Saturnalia started out as the celebration to mark the inauguration of the new Temple of Saturn in Rome on 17 December 497 BCE. However the link to Saturn was later reinforced when the Romans, having been thrashed by the Cathaginians at the Battle of Lake Trasimene in 217 BCE, consulted the Sibylline books and decided that they had lost the battle because they'd been honouring Saturn all wrong. So they redesigned the Saturnalia festival, introducing sacrifices and a banquet in the "Greek manner" to get closer to the mythical Golden Age of Saturn when humans enjoyed the spontaneous bounty of the earth without labour in a state of innocence, during a fabulous time of liberty, fraternity and egality (where have I heard that before?). Cato the Elder himself remembered the time before the Greek elements had been added to the Roman Saturnalia. In its revised form Saturnalia thus saw citizens dressing down so as not to show their rank; everyone wearing a pileus cap, the symbol of a manumitted slave; masters dined with, or even served, their servants and slaves; and there was general licence to drink, party, gamble and play pranks. But just for a few days: everyone, master and slave alike, knew that it would shortly be over and they'd all be back to normal.

The feast of Saturnalia commenced on the first day (December 17th ie. 14 days before the kalends of January) with sacrifices to Saturn in his main temple, which was located at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, at the top end of the Forum Romanum, facing the Curia, ie Rome Central. The traditional sacrificial animal for Saturn and other 'chthonic' deities of the earth and Underworld, was the pig. Accordingly at the start of the Saturnalia holiday, there was a lot of pork meat available: for the devotees who had offered it themselves; for the temple priests, acolytes and employees who all took their cut; or the rest that was given away as alms to the poor (Saturn himself had to be satisfied with just the smell of the few token bits of meat that were grilled on the altar).

The evening of first day also saw a large official public banquent (hosted by the Senate or later by the Emperor) held in front of the temple, with the huge statue of Saturn brought outside so that the god could attend the event in person, as it were. Again inevitably there was a lot of pork on the menu, whether sacrificial or just part of the caterer's regular repertoir. So yet more doggy bags of pork steaks,  pork cutlets, pork ribs, pork kebabs, pork sausages, pork rissoles - plus all the roman equivalents of sausage rolls, ham sandwiches, scotch eggs and pork pies - were later taken home by the poorer citizens to subsequently appear at their own family parties over the following few days. Better off citizens - although compelled to attend because of rank, official invite, etiquette, political necessity or just personal pride at being seen at a grand public event - often brought along their own picnic hampers of delicate tit-bits prepared by their own cooks. That way they didn't have to eat any of the plebian fare - with all the usual attendant risks of food poisoning associated with an open-air public barbeque and mass catering events generally, nor did they have to fight through the scrum to get any of it. So much for the much lauded equality of Saturnalia.

So as I say, while no specific dish seems to have been particularly associated with Saturnalia -  as in the way that mince pies, plum pudding and roast goose or turkey are particularly linked with Christmas - inevitably pork would be very much on the menu. In the words of the poet Martial (Epigrams 14.70), "a pig will make you a good Saturnalia" - and when there was roast pork, must cakes seem to have been a common accompaniment.


The Boudry mosaic: a roman dinner party in full swing, with a very messy floor displaying all they've eaten so far and with the dishes still to come, possibly a whole roast suckling pig (with must cakes?) on the serving tables. It could be Saturnalia with all the slaves taking the day off as only the cat, bottom centre-right, seems to be clearing up the discarded morsels of food, though I'm sure he's not doing that through any sense of good house-keeping.

So here again is Cato's original recipe from 'De Agricultura' (On Farming) written circa 160 BCE.

CXXI Mustaceos sic facito. Farinae siligineae modium unum musto conspargito. Anesum, cuminum, adipis P. II, casei libram, et de virga lauri deradito, eodem addito, et ubi definxeris, lauri folia subtus addito, cum coques.

Must cakes are made thus. Moisten 1 modius of flour with must; add anise, cumin, 2 pounds of lard, 1 pound of cheese, and the [grated} bark of a laurel twig. When you have made them into cakes, put bay leaves under them, and bake.

Roman volumetric measures, both for dry and liquid substances, were based on a Roman 'gallon', congius, which is generally considered to be equivalent to about 3.27 litres (5.75 British Imperial pints). A modius was a dry measure specified as 2 2⁄3 congii and so it equates to about 8.73 litres. As stated previously, a Roman pound, libra, weighed about 330g.

So Cato's recipe requires 8 3⁄4 litres of flour, 660g lard and 330g cheese - which would clearly make a lot of cakes, or one very big cake suitable perhaps for a big family banquet. Accordingly I reduced the amounts down to a fifth of the stated quantities and thus ended up using:
500g flour (wheat flour, 50% wholemeal, 50% plain white)
120g lard (a regular vegetable cooking fat)
60g cheese (a fresh home-made curd cheese, the same as I'd used for the globi recipe, above)
.... to which will be added:
ground aniseed, (say 2 tsp),
gound cumin (say, another 2 tsp)  
plus "sufficient" must to moisten.

Must, from vinum mustum, meaning "young wine", is freshly crushed grape pulp containing the skins, seeds and stems of the fruit, and which is the starting material for wine-making. However here, since it is going to be used to make cakes, I assume it needs to be roughly sieved or picked through to remove the hard pips and stems. This is not quite the same as modern commercially sold grape juice which is thoroughly filtered and then pasteurised. Roman must, even when sieved, was still thick and opaque with fleshy matter and had  a much higher glucose content (typically between 10 and 15%) compared to simply filtered grape juice. It is this high sugar content that makes must particularly sweet-tasting as well as very suceptible to fermentation from natural yeasts on the residual pieces of grape skin.

From Cato's  rather terse recipe it is not at all clear, but I believe the intention was to get the fermenting must to act as a raising agent and so give a lighter bread/cake. The Romans, skilled wine makers as they were, certainly observed that pressed grapes in the wine vats spontaneously bubbled and produced a gassy throth, even if they didn't understand the exact mechanism involved. Pliny (NH XVIII) states that the use of yeast for bread making - specifically obtained by mixing bread flour, of various sorts, with grape must - started at the time of the Third Macedonian War (171-168 BCE). However in 'Around the Roman Table' (2003) Patrick Faas suggests that it was even earlier in Republican times when yeasts started being used to produce risen loaves, although at the time the new lighter bread was often considered unhealthy. Moreover, if the intention by Cato was to use the must as a sweet flavouring alone, it could be more readily obtained by using common Roman ingredients make from grape must which had been concentrated by boiling to a syrup (defructum) or to a thicker treacly substance (sapa). However this boiling process killed the natural yeasts and so wouldn't work as a raising agent. Accordingly, and as this recipe specifically called must cakes, I think Roman cooks fully expected them to rise, at least a bit.

So how to get a suitable yeasty grape must?

Well, here I have fudged and perhaps cheated a bit. I took a small quantity (100ml or so) of fresh grape juice, added a chopped fresh bay leaf (in lieu of Cato's grated bark of a laurel twig), took this to the boil and then let to cool and infuse. When it had cooled to about body temperature I stirred in 5g of bakers' yeast. I then de-seeded and de-stalked 200g of fresh grapes, and leaving the skins on, chopped and crushed them to a pulp before stirring it into the juice/yeast mix, before letting it all stand for 30mins in a warm place to start fermenting.



Then, again using my tireless kitchen slave Moulinex, I sifted the flour and ground spices together, rubbed in the fat and cheese, and finally, while stirring continually, blended in sufficient of the must to get a stiff dough (it took around 250ml of the must mix but it might vary a bit). Moulinex then continued to knead the dough for 10 minutes or so before it was turned out into a bowl, covered, and set to rest and rise in a warm place for a couple of hours.



Two hours later with the dough slightly risen. I rolled it out and made half a dozen or so palm-sized individual cakes, and then shaped the remainder into a single, bigger loaf. They were all placed on a platter covered with fresh bay leaves and baked for an hour at 180°C.

And here we are:



They did rise rather better than the libum bread of the previous post, although of course they were helped by my addition of a pinch of baker's yeast. They also had a much more interesting flavour, predominantly of the cumin as I couldn't detect much anise or bay but my anise was a bit old and anyway I'm not too fond of aniseed flavour. All in all different but quite nice and perfect for a gustatio, perhaps with some olives and lucanian sausage, all, if only our dreams, washed down with some Falernian or Opimianum wine. Just don't ever think of using such fine vintages to make the must mixture:

Why, Tucca, do you delight
In mixing cheap must with noble Falernian:
What harm has a vintage ever done you?
We your guests may deserve a poisoning
But never a great wine like this.

Martial (Epigrams 1.18)

Another A* for you, mon vieux!

Fascinating historical food info here - you certainly give that American chap (the dishy one you fancied   ) a run for his money.

And of course I love the greedy moggy who's busy hoovering up the leftovers - Rome's very own imperial Laurentius? (The picture would be an appropriate addition to the Moggy Thread, I feel).

PS I had no idea the Romans were thrashed by the Carthaginians in 217 BC - Punic Wars are a total historical mystery to me, but was this particular humiliation why Cato was so obsessed with "delenda est Carthago"? Or was that a different Cato?


PPS  Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam - that's what he actually said, isn't it?

Temperance wrote:

PS I had no idea the Romans were thrashed by the Carthaginians in 217 BC - Punic Wars are a total historical mystery to me, but was this particular humiliation why Cato was so obsessed with "delenda est Carthago"? Or was that a different Cato?

As I understand it, having crossed the Alps into Italy Hannibal basically had free run of the peninsular outside of Rome and a few other cities for a couple of years and the Romans got their asses kicked several more times, such as their even bigger defeat at Cannae in 216 BC. Yes "Carthago delenda est" was the same Cato's impassioned cry: I think he had been a junior army officer at the time of Hannibal's invasion of Italy.

I wonder if there are any original sources for ancient Carthaginian cookery, or were all their cookbooks consigned to the flames when Carthage was sacked and sown with salt?

That pork recipe intrigues me, might try a version of it next Hogswatch, either on Dec 32nd itself, or more likely on 1st of Ick. Our Christmas dinner was, to say the least, "disturbed". Junior Monster (the reformed chef) was catering at Snr Monster's abode, but with the turkey and stuffing in the hands of the girl Siduri. Whilst gathering some herbs (rosemary if I remember correctly) for the oblgatory pigs-in-blankets, Senior Monster realised he couldn't smell them. A hasty phone conference saw a plate of meat, stuffing, and redcurrant jelly (which we prefer to cranberry sauce) shipped one way, and the vegetables transported the short distance home (Snr M lives at no 101, the rest of us at no. 55). Alas, too late - Snr Monster was "bubbled" with the rest of us as he lives alone - and the gift of Covid-19 bestowed upon him by one of his pupils spent the next few days proliferating amongst us. Today (well now yesterday) was the first time I was able to go out withiout the stautory "Unclean" badges.