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The recipes
below are quoted from the ancient roman cookbook of
Marcus Gavius Apicius - De re coquinaria.This
book has been translated in many languages including the English one. The below
recipes is a small sample of what ancient Greeks and Romans were eating
everyday. The ancient greek cuisine is not far from
the roman because there were a lot of cultural exchanges and influences. The
recipes below are selected from a book of
Robert Maier who translated and
edited them from latin to english and from the web
page of Micaela Pantke. I hope the recipes
are still rather near to the originals...
First we have
to introduce you to some native Roman ingredients, such as:
-
Caroenum:
Boiled must (you have to boil the new wine or grape juice until it is only
half the amount you started with).
-
Defritum:
Either thick fIg syrup, or must that's boiled until you have only a third of
the amount with which you started.
-
Liebstoeckl:
I didn't find an English translation. In Latin it's called 'levisticum
officinale'. It's an umbelliferous plant with yellowish flowers. Its dried
roots are used as spice. It seems to be a kind of celery.
-
Liquamen:
a salty fish sauce. Most of the time you can replace it by salt.
-
Passum:
Very sweet wine sauce, made by boiling the must (new wine or grape juice) to
thicken it.
-
Poleiminze:
A kind of mint that's growing in inundated areas. Just replace it by ordinary
mint.
-
Saturei:
I didn't find an English translation. In Latin it's called 'satureia hortensis'.
It's a violet or white flowered kind of labiate plants which grows mainly in
Southern Europe. It's used as a spice plant, especially for bean dishes.
-
Silphium:
Its other names are 'Laser' or 'ferula asa foetida'. I've noticed that it's
also called 'hing' in the Indian cuisine. It is an onion and garlic substitute
and should be used rather sparingly because of its very strong taste and
smell.
And here are some useful
conversions:
And now let's come to the meals. All of those are calculated
for 4 servings! Unfortunately the exact cooking temperatures and times haven't
been handed down in all cases. You have to rely on your gut feeling!
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