Where I've Been

So, there have not been many posts lately, I admit. But, you know, it is that time of the semester when every time I start working on recreating an ancient recipe I end up distracted in the text itself . . .

But, more posts are coming soon! I hope you are all cooking ancient foods and enjoying the arrival of Spring!

Apicius' Sauteed Leeks

The flowers are blooming, the weather is warmer, Spring is in the air and I want to eat fresh vegetables! Today we dip back into the cookbook of Apicius and look at recipe #89, tantalizingly titled "Leeks, Another Method". This dish is interesting and delicious due to olives added at the end to the sauteed leeks.

Apicius' Leeks, Another Method

4 Leeks

Olive Oil

Salt

White Wine

Olives

1) Heat a quarter cup or so of olive oil, and yes I do have a heavy hand with the olive oil bottle, over medium high heat.

2) Add the chopped leeks. Now, remember that leeks need to be thoroughly washed. Leeks briefly: where the leek turns from light green to dark green, chop there and reserve the dark parts for your stockpot. Discard the outer layer of the remaining leek and chop it widthwise into many circles. Wash all these circles as they are probably dirty. Voila, leeks ready for cooking!

3) Add a splash of white wine and some salt.

4) Add the olives. I like a mix of olives -- if you are in West Philly, Milk and Honey has wonderful olives. Take the pit out of the olives and throw them in the pan when the leeks look ready to eat. Mix up the olives into the leeks and serve. To get the pit out of the olive, I like to press the flat of my knife on the olive to crush it to make pit removal easy. Please do not slice your palm doing this. The finished dish looks like this picture.

Leeks and olives sounds strange but is delicious! Enjoy!

Suovitaurilia

We go back to Cato for this recipe. The suovitaurilia was a very important sacrifice for the Romans consisting of a pig, a ram, and a bull (sus, ovis, and taurus) that was a purification ritual done for major religious events at Rome, most famously at the completion of the census every five years. Here is a picture of the relief sculpture of a suovitaurilia in the senate house in the forum at Rome.

 Appropriately enough, considering his past experience as censo, Cato, in his book on farming (De Agricultura CXLI), recommends also having a suovitaurilia to purify farmland. Now, when one reads about an ancient sacrifice it appears that some parts are grilled and some parts are boiled, depending on which parts would taste better by what method. So, to imitate this, I simmered some cuts of lamb, beef, and pork in red wine for 8 hours and I grilled some other cuts of the three animals. This recipe cooks alot of food, but I was cooking for alot of people. You should too.

Suovitaurilia 

2 lamb shanks

4 pounds beef short ribs

4 pounds pork roast

red wine

olive oil

4 pounds boneless pork chops

4 pounds lamb shoulder chops

4 pounds beef sirloin 

salt

1)  Heat up some olive oil in a pot and brown the shanks while you cut up the pork roast.

2) Add the short ribs and pork roast to the pot, and add wine to cover.

3) ummm, this is too much for one pot. Put it into two pots!

4) Okay, now simmer away for 8 hours or so. After about 5 hours, I was able to combine it all into one pot. After 8 hours it is all just an amazing mixture of goodness. 

5) For the grilled part of the meal, I grilled the chops and sirloin over pretty high heat on a grill pan inside. While the ancients did have grill pans remarkably like our own, if you can grill the meats outdoors over charcoal it will be even better. I used only salt as my seasoning for all this meat, and Cato thinks that is what you should do as well.

There are sacrificial cakes that Cato specifies go with the suovitaurilia, but I will save them for a later post. Celebrate the arrival of spring and eat Suovitaurilia! Cato says that you are supposed to walk the animals around your farm and he specifies prayers to say to father Mars as you do so. Also, make a prayer with wine to Janus and Jupiter. Then, enjoy! 

The Emperor Hadrian's Daily Meal

"Why did the soldiers love the emperor Hadrian so?" you might be wondering. Well, according to that late 4th century text, Historia Augusta, it is because Hadrian would live the life of the soldier when he was with the soldiers. "What did living this life consist of?" you now ask? Well, all we learn is that it consisted of eating outdoors and eating 'camp food' - bacon, cheese, and cheap wine!

Hadrian's Camp Food

Bacon

Cheese

Cheap wine

1) Fry up some bacon.

2) Put it on a plate with some cheese.

3) Pour a big glass of wine. This wine must come from a box or enormous jug. The specified wine in the text is posca, the worst of the worst, even worse than acetum on the ancient-crappy-wine-scale.

4) Eat and drink and feel the love of the troops for you grow and grow.

So, this is how Hadrian made the troops love him! (Uh, and according to the very next sentence it is also because Hadrian gave the soldiers lots of gifts. The author of the Historia Augusta is a wonderfully snarky devil!)

There is a true kernel of wisdom here: if you eat bacon and cheese with people while drinking wine and then give them lots of gifts, they will love you! Hooray!

Enjoy!

Plautus' Epityra

Plautus' very funny comedy Miles Gloriosus begins with a soldier and his sidekick on stage. The soldier is bragging and the sidekick flatters him while at the same time telling the audience what a fool the soldier really is. The best line is when he says, "There is no one more full of empty boasts than this guy - but I love to eat his epityra!" See, cause this sidekick is a parasite, basically a professional dinner party attender who sucks up to people like this soldier for free food. What is this food that is worth the company of such a boor, you ask? Well, luckily for us, Cato has a recipe for it!

Cato's Epityra 

Suggested by Plautus

1 pound assorted olives

olive oil

red wine vinegar

mint

cilantro

cumin

1) Gather ingredients

2) Take the pits out of the olives and chop them up. To take pits out of olives, press an olive lightly under the flat of your knife until it bursts, so to speak. Please do not horrible slice your hand doing this. 

3) Now, add all the other ingredients! I would start with, say, 3 Tablespoons of oil and 1 Tablespoon of vinegar. In the summer I would use more vinegar and add some arugula! It would be delicious and summery. Add herbs and spices. Taste. Adjust. Delicious!

4) Make sure to stir everything up really well. I forgot to take a picture when it was all stirred up. 

5) Now eat with some bread. But be careful that your friends do not say that they cannot stand to hear you talk but they are willing to hang out with you just to eat your epityra!

Enjoy!

Manius Curius' Turnips

According to Plutarch, Cato the Elder learned his farm-loving and luxury-hating ways from Manius Curtius who lived in a villa down the road. Cato was amazed at how this three-triumph having, Pyrrhus-out-of-Italy-driving, belligerent-tribe-subduing man lived such an impressive life of utter simplicity on his small farm. And, there is even a famous story about this man's favorite food! See, once upon a time some Rome-hatin' Samnites tried to bribe Manius Curtius with gold. And oddly they chose to try to do this while he was cooking dinner. But, this enabled Manius Curtius to point to his pot of boiling turnips and cry out, "He who is content with radishes has no need for gold!" or some such impressive phrase. He then went on about liking to defeat those who had gold rather than possess it himself, blah blah blah. What matters to us is the decisive role Manius Curtius' favorite dish plays in the story!

Manius Curtius' Turnips

Turnips

Water

1) Boil turnips until they are how you like them, 20 minutes or so.

2) Eat. 

3) Feel resistance to bribery grow in your heart.

Now, don't boil them in stock or add seasoning or anything that tastes good - this will get in the way of their bribery-resistance powers!

Enjoy!

Cato's Cakes for Religious Services

Today we go back to Cato and look at his recipe for 'libum', a sacrificial cake that was often piled up (into a pile called a 'strues') to make an offering to the gods. The recipes from Cato are often maligned, in fact, Varro (who wrote a book on agriculture around 100 years after Cato) mocked them in antiquity and the modern translator of the Loeb edition even footnotes this recipe with, "these recipes cannot be considered alluring." Well, they are all wrong! Cato, you have delicious recipes!

Cato's 'Libum' - An Ancient Roman Sacrificial Cake

15 oz Ricotta

half cup flour

1 egg

bay leaves

honey and poppy seeds (optional)

1) Gather ingredients.

2) Combine the ricotta, flour, and egg in a bowl. One could use many different cheeses for this recipe, all that is specified is that one passes the cheese through a sieve until it is homogenous. Ricotta is already homogenous and was present in antiquity and tastes really good. So, I recommend it. For the amount of flour, I follow Cato's suggestion for what to do "if you wish the cake to be more delicate." If you have no need for delicate in your life, then use one cup flour instead.

4) Mix it up!

3) Cato says to cook the cakes on a bed of leaves, so I spread some bay leaves on a baking sheet and placed each cake on a bay leaf.

4) Heat your oven up to 350 and put in your sheet pan of cakes. 

5) Remove from oven when they are starting to look golden brown and delicious.

6) Then they are ready to eat. I like to put honey and poppy seeds on them as well (kind of making them the baked version of Cato's globuli!). You can then put them on a plate:

or pile them up into a proper strues for a god:

These are really rich and good. I hope that all your sacrifices will go much better since now you will make the proper cakes. Enjoy!