Jus porro frigidum in porcellum elixum

Last night, I prepared Cold Sauce for Pork, Apicius 8.7.15 from Cooking Apicius by Sally Grainger. 

Ingredients

Ingredients
2 t caraway seeds
60g pine kernels (I substituted sunflower seeds)
1t dill
1/2t oregano
2T vinegar
1 T garum
2 T date syrup (I mashed up the Dulcia Domesica I had left over)
2 T honey
40g whole grain mustard (I used actual mustard seed)
generous ground black pepper


Roast and grind the seeds in mortar and pestle until uniform paste texture achieved. Mix in thicker liquids (dates, honey), then the thin liquids, (vinegar, garum.)
Mixture makes a paste- rub all over pork loin, and bake @ 425F for 17 minutes. 

The sauce prior to being put on pork

The Final product

I made this to take over to a friend's place to watch the Cowboys lose (again). We served it with chili & beans, and Strawberry Nerds. Everyone smelled the spice rub prior to cooking, and exclaimed that it smelled very strong. We were glad that we were also making chili, in case Apicius had led me wrong. I used the paste I made from the recipe above, and it made enough to cover the entire 1.1lb pork loin in a 1/4" thick coating of the sauce. The pork tenderloin I bought already had been marinated with an Asian marinade, which I thought would nicely complement the garum in the recipe. The sauce ended up being very heavily mustard, which went quite well with the pork. Most whole grain mustards tend to make a good sauce for pork dishes. It was delicious! The honey and dates gave this a sweet taste, while the mustard was tangy. Cooking the tenderloin at 425 made the paste a sort of crust surrounding the pork, which was flaky and tasty. The fish sauce taste mostly baked out of the recipe, or was unnoticeable. The sweetness from the honey and dates did much to mask the bitter taste of defeat that the Cowboys endured, but it went well with the tanginess of the mustard. Everyone said that they'd gladly eat it again.  
~Consul Spartacurtus~

A guide for epicureans who don't do Chianti

From Variety Magazine- 

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Posted: Sun., Oct. 24, 2010, 4:00am PT

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Where to eat

A guide for epicureans who don't do Chianti

By MONICA CORCORAN

Locals' escargot, or 'bovoleto,' is said to ward off evil spirits. WE RECOMMEND... Hollywood's resurgent Republicans Justin Bieber: Third World schools have an ally Kiwi 'Hobbit' boycott ends 'Paranormal' scares away B.O. competish Celebs stir the pot for Proposition 19 'Modern Family' is a 'Cosby' celebre RELATED ARTICLES: Rome Film Festival takes populist approach Rome Film Fest: Extra eclectic Reviving Rome's 'La Dolce Vita' Seeking bargains in lap of luxury 'Last Night' to open Rome film fest Sisters steal show at Rome fest

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The old adage "when in Rome" may be a handy excuse for all sorts of transgressions, but it's an apt and accurate mantra for a foodie.

Roman emperor Vitellius (69 AD) feasted at a banquet four times a day and dispatched the Navy to appropriate rare, exotic edibles like peacock brains. Though such gluttony no longer prevails, Romans still sensualize eating and appreciate innovation.

"The gastronomic scene in Rome is ultra-sophisticated today," says Robin Saikia, author of the upcoming Blue Guide Italy Food Companion. "New ideas are constantly blended with traditional methods."

Indeed, many time-honored dishes -- and favorites of Vitellius -- still linger on menus with modifications. For instance, plump spit-roasted dormouse or "il ghiro" was once a staple at a Roman orgy. Nowadays, restaurants substitute roasted quail for rodent and baste it in honey with dates and cumin, notes Saikia.

The delicate bird is also the politically correct replacement for "cavia" or guinea pig, which is stuffed with chopped ham, cheese, herbs and bacon. She recommends Roman escargot or "bovoleto," which are small snails simmered in herbs and garlic and then served with chopped celery, carrots, and red wine. Story has it that the snails -- and perhaps the garlic -- ward off evil spirits.

Ex-pat and food writer Eleanora Baldwin, who leads the "Savoring Rome" culinary tour for Context Travel (contexttravel.com), recommends that the daring try "coratella coi carciofi" or the heart, lungs and spleen of the lamb, which are sautéed with artichokes and Marsala wine. Her pick for where to sample: Augustarello in the Testaccio (98 Via Giovanni Branca; 06 574-6585). She also adores "puntarella in salsa d'alici," which is crisp chicory topped with anchovy, vinegar, olive oil and garlic dressing.

"It's perfect to complement the rich and sometimes fatty Roman fare," says Baldwin, who hits Roma Sparita (24 Piazza Santa Cecilia in the Trastevere; 06 580-0757) for her chicory fix.

"Animelle" or lamb sweetbreads, another delicacy for the courageous palette, is offal rolled in flour, dipped in beaten egg and fried alongside artichokes. The best in Rome? Fellini dined on animelle and other ancient Roman specialties at La Campana, (18 Vicolo della Campana in the Pizza Navona; ristorantelacampana.com).

Eating and drinking local is a new trend in Rome, as the region now boasts its own fantastic wines. "Lazio was never known as a great wine-producing area," says Saveur contributor Brette Jackson, who has seen a recent uptick in enoteche. "But now the Lazali are enjoying the wine and food culture that has always been a popular pastime with the Umbrians and Tuscans."

At Urbana 47 (47 Via Urbana; 06 4788-4006) salumi, wines and ingredients of dishes like zucchini ravioli with amaretto and sliced seared rib-eye steak with chard in a balsamic reduction come from nearby purveyors. Post-midnight, there's a late-night, after-dinner menu served. In the same Monti district, Enoteca Provinicia Romano (82 Largo del Foro Traiano; 06 6766-2424) serves local fare like roasted pork from Ariccia and chocolate from Trappist monasteries.

Read more: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118026014.html?categoryid=3282&cs=1#ixzz13KczFCTO
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Dulcia Domesica

For my latest effort at Apicius' recipes, I thought I'd go for a dessert. After browsing the various sweets in the cookbooks, I chose Dulcia Domesica, Household Sweets, which are dates stuffed with walnuts, fried in honey.

DULCIA DOMESICA. 
Homemade sweets. Take palms or dates, with the stones removed, and stuff them with nuts or nut kernels and ground pepper. Salt the dates on top and bottom and fry in cooked honey, and serve. (Apicius, Book Seven, XI-I)

I have never really eaten dates before, (Hey! Get your mind out of the gutter!) so this was a new experience to me. I couldn't find dates in the produce section of HEB, so I had to settle for a package of them I found with the dried goods. I found walnuts already shelled, sliced, and diced into tiny pieces, which really helped with the recipe. I cut the dates open longitudinally, and found that they have a perfect cavity to shove nuts in. I was able to cram an impressive amount of walnuts in each date, and held them shut with a toothpick.

Next, I sprinkled the dates with a small amount of salt, as per the directions. The recipe called for frying the dates in honey. Now, I had previously only fried things in oil or grease, so this was new to me. I had to look at a few other versions of the recipe in order to confirm that the recipe didn't mean for me to fry in oil, and add some honey, or something of that nature. Indeed, I was correct, I was really supposed to fry in pure honey, no grease. I poured about 1.5 cups of honey into my cast iron skillet, and heated it up until the honey started to simmer. I dropped in the dates, and spread them around so they would be evenly coated with honey. The honey boiled and simmered, and nearly boiled over a few times, but I got the hang of it quickly once I turned the heat down to medium. The honey grew thicker the more I simmered it, and once I saw that it was thickening and crystallizing on the dates after about seven minutes of simmering, I pulled them out to cool, and dusted them with freshly ground black pepper.

They were a sticky mess. I laid them out on wax paper to prevent them from sticking to everything that they touch. I served them at the Classics Club meeting to thunderous applause. Everyone seemed to enjoy them, even though they were a bit sticky and messy. But overall, they were enjoyed! The dates and honey were a great mix of flavors, and the walnuts added a crunchy texture that was a great contrast to the sticky, sogginess of the dates.

It was quite an ordeal to clean up after this, as I had caramelized honey on my skillet, which took some real elbow grease to get off. I ended up wasting a good deal of honey on this, which wasn't cheap. I had no immediate use for the caramelized honey, so I threw it out. The boiled down honey with pieces of date and chunks of walnuts would have made an excellent sauce for the topping on a cake or other desert of some sort, but I had nothing else to put it on, so it went in the composting bin. In retrospect, I could have saved it for another day.

In all, the Apician dessert was a success. People seemed to enjoy it. I took the dates to my accounting class after the meeting, and my classmates enjoyed it. I told them that it was an Ancient Roman dessert, and they ate it mainly out of curiosity, instead of hunger.

“But what can be considered of greater authority than the senses?” -Lucretius 100-55 BC

Salve! This is Consul Spartacurtus! I am a huge fan of eating, so therefore cooking is a passion of mine. I have a great time learning about food history, and am always willing to try out new recipes. There's not much that I won't eat, unless it eats me first. I was excited to learn about this blog, and that the club is willing to eat the strange things from antiquity. Therefore, I'd like to submit my most recent classical culinary conquest to the blog.

After discussing Nathan’s dining idea at our meeting, I wanted to find some weird Roman recipes, and immediately ran to the John Peace Library and got my hands on every cookbook I could grab, where I managed to grab Apicius’ de re Coquinaria and then hustled over to the San Antonio Public Library to stock up on some more modern cookbooks. I was initially just looking for a dessert to make, but then decided to try out a whole meal based on these books I found.
Here are the books I got:
Apicius - Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome
Around the Roman Table- Patrick Faas
Dining as a Roman Emperor - How to Cook Ancient Roman Recipes Today - L’erma di Bretschneider
Art, Culture, and Cuisine - Ancient and Medieval Gastronomy- Phyllis Pray Bober
The Classical Cookbook - Andrew Dalby & Sally Grainger
The Philosopher’s Kitchen - Recipes from Ancient Greece and Rome for the Modern Cook- Francine Segan


Some of these books are better than others for actual replicable recipes and how easy they are to make. I found The Philosopher’s Kitchen to have the easiest recipes, from which I picked “Grapes-and-Couscous Stuffed Chicken Breasts.”

The recipe follows:

1 T unsalted butter
salt
1/2 c dried couscous
1.25 c green seedless grapes, halved
1 celery rib, finely minced
2 t chopped fresh parsley
1 t fresh mint
4 boneless chicken breasts, skin on
freshly milled pepper
1 1/2 c white wine
1/2 c sliced, blanched almonds
1 T chopped fresh chives

Bring the butter, 1/2t salt, and 1/2 c water to boil in small saucepan. Remove from heat, and add couscous. Cover for 5 min. Then, stir in grapes, celery and herbs, and fluff with a fork.
Then, butterfly the chicken, and stuff the couscous mixture in, rolling chicken around the couscous. Lay seam-side down on greased pan, and cook @ 400F for 30 min.
Meanwhile, the wine, 3/4 c of mashed grapes and crushed almonds are added together, and boiled down in a reduction sauce. I ran this through the blender after it boiled down, and added the chives.

This dish is the second course of a summer meal described by the Greek writer, Artemidorus in the second-century B.C.

The reduction sauce turned out to be great! The whole recipe was a great success! They turned out perfectly. They held together nicely while being cut up once served, and looked beautiful coming out of the oven. Dear Reader, at this point I’d like to apologize for my neglect in not recording photographic evidence of this culinary endeavor, but I was amiss in not knowing about this very blog until after the affair was over. Ecce! The pictures included are not mine, but the ones from the cookbook.


For a vegetable, I served, “Carotae et Pastinacae” from Dining as a Roman Emperor.The recipe comes straight from Apicius’ de re Coquinaria III.XXI.1-2. I chose this dish because it uses garum, and I thought I would be negligent if I served a Roman meal without it. I detest garum. I’ve cooked with it before, and think that it is god awful. It stinks up the house, and turns good recipes awful. This was no exception. I’ve never had a recipe that made garum taste good. They used it like San Antonians use salsa. They put it on everything. To you, Reader- I challenge you to submit to this blog a good garum recipe. I don’t think it exists. I’d like to do another post solely devoted to garum. Anyhow, the carrots are sliced thin, fried briefly, and dried on a paper towel. Then I made a reduction sauce of red wine, honey, ground peppercorns, oil, and Nuoc-nam (Garum). The sauce turned out to be a gross purple mush. Prior to this, I had never tasted fried carrots. They did turn out to be pretty good, if they weren’t covered with this reduction sauce. My dinner companion and I both picked at the carrots, wishing that the sauce wasn’t there. In retrospect, it would have been nice to have put the garum sauce on the side...


I served the meal with Fratelli Brothers’ Pinot Grigio ($10- HEB), which I bought because I thought it’d pair nicely with the chicken, and it has Roman stuff on it. Really, I bought it for the label, which tells the story of Castor & Pollux. It was a good wine, but a poor pairing with the chicken, which was a bit bland for such a light bodied wine, I felt. The wine would have paired better with something spicier. This meal needed a real full bodied chardonnay. This was the opposite. At least it was able to wash the taste of garum out of my mouth.



For dessert- Lavender-Honey Apples in Puff Pastry. Also from the Philosopher’s Kitchen, this one was fairly easy. I peeled, and cored two Red Delicious apples. Then, rolled them in lavender infused honey, and then rolled the sticky mess in a mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Then, I wrapped the whole affair in a puff pastry, folding the edges up to the top of the apple, and poked a cinnamon stick in the top to represent the stem. This was then baked @ 400F for 25 min.

They turned out pretty well. The sugar mixture melted out of one of the pastry puffs, and proceeded to crystalize on the baking tray. (It still sits soaking in my kitchen sink as I write this...) The other one held its sugar pretty well, and looked rather pretty coming out. I stuck a mint leaf and a cinnamon stick in each one to finish the effect of the stem. They tasted like apple pie, which I’ve always considered sort of an American taste. They were sort of apple dumplings, really. I don’t really know how authentic of a recipe this is. Was cinnamon and nutmeg available to the Romans? Nescio. The author does cite Hercules’ task to bring back the Golden Apples of Hesperides, and the story of Atalanta and apples from Aphrodite.

In all, the meal was a success... I am excited to get to try out more recipes, and to have an audience to test these things out on. I hope to do many more posts! Propino tibi!