#roman food
Io Saturnalia! The Roman celebration of the end of the year, Saturnalia, is next week! So celebrate another end of another year, I’m making a simple baked treat to serve for any saturnalia celebrations you have planned - a quick and easy Dulcia Piperata (as recorded by Apicius)
In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! Check out my Patreon for more!
Ingredients
1 cup / 150g flour
2 eggs
½ tsp ground rosemary
75 g chopped almonds
2tsp ground pepper
100 ml sweet white wine (or grape juice)
2 tbsp honey
Milk
75g Chopped hazelnuts
Method:
1 - Mix Dry Ingredients
Toss about a cup of flour in a bowl. Add in some rosemary, a couple teaspoons of ground pepper, and about 75g of chopped almonds to the bowl. Mix everything together, just so it’s all evenly mixed. Rosemary is a commonly-found herb in the Mediterranean, and found it’s way into Roman cooking in a variety of dishes! I’m using plain white wheat flour, but wholemeal wheat or spelt would have also been used here.
2 - Mix the Other Ingredients
Next, crack two eggs into a measuring jugs, before adding your wine (or grape juice, if you’re not using alcohol), and milk. Add in enough milk to bring the total volume of liquid up to about 450ml. Pour the jug of liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well. The whole thing will be like a pancake batter. If it’s too thin, add a few more tablespoons of flour, and if it’s too thick, add a little more milk!
3 - Bake
Next, prepare a baking tin by wiping some olive oil over the sides and base of it! Pour the mixture into your tin. Bake at 190ºC / 375ºF for about 30 minutes. It should be done when a skewer comes out clean when the centre of it is poked. Take it out, and let the whole thing cool down in the baking dish. It may collapse a little, but this is totally fine and to be expected!
4 - Finish
When the cake is still warm, spread some honey over the top and sprinkle it with chopped hazelnuts and a few whole hazelnuts. The honey will caramelise a little at the edge of the dish, which adds a lovely deep flavour to the whole thing!
Serve up warm with another spoon of honey, and dig in!
The finished dish is super light and sweet, with a tangy undertone from the wine! The honey drizzled over the top infuses into the body of the cake, resulting in a springy, sponge-like cross-section! The rosemary adds a lovely woody kick to each slice, and pairs wonderfully with the taste of the white wine!
Today, I’ll be making a sweet dessert recorded by Apicius - the simple pear patina, which is kind of like a baked sponge in terms of texture. The original recipe requires some ingredients that are difficult to get a hold of today, so I’ve substituted some close modern approximations - which work just as well!
In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!
Ingredients
5 pears
white wine (to cook the pears)
2 tbsp honey
pepper
cumin
½ cup sweet wine
4 eggs
1 tbsp olive oil
Method
1 - Poach pears
To begin with, we need to prepare our pears. Do this by pouring most of a bottle of wine into a pot large enough to accommodate your pears. You can also use water, if you’re not keen on using alcohol! Place this over a high heat, and bring it to a simmer.
When it’s simmering steadily, carefully place your pears into the liquid, before pouring a couple tablespoons of honey over this. Make sure the liquid covers the pears when they’re touching the bottom of the pot. Return to the heat, and let the pears poach partially for about 5 minutes, or until a knife, when inserted into the centre of one, comes out easily.
Drain your pears, and let them cool to room temperature, before you deal with them. Technically the leftover liquid doesn’t get used later on, but it’s perfectly drinkable as is! It’s a super sweet, mildly pear-tasting wine!
2 - Prepare Pear Mix
When your pears have cooled, divide each one into pairs of pears using a sharp knife. Then carefully cut the tough, fibre-filled core of the fruit. The skin of these should be practically falling off, but remove them anyway.
Place the softened fruit into a large bowl, and toss a tablespoon of ground cumin on top of this, along with a few twists of freshly ground black pepper! On top of this, add another squeeze of honey, and a little splash of olive oil. Also pour in a half a cup of a sweet wine into this - I used a bit of the poaching liquid, but passum (a raisin wine) is used in the original recipe, but any sweet wine is suitable. Mix all this with a mortar and pestle - or a fork, if you’re not from antiquity - until it’s just combined. When it’s mixed, crack four eggs into the bowl, and mix everything until there’s no more streaks of egg visible.
3 - Bake the Patina
When your mixture is done, go lightly oil a baking dish. It’s likely that a terracotta pot would have been used in antiquity, but an ovenproof baking dish works well today. Don’t over-oil the inside too much!
Gently pour in your pear mixture, and place the whole thing into the centre of an oven preheated to 180° C / 350° F for about 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of your patina comes out clean.
Let this cool to room temperature before digging in! Don’t worry if it deflates a little, this is to be expected and is completely fine!
The finished dish is very sweet, with only a very slight hint of pear. Although it seems a little plain, this pairs fantastically well with hard, salty cheeses, and sharp-tasting dishes (such as olives in vinegar) - as such, it’s unlikely that this was eaten alone as a dessert, more likely it was a companion dish that was intended to be a complimentary dish to others.
Today, I’ll be making a simple bread-based soup - referred to as juscellum by Apicius! It’s a lot like Tuscan “aquacotta” soup, which is prepared in a similar way - though today it often includes tomatoes, which would not have been available in antiquity.
And now let’s take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video above!
Ingredients
1 onion
1 carrot
1 stick celery
3 cloves garlic
thyme
2 slices bread (torn or grated)
2 eggs
750ml chicken stock
olive oil
salt
pepper
Method
1 - Chop Ingredients
To begin with, we need to chop and dice an onion. You don’t need to worry about being too careful here, as they’ll soften up considerably while its cooking. Peel and dice a carrot or two - carrots and parsnips were considered to be the same vegetable to the Greeks and Romans, so either one works well here! Finally, deal with some celery by slicing it thinly.
2 - Sautee and Cook
Toss a bit of olive oil into a pot, and place this over a medium heat. When it’s shimmering, toss in your onions, carrots, and crush a few crushed cloves of garlic. Let this sauté away for about 10 minutes.
When it’s finished sautéing, pour in 500ml worth of water or chicken stock. On top of this, toss some chopped thyme Place your soup over a high heat, and bring it to a rolling boil. When it hits a boil, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer away for 30 minutes.
3 - Prepare Soup and Eggs
While your soup is cooking, go rip up some slices into large chunks. Alternatively, you could grate up dried bread into a powder. Toss your bread into the soup about 10 minutes before you’re serving it, along with your parsley.
About 5 minutes before you serve up your soup, place some eggs into the pot and let them hard-boil.
4 - Assemble Soup
In a serving bowl, ladle in some of your soup, and place your poached egg on top of this. Garnish with a little fresh herb. And serve up warm!
The finished soup is very filling and flavourful - along with looking very colourful when finished! It’s quick and simple to make, which would have made it popular with the lower, poorer classes in ancient Roman and Etruscan societies - as this dish can be made using ingredients that are going off (such as stale or mouldy bread). It can be adjusted using seasonal vegetables and herbs, along with different kinds of eggs that would provided different taste profiles.
