An Ancient Roman Recipe
I am not sure if I should be telling you all not to try this at home. Our detailed accounts of what ancient Romans ate and how they ate it come from a man called Apicius, who wrote a famous cookbook. Here is one of his recipies:
Put in a mortar pepper, lovage and origan; pound, moisten with sauce, add cooked brains, pound thoroughly to dissolve lumps. Add five eggs and beat well to work all into a smooth paste. Blend with sauce, place in a metal pan and cook. When it is cooked turn out on a clean board and dice. Put in the mortar pepper, lovage and origan; pound, mix together; pour in sauce and wine, put in saucepan and bring to boil. When boiling crumble in pastry to thicken, stir vigorously and pour in the serving dish over the diced rissoles; sprinkle with pepper and serve."
Would anyone eat this today?
Put in a mortar pepper, lovage and origan; pound, moisten with sauce, add cooked brains, pound thoroughly to dissolve lumps. Add five eggs and beat well to work all into a smooth paste. Blend with sauce, place in a metal pan and cook. When it is cooked turn out on a clean board and dice. Put in the mortar pepper, lovage and origan; pound, mix together; pour in sauce and wine, put in saucepan and bring to boil. When boiling crumble in pastry to thicken, stir vigorously and pour in the serving dish over the diced rissoles; sprinkle with pepper and serve."
Would anyone eat this today?
Comments
Presumably the 'sauce' is anchovy.
It was someone demonstrating how one of the Roman dishes was made (I think at the time there was a restaurant in Amsterdam that specialised in recreating Roman dishes). It involved drowning white mice in red wine, leaving them to marinate for a while before fishing them out and skinning them. Dutch children must have been fascinated to see the presenter holding a terrified white mouse by the tail and lowering it into the wine. And then, in the best tradition of Blue Peter's "and here's one I made earlier" he reached over to another jar and fished out a drowned mouse and proceeded to skin it. Ah, Dutch TV - so unlike the home life of our own dear Queen!