Apicius 6.8.10: Chicken With Taro

I happened upon some taro root in my travels the other day; I'd been wanting to try this particular recipe for some time, so got some. Taro is the root of the colocasia plant, widely used in Caribbean cuisine; it's native to southern India and the Romans did know it, though they don't seem to have made extensive use of it. It has a slightly sweet taste to it, sort of like a combination of potato and chestnut. It goes by a lot of names depending on the culture, which is probably why I'd had a hard time finding it before; this time though it was nicely labelled 'taro' so I grabbed some. They look like this, incidentally:

(Picture from Wikipedia)

You don't want to eat them raw, as they'll do nasty things to you, but they're fine once cooked. The ones I got were labelled both 'taro' and 'eddoe' which supposedly aren't quite the same thing, and now I'm a little confused; they're very closely related though and both types of colocasia (at least according to Wikipedia).

I'm going to give three recipes here, as the one I actually used refers back to the others.

[6.8.8] pullum elixum ex iure suo: teres piper cuminum timi modicum feniculi semen mentam rutam laseris radicem; suffundis acetum, adicies caroetam et teres. melle aceto liquamine et oleo temperabis. pullum refrigeratum et mittis siccatum, quem perfusum inferes.

[6.8.9] pullum elixum cum cucurbitis elixis: iure supra scripto, addito sinape, perfundis et inferes.

[6.8.10] pullum elixum cum cologasiis elixis: supra scripto iure perfundis et inferes. farcies inelixum etiam oliuis columbaribus, non ualde ita ut laxamentum habeat ne dissiliat dum quoquitur in ollam submissus in sportellam. cum bullierit, frequenter leuas et ponis ne dissiliat.

6.8.8. Chicken boiled in its own sauce: pound pepper, cumin, a little thyme, fennel seed, mint, rue, laser root; pour on vinegar, add date and pound. Flavour with honey, vinegar, liquamen and oil. Cool and dry the chicken and serve in the sauce.

6.8.9. Boiled chicken with boiled gourds: pour the sauce written above, with the addition of mustard, over the chicken and serve.

6.8.10. Boiled chicken with boiled taros: pour over the sauce written above and serve. You can also stuff the un-boiled bird with preserved olives, but not with too many, so that some space remains and it does not burst while it is cooking in the pot, lowered there in a basket. When it is boiling lift it out and replace it frequently so it does not burst.

The authors note that other translators have considered 6.8.10 to be two recipes, but they opted to give it as one; I don't think the olives part has much to do with the taro part, myself. But given I was just making a single chicken piece as a trial rather than a whole chicken, stuffing it with anything wasn't an option anyway.

My guess:

1 half split chicken breast, bone in and skin on
1 taro root (about the size of a medium potato)
a few peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon fennel seed
a few mint leaves, shredded
a few small sprigs of rue, chopped
1/2 teaspoon asafoetida
2 teaspoons vinegar
2 dates, chopped
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon liquamen (Thai fish sauce)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon powdered mustard

Put the chicken in a saucepan with enough water to cover (about three cups) and bring to the boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Grind the seeds and spices in a morter, then add the leaves and grind to a paste; add a teaspoon of the vinegar to loosen it up and put in with the chicken. Grind the dates as best you can in the mortar, then add the honey to make a very sticky mess. Add the remaining vinegar to thin and the liquamen if also necessary; throw it all in with the chicken with the oil and the mustard and give it a good stir.

When the chicken is getting towards done (twenty minutes to a half hour depending on its size), peel the taro and cut it into chunks, then put in with the chicken; cook at least another fifteen minutes longer. When both the chicken and taro are cooked, fish them out and put them on a plate. Bring the sauce to a boil and let reduce till fairly thick, then pour over the chicken and taro and serve.

You could of course use whatever cut of chicken you prefer; I opted for a split breast because I figured the skin and bones would give it a bit more flavor (plain skinned breasts can be really very bland). I had to sort of do the grinding in stages given the small size of my mortar but it all worked and I actually did manage to get the dates to a genuine paste; when the sauce was cooked there were no little bits of date at all. Grocock and Grainger do mention that dried fruits were probably soaked before being ground, which does make a lot of sense.

So, this was really very good; the chicken was quite tasty even though it was boiled, and the taro was lovely and sweet and absorbed quite a bit of the flavor of the sauce. Strangely enough I couldn't taste half the herbs in it on their own—I would never have guessed there was mint in it, for example—but they all came together into something rich and a little sweet. I could taste the mustard (which I did want to), but even that wasn't overpowering.

The only problem I had with it was that there was a tiny bit of bitterness to it, though I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. It seemed to be in the sauce, but there should have been plenty of honey in there to counteract the rue; I wonder if it was the asafoetida, but I don't know. In researching taro for this, though, I learned that the eddoe variety is known to have a bit of an acrid taste, so I wonder if that was it, though it did seem to be in the sauce. Other than that, though (which might be cured by adding just a little more honey), it was very good, and I'm going to consider it a keeper.

Caroenum Redux

Remember when I said that my sister had a grape arbor, and that come fall she might be persuaded to give me some grapes (assuming she had them)? Well, she did have some grapes, and she did let me have them. So I went over there yesterday and we picked all these:

Those faux-tupperware things are about eight inches square and three inches deep. I don't really know how many pounds of grapes that was, but once I picked out the good ones this is what I got, a full-sized colander full:

Which I washed as well as I could to get rid of the ants, and then threw in a large pot to squish with a potato masher. (By the way, if you're going to try this at home, a word of advice: wear old clothes.) I can see why grapes are the wine making fruit—they sure do make a lot of juice.

Which, eventually, after a lot of squishing them through a strainer, then putting them in a tea-towel and wringing (which was a surprisingly visceral experience), I ended up with just shy of eight cups of juice:

Which I then boiled down to make another batch of caroenum, the syrup the ancient Romans made from must (fresh grape juice) to use as a sweetener. I'd made a batch before with store-bought unsweetened grape juice, but wanted to try it with fresh ones. If you don't have access to fresh grown grapes, I don't see why it wouldn't work with store-bought fresh ones, though I imagine eating grapes and wine-making grapes are probably different varieties.

It needed a lot of skimming, I'll say, as there was quite a bit of foam, but it eventually reduced down to about a third of its original volume, which I let cool down before funneling it into the same pretty bottle that had held the first batch. I ran it through a sieve first to get rid of any pulp and remove the last of the ants (I hope).

Given they were blue grapes (I have no idea what variety, and neither does my sister, as they came with the house when she bought it; probably the usual Concord) the color was a lot different, coming out a lovely ruby red rather than a brownish amber like with the white grape juice. It also tasted very different, with the unmistakable tang of fresh grape juice. It was quite sweet and did make a syrup, but it was still a little on the tart side. I'm not sure how it did that, but it's got a lot more personality than the kind I made from store-bought.

Just look at that color!

I can't wait to use it; I might try those marinated mushrooms again to see the difference.

Apicius 5.5.2: Barley Soup

This one sounded interesting, if a little weird. I liked the mix of grains and pulses, but I also couldn't figure out how it wouldn't be, well, licorice soup. I really did think it had the potential to be absolutely horrible. But I tried it anyway. Dried beans are cheap, and hey, one should live a little, right?

It should be noted that this recipe is almost word-for-word the same as an earlier one in Apicius, namely 4.4.2, where it is called tisanum barricam. Barricam being an otherwise unknown word, Grocock and Grainger tentatively translate it as 'thick'; maybe, maybe not. It did end up fairly thick, for the record.

[5.5.2] aliter tisanum: infundis cicer lenticulam pisam. defricas tisanam et cum leguminibus elixas. ubi bene bullierit, olei satis mittis et super uiridia concidis: porrum coriandrum anetum feniculum betam maluam coliculum mollem. haec uiridia minuta concisa in caccabum mittis; coliculos elixas et teres feniculi semen satis, origanum silfi ligusticum. postquam triueris, liquamine temperas et super legumina refundis. agitas. coliculorum minutas super concidis.

5.5.2. Another barley soup: soak chick peas, lentils and peas; crush barley and boil it with the vegetables. When they are well boiled, add sufficient oil and chop (these) greens into it: leek, coriander, dill, fennel, beet (leaves), mallow, tender cabbage; chop the greens finely and put them in the pan. Boil (more) cabbage and pound a good quantity of fennel seed, oregano, silphium and lovage. After you have ground them, flavour them with liquamen and pour back over the vegetables and stir. Chop the cabbage finely and sprinkle over.

I wasn't sure what 'mallow' was, being an American; given what I could find out about it online it looks like it was a plant I used to have in my garden as an ornamental, something that was being called a miniature hollyhock or malva. While it was very pretty, it was also hideously invasive and so I'd ripped it out a couple years ago. I had no idea the leaves were edible. Well, supposedly; I'm still not sure I got the right plant. Anyway I left it out.

In other news, I did actually find some lovage! A sort of local specialty herb place had it, so I took the trip over there and bought a plant (they didn't have it dry). This being the end of the season though I had to pick the least scraggly of the ones they had left, oh well. It does have a nice new shoot coming in from the middle, so I assume it will be fine (if it makes it through the winter, which it should, I think). But it's pretty small yet and I didn't want to start picking off its leaves, the poor thing. So I used celery seed, still. But I found some! (You don't know how proud of that I am.)

I also made a fairly small quantity (so I thought) because, like I said, I was half sure the thing was going to be completely inedible.

1/4 cup dried chick peas
1/4 cup dried lentils (I used the little ones)
1/4 cup split peas
1/4 cup pearl barley
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 leek (white and light green parts only), cut into half-moons and thoroughly washed
decent handful cilantro or parsley, chopped
4 large sprigs dill leaves, chopped
4 or 5 large sprigs fennel leaves, chopped
4 or 5 beet leaves, shredded
small wedge of cabbage, shredded
1 teaspoon fennel seed
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon asafoetida
1 teaspoon celery seed or lovage
1 teaspoon liquamen (Thai fish sauce)

Put the chickpeas in some water and bring to a boil. Let them boil for a couple minutes, then turn off the heat and let them soak for an hour. Or, soak them overnight to use the next day.

Put the beans/grains in a pot with four cups of water. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat; let them simmer for something like an hour and a half, until the chickpeas are tender (by that time the peas and the lentils will be starting to dissolve), skimming the foam every so often and adding more water when needed to keep it the consistency of soup. Add the olive oil, then stir in the leeks and the chopped greens, and cook until tender.

Grind up the seeds in a mortar, then add them and the other spices to the soup. Stir in the liquamen and let it cook a few more minutes.

Boil some more shredded cabbage to use as a garnish, if desired.

So, by the time this was done I was really dubious, what with the fennel leaves and fennel seed both. But I was really quite pleasantly surprised—not only did the anise flavor not dominate, it actually gave the whole thing a refreshing sort of flavor, especially combined with the dill. It was actually really good. The lentils and the peas were starting to dissolve and become the body of the soup; I suppose I should have left it longer to really cook down, but I was getting a bit impatient.

I'm quite surprised by how well it turned out. The only thing I would change (or rather, add) would be to throw some chicken broth in there. It did make a decent broth on its own, but it could have used a bit of extra oomph (though I suspect the Romans would have used more liquamen than I did). Otherwise, though, it all worked quite well. I do think it was important to keep it fairly thin for quite a while, because the greens needed to be able to cook in something that was mostly water; I added probably another four cups of water as it simmered. But it thickened up pretty quickly at the end.

So, surprisingly enough this one is a keeper!

Apicius 2.1.1 & 4.3.1: Sea Food Minutal

We've had some cooler weather lately as summer fades, which has got me wanting soup. So this time I combined two recipes, a sea food minutal or thickened stew which called for little fish meatballs, the meatballs being the second recipe. First the minutal recipe proper, in the Latin and English as usual:

[4.3.1] minutal marinum: pisces in caccabum mittes, adicies liquamen oleum uinum cocturam. porros capitatos coriandrum minutatim concides, esiciola de pisce minuta facies et pulpas pisces cocti concarpis, urticas marinas bene lotas mittes. haec omnia cum cocta fuerint, teres piper ligusticum origanum; fricabis; liquamen suffundes, ius de suo sibi, exinanies in caccabum. cum ferbuerit tractam confringes, obligas, cum ferbuerit, agitas; piper aspargis et inferes.

4.3.1 Sea food minutal: put the fish in a pan, add liquamen, oil, wine, stock; chop leek and coriander finely, make finely ground fish forcement and flake the flesh of the cooked fish, and put in well-washed sea urchins. When all these are cooked, pound pepper, lovage, oregano, pound again, pour on liquamen and some of the cooking liquor and put it back into the pan. When it has come to the boil, crumble a tracta in, thicken it, and stir it when it comes to the boil (again); sprinkle with pepper and serve.

And the forcement or meatballs:

[2.1.1] isicia fiunt marina de cammaris et astacis de lolligine de sepia de lucusta. esicium condies pipere ligustico cumino laseris radice.

2.1.1 Seafood forcemeat is made from prawns and lobster, from squid, cuttlefish, and spiny lobster. You will season the forcemeat with pepper, lovage, cumin, and laser root.

First, a word on sea-urchins. There was pretty much no way I was going to get my hands on any of them, even though I understand (after a bit of research) that they are a trendy 'new' food in places like Los Angeles and New York City. From what I hear one only eats the coral, which is actually the ovaries of the thing, and it is a taste all its own that isn't like anything else, so there really isn't a substitute. I just left them out.

I also pretty much used whatever the supermarket had that looked interesting, so shrimp and something called langostino lobster tails went into the meatballs. I had no idea what 'langostino lobster' was, though looking at the prepared tail meat I figured it was some kind of crustacean, a small crayfish maybe. When I looked it up at home I found they aren't lobster, or shrimp either, but something else entirely sort of related to a hermit crab; however it does taste a lot like lobster, so they say. I also picked flounder for the generic 'fish' of the recipe. I don't really know the differences between all the white fish out there, if there are any.

One further note: I'd had leeks years ago and been kind of underwhelmed by them, but decided to give them another try. And again, I substituted parsley for the hated cilantro, but if you like cilantro go for it. And, alas, I substituted celery seed for the lovage again. I really wish I could find some of the stuff; lovage is really good.

So, this is what I came up with:

Seafood Meatballs

2 cups total your choice of seafood such as shrimp, lobster, squid, &c. peeled and deveined if necessary. (If frozen, thaw before measuring.)
1/2 teaspoon peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon celery seed (or lovage if you can find the stuff)
1/4 teaspoon cumin seed
1/4 teaspoon asafoetida

Grind the seeds in a mortar to a fine powder. Put the seafood in a food processor and whizz to a paste, then empty into a mixing bowl and add the spices. Mix thoroughly, then set aside to use in the next recipe.

Seafood Minutal

1/4 pound fish fillet
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon liquamen (Thai fish sauce)
1/2 cup wine
1 1/2 cups stock (I used vegetable stock)
one leek (white/light green part only), chopped in half moon sections and thoroughly washed
decent handful fresh parsley or cilantro, chopped (came to about 1/4 cup)
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon lovage or celery seed
1 teaspoon fresh oregano
corn starch to thicken

Put the fish fillet in a large, fairly deep skillet; add the oil, liquamen, wine, and stock, then the leeks and parsley or cilantro. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat to a simmer. As it simmers, form the shrimp forcemeat balls (I made them about an inch big) and drop them into the stock mixture. Grind up the pepper, celery seed/lovage and oregano (or you can just chop the oregano and throw it in rather than attempting to mash it to a paste) and add them to the soup. When it's all cooked through (the leeks will probably take the longest) flake the fish if it hasn't managed that on its own and add a bit of cornstarch mixed with a little of the broth to thicken. Serve with more pepper sprinkled over it.

This came out pretty good, though the first thing I noticed was just how peppery the shrimp/lobster meatballs were. If you're into that sort of thing you'd probably love it, but it was a little much for me, and cutting back on the pepper probably would have allowed the taste of the 'lobster' to be more apparent. Though I could taste it still, and yes, it did have the sweetness of real honest-to-gods lobster. Otherwise though the spices were about right.

I'd been worried the forcemeat wasn't going to stick together, and was all set to cheat and add an egg to the mixture, but it was actually quite sticky and had no problem at all staying in ball shape. I suppose I should note that the shrimp was raw but the 'lobster' was already cooked; the raw shrimp was still plenty sticky to hold it all together.

I used flounder for the fish and it pretty much just disintegrated into the soup; there wasn't much question of 'flaking' it, and I guess I'd try to find a fish that holds together a little better. But it tasted fine.

I'm still kind of ambivalent on the leeks, I guess. Though that said the only thing I would change is to reduce the amount of pepper in the forcemeat balls; otherwise it was quite good even with the leeks. I'm going to put this in with the keepers, with that reservation then, though again, pepper really is one of those individual taste things and someone else might think the amount just right. It was quite well balanced as far as the rest of the spices went otherwise, and the meatballs themselves were quite tasty. So overall: pretty good.

Apicius 1.33 & 4.1.3: Cheese Spreads

In the back: the sweet Apicius 1.33; the front, savory 4.1.3

There are a few cheese mixtures in Apicius, to be eaten, I assume, with bread; two of them caught my eye because of the contrast in flavors. Also they looked pretty simple to put together, always a plus. The first one was a sweet mix, with raisins and dates in it; the second a savory one including garlic, surprisingly rare in Apicius as it was considered a food of the lower classes. The first recipe:

XXXIII YPOTRIMA: piper ligusticum mentam aridam nucleos pineos uuam passam cariotam caseum dulcem mel acetum liquamen oleum uinum defritum aut caroenum.

1.33. Hypotrimma: pepper, lovage, dried mint, pine nuts, raisins, dates, sweet cheese, honey, vinegar, liquamen, oil, wine, defrutum or caroenum.

According to Grocock and Grainger hypotrimma means 'something ground up', i.e. a paste made in a mortar; it looks to be the Greek equivalent of the Latin mortarium. (There is in fact a recipe titled Mortaria just down the page.)

The second recipe was strictly speaking a salad, with I think bread crumbs mixed into it; it's a little vague, though, and so I opted to try just the cheese mixture on its own.

[4.1.3] aliter sala cattabia: panem Alexandrinum excauabis; in posca macerabis. adicies in mortarium piper mel mentam alium coriandrum uiridem caseum bubulum sale conditum aquam oleum; insuper niuem et inferes.

4.1.3. Another sala cattabia: hollow out an Alexandrian loaf. Soak (the crumb) in posca. Put in a mortar pepper, honey, mint, garlic, green coriander, cows' cheese, salt, spiced wine, water and oil. Stand (the pot) in snow and serve.

There are three recipes labelled sala cattabia; I assume sala is 'salad' but I don't know what the cattabia part means, and G&G (they are officially G&G now) don't explain it. They do all use bread, or bread crumbs in the recipe, so maybe that's just what that type of salad was called. Posca is a kind of drink made from wine that's gone sour and turned to vinegar; that doesn't sound all that appetizing to modern western tastes, but there are known drinks made with vinegar, such as the old Persian sekanjabin. At any rate though since I left the bread part out I didn't use it.

I have to admit that 'cows' cheese' did confuse me at first; but then I realized that cheese was probably more commonly made with goats' or ewe's milk than cows' at the time, so the distinction was necessary. I used ricotta for both, assuming it was something like simple homemade farmer's cheese. The Romans did have a variety of cheeses available, both hard and soft, but I have no idea how any of that corresponds to modern cheeses, so I went with what seemed simple. And again, I don't have any lovage, so substituted celery seed.

Oh, and I'm one of those people who cannot stand cilantro (which is what is meant by 'green coriander'). Since it's a genetic thing, I'm going to assume there were plenty of ancient Romans who hated the stuff too, and so would have had to find something else to use. I substituted parsley; alas, the local supermarket had had a run on the fresh stuff (there was a bin for it which was empty save for a few stray leaves), so I used dry, which is kind of a crime, I know. I also didn't have spiced wine, so just used regular wine.

The recipes:

Sweet Cheese Spread (Apicius 1.33)

1 cup ricotta cheese
a few peppercorns (or more, to taste)
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
4 or 5 fresh mint leaves
1 tablespoon pine nuts
2 teaspoons raisins
3 dates
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon vinegar
1/4 teaspoon liquamen (Thai fish sauce)
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon sweet wine
1 tablespoon caroenum

Grind the peppercorns in a mortar with the celery seed; add the mint and mash to a paste, then the pine nuts. Add the raisins and dates (you may need to empty the mortar first if there isn't room) and do your best to get them to a sticky paste too (or use a food processor). Add the honey, then the rest of the ingredients to thin it out, then mix it into the ricotta in a bowl. Serve as a spread on bread.

Savory Cheese Spread (Apicius 4.1.3)

1 cup ricotta cheese
a few peppercorns (or more, to taste)
1 teaspoon honey
8-10 fresh mint leaves
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 teaspoon chopped cilantro or parsley
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon wine
1 teaspoon olive oil

Grind the peppercorns first; add the mint, garlic, parsley and salt and make as fine a paste as you can (you probably don't want chunks of raw garlic in there). Add the honey and mix, then the wine and olive oil to thin. Mix into the ricotta, and serve on bread.

These were both quite nice, though I didn't get the dates nearly as mushed up as I thought I had, so the sweet version still had a few chunks in it. I think I'd prefer it smoother, personally, and would use a food processor next time. It was quite well balanced though and had a lovely richness to it, so I'm calling that a keeper.

I was really leery of getting the second one too garlicky (and in fact made sure to mix it second, because I figured the garlic would linger in the mortar no matter how well I scrubbed it out), but I think I under spiced it. It was pretty good, and the mint and garlic were balanced against each other, but a bit too mild; I'd redo it with twice the amount of each, as well as a good deal of fresh parsley to complement the mint. It was a good start though. I left it in the fridge overnight (rather than standing the pot in snow!) thinking it might get a little stronger as the flavors came together, but no. So that one will need a little tweaking before I call it final. Still though, it was definitely on the right track.

So one keeper, and one that needs tweaking. Not bad!