Defrutum

I made another batch of defrutum last night, the flavored grape syrup used in Roman cooking; though I've made it before I don't think I've given instructions for it here. It's pretty much the same as the instructions for caroenum, just boiled down a little more, and with some fruit added for richness. I made this batch with some figs, and started with purple grape juice this time as it has a richer flavor than white.

In Apicius 2.2.8 a couple types of defrutum are mentioned, including:

...defrutum made from quinces that has been left in full sun until it is as thick as honey. If you don't have any of this add a defrutum which has been made from dried figs, which the Romans call 'colouring' [colorem]...

Defrutum could also have spices added to it, according to G&G; they list 'sweet rush, iris, and fenugreek'. 'Sweet rush' is Acorus calamus, according to Wikipedia; it says the dried rhizome (root, more or less) could be ground up and used as a substitute for ginger, nutmeg, or cinnamon, so I'm assuming it has a similar sweet flavor. The roots are used in herbal medicine, so it is available, though the FDA hasn't approved its use in food, as they consider a chemical in it carcinogenic. I'm not sure what is meant by 'iris'; that could be anything, really, though sweet rush is also called sweet flag from what I gathered, and is iris-like, especially in the sword-shaped leaves. Fenugreek could be the seeds or the leaves, though the seeds are certainly easier to come by around here.

Anyway, here's the very simple instructions for fig defrutum:

1 64 oz bottle unsweetened purple grape juice (I used Welch's; the store brand being noticeably more watered-down to start with)
8 dried figs

Empty the grape juice into a large soup pan; then slice up the figs and throw them in. Heat to a boil and let it do that until it is reduced to about a third of its original volume. Let cool a bit, then strain out the figs; when pouring it into a bottle you may want to run it through a sieve as well, to get any of the tiny fig-seeds out. Store in the fridge.

Passum

One of the ingredients the Romans used as a sweetener was something called passum, or raisin wine. This was wine made from dried grapes that were then mixed with must and pressed, i.e. made from raisins before being fermented and so extra sweet (and again, I am totally cribbing this from Grocock and Grainger). There are plenty of raisin wines (also called straw wines) still made in the Mediterranean area but they can be hard to come by, as well as expensive stuff to use just as a flavoring. So I cheated, and made a pseudo-passum by steeping raisins in already-made wine.

It's said to be sweet, and I assume red, so I used a port (again, I am not a drinker and know next to nothing about wines. Seriously I had to look this stuff up on Wikipedia). The bottle was 750 ml, so I used most of a medium sized (twelve ounce) box of raisins; I put them in some Tupperware, poured the wine over it and let it all soak in the fridge for a few days.

When that was done I strained it back into the bottle, then took a spoonful at a time of the soaked raisins and squashed them up in the mortar, then strained them. But that got pretty tedious pretty quick, so I ended up going all 21st century and throwing them in a food processor with a bit of the wine to make a slurry, then straining that back into the bottle.

When I tasted it it was definitely sweeter, with a strong raisin flavor to it. Hopefully that will be an acceptable substitute.

Caroenum

The Romans did love their sweet and sour sauces; since sugar was not ubiquitous as it is today, they used both honey and a variety of syrups for sweeteners. I have my eye on a mushroom recipe that uses one of those syrups, something called caroenum.

Grocock and Grainger's Apicius has a very nice glossary in the back which goes into the finer points of ingredients the Romans used; according to them, caroenum is probably a syrup made from reduced wine or must, must being freshly pressed grape juice with the skins and stalks still in it, i.e. the state of pre-wine that has just been squished by the feet of dancing satyrs. As I don't have access to that right now (though my sister does have a grape arbor and may be persuaded to give me some fresh grapes come fall), I used unsweetened grape juice from the supermarket, boiled down to a syrup.

There has apparently been much debate about how reduced caroenum should be; Grocock and Grainger argue that it's less about the exact amount the must is reduced and more about the finished consistency, which will depend on how sweet the must originally was anyway. They also say that caroenum appears to have been thinner than defrutum, another syrup that could be flavored with quinces or figs to make it richer. Caroenum seems in part to have been used in the recipes to add a bit of sweetness but also bulk, rather than flavor like defrutum.

I started with a 64-ounce bottle of unsweetened white grape juice, intending to boil it down to about half; as I was doing that I went hunting for a pretty bottle to put it in. Said pretty bottle turned out to hold about two and a half cups, which practical consideration is what ultimately decided me on how much to reduce it. So I simmered it down to about one third of its original volume, which took about an hour. It was still a fairly thin syrup and not overly sweet. Here it is in the pretty bottle, ooooh:

A little time in the fridge did make it a bit thicker, like it was a proper syrup. So then, off to try that mushroom recipe!

ETA: I made a version of caroenum from fresh grapes; that post is here.