Culinary reconstruction
A detailed recipe for making Roman garum sauce based on personal experience. The article contains the history of garum, a similar description of the preparation of Roman garum sauce in Russian home conditions, many photographs and videos. I dare to say that, most likely, this is the first experience of preparing garum in Russia at home...
As I understand it, in reality no one made it in Russia, because neither then (2011) nor now (2015) did I find a single article with photographs of the preparation stages and photographs of the real final product - garum.
Several websites show this photograph of... oyster sauce as an example of supposed garum
Elsewhere, as an example of garum, there is a photo of the basic raw material of the Thai fish sauce “nam pla” from this article “What does Thailand smell like?” In Asia, they don’t use herbs for fish sauce and it sits for almost a year rather than two or three months.
***
The idea turned out to be tempting...
Orthodox Christians eat a lot of fish; Siberians who live on rivers eat a lot of it. So, uneviscerated fish is a waste product - the head, entrails, fins, tail, scales - all this is removed and thrown away. Due to the many bones in river fish, all this is inconvenient and dangerous to give to cats and dogs. In short - just throw it away...
And at the end of 2011, one kind person helped our family with fish, including this 12-kilogram pike:
It was not me who caught this 12-kilogram pike. It was mined in the Kargaska area of the Tomsk region
And then I realized - here it is, the time for the historical reconstruction of the ancient Roman sauce garum...
While it was warm outside (October), fish giblets, blood, heads, ridges, fins and skin were collected in plastic bags and frozen in the freezer. First you need to sprinkle unfrozen fish with coarse salt at the rate of 150 grams (200 grams is possible) per 1 kg of fish waste.
Although, as they write, there was a recipe for garum on fish scales - there is no need to put it separately (for example, it was removed from the fish that was used for frying) - it and the bones do not undergo fermentation for 2 months.
Fish heads, gills, tails, offal, skin, fins are ideal raw materials for garum
Fish waste for garum can be saved starting in the fall. Before freezing, they need to be sprinkled with coarse salt at the rate of 150 grams per kg of fish waste. Salt cannot spoil garum - the high salt content does not prevent fermentation, but has a positive effect on the preservation of garum.
Until stable negative temperatures set in November, frozen and salted raw materials for garum can be stored in bags in the refrigerator
Let me emphasize that garum cannot be spoiled by salt - the high salt content does not prevent fermentation, but has a positive effect on the preservation of garum.
After frosts of more than -10º C set in in November, I transferred the fish from the bags and freezer to a stainless steel flask, because I didn’t have stone vats like in ancient Spain and Italy at hand. From that moment on, I put all new waste all winter until March in this flask, first adding salt at the rate of 150 g per 1 kg of fish waste. The flask stood in the entryway (this is a cold wooden extension to the house).
Instead of stone containers for preparing garum, a stainless steel flask with a wide neck is ideal... In it we accumulate all the fish waste in the fall and winter
In five months, a little less than half the flask was collected... Therefore, to complete the historical reconstruction, I decided to “butt” the full flask.
To do this, I bought five kilograms of sprat and pollock for cheap, and asked my relatives who live on the Ob to help with a bucket of fish - after a while they brought dace, white bream and bream. For Ob fishermen, the latter are a third-rate fish; they either throw the bream back or bury one fish under a pepper or tomato bush as fertilizer.
At the pharmacy I bought three packs of sage, thyme, mint (there were some supplies of it in the house as well) in the store I bought 5 large bags of a mixture of Provencal herbs, 100 g of bay leaf, 50 g of allspice, hot peppercorns and ground coriander. I also had about a liter of a mixture of dried dill, parsley and coriander (dried myself). All these spices are enough for a flask of fish waste. However, it is permissible to add more herbs.
Since in the Roman Empire garum was made at different times of the year, I can assume that dried herbs were also used for its production when there was no growing season in the gardens of Italy and Spain. So my use of dried herbs does not distort the original technology for producing garum.
If you have the opportunity to get a whole flask's worth of fish in the summer, then, of course, you can use fresh herbs. But my preparation went on in the winter and ended in March. In this case, dried herbs are the only option. Provençal herbs, thyme, sage, mint, dill, parsley, coriander leaves and ground seeds, bay leaf, allspice and hot peppercorns
And the process began...
First, I sprinkled the old frozen layer of already salted fish waste well with herbs:
Then he laid out small river fish and capelin (I did not cut or gut them), cut pollock, bream and bream into pieces, sprinkled the fish with salt in the already mentioned proportion with broken bay leaves, peppercorns, Provençal herbs, mint, thyme, sage, etc. P. And so on to the very top...
Technologically and ideally for the fermentation process, place fish waste with giblets and small fish at the very bottom; pieces of large fish should be at the top, guess why.
Thickly sprinkled salt on top...
To prepare garum I used coarse salt - as it was the cheapest. For 38 liters of raw materials, it took me about 6 kg to make a flask. I suppose you can use fine iodized salt
So, my garum was made from raw and frozen waste of pike, mackerel, pollock, capelin (capelin and pollock were also included whole), sterlet, whole dace, waste from squid, bream and bream cut into large pieces...
Attention: to prepare garum you need to use only raw, non-heat-treated fish waste and fish.
I can assume that for effective fermentation it is important to have fish offal in the container first of all; probably, it is the digestive enzymes and bile contained in them that trigger the process of lysis of fish flesh. I say this so that there is no person who would think of making a type of “elite” garum only from gutted fish. Read ancient recipes - the presence of offal, gills and fish blood in the base raw materials of elite garum is mandatory. So that...
On March 25, the sun in Tomsk is not shining like the Spanish one, and the temperatures are not Mediterranean. What to do? A greenhouse for cucumbers and peppers will help us! I will put the flask with garum there at the end of April (before that, as I already wrote, it was standing in the senets). At the end of April - beginning of May, the temperature in our greenhouse already begins to warm up to +20–25 º C and higher during the day.
In Siberian conditions, a greenhouse is an ideal place for ripening garum. The author put the flask out for fermentation at the end of April, although the fish was salted and herbed on March 25th. Until the end of April the flag stood in the sensi
View of unmixed garum June 8. The fish raw material has already noticeably melted and turned brown. Has a mild herbal fishy smell without a deadly stench...
The flask stood in the greenhouse with the lid loosely closed so that flies would not get in. Once a week, the garum was mixed with a wooden stick, which was constantly there.
An important note, the fish bladders were not fermented like that, neither in 2012 nor in 2015, when I made garum directly... So, you can throw them away, otherwise they float and only take up space in the flask.
View of garum after mixing on June 8. During the entire fermentation of the fish, the wooden stick was kept in the flask. Pay attention to the photo - the fish bladders were not fermented like this, neither in 2012 nor in 2015, when I made garum right... in the kitchen.
The Vietnamese make their fish sauces in these containers at the Nuoc Mam factory.
About the smell and rotting during the production of garum...
Garum is not prepared as a result of putrefaction under the influence of putrefactive bacteria, garum is prepared under the influence of fermentation, when enzymes found in the tissues of the fish, as well as digestive enzymes and giblet bile, melt the tissues of the flesh, destroying proteins and fats. The fish does not rot. A large amount of salt absolutely (!) prevents rotting processes.
That is why, I repeat, for garum you need to use only raw fish and its waste, because cooking and frying destroy tissue enzymes.
Therefore, oddly enough, the flask with the cooking garum, even in the summer in a heated greenhouse, did not smell of any “terrible stench.” The specific smell of fish was felt in the greenhouse only in the immediate vicinity. And then the smell came from the garum splashing over the edge during stirring.
So, if you carefully wipe the outer walls of the flask after mixing, there will be practically no smell - do not believe the modern comments of garum theorists that the neighbors will be sick of the “unbearable stench.” During the entire summer of 2012, none of my neighbors recognized by the smell that I was preparing garum.
Interestingly, the smell of garum was not of interest to the flies. I didn't notice any flies near the flask at all. Strange...
The deadly stench from vats with fermenting fish (tourists who have visited Vietnam write about this) is a consequence of technological violations, when the containers are not washed from the remnants of past raw materials, when the raw materials splash around when mixed (this is clearly visible in the photograph from Vietnam) and the outer walls containers, lids are not washed, etc.
Somewhere in early June, when good warmth had established itself, the garum began to bubble very moderately - this is clearly visible in the video. At the same time, Garum did not go overboard. The gas emitted was most likely carbon dioxide - there was no smell of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, or other stench. I can assume that it was the glycogen in the fish meat that was being destroyed. After about two weeks, the gas bubbles stopped. At the same time, with each passing week the garum became more and more noticeably thinner - the fish pieces melted and softened...
The smell of garum at this stage is moderately fishy, unique, and the smell of herbs can be felt. There is no deadly stench coming from it.
Summer in 2012 was quite normal. It showed that the heat of Italy or Spain is not necessary for complete fermentation of fish and preparation of garum. Enough of the Siberian sun and greenhouse.
On June 23, I decided to finish the fermentation process. I thought that if I waited too long, the garum would go rancid. As it turned out later, this was not the case. Garum could be kept until August, however, there is no point in standing it for more than 3 months - by this time, even in Siberian conditions, the fish tissues will soften to the state of slurry. Now I can say that punctuality until a certain day is not needed when fermenting garum.
He pulled the flask onto the courtyard platform and removed large heads and spines, including the giant head of a pike. After that, through an iron sieve, I strained the garum from the bones of scales, fins, etc.
Garum before straining. In this photo the garum has not dried out. The heads of large fish were simply pulled out, including the head of that huge pike in the first photo.
This is how much solid waste was produced (heads, bones, scales) after straining a flask of basic garum through an iron sieve
Close-up view of solid waste from garum. Reading the historical information (it is below), you might think that this is the halex, which was then sold to the poor. This is waste to be thrown away... Even the homeless cannot eat these stinking bones. I realized later what Khalex is...
From a full flask with basic raw materials, almost 20 liters of pureed garum with a pronounced fishy and spicy smell without an unpleasant stench were obtained:
From a 38-liter flask I got a little less than 20 liters of pureed garum in the first stage of readiness.
Afterwards, this substance was poured into three-liter jars, rolled up with tin lids, and lowered into the cellar for aging and separation.
I believe that it is better to let garum sauce sit for at least six months, or even a year - during this time, good separation occurs. I had these jars for 2.5 years, the Vietnamese, as they write online, age their fish sauce for a year or even three years...
At first I thought, reading about garum, that garum is an aggregate puree-like mass, but such garum, when added to food, stinks terribly and gives the food a strong bitterness (from rancid fish oil and not only from it)
This puree cannot be called a liquid (liquamen)...
Garum of the second stage of readiness. After six months of standing in the cellar, it delaminates. Below is a translucent brown garum, at the top is a protein-fat puree with spices and a really very strong fishy smell. This is halex. Oxidized proteins and fats give it a bitter and unpleasant taste, but this thing is rich in proteins and fats, high in calories and nutritious. In short, it will do for the Roman plebs and soldiers... There weren’t any in Tomsk, so I sent the halex to the compost heap for fertilizer
Actually, the famous and original garum is a brown translucent liquid that is located at the bottom of the jars in the photo above.
My “guess” was confirmed by this photograph later found on the Internet:
View of the original factory garum. Apparently made in Italy
The upper part is a protein-fat puree with particles of spices and is called chalex. Eating it is difficult, but possible. The Japanese and Chinese eat pickled fish. From childhood you can get used to everything...
Rancid fish oil and oxidized proteins give unpleasant bitterness to food if you add a lot of it. But the most unpleasant thing is that when cooking it gives a strong fishy smell that is not acceptable to everyone even with small additions.
But... The first year I poured it over gutted fish before smoking. Spicy hales very gently salted the fish meat, gave a moderate taste of seasonings, and when hot smoked it came out with fat and juice - smoked mackerel salted with hales is ideal. Therefore, those who smoke a lot of fish can safely leave three liters of chalex.
If you get 18 liters of base garum, the halesa when strained will be about 9 liters. If we do not have mass smoking of fish, hales can be fed to pigs (be careful, it is very salty) and then only at the first stage of fattening, otherwise later the lard and meat will have a fishy smell.
And for those who don’t have livestock, pour chalex into the compost heap - it’s a good nitrogen fertilizer. But it is still better to salt fish for smoking with true garum.
How to strain out stratified garum? I did this through a tube from a dropper - accuracy is important here, and not the speed of pouring, due to which mixing of garum and chalex can occur. At the same time, the garum flowed out into my sieve, covered with a thick viscose cloth (sold as a rag for wiping in hardware stores) - a convenient thing for filtering anything.
Since the ancient Romans did not have glass jars and dropper tubes, they preserved garum in these amphorae. Its narrow bottom was carefully beaten (pierced?), and then the transparent garum was carefully drained.
And so, here he is garum...
Garum has a moderate fishy smell and a very piquant pleasant taste, as if you were eating good dried fish u. Of course, garum is very salty.
After the first straining, the garum should be allowed to settle in the cold. This time it was stratified into three parts - fat at the top, solid particles at the bottom, and in the middle - actually garum, I think, already of an extra class of quality.
This jar of garum is in the third stage of readiness. The garum is strained from the chalex and left for three days in the refrigerator. It separated into three parts: at the top - fish oil (it is better to remove it, i.e. it is rancid), in the middle - the original first class garum, at the bottom - solid protein particles. In the photo it seems that there is a lot of lower sediment, in reality there is little of it, it was this that quickly rose during transfer...
Garum is well stored and does not spoil in non-sterile containers, including hermetically sealed ones - be it a three-liter jar with a tin lid or a liter plastic bottle.
After straining, I tasted the garum without heat treatment in its pure form and diluted by half with water - no diarrhea, no vomiting... Microbiologically, garum is a safe product, at least what I prepared.
Now, I think, you will understand why good garum was expensive. Firstly, good garum requires raw materials from good fish and herbs. Its production takes a long time. The primary fermentation process lasts 2 - 3 months, six months of settling, again straining to separate the garum and chalex, settling the already strained garum to remove the fat accumulated at the top and solid protein particles at the bottom.
But the garum is worth all the effort!
And what should a Russian peasant do with 8 liters of Roman happiness?
They say that garum goes well with oysters... There are none in Russia and Siberia, and those that exist bite viciously with just the price tag alone. If your diet includes only fish soup and fried fish, it will be difficult for garum to find a large place in your diet. Garum will be in demand for a more varied fish cuisine.
Definitely, without any doubt, soak fish in garum for smoking. For example, smoked mackerel after a night of standing with garum is simply amazing in taste (put the gutted mackerel on its back, raised the head higher in the basin, and poured the garum into the belly).
Garum is ideal for soaking fish for frying. I tried it on crucian carp. Everyone praised me. The crucian carp was cleaned of scales and giblets, and the head and fins were removed (the crucian carp were large, it was not rational to fry the head, and so three fish could barely fit in quickly). I poured 100 ml of garum onto 3-4 fish and peppered it. After 15 minutes, roll it in flour and put it in a frying pan...
Garum can be used to season (correctly, salt) all fish dishes, especially minced fish for dumplings - they get their piquancy.
Garum can be used to season meat for frying and stewing. I used 4 tablespoons of garum (100 ml) for the pan of stew with onions, so there is every chance of running out of garum quickly.
Pour the oil into the frying pan, add slices of horse meat, a large chopped onion, 4 tablespoons of garum, and a tablespoon of dried garlic. When fried, this had a peculiar fishy smell, but only near the frying pan. But... My wife, who can hardly tolerate the smell of fish, came in from the street and did not smell a fishy smell in the kitchen (we don’t have a hood). Before the end of frying, I added coarsely ground pepper and coriander for five minutes, which completely blocked the fishy smell from the garum.
The frying pan with horse meat stewed in garum was empty instantly at Christmas dinner... No one said: “Ugh, it stinks...”
If you love fish and can stand its smell in the kitchen, you can use garum to salt buckwheat porridge, vegetable stews, etc. - a hearty and relevant thing for Lent.
I tried to season the meat for pilaf with garum... While the pilaf is hot, the taste is normal, but when it cools down, the pilaf tastes like fish...
In short, you can and should experiment.
***
I'm starting to guess why the Romans loved garum so much. Those who have tried dried salted meat - horse meat or goose, I am sure, have noticed that dried salted meat has a real narcotic appeal... :-)
Guys, if you want to gain unlimited power in your family, salt (this is a separate conversation) horse meat or goose and dry it. Divide into small pieces at home only for good behavior and on holidays. My wife and children of all ages shake when they eat dried horse meat or goose... Everyone is obedient, polite and silky.
I got distracted... why am I writing this? I believe that garum contains the same biologically active substances that stimulate appetite as dried meat, the taste of which is familiar and familiar to many, because protein fermentation also occurs in it.
***
Yes, in its essence, garum is a highly biologically active product, standing on the same level as tissue preparations and the already mythical drug ASD-2.
Tissue therapy was actively used in animal husbandry in the USSR for a time.
***
Tissue therapy- the use of preserved tissues and preparations from them (tissue preparations) for medicinal purposes and to increase animal productivity. To prepare tissue preparations according to the method of V.P. Filatov, the spleen, liver, muscles or other animal tissues and aloe are kept for 4-5 days at 2-4 °C, then they are homogenized. Other methods for preparing tissue preparations are known. According to the assumption of V.P. Filatov, pharmacological agents are formed in tissues under unfavorable but not killing environmental conditions. substances are nonspecific. actions (biogenic stimulants). They activate physiol. processes and thereby accelerate the growth of animals and increase the body’s resistance.
Tissue preparations are used for some non-contagious and infectious agricultural diseases. animals, to stimulate growth and enhance fattening in the form of whole tissues and extracts, minced meat, suspensions, ointments and powders. They are prescribed subcutaneously, internally (implantation, injection), externally (applications, powders, ointments)...
Veterinary encyclopedic dictionary
***
Asian fish sauces have a high protein content (up to 10% in the highest grades), this protein contains all the essential amino acids; there are many B vitamins, especially B12, pantothenic acid (B5), riboflavin (B2) and niacin (B3). Phosphorus, iodine, iron and calcium are present.
But the value of garum as an adaptogen lies not only in this, but in special biologically active substances. The fact is that the tissues of a living organism or plant, when exposed to unfavorable conditions, begin to secrete certain adaptive substances (biogenic stimulants), the nature of which is still not fully understood. In our case, this is a period of severe stress for the fish when it falls into the net until it dies. Since garum is not subjected to heat treatment, these substances are preserved. It is likely that fermentation also generates new biologically active substances.
Regular consumption of diluted garum on an empty stomach may well have a general strengthening and immunostimulating effect. Who would check this?
And garum has a better taste than ASD-2.
I think, for the sake of science, we can start such an experiment, especially since I have become sick more often - they will bring Thai, Egyptian viruses, and African Ebolas to Russia from the resorts - no immunity will be enough... I will try to use garum on an empty stomach, a tablespoon in the morning before meals.
After six months of the experiment, I’ll write about how it all ended...
***
Is it necessary?
There is no garum in Russia... Maybe it’s easier to buy Asian fish sauces?
Samples of original Asian fish sauces, but they are not sold in Russia...
Actually, only some Asian fish sauces are available on Russian markets (I found sauce from two manufacturers in Tomsk).
A comparative tasting with garum shows that they are at least 2 times diluted with water, which is why preservatives, monosodium glutamate and sugar coloring, etc. are added to them for preservation. They are clearly adapted to the taste of Russians.
You can season food with them, but their healing effect on the body is almost non-existent, unlike your homemade garum.
So I think it's worth the effort to get a bucket of true garum.
***
If you have questions about garum, write to this email:
***
Garum (historical information)
Garum (this: ancient Greek γάρον) is the famous fish sauce, the main delicacy of Ancient Rome, admiring reviews of which can be read in many literary works of that time, although Seneca called it “the ichor of decaying fish” with which his contemporaries “poison themselves” . This sauce was part of almost all dishes of Roman cuisine, most fully described by Apicius in the cookbook “De Re Coquinaria” (c. 400 AD), and was such a popular seasoning of that era that in many regions it completely replaced salt. In particular, instead of “salt the dish,” Apicius often writes: “If the dish is bland, add garum, if it is salty, add a little honey.” Not a single dinner party, not a single feast was complete without garum, and every self-respecting merchant considered it a matter of honor to have it on sale. It was produced throughout the empire, but its production and export was especially established in Pompeii.
“Garum” was known back in the Neolithic era, it was prepared by the tribes that inhabited northwestern France (modern Brittany), and then improved by the Celtic Druids. Molva (sea pike) was used to prepare the sauce.
After the capture of Armorica, the Romans adopted this "elixir" from the enslaved peoples (as well as everything else) and began to use it as a broad-spectrum medicine (garum armoricum): from loss of strength and depression, from headaches, purulent infections, diarrhea and dog bites, it was given to soldiers before long campaigns and battles, and the doctors of Emperor Claudius (43 AD) called it a product with hundreds of beneficial properties.
In addition, the well-known magic drink of the Gauls from the cartoons about Asterix and the film of the same name with Gerard Depardieu is nothing more than garum. Subsequently, as a result of the Punic Wars, the Romans learned and adopted from Magna Graecia (modern Southern Italy), among other things, the habit of using garum as a seasoning for meat and vegetable dishes. Since the 2nd century. BC. garum is beginning to enjoy increasing popularity. The dish was an integral part of the table of the ancient Romans, and was used not only as a sauce, but also as an appetizer. The cost of such a sauce, however, was very high: according to Pliny the Elder, “there was no liquid, except perfume, that would cost more: for two congas (about 6.5 liters) of first-class garum they paid a thousand sesterces.”
The most complete description of the preparation of garum is presented by the writer Gargilius Martial (3rd century AD), it is not found at all in Apicius, probably due to the fact that then everyone already knew the recipe. According to Martial, you need to take a large vat, put a thick layer of chopped aromatic herbs (thyme, coriander, dill, fennel, celery, sage, mint and oregano) on the bottom, then a layer of whole small fish, followed by a layer of large fish, cut into pieces. Sprinkle everything with about two fingers' worth of coarse salt. Repeat the operation as many times as desired. Cover the vessel with a wooden or cork lid and leave it to stand in the sun for two to three months, stirring once a day with a wooden spoon or rod, starting from the seventh day, and so on for 20 days. The name of the fish is not indicated; it is assumed that small fish meant bops, red mullet or anchovies, and large fish meant mackerel, mackerel or tuna.
When all the salting had turned into a solid mass, a large, finely woven basket was lowered into the vat, and a thick liquid, garum, was gradually filled into it. Garum was poured into jugs (up to 0.5 m) with a narrow neck and one handle, on which the name of the sauce, the type of fish, the name of the manufacturer and the year were written in ink. This method subsequently underwent many variations in order to create different varieties of garum, the number of which, according to Pliny, increased indefinitely. To prepare one of the best varieties, they took the insides of mackerel, salted them together with gills and blood in a clay jug, and after two months they punched the bottom of the jug and allowed the liquid to drain. Due to the spread of a fetid odor, the production of sauce in cities was prohibited to everyone except special factories - officin.
Some of the best varieties of garum produced in Pompeii were:
Garum Excellens (from anchovies and tuna giblets)
Garum Flos Floris (from different types of fish - mackerel, anchovies, tuna, etc.)
Garum Flos Murae (from moray eels)
A special high grade of garum was simply called “liquid” - Liquamen.
Garum was also divided into “pure” (sometimes wine, vinegar or water was added) and “lean” (from fish with scales). Halex, or allec - the solid residue of fish sauce or unprocessed garum - was sold at an affordable price and was intended for the plebs, peasants and Roman soldiers.
According to Roman law, everyone had the right, without paying any taxes, to fish in the sea, so the production of garum was an extremely profitable business, which was opened even by freed slaves. In addition, given the abundance of officines in Pompeii, vying with each other to advertise their product as first-class mackerel garum, the sauce was often counterfeited, i.e. The fish declared on the amphora was replaced with another, less valuable one, just as nowadays in Italy they often sell a herring shark, which costs much less, under the guise of a swordfish. It’s not without reason that experts recommend buying cut swordfish only on those days when a shark’s head is on display at the fish store.
Vesuvius volcano crater
An interesting story is connected with the name of one of the main producers of garum in Pompeii - Umbricius Scaurus, who invented the popular variety of garum - scaurus. Over the past years, employees of the Laboratory of Applied Research in the Campania region have been studying his house. During the excavations, it was possible to discover 7 vessels, at the bottom of which garum remained. Scientists have established that the last sauce prepared in Pompeii was made entirely from a fish common in the Mediterranean - big-eyed bops, or minke whale. In addition, it was thanks to this fish found in the garum that it was possible to confirm the exact date of the eruption of Vesuvius, which destroyed Pompeii, previously known only from two letters from Pliny the Younger to Tacitus, where he describes the events he witnessed:
Earlier, in 2006, a shipwreck dating from the 1st century AD was found off the coast of Valencia. e. a Roman ship with one and a half thousand amphorae with garum. The sailing ship had a length of 30 m and a displacement of 400 tons. The sauce was so important for trade that it was delivered to any province, no matter how far it was from the metropolis. Since at one time the sailors did not bother to seal the amphorae hermetically, archaeologists could not even discover the remains of the fish delicacy. In addition to the amphorae, precious to historians, the ship carried lead for Rome’s water supply systems and copper. It was mixed with tin to produce bronze, from which everything was made in the Roman Empire - from tools to household items.
It should be noted that garum did not disappear into oblivion along with the Ancient Roman Empire. This sauce was mentioned in the gastronomic treatise of the Greek physician Antimus "De observatione ciborum" (VI century AD) when describing the typical Roman sauce enogaro (wine and garum), in the 8th century. AD Merchants from Comacchio traded garum along the Po River in the 9th century. AD The inventories of the monastery in Bobbio (in the Piacentine Apennines) record the purchase of two vessels with garum on the market in Genoa for the needs of feeding the brethren. In addition, the production of garum was in the Adriatic basin, in Istria (letter of Cassiodorus, 6th century AD) and in Byzantium. There is a similarity of this sauce in Italy today - it is a strained liquid from anchovies - colatura di alici di Cetara, a traditional product of the Campania region, produced on the Amalfi Coast, in Cetara. In Italy you can also find garum armoricum, a dietary supplement in capsules, the effectiveness of which has not been proven.
“My wife once bought a package of small salted fish. On the packaging it was written how in Ancient Rome they made garum sauce from such fish. This interested me. What is called, it stuck. And I decided to cook it.
I love fish, my family eats a lot of fish, especially during Lent, and fish is a very waste product. Sometimes heads, fins and offal take up up to 30% of the carcass, so there were no problems with raw materials. I looked for the recipe on the Internet and found it in references to the Roman writer Gargilius Martial. I also realized that in reality no one did it in Russia; there are only theoretical reprints floating around on the Internet.
If you purchase the required amount of fish or receive a lot of raw fish waste, garum can be made immediately. From 35 kg of fish (or waste) you can ultimately get 8-9 liters of garum.
I don't own a fish factory, I wasn't ready to prepare garum, so I started collecting raw fish waste gradually, from the end of October. I put them in a 36-liter stainless steel tank, which stood on an unheated veranda. What I collected: fins, tails, heads, offal from herring, mackerel, pollock and pike. Under no circumstances should you put heat-treated fish into the garum; this is a fundamentally important point. Another important detail: the more giblets, the better the garum will be prepared, because this sauce is not a product of rotting or fermentation, as some foolishly write, but a product of fermentation of fish protein. Enzymes contained in the tissues of the fish and, of course, in the offal (bile, for example), begin to gradually destroy the protein, causing the sauce to become liquid, or rather, puree-like.
If you live in an apartment, then fish waste can be stored in the freezer or on the balcony until the required amount is collected. Each time I put fish in a flask, I sprinkled it with coarse salt at the rate of 1 part salt per 8 parts fish. Salt will not spoil the garum; if there is more of it, the sauce will simply be saltier and can be added to food in smaller quantities. Actually, thanks to salt, the fish is preserved and does not rot in the summer, even under the Spanish sun.
By the end of April, I had half the flask, and I had to add more fish. I bought several kilograms of capelin, pollock and blue whiting. Relatives brought half a bag of bream. Here on the Ob, bream is considered a second-rate fish, and if they are caught, they are either thrown out or used for fertilizer: they are buried when planting under a pepper or tomato bush; No mullein is needed, the vegetable grows beautifully! I chopped the bream into pieces and put it in the tank, where I sent the purchased fish. Then spices and dried herbs: several packs of Herbes de Provence; I bought sage and mint at the pharmacy. And I had half a kilo of dried dill, parsley, and cilantro. I also added several packets of bay leaf, coriander, black peppercorns and allspice.
(Garum does not need to be prepared only from river fish. And certainly not from just ide. Once my friends brought me a lot of ide and roach. I dried the roach, used the ide for cutlets and dumplings. From the raw remains of all this I prepared my second garum, the taste of which I I didn’t really like it. The ide has a specific taste, and it went into the sauce. There should definitely be mackerel and capelin in the garum, each of these fish - at least 15% of the total mass.)
At the end of April, the tank moved to the greenhouse. Fermentation begins when the mass warms up to a temperature above 20 degrees. A kitchen and central heating radiator are also suitable; Spanish heat, as it turned out, is not necessary for garum. By June 1, the fish pieces began to clearly and greatly soften. Bubbles appeared in the raw material for about a week, probably due to carbon dioxide from glycogen fermentation. In addition, the raw material has slightly increased in volume: therefore, when filling the container with fish, you need to leave at least 20 cm to the edge so that the garum does not crawl out.
Internet stories that a wild stench begins when preparing garum are nonsense. If you do everything correctly, then there is no rotting. When the garum stood in the greenhouse, not even flies flew there, the only smell next to the flask was fish with spices. The second time I made garum was in September, and the flask stood in the kitchen near the stove for two months, and none of the guests even knew that there was fish in the flask!
By mid-July, the contents of the flask had turned into a puree; There is no point in holding raw materials for more than two months. I strained the mass, and it turned out about 16 liters of primary garum - a brown puree-like mass with a fishy-spicy smell. Next, I poured this mass into three-liter jars and put it in the cold in the cellar (or in the refrigerator) for six months.
At first I thought that this puree was garum (not a word about this on the Internet). But that's not true. In the cold, separation begins: what in Rome was called chalex, a dense mixture of proteins and fat, rose to the top, and a transparent light brown liquid remained below. This is garum. I carefully inserted a thin tube through the chalex and carefully poured out the garum. Since there were no Roman legionnaires, slaves and poor people around me, I did not sell the remaining chalex to them, but sent it to the compost heap (a good fertilizer, by the way). Formally, chalex is edible, but it quickly begins to taste bitter (fish oil oxidizes), and also gives the food a very strong fishy taste. It may have been suitable for Roman slaves, but free Russians were better off using only garum.
So the sauce was ready. I tried it raw: the aftertaste was like after a good dried fish, with a subtle aftertaste of spices. When properly prepared and salted, garum is definitely harmless even in its raw form; it can be stored for years in a cool place without any special preservatives.
The sauce is not difficult to make and is a fun activity. The problem is different: in Russian and in most modern European cuisines there are very few dishes with this sauce: buckwheat porridge or vegetable stew with a fishy flavor during Lent is still not for everyone. But Russians have not yet been accustomed to Vietnamese and other Asian cuisines, where such sauces are actively used.
I once fried horse meat with garum; I didn't add any salt - just sauce. While the meat is hot, the smell of fish is not felt; and delicious. But once the meat cools, fried horse meat develops a distinct fishy taste.
Therefore, the only place where you can safely use it is salting fish intended for frying and smoking.
We cleaned the crucian carp, left them in the sauce for 15 minutes, rolled them in flour, and fried them. Song!
Smoked mackerel, pre-soaked in garum, is simply magnificent. Gut the mackerel, fill the belly with a mixture of parsley and dill and pour garum into it. It will sit overnight or at least 4–5 hours, then you can smoke it (let the grass remain in the belly). One more song!
Why did I need all this? It was interesting. I have the audacity to say that this was the first historical culinary reconstruction of garum in Russia. I was driven by scientific research and historical reconstruction interest. It's a good and rewarding culinary experience. And how much fun it brings just from the disgusted look of your wife and her screams when she passes nearby and you are stirring fish in a flask in the kitchen.”
Enough with chocolate ice cream recipes and cheese sweets - let's talk about ancient Roman cuisine! The ancient Romans had an unexpected popularity among one strange sauce, which they used more often than salt, and which was made throughout the Roman Empire.
It was called “garum” and was made from fermented fish. The Romans loved its salty taste, and they sprinkled it on almost any dish.
What is garum?
Some of the linguistic vicissitudes that have occurred with the concept of "garum" are described in this article. So in some historical periods the word garum was synonymous with the word liquamen, and in others liquamen was a separate sauce. The grounds remaining after straining were called “allek,” but often the word “garum” was used to refer to the entire mixture.
The garum recipe has varied greatly, and we also suggest using different types of fish, although in the video above we only use the main option - the notorious mackerel entrails.
It is precisely because garum was prepared in so many different ways that it is difficult for us to know which version of the sauce the Romans most often ate. However, this cannot prevent anyone from preparing an approximate analogue of garum at home.
This sauce was so popular that poems were written about it, albeit in a rather critical tone: for example, according to Martial, the young Romans were seriously afraid that the girl had eaten garum before a date. Although garum is similar to modern fish sauces, most tasters call its flavor unexpectedly subtle and note that it complements the taste of food well.
As always happens when reconstructing ancient customs, we cannot get an accurate picture even if we collect all the available information. However, the recipes below will give you an idea of what this most popular ancient Roman sauce tasted like. If you decide to cook it, try adding it to one of the dishes from Patrick Faas's book of ancient Roman recipes.
Classic garum
Writer Laura Kelly spent nine months making the authentic garum, but that's a little longer than ancient sources would suggest. The recipe can be modified by using pre-fermented mackerel, and then less time will be required (you can use the whole mackerel, you can use only the insides - sources differ on this matter). Researcher Robert Curtis also offers another, more detailed recipe.
Russian cuisine: a forced transformation
The Wall Street Journal 03/04/2016 New Statesman 02/16/2016Social networks already existed in ancient Rome
Los Angeles Times 10/28/2013Multimedia
Recipes for Easter
Crux 04/11/201522 dishes for a party in honor of the games in Sochi
BuzzFeed 02/05/201417 strange Russian dishes
BuzzFeed 10/11/2013The quantity of fish should be adjusted according to needs, as if you follow the old recipes exactly, you will likely end up with much more sauce than you need.
Ingredients:
Mackerel (can be replaced with anchovies, sardines or any other fatty fish)
. Sea salt
. Spicy herbs (optional; preferably dried)
. Clay vessel
Recipe:
Prepare the mackerel - you can take the whole fish, but it is preferable to limit yourself to only the blood and entrails. Mix with sea salt - the best recipe containing proportions, preserved by a 10th-century compilation called Geoponics, recommends using one part salt to eight parts fish. You can add herbs.
Leave the mixture to ferment under the hot sun for two months (different authors write about different periods, usually from a month to six months, although some claim that 20 days is enough). Stir to help the fish dissolve and then strain off any liquid that forms on the surface. Ideally, the sauce should be transparent, but this is not necessary.
Fast garum
Most modified garum recipes advise boiling the fish in water and straining the resulting mixture. As a result, the taste, of course, is not as subtle as that of “classic garum”.
The culinary researchers at Ancient World Alive offer readers a variety of ancient recipes. To obtain garum, they recommend straining the salted fish broth.
Recipe:
Cook the fish in water with sea salt until the liquid thickens (crush the fish if necessary). Five minutes before readiness, add grape juice and oregano, strain and bottle.
Very fast garum
The website of the popular science show Nova has a wonderful list of Roman recipes, including “modern garum.” The author of the recipe recommends evaporating a quart of grape juice, dissolving 2 tablespoons of anchovy paste in it and adding oregano.
Purchased garum
Of course, you can always cheat - and that's not such a bad idea, because our garum recipes are ultimately based on guesses about how the sauce was made in ancient times anyway.
Meanwhile, many Thai and Vietnamese fish sauces are very similar to garum, and Italian Colatura di Alichi, it is quite likely that it is even prepared in a manner similar to the original garum.
Original article: .
InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively from foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.
Garum sauce is an amazing product. It is considered to be one of the most ancient sauces in the world, which was popular back in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. Garum (this: ancient Greek γάρον) is the famous fish sauce, the main delicacy of Ancient Rome, admiring reviews of which can be read in many literary works of that time.
Seneca called it “the ichor of decaying fish” with which his contemporaries “poison themselves.” This sauce was part of almost all dishes of Roman cuisine, most fully described by Apicius in the cookbook “De Re Coquinaria” (c. 400 AD), and was such a popular seasoning of that era that in many regions it completely replaced salt. In particular, instead of “salt the dish,” Apicius often writes: “If the dish is bland, add garum, if it is salty, add a little honey.” Not a single dinner party, not a single feast was complete without garum, and every self-respecting merchant considered it a matter of honor to have it on sale. It was produced throughout the empire, but its production and export was especially established in Pompeii.
An interesting fact is that the ancient Romans first used garum sauce only as a medicine, a healing elixir for many ailments, ranging from headaches and insect bites to numerous digestive disorders. Only a few centuries later, the inhabitants of Ancient Rome began to use garum sauce for its intended purpose. Garum sauce was so popular that absolutely everyone, both nobles and common people, ate it.
“Garum” was known back in the Neolithic era, it was prepared by the tribes that inhabited northwestern France (modern Brittany), and then improved by the Celtic Druids, who distributed this sauce to warriors as an energy supplement (doping) before battle. Molva (sea pike) was used to prepare the sauce. It was only much later that garum began to be used as a dressing for not very fresh dishes, in order to hide their aftertaste caused by storage in the heat.
Then the Romans, having thoroughly tasted the taste of this sauce, began to add it as a seasoning to their favorite dishes. The liquid part of it, which drained and became garum, an expensive delicacy, was intended for the patricians, and what remained after filtering went to the table of the poor and was called liquamen (slurry) or allec.
It should be noted that garum did not disappear into oblivion along with the Ancient Roman Empire. This sauce was mentioned in the gastronomic treatise of the Greek physician Antimus "De observatione ciborum" (VI century AD) when describing the typical Roman sauce enogaro (wine and garum). In the 8th century AD Merchants from Comacchio traded garum along the Po River in the 9th century. AD The inventories of the monastery in Bobbio (in the Piacentine Apennines) record the purchase of two vessels with garum on the market in Genoa for the needs of feeding the brethren. In addition, the production of garum was in the Adriatic basin, in Istria (letter of Cassiodorus, 6th century AD) and in Byzantium.
In the Middle Ages, monks from Amalfi showed interest in this recipe, who in August usually salted sprat in wooden barrels with gaps between the boards. Such barrels were placed on supports. When exposed to the sun, the sprat released juice that flowed through the cracks of the barrels. The monks quickly realized that this juice could be used as a seasoning, and began to sell it to local residents and other monasteries. Then they figured out how to filter it by passing it through a woolen cap.
There is a similarity of this sauce in Italy today - it is a strained liquid from anchovies - colatura di alici di Cetara, a traditional product of the Campania region, produced on the Amalfi Coast, in Cetara. To this day, in the town of Cetara on the Amalfi Riviera, the art of making this delicious amber-colored dressing has been preserved, which has been passed down from generation to generation, from father to son.
In Cervia, where from time immemorial they fished and mined sea salt, the production of a similar seasoning was also established. The wooden boxes in which the fish are stored are designed in such a way that, under the influence of salt and sun, the fish secretes juice, which flows through the cracks. This juice is collected in containers, then carefully poured so that the sediment remains and the valuable liquid rises to the top. This liquid is stored at 12-15° in well-ventilated areas, taking it out into the sun so that the water evaporates and the concentration increases. A month after such procedures, the last, final stage of processing begins: the juice is filtered through flax or wool caps, poured into oak barrels and left to infuse for at least 3 months. Usually the sauce is ready by the end of November or beginning of December. The result is an amber nectar with a rich, rich taste, the taste of the sea itself. This is a pure protein that is easily absorbed by the body. It is rich in calcium, phosphorus and iron, but the most important thing is its wonderful taste and aroma, which one cannot help but like. It is quite expensive: 40 ml of this nectar costs 10 euros, and it is enough for a couple of dishes, but it is worth it. It is used to season pasta dishes and seafood-based salads.
In Italy you can also find garum armoricum, a dietary supplement in capsules, the effectiveness of which has not been proven.
English name: Fish sause
Latin name: Liquamen
French name: La sauce de poisson
A similar recipe for making fish and oyster sauces exists today among the peoples of Southeast Asia. Currently, Thai fish and oyster sauces are “derivatives” of real garum sauce. In the same row is Worcestershire sauce or Worcestershire sauce.
Synonyms or other names:
garum (Greco-Roman, the oldest), nuoc mam (Vietnamese from the Phu Quoc and Phan Thiet regions), settsuru, ikanago shoyu and ishiru (Japanese from sardines and squid), nampla (Thai), nganpyayi (Myanmar), nampa (Laotian), padak (Laotian, Isan), Tyktrey and Tykuti (Cambodian), Patis (Filipino), Yulu and Xiayu (Chinese), Ekchot and Chotkal (Korean).
Fish sauce is one of the leading ingredients in Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Indonesian, Korean, Philippine and many other oriental cuisines of the world, and, of course, in Thai.
It is used in the form:
- the actual sauce for ready-made dishes;
- an ingredient for combined and complex sauces and seasonings;
- component of other recipes. Often serves as a substitute for salt.
Europeans have a hard time getting used to this seasoning because of its pronounced characteristic odor. Fish sauces differ in color among different nations and manufacturers. It is believed that light varieties are more elite than dark ones.
Garum sauce has a specific smell and pleasant taste and goes well with meat, fish and vegetable dishes.
Fish sauce is a product made from fermented (fermented with salt) fresh fish of various types. The long fermentation period results in a clear, salty liquid (fish juice). The main ingredient was small fish, usually anchovies, of which there were too many, and cleaning and cutting them was problematic. Although ancient recipes for garum used mackerel, tuna, eel and many other fish. There were many recipes themselves. Some used only blood and fish entrails. Some types contained wine, honey, and vinegar.
The caught small fish and the remains of large fish were laid out in huge vats, the bottoms of which were thickly covered with crushed aromatic herbs. Coarse salt was poured on top, the vats were closed with wooden lids and exposed to the sun for several months. In some descriptions, fish were fermented in stone baths. On certain days, the contents were mixed until they turned into a homogeneous mass, which was filtered, vinegar was added or not, and poured into small clay amphorae.
Similar vats for fish sauce were also found during excavations in Spain and even in Chersonese:
During the preparation process, the mixture smelled so bad that at some point garum sauce was banned from being prepared near large cities. In addition to anchovies and red mullet, mackerel, tuna and mackerel began to be added to garum sauce. The composition of aromatic herbs also changed; it could be sage, mint, thyme, dill, coriander and others.
Below is a translation and transcript of the authentic garum recipe:
The most complete description of the preparation of garum is presented by the writer Gargilius Martial (3rd century AD), it is not found at all in Apicius, probably due to the fact that then everyone already knew the recipe. According to Martial, you need to take a large vat, put a thick layer of chopped aromatic herbs (thyme, coriander, dill, fennel, celery, sage, mint and oregano) on the bottom, then a layer of whole small fish, followed by a layer of large fish, cut into pieces. Sprinkle everything with about two fingers' worth of coarse salt. Repeat the operation as many times as desired. Cover the vessel with a wooden or cork lid and leave it to stand in the sun for two to three months, stirring once a day with a wooden spoon or rod, starting from the seventh day, and so on for 20 days. The name of the fish is not indicated; it is assumed that small fish meant bops, red mullet or anchovies, and large fish meant mackerel, mackerel or tuna. When all the salting had turned into a solid mass, a large, finely woven basket was lowered into the vat, and a thick liquid, garum, was gradually filled into it. Garum was poured into jugs (up to 0.5 m) with a narrow neck and one handle, on which the name of the sauce, the type of fish, the name of the manufacturer and the year were written in ink. This method subsequently underwent many variations in order to create different varieties of garum, the number of which, according to Pliny, increased indefinitely. To prepare one of the best varieties, they took the insides of mackerel, salted them together with gills and blood in a clay jug, and after two months they punched the bottom of the jug and allowed the liquid to drain. Due to the spread of a fetid odor, the production of sauce in cities was prohibited to everyone except special factories - officin.
Some of the best varieties of garum produced in Pompeii were:
Garum Excellens (from anchovies and tuna giblets)
Garum Flos Floris (from different types of fish - mackerel, anchovies, tuna, etc.)
Garum Flos Murae (from moray eels)
A special high grade of garum was called in everyday life simply “liquid” - Liquamen.
The calorie content of garum sauce is 121 kcal per 100 grams of product.
The chemical composition of garum sauce includes: choline, vitamins B1, B2, B5, B6, B9, B12, C and PP, as well as potassium, calcium, magnesium, zinc, selenium, copper and manganese, iron, phosphorus and sodium.
