Fateful Day -- A picture of a thermopolium in Pompeii, where garum was served as a fast food. [Rossella Lorenzi]
Posted on 09/30/2008 4:30:31 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Remains of rotten fish entrails have helped establish the precise dating of Pompeii's destruction, according to Italian researchers who have analyzed the town's last batch of garum, a pungent, fish-based seasoning. Frozen in time by the catastrophic eruption that covered Pompeii and nearby towns nearly 2,000 years ago with nine to 20 feet of hot ash and pumice, the desiccated remains were found at the bottom of seven jars. The find revealed that the last Pompeian garum was made entirely with bogues (known as boops boops), a Mediterranean fish species that abounded in the area in the summer months of July and early August. "Analysis of their contents basically confirmed that Mount Vesuvius most likely erupted on 24 August 79 A.D., as reported by the Roman historian Pliny the Younger in his account on the eruption," Annamaria Ciarallo, director of Pompeii's Applied Research Laboratory told Discovery News. The vessels were unearthed several years ago in the house of Aulus Umbricius Scaurus, Pompeii's most famous garum producer.
(Excerpt) Read more at dsc.discovery.com ...
Fateful Day -- A picture of a thermopolium in Pompeii, where garum was served as a fast food. [Rossella Lorenzi]
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By coincidence, I'm going offline to continue reading a book about Herculaneum. :') |
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Why are they using fish entrails to date something that was firmly recorded by the Romans at the time?
It’s a rare opportunity, and an interesting approach. I was a bit sarcastic above, but I do think it should have been done — I wonder what they would have done had it NOT turned out though. :’)
They only had Pliny’s account? No second witness?
I like fish sauce but not as a main course.
Mmmmm Nuc Maum ai laen
Look for the kind that has three shrimp/crabs on the label.
I remember flying from Chu Lai to Danang on a Flying Tiger Airlines DC-3 in 1967 and all the folks had their own little bottles of home made sauce, a bit more piquant than the commercial stuff available now.
A rather hairy flight, how they started the engines is another story~!
Wonder if the counter help was any better then?
Prik num bah!
Excellent with kau phad gai!
Used in copious quantities by the ancient Melaminians.
Evidence seems fishy, but worth seeing what it entrails.
If I were there I'd probably have made a "potty" joke...
I have a book called The Classical Cookbook, by Andrew Dalby *pops to Amazon.com*. Wonderful recipes from the ancient world.
As for fish sauce (iirc, also known as liquamen in Rome) I use Squid Brand *pops*, which I was told is more "fishy" and possibly more like the Roman type than some of the others used in Asian cooking.
Here is a Roman recipe for a pear dessert using fish sauce that I found somewhere on the 'net. There are many sites with Roman recipes, if anyone is interested.
PATINA DE PIRIS (Pear Souffle)
(Apic. 4, 2, 35)
Ingredients:
------------
1kg pears (peeled and without core)
6 eggs
4 tblsp honey
100ml Passum
a little bit oil
50ml Liquamen, or 1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cumin
ground pepper to taste
Instructions:
-------------
Mix cooked, peeled, and mashed pears (without core) together with pepper,cumin,honey, Passum, Liquamen and a bit of oil. Add eggs and put into a casserole. Cook approximately 30 minutes on small to moderate heat.
Serve with pepper sprinkled on the finished souffle.
Sadly, the fish entrails were found to have originated in China and as all food items from there, were highly toxic. Six scientists succumbed before the WHO could properly quarantine the area.
This was not a fast food. This was a sauce, the ancestor, in fact, of our Worcestershire sauce. There are those who argue the idea Worcestershire sauce came from India with the British Raj. I think it is a little of both, because some ingredients seem to be Indian, and the fermented fish is definitely Roman.
Actually, I believe garum was a sauce, not a fast food in itself as described in the picture. That’s rather like comparing “pico de gallo sauce” with a food item such as a taco. Or registering ketchup as a vegetable.
On the other hand, I’m wondering if this delectable sauce of rotting fish entrails was similar to Muoc Nam, a hot Vietnamese sauce with a similar provenance of rotting fish.
Muoc Nam usually has to be served to Westerners in a VERY low-grade version. I once saw a restaurant in San Antonio emptied out of lunching round-eyes when the real McCoy was served in a an adjoining private dining room about 60 feet away.
Yum yum to exotic foods.
Wow, really great pic, the condition of the find is amazing. Shame so many died so that almost 2000 years later we could see how they lived.
Note: this topic is from 9/30/2008. Another re-ping.
I remember watching a documentary several years ago in which they analyzed garum from a chemical perspective, in an attempt to find out just why it was so highly prized as a sauce/seasoning. Turned out it was loaded with MSG, a natural flavor enhancer. In other words, it made everything taste better, and the Romans used it just like we use MSG.
I probably wouldn’t get many dates if I ate too much of that fish sauce.
Love both fish sauce and Worcestershire. This stuff has probably gone bad, eh?
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