Ancient Roman Cookoff Entry 2 Two – Sauces for Fowl and a Patina of Asparagus and Grouse

Friend of Silk Road Gourmet, Ms. Deana Sidney, of Lost Past Remembered has cooked several recipes with the garum I sent her. From her magical kitchen come two sauces for chicken or fowl and a cold patina of asparagus and grouse (or figpecker, should you have one on hand) that use the garum I produced in the backyard last year. Please check out her post, … Read more

Ancient Roman Cookoff Entry 1 – Pullus Frontonianus by Charles Perry

First up in our Ancient Roman cookoff is an entry by noted scholar, author and food writer, Charles Perry. Charles chose to prepare Pullus Frontonianus which is chicken prepared with a selection of delicious herbs, including dill, leeks, savory and cilantro. To this a touch of garum is added and when cooking is complete, the dish is dressed with grape syrup (defrutum) and black pepper … Read more

Cookoff Challenge # 2 – Ancient Rome

During the month of April, I will be holding an Ancient Roman Cookoff to use the garum that I made last year and to consider the effects it has on flavor and the perception of taste. Since this cookoff involves the use of an ingredient of limited quantity, I have invited a few colleagues and friends to join us in this effort. Exploring Ancient Roman … Read more

Umami in a Bottle

Here it is, the real deal! Amber-colored culinary gold! The first results from last summer’s backyard garum making! As some of you may remember, back in June of last year I started making garum in my backyard with fresh mackerel and lots of sea salt. I also wrote the “garum diaries” until mid-September which described the first 90 days or so of the initial enzymatic … Read more

Ancient Roman Game Marinade

Good taste never goes out of style. That’s why I used this adapted Ancient Roman game marinade recipe from the ancient Roman book, “On the Subject of Cooking” that is often attributed to Apicius. The recipe made a marinade and gravy for a recent family dinner featuring venison osso bucco. It was a holiday crowd pleaser and one of the best game dishes I ever … Read more

Caveat Venditor (Merchant Beware!)

“O thunder-and-lightning-hurling Iao, strike, bind, bind together Babylas the greengrocer . . . As you struck the chariot of Pharaoh, so strike Babylas’ offensiveness . . . O thunder—and-lightning-hurling Iao, as you cut down the firstborn of Egypt, cut down his livestock!” A delightful, if not a bit frightening artifact from everyday life in Roman Antioch has recently been deciphered to reveal a curse against … Read more

Sage, Rosemary and Thyme – Not Wine!

With the help of DNA analysis, scientists are getting a present-day look at centuries-old trade in the Mediterranean. Such studies may help debunk some long-held assumptions, namely that the bulk of Greek commerce revolved around wine. During the fifth through third centuries BCE, the Mediterranean and Black seas were major thoroughfares for ships loaded with thousands of amphorae, thought from their shape to contain wine. … Read more

Making Garum – The Traditional Way

I said we were going to do it in the original post on garum. And so we have. Our attempt to make garum the traditional, slow way has officially begun. Fifteen pounds of fresh, whole Norwegian mackerel, and 12 pounds of sea salt have been combined in a clean, sturdy, sealable, 5-gallon painter’s bucket. And now we wait, and let the heat and humidity turn … Read more

Culinary History Mystery #3: Garum & Nuoc Mam

You heard it here first folks: Over the course of the next six months or so, the kitchens of Chez Kelley are going to make fish sauce or Roman garum. More accurately, we are going to compare easy or quick methods with traditional outdoor fermentation. If we haven’t been run out of the neighborhood, we will report our results in an end of summer post. … Read more

Oh Henry!

You have now a broken banquet; but we’ll mend it. A good digestion to you all: and once more I shower a welcome on ye; welcome all. . .   Thus in Act I, Scene IV of The Life of King Henry the Eighth does the king, in disguise, crash the party at Cardinal Wolsey’s house.  That night was both magical and fateful, foods were … Read more

A Roman Holiday

When in Rome – we did as the tourists do. With our young children in tow, we spent unspeakably hot days touring the Forum and Coliseum; spent a morning in the Capitoline Museum and an afternoon on the Palatine Hill under the pines of Rome. Being raised in my father’s Italian-American hometown, every face seemed familiar to me – dark hair, big brown eyes, aquiline … Read more

Venice and the Silk Road: The Ancient World – Lace

Long ago a Venetian seafarer brought his beloved a gift of seaweed from the far, distant seas. She wanted to preserve the memento forever, so she painstakingly copied the delicate outline and patterns using her needle and thread. . . So goes the legend of how lacemaking began in Venice and its surrounding islands, now renown for the art. Once, Venice and Burano Island were … Read more

Venice and the Silk Road: The Muslim World

Sea gulls calling, businessmen sweeping the sidewalks in front of their shops and restaurants and of course the incessant lap of the waves on the stone foundations of La Serenissima – the serene place. These are the sounds of Venice at dawn – the same sounds to which the city has woken to for countless generations. More than a powerful city-state that became an Italian … Read more

The Silk Road and the English Kitchen

A guest post by Chef, Miles Collins: When Laura kindly offered me her pulpit to eulogise the wonders of the Silk Road I knew at once what I should write about-England. I am English and as an Englishman I owe those ancient traders and travellers of the Silk Road a huge debt of gratitude. For as much as Laura’s writings of soups and stews from … Read more

Culinary History Mysteries #1: Salt-Baked Fish

My friend and colleague in cyberspace, Chef Miles Collins provided the inspiration for this post by blogging about Salt-Baked Fish – a dish he was prepping for the menu of a family of restaurants in Spain. The restaurants serve up Spanish and related Mediterranean specialties with emphasis on seasonal and locally sourced ingredients. Miles post describes in nice detail how encasing a whole prepared fish … Read more

The Silk Road Roots of the Age of Exploration

I’ve written a lot about the participation of Asian nations in Silk Road trade, but what I haven’t considered enough is the effect of the Silk Road on Europe.  The Silk Road and its spice trade played important parts in shaping early modern Europe, and it was no less than the price of pepper, cinnamon and cloves in the mid-fifteenth century that forced the Portuguese … Read more