Falerno is a wine being made today in Italy, in the Falerna region of the province of Catanzaro in Calabria. It is sometimes referred to as “Falernum” for marketing purposes to emphasize Falerno’s “ties” with the Romans. The Falerno wines made today can be white or red. Both have a strong fruity flavour. The belief…
The Fiano Grape, grown in Campania, Italy is said by its growers to be a very old Roman variety, the ones that the Romans called “apianus” (meaning loved by bees.) Others aren’t sure if this was the exact grape of this name. The grape was almost extinct but was brought back from the brink by…
Fleur de Sel © Denzil Green Fleur de Sel is a hand-harvested sea salt from Brittany in France. Harvesting of the salt centres on the Guérande area in Brittany. The salt has fine, opaque, ivory-coloured crystals; no processing or refining is done. (Fleur de Sel is also produced in the Camargue region of southern France,…
Floralia was a Roman festival to honour the goddess of flowers, Flora. It was held from the 28th of April to the 3rd of May.
Folium Indicum is a leaf from a close relative of the same tree that gives us cinnamon bark. Its taste is reminscent of cloves and mint; the fragrance is somewhat like pepper. It is used in Indian cooking, as Europeans would use bay leaves. It is used dried and ground in garam masala; it is…
Quintus Fulvius Lippinus (aka Fulvius Hirpinus) was a Roman who lived around the middle of the first century BC in the formerly Estruscan areas of Italy. “It is reported that Quintus Fulvius Lippinus has a preserve in the vicinity of Tarquinii of forty iugera…. and an even larger one near Statonia, and some in other…
Garlic is a member of the onion family that is grown for its bulb. Inside the bulb are individually-wrapped sections called “cloves”. Garlic is used both for its taste and its aroma.
Garum was a fermented fish sauce in classical times. It used fresh whole mackerel, sea salt, herbs, fermented in the sun for 20 days, then 40 more days after that with daily stirring.
Garum Ibericum was a version of garum made by the Romans on the Iberian Peninsula — Portugal and Spain. It was made of fish pieces, herbs and salt allowed to ferment to a thick paste. At Quinta do Marim in Portugal, some portions of the Roman garum factories that produced garum ibericum still stand.
Honey © Denzil GreenBees make honey by collecting flower nectar and returning it to the hives to be food for the hive.The colour and taste of the honey will vary depending on what flowers the bees took the nectar from. Generally, the lighter the colour, the milder the taste. The strongest honey flavours come from…
Hydromel is a beverage. Some people interpret the name to mean “watered down” honey, but it isn’t at all, it just means that it’s made with water and honey. And it while it is a type of mead, it drier than other meads. It does not much honey flavour or aftertaste. You start with clear…
On the Ides of February Romans would visit their relatives’ tombs, and leave gifts of flowers, wine, bread crumbs, or a sprinkle of salt.
Kale © Denzil Green Though a member of the cabbage family, Kale is a “loose leaf” cabbage. Its leaves don’t curl inwards, they sprout upwards and outwards. Its close cousin, Cavolo Nero (aka Palm Cabbage), also grows like this. There are many varieties of Kale; the leaf colour will vary by variety. The leaves may…
Laganum (plural lagana) was a thin Roman unleavened flat bread. Some think it was soft like a wheat flour tortilla; others think it was crispy. But it wasn’t a dried bread. It was made from wheat flour, and baked or fried on a hot flat surface. Some recipes added lettuce juice to the dough. It’s…
Leeks © Paula Trites Leeks look like green onions, except that they are far thicker and somewhat taller with a more pronounced onion flavour. The leaves are far more solid and robust than green onion leaves. In fact, while green onion tops can be eaten raw, mature Leek tops need to be cut up and…
Libum was a Roman food item. Some people say a Libum was an early form of cheesecake, but basically it was unleavened bread with cheese in it, or a baked cheeseball. Larges ones were used for meals; smaller versions were often used as offerings to the household gods. They were cooked on a hearth, covered…
Liquamen was a Roman fish sauce. Liquamen may originally have been a fish sauce different from the other Roman fish sauce, Garum. Some speculate that unlike Garum, Liquamen was originally just made from whatever fish and fish bits. The Romans were real snobs about food, and the fact that it wasn’t recorded in the 1st…
Long Pepper is a spice that has a sharp, hot and sweet taste. It is used crushed. It comes from berries that grow clumped together in a spike on a shrub. The plant is a perennial, but in January it dies back down to the ground. The spikes look a bit like tiny, narrow pine…
Lora was a lower-quality wine made by Romans from grapes that had already been pressed once for wine. It used the waste products such as grape skins, stalks and seeds (which grappa is made from today.) The Romans called such waste “vinaceum.” If defrutum was being made at the same time, skimmings from that could…
Lucanicae were thin smoked Roman sausages that originated in a region in the south of Italy that was known as Lucania (today, Basilicata.)Ground pork was seasoned with cumin, laurel berries, parsley, pepper, rue, savoury and liquamen. The mixture was then ground again to blend it all well, then chopped fat, pine kernels and peppercorns were…
Mallow is a perennial plant that grows from 4 to 6 feet tall, with a spread of about 2 feet. (1.2 to 2 metres tall, spread of 600 cm.) It grows best in marshy, damp soil, and propagates through its roots. There are several different Mallow plants. Some are grown primarily as ornamentals in gardens….
Mint Sauce is a British sauce, though it is also widely popular throughout the English-speaking world. It is a traditional accompaniment to lamb. Great European chefs see red when English-speakers ask for this green sauce in a restaurant. The Europeans see Mint Sauce as a nasty English-speakers’ invention, even though it isn’t: it’s one of…
Morel Mushrooms grow in Asia, Europe, North America, and even Turkey. They appear in the wild in spring, not always growing back in the same place as the year before. The cap is tall rather than round (1 to 4 inches tall / 2.5 to 10 cm), and honeycombed. They look like an upside-down cone….
“Moretum” was a Roman cheese spread, made from cheese and garlic, coloured green from the fresh herbs in it as well, and bound together with oil. It was usually served with bread. The example of it is usually taken from a poem called “Moretum” by Virgil (70–19 B.C.), though other poets such as Sveius and…
