Garum, Rome's Favorite Condiment (Ancient Cooking)
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- Опубликовано: 25 июл 2024
- As Rome's military expanded the Empire's territory it also expanded the kitchen pantry. Today we take a look at one of Rome's favorite condiments, Garum fish sauce! Credit to: www.karwansaraypublishers.com/...
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Literary Sources
"Logistics of the Roman Army at War" by Jonathan P. Roth
"Garum, Rome's Favorite Condiment" by Erich B. Anderson
(Ancient History Magazine Issue 8)
I hope you enjoyed watching this episode as much as I loved making it! I think part of the reason is that cooking is just so universal that it transcends cultures and millennia. If you want to learn more about ancient life and cooking in particular I highly recommend this $5 magazine issue on dining and drinking of our ancestors: www.karwansaraypublishers.com/ancient-history-magazine/ahm-shop/ahm-8-pdf.html
I always do pater
Invicta Sounds like genuine Worcestershire sauce ;) except that's fermented for longer than a month.
Actually Garum is still produced in Italy today. It`s a regional specialty in the region of the Amalfi coast. It`s called Colatura di Alici di Cetara.
Who the heck invented this stuff???? I mean I am sure it smelled bad etc. And such an elaborate process? Just goes to show that without the distractions of the modern world people back then had a lot of time on their hands to INNOVATE lol
I liked it a lot, suggestion, do one about fashion, the Roman elite had surprisingly similar clothing like bikinis and some woman sandals that could be in today's shops
A lot of popular history focuses so much on martial history, but I think food history might be one of the most fascinating things I've discovered in recent months, theres just not enough of it out there. More stuff on medieval food history would be awesome.
I feel food history isn't explored enough even among academics. I recall reading that Jacques Pepin has been pushing for more food related majors in colleges.
Like squirrel meat
I would recommend Jas. Townsend on RUclips, his channel is historical food mostly from the 18th century. Really high quality videos.
I’m planning videos on food history!
knightshousegames haha you have 420 likes
How about a video on roman bread and how it differs from modern bread
I think medieval bread would make a good comparison too!
They didn't use yeast.
Sponsored by the Millers' Guild - True Bread for True Romans.
No bleached and chemically laden flours like we have today, which is making people sick and suffer from gluten intolerance.
There should be some rocks in the mix because the grain was ground in stone mills to become flour and those mills would then let some pebbles in the mix.
海光 They would have used grape must leftover from the winemaking process.
FYI In the Naples region of Italy they kept producing a variant of garum throughout the middle ages all the way to today: it's made only with anchovies and called 'colatura d'alici' or 'anchovy drippings' - it's a very traditional condiment in the region, but never became as prevalent as garum was for the Romans, nor is it very common outside of Naples.
DonVoghano I bet it tastes delicious
Just a bit salty. But incredibly umami! You can't stop eating if somebody has put garum into your meal. It is a natural flavor enhancer. I love Colatura di Alici. It makes everything better. Like the roman garum. So it is most probably a kind of garum.
Same trick industrial food manufacturers are using today with yeast extract and even worse stuff from their laboratories. Just with a 2000 year old natural product.
You can actually find colatura on Amazon!
It can sometimes be found in italian delicacies stores outside of Italy, i found (and bought) the Delfino brand in the "R.A.P Epicerie Italienne" in Paris.
shuboy05 Excellent! I n e e d some!
Actually, Worcestershire sauce is a comparable fermented sauce to this that is still used in the West, based mainly on anchovies. Everybody likes fish sauce, some people just don't like to call it fish sauce :lol:
Cody I wonder if it grown out from the Italian's evolution of Garum, the Colata di Alici from Cetara (Amalfi), which is still made nowadays purely from anchovies :)
I wonder what the Romans would've thought of Worcestershire sauce
...
In Indonesia, Worcestershire sauce is called "kecap Inggris", which translates into "English ketchup". It's strangely fitting because the trademarked sauce was originally invented out of a failed attempt to replicate a kind of Asian fish sauce using ingredients available in Europe. The actual processing method for Worcestershire and the malt-based composition was already well-known in the British Isles and probably did evolve out of something like garum. Ketchup was of course originally a British take on Vietnamese fish sauce, so when Indonesians discovered Worcestershire sauce they recognized it immediately as a kind of "ketchup".
@@LuPoN7 The legend is that it Worcester sauce was a secret recipe ,brought over in the 19th century from Bengal, India,which was then part of the British Empire. There may be an element of truth in that,as Worcester sauce contains tamarind,which is used in Indian cuisine and North East India is known for the use of very smelly fermented fish in its cuisine:
ruclips.net/video/PYgJNlJ0428/видео.html
The Victorians,of course,would have been aware of garum sauce. So maybe Worcester sauce is essentially an Italian inspired sauce,with some Asian influences?
Eh, I don't really like Worcester. Though I ADORE caesar salad, and the dressing's pretty much ALSO just fish sauce. So....
worcestershire sauce is still a relatively popular fermented fish sauce in the west
BewegteBilderrahmen WOOSTESHIRE hahahha the name of it alone!!!
anchovies is one of the traditional ingredients
Unfortunately you have to use the original Worcestershire-Sauce, which is sometimes hard to get in european supermarkets outside of Britain. Worcestersauce is a more than hundred year old legal fake, which tastes similar, but misses the one and only important taste: umami! Therefore you need this fish-fermentation process, in order to get a natural flavor enhancer. But normal Worcester-Sauce is just another mix of spices, without the patented process.
An even more ancient option is "Colatura di Alici" you might get from your italian importer.
I was just about to ask how similar worcestershire sauce is to Garum
Yup! It's actually a blend of fish sauce and molasses.
You just cannot understand how interesting I personally find such things, even though they wouldn't even be foot notes in any history book!
I also love topics like this and previously struggled to find good information. Just as an FYI I ended up getting much of my research from an article in Ancient History Magazine. You can check the whole issue out for yourself as they do a great job: www.karwansaraypublishers.com/ancient-history-magazine/ahm-shop/ahm-8-pdf.html
Yes, thank you!
You can buy on Amazon a special cookbook called
The Roman Cooking of Apicius.
Ancient Roman recipes modernized.check it out. You'd be amazed at how much and what they loved to cover their food with pepper.
Gianluca Borg Which is a crime, in my opinion. This stuff really makes you want to learn about such things.
Actually while Garum itself has died down in the west a descendant of Garum called calatura di alci is still very common in Southern Italy.(It is only used with Pasta however)
Well, you will never eat pasta without it again. It is a natural flavor enhancer. I also use it for risotto or even the marinade of my beef jerky. People can't stop eating, due to the umami taste. I fully understand, why the romans always used it.
@Ben Connor In Italy we use Worcestershire very often as a condiment for steak tartare.
As a Vietnamese i love the moment foreigners cringe their face when they smell the fish sauce just to get immediately hooked after they tasted it with food
It's the same thing with durian. You just have to acquire a taste for it. Then it's not so bad
Sometimes I don't tell them I add fish sauce in the food.
My neighbor and best friend growing up was Vietnamese. I keep a bottle on hand to this day.
*I don't think it's fish sauce so much as shrimp paste that people are mainly disgusted by, starting with many Vietnamese themselves.* To hell with shrimp paste!
to hell with you, because of some foreigners dont like the taste so you disgrace one of the most iconic food item of your cultural?
If I remember correctly Garum was the only source of MSG for centuries so it's no wonder everyone in Rome was addicted to the stuff.
Til much later, when they had parmesan cheese!
Didn’t Ancient Romans have cheese?
@@damian_madmansnest They did I think. I don't know how much msg was naturally in it though.
The closest relative to Garum can actually still be found in Italy, specifically in some parts of Sicily and Campania where they make this out of anchovies only, under the name "colatura di alici"
In the Philippines we have something very similar - Patis
in Bisaya we called it ginamos
Demon Hunter Bagoong would count as well.
Do not forget Dayok ( fish guts)
@Johnny Mechavez I got confused initially when he said patis because my mom and dad both call it ginamos.
My thoughts exactly too
Your combing the two things I love history and food it's perfection.
My Sword is Longer Than Yours the Townsends do 18th and 19th century American Colonial and British cooking for the average person as well as soldiers and nobility, and actually cook the dishes presented in cookbooks
I'll go look at that
These are some of the best videos on youtube right now. I like this even more than military history visualized.
aww thanks, I love the history community that has built itself up on RUclips
MHV is truly great.
Yeah he is, but I think this is actually even better.
You might also like Historia Civilis. He talks mostly about Rome too. Go check it out.
Kings and Generals is just like this channel also.
This is great. It seems nobody talks about different foods from ancient history.
You might be interested in the work of Janet Stephens, a hairdresser who uses her practical expertise to reconstruct Roman hairstyles! She's published a few research papers on the topic, and even makes RUclips tutorials!
I hope that she does not use garum in any of her work.
I have seen her videos! She's great!
When you stopped (or rather slowed down) the making of your documentaries in favor of your new stuff I thought: "meh. It's still really good content, but I would love to see the documentaries back."
Every video since the one on Crassus makes me forget about the documentaries. With the recent videos, you are easily my favorite content creator for historical content.
I've really enjoyed the shift as well since I can cover a lot more diverse topics. It also makes my workload more bite size which helps immensely since I do work full time as an engineer
I just did the maths. The like/dislike ratio on the supply videos are 99.1% and 99.24%
I don't know a single video that is that good. Especially not with these numbers of views.
Indeed, battles are great but supply, culture, morale. All these things were gravely important to an army. Oh there's an idea, make a video on what games or other activities Roman soldiers did when not in combat or not doing stuff like upkeep the camp, did they have cards of sorts, some kind of sport?
I think it's because these topics are less covered or seen than the usual famous battles and tactics covered by a good amount of RUclips channels. Seeing empires or battles from a perspective besides the military point of view is refreshing.
It's very refreshing indeed. I think it's also why I like the channel Historia Civilis so much. When he talks about military campaigns he really goes into the politics behind it. I've never really thought about it until now. In videos about history, there's often the Phrase "To fully understand [a thing] we first have to look at..." Way too often that sounds a bit like a set phrase that's just there to keep your interest in the topic. Talking about supply or especially for the Romans, the politics behind the campaigns really gives this phrase meaning.
Quick follow up on the like ratios: This one is 99.66% WTF is happening. I mean: being over 95% really good actually. But Invicta here can now count after the point. That's really saying something about the appreciation for these videos.
Awesome!! Thai people use it like salt when they cook. This is also why Thai food is delicious. Nam pla translated is fish water. I think Thai’s use it the most preferably over granular salt when cooking and preparing meals. Garum is an amazing ingredient indeed and vital to Thai cuisine. It may have a different aroma to it, but when it’s used for cooking you’ll love it. Flavor flavor flavor!! 🇹🇭🇹🇭🇹🇭🐟🐟🐟
I love these videos you’ve been making It’s refreshing to be looking at the minor details of history rather then just the major events
You have a commentating style that is more comforting and easier to follow than other channels of similar content.
I realy enjoyed this video about basicaly "fishsauce" what I would have never thought to be possible... So Thanks.
"You let it just stank up for about a week" was probably the best line in the video, hah.
I've been loving the videos lately, they give an entirely new perspective on the roman empire that is usually not covered, I think that it is very interesting to learn the things other than conquest too
I absolutely love this series, easily some of your best work and you have alot of great material! Keep up the great work!
I love that when you see a trend in interest you will take the time to make a short video, truely this channel caters to its peoples :D
I love these "everyday moments" type videos. Keep it up. In fact, a request: would you be willing to do some videos on religion in Ancient Rome, mainly Roman beliefs, religious practices and customs, holidays, and a brief overview of the ecclesiastical structure of some of the major cults in Ancient Rome? I've read many of the Greco-Roman myths but I'm wondering how much the stories we hear about Greek/Roman Gods in literature correspond to the actual religious beliefs and practices of the Hellenistic and Roman world.
Keep up the great work good Sir! I've really enjoyed your last few videos on the Roman day to day life. Can't wait for more.
I love the look into historical day-to-day subjects, such as food.....great job
Dude this series is so fucking good! Keep up the good work
Language! This is a pagan server!
Raffulous wouldn't those degenerate pagans be all over that?
Maybe up there in Gaul, but not down here in Rome, thank you very much!
“And let it just stank up for about a week.” Best quote ever, Invicta a.k.a. Boss Ass Historian 🤣 👍🏽
I love those videos, and i definitely want more about everyday life and food videos!
Fascinating! Thanks for making this!
This was a must have snack in the byzantine times as well. They used to eat that with everything.
Fotis Staveris I really wished he would’ve covered what they did with it after it was strained. Did they transport it in barrels and the whole army eat out of a barrel? Did they separate into little clay pots? Today we think of something like 12oz bottles, what did they do?
well to be hinest i have no clue but i stumbled on it while reading about byzantine food. I only found a mention of it frementing under tHe sun on the roofs of Constantinople. So maybe a homemade production??
From the archaeological evidence we have, they separated it into amphorae for the dinner table.
I love learning about Roman culture and other stuff besides the battles and wars of Rome.
VERY HAPPY that you are quoting sources. Bravo, sir. So nice to see an honorable producer here on RUclips.
Informative and great narration! thanks!
Roman patis and bagoong. Yum
I did make jokes about this serie before but that doesn't mean I don't like it. This series is amazing.
I can't believe how high quality this video is, very nice!
Weirdly enough, this one is my favorite video of yours. Keep up the good shit, my guy
I'm going to have to make some Roman recipes for my Vietnamese wife, she'd love it!
Well I have heard from a vietnamese guy: "If you ever have eaten a cup of simple rice with fishsauce, you never eat rice without it anymore". So she probably likes garum. 😉
Frank Neugebauer Ha they might say that but I deffo eat rice without fish sauce
Yeah, my vietnamese friend confirmed, that it is possible to eat rice without fishsauce. It is just fully sensless. 😜
Fish sauce is simply divine on rice. Not a vietnamese myself (Indonesian), but I can personally confirm that fish sauce is bloody amazing.
Frank Neugebauer it is true.
I am from Thailand and we use on almost every dish. Edit Nam Pla mean Water Fish (Fish sauce)
PLEASE DO MORE OF THESE!!!
I love this theme! Thanks for yet another one! Everyone talks about the wars and conquest. This is the good stuff!
I wouldn't mind trying Garum. It sounds good.
Worcestershire sauce is also a fish sauce.
i always wondered how people actually found stuff like this out. I mean they didnt have the knowledge or tech to really understand the processes but still made it work. Not only this but so much other stuff aswell
Beev I guess most earlier fermented products are found accidentally... Then probably by trial and error lol.
Fermentation isn't that big of a leap once people realized salt can be used to preserve food. Don't forget that dough and alcoholic beverages are also fermented products and that fermented fruit can be found in the wild. Plenty of animals like to get drunk on those :).
Surströmming is supposed to have been discovered when cured fish ended up fermenting and people still had to eat it.
Probably a lot of trial and error or just happy circumstances.
Beev even today in science we discover things by mistake
Keep it up man these videos always invoke interest in me
These ancient videos are great, please keep making more!
Make a video on Parthian Chicken a Roman dish
European sailors would rediscover fermented fish sauces in China centuries later, which became the inspiration for all varieties of ketchup
Worcestershire-Sauce was actually such an re-import. I guess the receipe was inspired by indian cuisine.
Actually the guy went to India to get the sauce made but it's not Indian. The recipe was pretty much his. Except it tasted like shit so he left it in the shop and forgot about it for a couple of years.
I remember a video from Townsend and Sons that mentioned one of the earliest "ketchups" was actually made from mushrooms, too.
Not even true. Moron.
The last two videos you made have been the best in your entire series. I think you found something incredibly interesting.
awesome, I'll definitely do more vids on logistics in the future then
These things from the day to day life is what makes history feel more alive. Thank you for the video and keep up the good work!
So salt come from Carthage soil? Oh wait…
Thats a myth, so..
too soon.... even 2000 years later its still too soon.
Andy Quach Hehehehehe.........
Carthago delenda est!
How about a video about how the Ancient Roman's watched TV
Been loving these!
Great videos as always. Keep it up.
To make people understand, think of fish sauce or Worcester sauce. You'd never eat them alone. Yuck. But they're awesome if put in some dishes. Fish sauce is awesome in Thai food, Worcester sauce is great in pies. Well garum was the same.
China... Fails to establish diplomatic relations with Rome... Succeeds in getting a hold of their garum recipe...
China started making fish sauce before Rome was founded.
Pretty sure China had relations with Rome. Trade mostly.
FYI China has been fermenting fish sauce since the Zhou Dynasty (1046 BCE) at the latest, around four centuries before the foundation of Rome (per Varronian chronology).
@joseaca Grow some skin and stop taking a joke seriously.
@joseaca When the context is used as an insult instead of some simple joke. Look at the context of the situation and if it's not harmful then let them joke. Whether you enjoyed it or not, his joke didn't harm nobody so there's that.
Very interesting. Thank you for the video.
Yay!! Another historical video!! Just made my day
Garum is also said to have caused widespread flatworm infection among the ancient Romans
Well, they also loved the taste cooking in lead pots added, so food safety wasn't exactly a thing they understood.
Fat Tiger In truth they knew a herb that helped the body rid itself of PLUMBUM.
The salt didn't kill the worm larva?
I doubt the worm larva could survive this fermentation process. A lot of nonsense is written about roman history. Unfortunately even from tenured professors.
Like the myth that lead poisoning caused the fall of the Roman empire.
Hey Oakley, just wondering if you saw that the Metatron (another history-based channel with a love for the Romans) recently gave you a little shoutout on his channel? If you did see, I think a collab between you two would be awesome!
I love Metraton's channel!
more of this, please!
Love this series.
"CAVE GARUM", lol!
The Ancient Romans brewed this in a CAVE! WITH A BUNCH OF FISH!
Sounds like something you might find graffitted on the wall of a roman pub, as a warning from one customer to those that follow.
CAVE (cah-veh) means "beware", it's mostly famous because it's still used for "cave canem" signs in Italy, or "beware of the dog".
And now you ruined the joke by explaining it.
You're an idiot if you think "everybody knows what cave means". You just wanted an excuse to feel superior over someone
You forgot to mention Worcestershire sauce which contains fermented anchovies, spices etc.
Adoption of chinese recipes by english traders
It's a variant, but could never be used as a substitute in the recreation of an ancient Roman recipe because it contains sugar and molasses (which is made from sugar) and sugar did not exist in ancient Rome. Asian fish sauces instead can be used as a substitute if one wants to cook an ancient Roman recipe.
Excellent content my guy
Thank you for citing your sources!
...that sounds so risky🤔
After that many salts no bacteria cant live in it. It's pretty much "fish vinegar"
Man, 110BC times were scaaary.
why?
They still use this ( or something similar) in South East Asian cuisine, and it's tasty as fuck.
Yeah its a kind of natural alternative of MSG to give savory taste.
Feel the Stirn I just feel that at the time, it couldn't have been very sanitary
It was much more sanitary than 1500 years ago
maybe but keep in mind that the amount of salt used makes it harder for nasty bacteria to survive in those barrels.
More of stuff like this, please! amazing. :)
Wow incredible history rarely spoken about. Thank you!
*In the USA, Garum is known as Worcestershire Sauce.*
How would aurochs taste like I wonder... 🤔
probably similar to wisent or cow that aren't particularly bred for their meat (there's different breeds, that's why I'm not calling it "beef")
hmmmmm yummmm
Malsawmzuala Mesa They'd have that same off taste that bulls have, but worse since aurochs had higher testosterone levels. There's a reason that most meat cattle are castrated (aside from just keeping them more docile, which for people who work with them like I do, is a big help).
That was a delicious video. More!
What a fun video!! Thank you!!
"Died down in the West"
Lies
Worcestershire Sauce
confusedwhale Well, you don't see it relatively everywhere, do you?
Joshua Fogg:
It's added to a lot of things, but most people don't notice it because they don't care too much.
It did die down. They didn’t invent the Worcestershire sauce until the late 19th century
Love it. Thank you so much for this, more on food and daily life! :)
This is the best video I've ever seen on Garum.
Something I would never try but still very interesting! Please do more on subjects like this.
love those kind of videos
Thank god Invicta has returned to these kind of short documentaries concerning the Romans. Thank you humbly
I really like examining the human elements of history. Hope you do more stuff like this.
excellent job!!!
Excellent, widely shared!
I really like these videos on Roman cuisine! They're incredibly facinating
Great video, really, awesome graphics and good contents. as an italian, I love to see videos that talk about my culture, in the peninsula is full of ruins of garum's factories, and it's great how our cousine is really bounded to the romans. Very interesting topic, keep going!
I really enjoytgis channel. Thanks
At least Rome 2's music is in the video =)
Great episode by the way.
thank you for this because I'm definitely gonna try making it
EXCELLENT video as always. Super interesting and very well exlplained. I always wondered how exactly they made garum, but there it is, I have my answer.
I'll definitely need to try that out one day! Thanks :)
I wanna try making my own garum. Been craving it ever since I learned about it.
Nice video ! Ever since I first learn about garum I've wondered how it's made. Now I only wonder how it tastes...
I LOVE THESE VIDEOS!
It's still made in italy today around Amalfi. It's called Colatura di alici di Cetara and it's a bit different in recipe since it's mostly made with anchovies today and not other varieties.
I'm never disappointed in your videos
I love the design of that factory at 5:01
Cool Video!!
Very well done