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Culinary detectives try to recover the formula for garum
- Vox_Leone 5y agoI like to think that Garum tasted roughly like the modern-day calabrese Sardella. At least in my imagination. For reference: https://www.italiannotebook.com/food-wine/sardella-calabrian-caviar/ https://www.italiannotebook.com/food-wine/sardella-calabrian...
- Grustaf 5y agoClearly it's garum day on HN.
- rackjack 5y agoSide note, I found this channel the other day: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsDUyQI88LLvpu9RCevwQEA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsDUyQI88LLvpu9RCevwQEA Which I thought was quite entertaining.
- jonny_eh 5y agoMay I recommend this other channel I enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/c/TastingHistory https://www.youtube.com/c/TastingHistory
- AStrangeMorrow 5y agoYes! Speaking of that channel, he did a video on garum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S7Bb0Qg-oE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S7Bb0Qg-oE
- dang 5y agoOngoing related thread: I made my own garum - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29011872 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29011872 - Oct 2021 (96 comments)
- celeduc 5y agoI was astonished that the production of garum was so central to the economy in the Mediterranean, and how it disappeared completely. I had never heard of it until I visited Empúries. I can only imagine how it must have smelled to produce it at an industrial scale.
- k__ 5y agoBack in the days, spices were scarce and fish abundant. I guess, if you wanted to eat something that tasted good, Garum was the way.
- phonypc 5y ago>disappeared completely Not really. It evolved into things like Worcestershire, ketchup and a bunch of less known sauces. Colatura di alici is probably closest in spirit to the Roman preparation.
- wayoutthere 5y agoLink to tweet storm from an archaeologist who created a recipe here: https://twitter.com/lostsupper/status/1453003368725717000 https://twitter.com/lostsupper/status/1453003368725717000
- sandworm101 5y ago>> Too much salt stops autolysis altogether; too little invites botulism. >>Our garum is very salty, very concentrated Yup. Salt was very expensive in Roman times. (It is linked to "salary" for good reason.) I'd bet money that nobody today would dare sell or even make something anywhere close to the actual ancient product, the cheap low-salt stuff used by normal people. Botulism is not something to toy around with.
- Mikeb85 5y agoWell meat/fish have always been scarce enough to be high cost as well. So using salt to preserve them is a good use of it. In many poor regions of the world salted fish products are the dominant animal protein.
- schwartzworld 5y agoPlus, this was for making a condiment. You don't lose the salt, it still gets added to your food before you eat it.
- Mikeb85 5y agoExactly. If salt is scarce, cutting it into a condiment is a great way to stretch it and use it.
- phonypc 5y agoThere's no indication that low-salt garum was a thing. That would just be horribly spoiled fish juice. People probably weren't in the habit of consuming things that reliably made them sick or dead.
- PinguTS 5y agoThe article is from the future. Smithsonian is for time travel. The article states it is November 2021.
- not2b 5y agoIt's common for printed magazines to carry dates that are a month or two after the magazine is actually printed, because that was when subscribers would get their copy or it would appear on the news stand. I think this became common so buyers wouldn't think they were getting an old issue.
- jonny_eh 5y agoTrue, I recall regularly getting Nintendo Power a month "early", which felt great.
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