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Amazing! Garum was the backbone of many economies back in the day, perhaps it’s time for a renaissance?

marginalia_nu 5y ago
> perhaps it’s time for a renaissance I'm not sure if this was intentional, but if it was, well played. Anyway it's interesting how many times fish fermentation (seemingly independently) seems to have cropped up in various cultures. A bit strange, since you have to be pretty dang hungry before you even go close to a fermenting fish.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
AHabe 5y ago
You could argue that in the Anglosphere, Worcestershire sauce is a modern version since it often includes fermented anchovies.
- anfractuosity 5y ago
  There's a little video that shows inside the Lea & Perrins factory, with barrels of salted anchovies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WSiQAVzT1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WSiQAVzT1c
  - AHabe 5y ago
    That's amazing, thank you very much!
  - Symbiote 5y ago
    My grandfather said his first job (as an apprentice) was measuring the Lea and Perrins factory for new mixing vats. It looks like they've replaced them again, since that time. And couldn't they have told the scientist that it's "Worcestershire Sauce" and not "Worcester Sauce"? Worcestershire is the county, Worcester is the largest city in that county. At least it's pronounced correctly. Worcester/Worcestershire rhyme with Leicester/Leicestershire, and pronunciation of "Leicester" should be familiar to Americans as the personal name "Lester". ("Wuster" hasn't caught on yet.) -cester as a suffix to a place name is from the Latin castrum, meaning fort – these were Roman settlements.
    - noduerme 5y ago
      "Worcester" violates practically every convention of English spelling and pronunciation. Is there any other word in which "rce" even appears, let alone is silent? [edit] Farce. Faaaaaa. Larceny. Lonnie?
      - Grustaf 5y ago
        "rce" is not a syllable here, so it's not that relevant. It's Wor + cester, and cester is always pronounced ster. So it's actually not very surprising.
        kadoban 5y ago
        Silent "ce" isn't really any less surprising to me. Where would I otherwise know this rule for "cester" from?
        Grustaf 5y ago
        It's not really that "ce is silent", it's that cester is pronounced "ster". It's extremely common in languages that long, old roots like that are elided in speak - in French they basically always elide the last syllable! cester/caster/chester (from castrum, meaning fort/castle) is a very common place name ending in English and the cester variant is almost always pronounced ster. Think Leicester, Gloucester, Worcester.
      - zimpenfish 5y ago
        `egrep '^[a-z].*rce' /usr/share/dict/words | grep -v "'s" | wc` gives 157 for me but there's a lot of duplication - probably comes down to about 35 base words from a quick eyeball.
      - nicoburns 5y ago
        There are plenty of other place names that end in -cester pronounced as -ster: gloucester, leicester, bicester. It's somewhat of a rule itself. wor sounding more like woo is just the local accent I think.
- avereveard 5y ago
  if you go that route, ketchup share a very similar lineage as well, albeit it picked up more transformations along the way, it still carries the name as legacy.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  And Japan has katsuobushi, which comes in dried blocks, but it's ultimately fermented tuna and is used all the time as soup stock.
Symmetry 5y ago
I wonder what made it stop. Just centuries of regional specialization that were quickly wiped out when long distance bulk trade went away when the Roman Empire collapsed?

> perhaps it’s time for a renaissance I'm not sure if this was intentional, but if it was, well played. Anyway it's interesting how many times fish fermentation (seemingly independently) seems to have cropped up in various cultures. A bit strange, since you have to be pretty dang hungry before you even go close to a fermenting fish.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

AHabe 5y ago

You could argue that in the Anglosphere, Worcestershire sauce is a modern version since it often includes fermented anchovies.

anfractuosity 5y ago
There's a little video that shows inside the Lea & Perrins factory, with barrels of salted anchovies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WSiQAVzT1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WSiQAVzT1c
- AHabe 5y ago
  That's amazing, thank you very much!
- Symbiote 5y ago
  My grandfather said his first job (as an apprentice) was measuring the Lea and Perrins factory for new mixing vats. It looks like they've replaced them again, since that time. And couldn't they have told the scientist that it's "Worcestershire Sauce" and not "Worcester Sauce"? Worcestershire is the county, Worcester is the largest city in that county. At least it's pronounced correctly. Worcester/Worcestershire rhyme with Leicester/Leicestershire, and pronunciation of "Leicester" should be familiar to Americans as the personal name "Lester". ("Wuster" hasn't caught on yet.) -cester as a suffix to a place name is from the Latin castrum, meaning fort – these were Roman settlements.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    "Worcester" violates practically every convention of English spelling and pronunciation. Is there any other word in which "rce" even appears, let alone is silent? [edit] Farce. Faaaaaa. Larceny. Lonnie?
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      "rce" is not a syllable here, so it's not that relevant. It's Wor + cester, and cester is always pronounced ster. So it's actually not very surprising.
      - kadoban 5y ago
        Silent "ce" isn't really any less surprising to me. Where would I otherwise know this rule for "cester" from?
        Grustaf 5y ago
        It's not really that "ce is silent", it's that cester is pronounced "ster". It's extremely common in languages that long, old roots like that are elided in speak - in French they basically always elide the last syllable! cester/caster/chester (from castrum, meaning fort/castle) is a very common place name ending in English and the cester variant is almost always pronounced ster. Think Leicester, Gloucester, Worcester.
    - zimpenfish 5y ago
      `egrep '^[a-z].*rce' /usr/share/dict/words | grep -v "'s" | wc` gives 157 for me but there's a lot of duplication - probably comes down to about 35 base words from a quick eyeball.
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      There are plenty of other place names that end in -cester pronounced as -ster: gloucester, leicester, bicester. It's somewhat of a rule itself. wor sounding more like woo is just the local accent I think.
avereveard 5y ago
if you go that route, ketchup share a very similar lineage as well, albeit it picked up more transformations along the way, it still carries the name as legacy.
Grustaf 5y ago
And Japan has katsuobushi, which comes in dried blocks, but it's ultimately fermented tuna and is used all the time as soup stock.

Symmetry 5y ago

I wonder what made it stop. Just centuries of regional specialization that were quickly wiped out when long distance bulk trade went away when the Roman Empire collapsed?