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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 :)
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: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PYgJNlJ0428.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?
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
*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!
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
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.
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.
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.
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"
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
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 RU-vid tutorials!
Fun fact: My ancient history teacher actually MADE garum. It took like the entire senior year because he kept fucking it up, he had all these stories about trying to protect it from his cats... And then he brought it in at the end of the year. He wouldn't let us actually eat it for OBVIOUS reasons, but he did open it and let us smell 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. 😉
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??
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.
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 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.
In using Eastern sause, you might want to check for only fish,salt and water in the ingredients. Other ingredients are generally added after the first extract to compensate flavor.
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.
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 RU-vid 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.
Writer Steven Saylor wrote an Ancient Roman mystery centered around garum: "Something Fishy in Pompeii." It's in his collection "A Gladiator Dies Only Once."
I doubt the worm larva could survive this fermentation process. A lot of nonsense is written about roman history. Unfortunately even from tenured professors.
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'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
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.
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!
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.
This video was a nice surprise: the city where I'm from (Cádiz/Gades) used to be one of the biggest garum producers. I'm also an hour away from Baelo Claudia, which I think was even a bigger garum producer. You can still see the garum factory among the ruins!
I had a professor who was an archaeologist working in Italy and the only extra credit you could get in the class was from eating bread dipped in garum during a certain event. I soaked my bread with so much garum she gave me even more extra credit. It wasn't that bad, it tasted like a mix of anchovies and soy sauce.
The Museum Of Barcelona has a superbly preserved Garum factory you can actually walk around. It is well worth a visit to those interested in Roman history.
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).
This is a wonderful way to use up an entire fish, as opposed to throwing away fish guts! I am glad you showed us the process how this was made, but l also want to know how the ancients enjoyed this condiment. I saw a documentary and l got the impression they used garum for pretty much everything, similar to how Asians can use light soy sauce (my fave, boiled or stovetop cooked egg with lots of pepper and a small amount of soy sauce, it's a super salty condiment). The ancients had limited means that preserve food. Salt was the primary preservative. I can see them packing fresh caught fish packed into barrels full of salt. Of course today ice and refrigeration eliminates that practice
You forgot to mention that garum was popular because fermented fish sauce was the only way for romans to produce monosodium glutamate, the savory taste enhancer that you often find in industrial snacks and American-Chinese restaurant food. In it's chemical form, it can cause headaches and nausea (the "Chinese restaurant syndrome"). Romans were so addicted to garum that they even used it on sorbet and other desserts.
Actually garum surived in the eastern Roman empire as Halmuris and after the Arabic conquest as Al-Murri. Murri eventually evolved in to something very similar to modern Japanese miso paste and shoyu, made exclusively by barley and spices. The antique Persian use of fish sauce has survived into modern times as Mahyawa.
I love these episodes, sharing how the life was, besides the battles and military feats. I have an idea for you: what happened AFTER a battle? Did they collected the weapons and armor ? Would they repair anything? Bury the combatants or burn them ? How did the soldiers carry and store their loot ? Slaves captured ?
Something I read a long time ago claimed that Ketchup started out as a fermented fish sauce. Then became a general term for any kind of topping. Don't know how accurate it was though. A lot of anthropology is estimated guesswork.
In southern Italy, specifically in Cetara, they do what's basically a carbon copy of this sauce. It's called "colatura di alici" and it's made with anchovies. Same process, roughly same ingredients and same result.
The fermentation process basically produces MSG, which is a specific salty thing that makes things taste delicious. Now days you can simply buy MSG and sprinkle it on your food, no putrefaction and accompanying rancid fish smell required.
We have a sauce called bagoong and it's almost like the garum, even identical. It's mainly anchovies and salt fermented for weeks if not months. On the other hand, we also have the patis, similar to the bottled ones in Vietnam.
I once heard that the reason for the popularity a condiment of such extremely strong flavor was that the lead pipes which were used for plumbing would have contributed to a reduced sense of taste.
In Indonesia, the garum-like sauce is called 'trassi' with the 'a' pronounced as 'a' in 'arm' and the 'i' pronounced as 'ley' in 'Wembley Stadium'. It is very common and broadly available.
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!
Really interesting learning about Garum, I have to say finding out about Kosher Garum was a complete surprise to me. As a Jew I never put much thought to the food aspect of Rome's cultural impact on Judaism.
I was reading a book on India, and apparently, Pliny the Elder wrote about the trade between India, and Rome. It was estimated by him, that Rome spent all the gold in mined in Iberia on spices, mostly pepper from India, and in some cooks books pepper was called for in 350/500 dishes, and this made it expensive so only the wealthy could generally use it, even though Pliny himself disliked pepper, which makes it a little funny to read.
A month is way on the low end (time wise). Also, the first layer is salt, then fish, then herbs, then fish, then salt (etc.). Most Garum sat for a minimum of two months, sometimes as much as half a year. It is pretty good stuff on meat.
