We cannot affirm that human’s taste has always been constant over the centuries and millennia. We remain astonished at how our tastes differ from our ancestors every time we read the De Re Coquinaria (The Culinary Art), a famous ancient Roman recipe book. It is a sort of Artusi of the time, perhaps inspired in the fourth century to the prescriptions of the great gastronomist Apicius (I sec.). 

An example of this change in taste is the success of a fish sauce of Greek origin, the garum, which was a big hit on the tables and at banquets of imperial Rome.

Several Latin writers mention it while Gargilio Martial provides a rough recipe, in the III century. It is a fluid sauce (liquamen) derived from the fermentation of fish entrails and dried fish, with the addition of salt. It was a condiment for plenty of dishes. The Coena Trimalcyonis of the “Satyricon” (36, 3), perhaps the work of Petronius, the Arbiter Elegantiarum at Nero’s court, describes the garum that, with the pepper, seasons an enormous and elaborate tray of hare and fish.However, not all the Romans appreciated this ‘tasty sauce’. The philosopher Seneca, in a letter to Lucilius (XV, 95, 25), lashes out against the garum, the sauce that comes from Spain. He asks, “Do you not realize that garum, that expensive bloody mass of decayed fish, consumes the stomach with its salted putrefaction?” Even the poet Martial, who was in Rome at the time of Nero and the Flavians, author of famous “Epigrams”, criticises (III, 77, 5) the uses of the “putris hallec“, that is of putrid anchovies, in food. Elsewhere (XI, 27, 2) he ironizes with his friend Flacco, able to resist the breath emanating from a girl who drank six ciati (about 0.30 lit) helpings of garum!

Garum manufacturers were almost everywhere in the provinces of the empire, but the most famous and expensive sauce was the “Garum Sociorum”, produced in Spain and described by Pliny the Elder (Nat. Hist. 31, 93-94), the naturalist who died during the eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii in 79 AD. Now Pompeii, a unique archaeological reality in the world, deserves a closer look.

The garum trade was a very prosperous business in Pompeii, and here Aulus Umbricius Scaurus founded the true manufacture of sauce. Numerous murals and amphorae still show us its importance. I remember some of them published in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, a monumental collection of Latin inscriptions designed and edited largely by Mommsen. Here are some examples: “the best Garum of Scauro mackerel, in the Ninhtus workshop” (CIL IV, 5692). “Selected Hallex” (CIL IV, 5717); “Pure Mackerel Garum produced by (Umbricia) Fortunata” (CIL IV, 5662); “the very best of Garum produced by Sallustio” (CIL IV, 5673). These are just some of the Pompeian inscriptions that bear witness to the flourishing local production of that condiment. There were surely other workshops, in addition to the primary one of Umbricio Scauro, evidently thriving following the success of this business. The most recent Pompeian excavations have also brought to light other manufactures, however of a more domestic nature. For example, they have identified two manufacturers near Porta Stabia and near the Teatro Grande.

To conclude this brief excursus on the garum, we propose the translation of the recipe for the sauce handed down to us by Gargilio Martial. He is the author of a treatise on agriculture. Some extracts of that work are preserved in a later text entitled “Medicina”, based on the work by Pliny the Elder (Ed. Valentin Rose, Leipzig, Teubner 1875, p. 210). 

“Use those fatty fish such as sardines and mackerel and add the entrails of various fish, in the proportion of one to three. Use a well-pitched tank, with a capacity of about 30 litres. On the bottom of the tank, make a layer of dried aromatic herbs with an intense flavour such as dill, coriander, fennel, celery, mint, pepper, saffron and oregano. On this base, lay the entrails and all the small fish, and cut the larger ones into smaller pieces. Spread over a layer of salt, two fingers high. Continue until you reach the top of the container. Let it sit in the sun for seven days. Stir frequently for another twenty days. In the end, you will get a rather dense liquid, which is exactly the Garum. It will last a long time”.

ANNA CAFISSI