[Sca-cooks] Apicius birds stuff with olives

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Stefan li Rous:
>Johnnae replied to me with:
>>The recipe says "boil" so in this case the cook chose
>>to put some seasonings into the water. They look like ordinary
>>stock ingredients to me intended to flavor the plain water.
>
>Well, yes. That was my assumption. However, the original recipe 
>doesn't mention them. Does that mean adding  them to the recipe 
>makes it inauthentic? That was the reason for my comment that this 
>gets into the philosophy of redacting. I suspect different folks are 
>going to have different opinions on this. I note that Master 
>Cariadoc later today in the pasta thread questions the use of salt 
>since it isn't mentioned in the original recipe there.

The addition of what looks like modern French-technique aromatics 
(celery, onion, carrot, bay leaf) is probably just that: modern. 
After what was a pretty quick search, I can't find any specific 
instructions in Apicius for adding anything to the water when boiling 
meats, but I'd be a lot more comfortable adding salt than I would be 
adding mirepoix vegetables, under the circumstances.

>>As to olives, there are at least a couple dozen books on olives
>>on the market. I am afraid I don't own enough of those to tell you which
>>or what
>>olives would be most like those found in Classical Rome that
>>Apicius might have used, how similiar those are to modern olives,
>>and what that all means when shopping at the local mega mart in Texas.
>
>Well, this was an open question to everyone here. I'd hoped that 
>someone else might have some more direct experience with olives. The 
>mega marts here don't usually have a large variety of olives, 
>although there are some stores such as Central Market or some Middle 
>Eastern ethnic stores which have a fairly wide range of olives. 
>Still, my main question was less on a particular type of processed 
>olive to use and more on whether an unprocessed "fresh" olive 
>would/could have been used. Those olive books you mention may or may 
>not be of much use on whether olives in the Classical world were 
>used unprocessed or what their recipes meant by "fresh". If the 
>"fresh" olives leave a bitter taste, I could see where they might 
>still be used. But if they are inedible, that could be different. I 
>could see where they might be used in stuffing a chicken, even if 
>inedible, and still not make the chicken inedible since they are 
>being removed and discarded. Comments anyone? Perhaps its time to go 
>back and review the comments in my olives-msg file. :-)
>
>However, I am also unlikely to find unprocessed olives here. Still, 
>assuming the recipe is asking for processed olives only because I 
>can't get unprocessed ones, doesn't sound like a good process.

Here's what Cato the Elder has to say about processing olives (he has 
a lot to say about growing, picking and storing them, but here's 
where it starts to become relevant) -- I plucked this off a webbed 
translation of De Agricultura to save some typing:

>Conserving Lentils and Olives
>116. How you should preserve lentils. Dissolve silphium in vinegar, 
>soak the lentils in the silphium-vinegar, and stand them in the sun. 
>Then rub the lentils with oil, let them dry, and they will keep 
>quite sound.
>
>117. How green olives are conserved. Before they turn black, they 
>are to be broken and put into water. The water is to be changed 
>frequently. When they have soaked sufficiently they are drained, put 
>into vinegar, and oil is added.one half lb. salt to 1 peck olives. 
>Fennel and lentisk are put up separately in vinegar. When you decide 
>to mix them in, use quickly. Pack in preserving-jars. When you wish 
>to use, take with dry hands.
>
>118. Conserve green olives that you wish to use after the vintage 
>thus: add equal parts must and vinegar; otherwise, conserve as 
>described.
>
>119. Green, black or mixed olive relish to be made thus. Remove 
>stones from green, black or mixed olives, then prepare as follows: 
>chop them and add oil, vinegar, coriander, cumin, fennel, rue, mint. 
>Put in a preserving-jar: the oil should cover them. Ready to use.

I'd look at #117, for chicken-stuffing purposes, or if I were just 
going and getting commercially prepared olives, my main advice would 
be to avoid canned black olives, and look for those brined kalamatas, 
or maybe even better, those little Moroccan oil-cured ones that look 
like black prunes (which are also the easiest olive to pit, in my 
experience). You also sometimes find cracked olives; I think these 
are slashed through the skin down to the pit to allow for a 
quicker/better transfer of narsty chemicals in the olive, and 
better-tasting curing agents such as salt and wine.

>
>>I'd suggest experimenting with perhaps chicken breasts and
>>a variety of olives until you find a combination you find pleasing.
>
>Yes, if I can come up with evidence that it is likely a processed 
>olive which is meant. I may find though,  that stuffing the chicken 
>with olives has little effect upon the chicken, no matter what type 
>of olive is used. :-)

Maybe, but then what would be the point of doing it and then removing 
them? You pretty much need to strongly consider the possibility that 
the olives will at least flavor the bird. Another possibility is that 
the Romans, who mostly ate with their hands, and usually only one 
hand, at that, might need to remove the olives from the bird's body 
cavity, if only to get at them more easily.

>Perhaps the olives are removed after cooking because the olives are 
>the unprocessed and inedible. Actually leaving the olives in the 
>chicken is cooked and serving them that way sounds like it might be 
>rather good, at least for processed olives. Especially with some 
>added cheese. But maybe the roasting juices do something to the 
>olives which makes it better to remove them.

It's possible, although technically, a boiled bird has no roasting 
juices. But I agree with the general idea ;-).

Adamantius
-- 




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them 
eat cake!"
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
	-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry 
Holt, 07/29/04