[Sca-cooks] a sampling of ancient Roma
Terry Decker
t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net
Sun Oct 2 06:20:35 PDT 2005
I got curious about this recipe because it is more complex than Cato's
Savillum and doesn't match the white tort recipes I've seen. Also the
addition of orange to a Roman recipe is a red flag on the historical
accuracy.
The recipe appears on the Antique Roman Cookery in February 1999. The
author has this to say about it:
"In a message dated 2/5/99 4:42:46 AM Central Standard Time,
hibou at ... writes:
> Where is this recipe from? It includes oranges which AFAIK were unknown
> to the ancient Romans.
This was adapted from a recipe mentioned in a book I read, which cited Pliny
as the reference. I admit I have been unable to find it in any of Pliny's
works, but it is still a tasty (if smelly) cheesecake. I did adapt it
slightly for modern use - I used orange instead of pomegrante because
pomegranate is diffilcult to get in all parts of the US. Lemon was known at
that time -although it was probably more bitter than what we use now.
Nodigio"
The problem with this response is Pliny doesn't give recipes (other than by
accident) and I don't remember any references to cheesecake. The most
commonly quoted Roman cheesecake recipe is from Cato and is much simpler
than this recipe. From the available evidence, I would say the recipe does
not represent a true Roman recipe.
Bear
> Greetings Alexa,
>
> I've lost track of my source for that feta cheesecake - It was a website
> that I was darned sure I had bookmarked. I'll see if I can track it down
> for you, though...
>
> Aurelia
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