[Sca-cooks] roman feast / Apicius

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius adamantius1 at verizon.net
Sat Mar 22 22:22:55 PDT 2008


On Mar 23, 2008, at 12:47 AM, Terry Decker wrote:
>> You might take a look and see if there's lentils in them thar hills.
>> They may not be in "Cooking Apicius", but I'm pretty sure they're in
>> Apicius.
>>
>
> Lentils are definitely in Apicius.

Yep, I remember cooking them with chestnuts from one of the Apician  
recipes. I just wasn't sure if there were any translation issues (i.e.  
were these really supposed to be chick peas, say) between the F&R  
edition and this new one (which I have, but not consulted on this  
specific issue yet), or whether lentils simply aren't among the, what,  
65 recipes (or however many it is) represented in Grainger's book.

>> Tracta appear to be a primitive dried pasta, like dry lasagne, made
>> from soaked, kneaded spelt (is it spelt or emmer? The soft one, not
>> the hard one).
>>
>> Adamantius
>
> Emmer.  Spelt  is the hard one.

Thanks! I knew one was hard and needed to be at least partially ground  
before cooking, and the other was softish, like glutinous rice, and  
could basically be crushed by hand if soaked long enough. Has anyone  
ever used emmer in beer, I wonder? I bet it would convert beautifully.

Adamantius

"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,  
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's  
bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter



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