[Sca-cooks] Apicius question(s)

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius adamantius1 at verizon.net
Tue Nov 3 12:55:52 PST 2009


On Nov 3, 2009, at 3:23 PM, lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:

> I recently purchased Jonathan Edward's OOP translation for $1.99 -  
> shipping was $4.99 (!). He's no better than Vehling, just different  
> - harder to find, though, which is why i got it. Probably worth the  
> $6.98 to me just because i'm something of a completist, but not a  
> book i would recommend to anyone. For example, Edwards routinely  
> substitutes rosemary for rue! Not a good substitute, not that i can  
> think of a good substitute, but certainly not rosemary.

I STR Edwards also doing a fair amount of sauteeing in butter, which  
as I recall Apicius mentions doing... not at all.

> Anyway, substitute asafoedita for laser & sylphium/sylphion.

If you can get to an Indian market, what you want is called hing powder.

The problem with Vehling is he tried not only to translate Apicius  
(and his scholarship in this is probably no better than that of most  
people whose education prepared them for a career as professional  
chef) but in several cases to "improve" upon Apicius, based on his  
education and experience as a chef. Unfortunately, that means there is  
probably almost as much of Escoffier in the edition as there is  
Apicius. I'm sure it is viable food; just not necessarily viable first- 
century Roman food.

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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