[Sca-cooks] satura
Ursula Georges
ursula at tutelaries.net
Sat Dec 11 13:05:40 PST 2010
The fourth-century grammarian Diomedes quotes the earlier Roman writer
Varro on the subject of a food called "satura", which might be the
origin of our word "satire". One book on satire translates the passage
as follows:
http://books.google.com/books?id=VvObMS6AtwgC&pg=PA58#v=onepage&q&f=false
"Or else satura comes from a certain kind of stuffing which Varro says
had this name applied to it because it had many ingredients. There is
also this observation in the second book of his Plautine Inquiries:
'Satura is raisins, barley, and pinenuts sprinkled with winehoney
[sic]'. Others add pomegranate seeds to these ingredients."
I've seen some writers speculating that satura was a cake or a sausage,
but "stuffing" sounds like a good use of these ingredients to me. Has
anybody made an interpretation of satura? Does anyone have good ideas
for what the Romans might have stuffed with this mixture?
Ursula Georges.
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