[Sca-cooks] Smithsonian article on garum

Sam Wallace guillaumedep at gmail.com
Fri Nov 12 04:54:50 PST 2021


Hello,

I'm curious as to whether anyone here has checked out the Tasting History
episode about garum or tried to make some themselves for that matter. It's
on my to-do list now that I have a place with no near-by neighbors.

With kind regards,

Guillaume

**********************
"Modern" fish sauces (Thai, Vietnamese,etc.) also smell like fish-based wet
cat food.

Margaret (who has not tried wet cat food of any sort, but the cat was
REALLY interested the last time I used fish sauce)

On Sun, Oct 31, 2021 at 10:05 AM Joel Lord <jpl at ilk.org> wrote:

> The product they are selling based on this work is available on Amazon,
> my bottle got here a few days ago.  We have not yet tried it in food,
> but it smells like fish-based wet cat food, and a toothpick dipped in
> for a taste tastes just like it smells.  It it a massive punch of umami,
> and used in moderation I'm hoping it's not just cat food.
>
> -Joel
>
> On 10/31/2021 8:10 AM, Sandra J. Kisner wrote:
> > It gets off to a bad start, using phrases like " And garum hardly sounds
> like something that would tempt 21st-century taste buds. Many recipes that
> survive from antiquity call for allowing fish to putrefy in open vats
under
> the Mediterranean sun for up to three months" and " for most scholars, the
> lesson of garum (pronounced gah-room) has been that the past inhabited by
> Roman gourmands-known to eat sow udders, ostrich brains and roasted
dormice
> rolled in honey-was an unimaginably foreign country."  It does get better,
> however.  Whether it's good I'll leave to those who know more about the
> period than I do.
> >
> >
>
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/recoving-the-recipe-for-garum-180978846/
> >
> > Sandra


More information about the Sca-cooks mailing list