[Sca-cooks] Smithsonian article on garum

[Terry Decker]

The closest modern relative to garum is nuoc mam, the Vietnamese fish oil.  It is not generally used straight from the bottle but is combined with other ingredients to make sauces.  In the European world, the equivalent is Worcestershire sauce, whose base is fermented anchovies and has the other ingredients blended into it.  The taste falls into umami and would likely be best used as a base for enhancing flavor rather than as a stand alone sauce.

The choice of the word "putrefy" suggests rotting which the process is not.  Salt controls the breakdown of the fish promoting fermentation rather than putrefaction (as is described in a quote later in the article).  The stench was probably still incredible, although not as bad as the actual putrefaction one finds upstream at the end of a salmon run.

The article also uses "liquimen" as synonymous with garum.  I will forgive them the error as it commonly made in Ancient Rome.

According to Curtis (Curtis, Robert I., Garum and Salsamenta; E.J.Brill, Leiden, 1991.), Roman fish sauces come in four forms; garum, allec, liquamen and muria.  Garum is the liquid decanted from a couple of months of salted, fermenting fish.  Allec is the residue left after the garum is removed.  Liquamen seems to be a sauce leeched from fermenting fish (apparently similar to modern fish sauces like Worchestershire).  And muria is a somewhat broadly defined term to refer to salt solutions extracted from or used to preserve meats, fruits and vegetables.

For a little more information, here are a couple other quotes from a message to the list many years ago.  A more complete exchange can likely be found in the Florilegium in the garum message of the Condiments section.

"...all salted fish were included under the word salsamenta.
 
Manufacturers did not waste any part of the fish, but used everything, such as the tail, stomach, neck or head.  The innards, gills, and any other parts normally considered refuse also had a use; these were made into fish sauce.  The Romans produced four different sauces:  garum, liquamen, allec and muria. Garum was the primary product, while allec (Pl 1b), the sediment created in making garum, was of secondary importance.  The Roman penchant for using the terms liquamen and muria imprecisely renders illusive a firm understanding of these products.  The former term, which probably designated a sauce distinct from garum, acquired before the fifth century A.D. almost generic value for any fish sauce, while the latter was a word sometimes used to mean garum and at other times to signify the liquid used in making garum or in packing salted fish products in vessels for transport."
 
Curtis, Robert I., Garum and Salsamenta, production and commerce in materia medica; E.J. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands, 1991, pg. 7.
 
"The appearance of ancient sauces is unknown, although the carmelized residue of what was probably garum has been found in a Roman saltery at Plomarc'h in Western Gaul and the bones of small fish found in the dolia in Pompeii may be the dessicative remains of allec (PL 1b).  From this and from numerous epigraphical and literary references one can postulate that ancient garum was a clear liquid; allec, the residue, was no doubt a mushy paste-like substance containing fish bones and other undissolved fish material. Exactly what liquamen was remains unclear.  When viewed as a
product distinct from garum, its appearance most likely resembled that of garum, but as a liquid it was probably weaker in salinity and color.  Muria, the solution resulting from salting fish, was probably similar to that of liquamen."
 
Curtis, Robert I., Garum and Salsamenta, production and commerce in materia medica; E.J. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands, 1991, pg. 14.

Bear

On 10/31/2021 7:10:10 AM, Sandra J. Kisner <sjk3 at cornell.edu> 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