Garum

I'm going to be speaking with Sally Granger, who's a specialist in the, well, bit in your camp, Tom, that the food of the ancient world, especially Rome.

So I'm going to be looking at... anchovies in the Roman occupation, during the Roman occupation, and of course, manufacturing of garum and things like that.

So I've never really looked at the Roman occupation for my podcast or anything.

So that's going to be really interesting.

But the empire's development and the fact that it replaced salt in mostly plain and uninspired cooking of the time made it an indispensable sauce in Roman cuisine.

To meet demand, which had increased within just a few decades, garum was manufactured in industrial quantities on all the empire's shores.

Garum received an appellation according to the category of fish it came from.

Today, garum is still used a long way from Rome, in Asia, where it is called gnoccman.

The Romans also had a weakness for poultry.

Olives, olive oil, figs, dates, grapes, lentils, chickpeas, various grains, bread, cheese, eggs, fish, shellfish, and above all, garum.

The fermented fish sauce that was to Roman cooking what soy sauce is to East Asian cuisine.

Garum was manufactured on an industrial scale in Pompeii.

The fish, typically anchovies or mackerel, were layered with salt and herbs in large stone vats and left to ferment in the sun for weeks.

The resulting liquid was strained, bottled, and shipped across the empire.

The distinctive post-asparagus urine smell might be awkward, but it's a harmless curiosity, a reminder that what we eat doesn't just nourish us but can produce unexpected effects, detected or not, depending on our individual genetics.

Ancient Romans loved garum.

Garum was a fermented fish sauce beloved throughout the Roman Empire, used as ubiquitously as salt.

Made from fish, intestines and blood mixed with salt and left to ferment in the sun for months, garum underwent enzymatic breakdown that created a clear, amber liquid with a complex, savoury flavour.

Romans added garum to nearly everything.

They provide savory depth and salt to dishes.

The techniques and products are remarkably similar across time and geography, showing how different cultures independently discovered that fermented fish creates an indispensable flavoring.

Garum disappeared from European cuisine after Rome's fall, though it persisted in modified forms in parts of the Mediterranean.