How to Roast Lamb in the Byzantine Fashion

I used boneless leg of lamb, but any kind of roast should do fine.


3 lb. lamb roast
2 t powdered coriander
1/2 t powdered spikenard (See below)
salt
pepper


Mix spices together, adjusting quantities to your taste. Rub mixture on lamb, and cook in a 325 degree oven for about 90 minutes, or until it reaches an internal temperature of 155 (for medium).


Source:
The short medicinal text A Dietary Calendar (appearing in translation in Andrew Dalby's Flavours of Byzantium) mentions cooking lamb in April:

With this take gravy moderately spiced with spikenard, green coriander, and a little pepper, and the fruit of safflower because it relaxes the bowels.

It is also mentioned for June:

No spicing is required at all except coriander, spikenard, and anise.

I chose thus to use coriander and spikenard because they appear more constantly, salt because it is a ubiquitous addition to roasting meat, and pepper for reasons of taste. In my opinion using anise instead or in addition would be fine as well. Safflower is generally used for its color, as it is not considered to have a very strong flavor. It is suggested here for medicinal purposes, and I don't think that it needs to be obtained in order to achieve the intended flavor.


Spikenard (or simply nard), on the other hand, is an extremely potent aromatic spice, with a scent and flavor that are difficult to describe. I would venture to place it somewhere between cinnamon and catnip, and its application to cuisine is not necessarily obvious to a modern taste. Its flavor is less distinctive than its aroma, but I would still recommend being sparing in its use, as too much could easily give a dish an unpleasantly musky quality that is difficult to construe as desirable. Oddly, when its pungency is kept in check its impact on the dish is fairly mild. If you have some around, you should certainly experiment, but I think the dish can be made acceptably without it.


NOTE: if you do decide to obtain spikenard, make sure that it is Indian spikenard (Nardostachys jatamansi) intended for culinary purposes, not American spikenard (Aralia racemosa).

How to Fry Leeks with Garum

3 Leeks

1/3 C olive oil

3 T Garum

1 T cumin (or to taste)

Salt & Pepper

Start 3 quarts of water boiling.

Split the leeks lengthwise, and clean them in running water. Be sure to spread the layers apart and wash between them, as grit often gets trapped inside, especially in the whites. Slice them coarsely, down to about 1/2", not going too far to the tips (white and pale green, essentially). Parboil them in the water for about 30 seconds, then remove and drain. Bring the olive oil to medium high heat in a frying pan. Toss the leeks with the garum and cumin, and a bit of salt and pepper to taste. Note that garum tends to be quite salty, so you should not need much salt beyond that.

Fry the seasoned leeks in the oil until they are soft and translucent, just beginning to take on a golden color.

Source:

This is a largely speculative reconstruction. The short medicinal text A Dietary Calendar (appearing in translation in Andrew Dalby's Flavours of Byzantium) gives several partial descriptions of leek preparations. For January, it recommends leeks amongst vegetables that should be served with olive oil and garum. Although no other spices are directly mentioned, several are recommended throughout the month, with cumin being prominent. In September and October (when I would be cooking), boiled leek dishes, and especially spicy leeks, were recommended, although again without any specific spices. I took together with this the advice of a similar text, Humoral and Dietary Qualities of Foods (also in Dalby), to always cook leeks more than once.

Attempting to follow these comments while producing a complete dish, I decided that multiple cooking and serving with oil could be served by parboiling and then frying. For the spicing I simply used cumin because it was grouped with those flavors that were recommended in combination with leeks.

How to Make Garum and Why You May Not Want To

Garum or liquamen is a fish sauce ubiquitous in Greek and Roman cooking, and common to varying extents in other Mediterranean cuisine, where it is often called muria as well. It is made by cutting up various fish and fermenting them with salt over a long period of time, as described by Gargilius Martialis in De Medicina et de Virtue Herbarum:

Use fatty fish, for example sardines, and a well-sealed container with a 26-35 quart capacity. Add dried aromatic herbs possessing a strong flavor, such as dill, coriander, fennel, celery, mint, oregano, and others, making a layer on the bottom of the container; then put down a layer of fish (if small leave them whole, if large use pieces); and over this add a layer of salt two fingers high. Repeat these three layers until the container is filled. Let it rest for seven days in the sun. Then mix the sauce daily for twenty days. After that tie it becomes a liquid.

As may be observed, the production of garum is both lengthy and noisome. Contemporary writers often noted the pungent smell of the fermenting fish, and it could not considered polite to produce it anywhere with nearby neighbors. Nonetheless, it was a crucial part of ancient cookery, with many different recipes and grades of sauce recognized. Martial 13 notes that mackerel is a preferred fish, and anchovies are highly regarded, whereas more plainly flavored fish seem to be less prized. Although the prospect can be offputting to modern diners, its role in cuisine was similar to Worcestershire sauce, with small to moderate amounts being employed to add a savory quality to a wide variety of dishes, from meat to fruit.

Given this ubiquity, the cook of ancient foods must use something in the place of garum. Making it in the traditional style is a daunting prospect for most of us, and shortcut methods are unlikely to produce a very accurate reproduction. Worcestershire can substitute for garum, but it is not ideal due to the many other flavorings it contains. Southeast Asian fish sauces, however, tend to be made very much as garum was, and they can generally be found at any Asian grocery. I like to use the Vietnamese nước mắm, but other kinds such as nam pla or teuk trei can be used somewhat indiscriminately. The sauce you use should have a texture slightly thicker than soy sauce, with a flavor and aroma that is somewhat fishy but not overpoweringly so.

If you would prefer to make your own garum in the classic style, by all means do so. While I live in the city I will leave such endeavors to others.

How to Make a Pottage of Fish

NOTE: While fish dishes are rarely wildly popular at SCA feasts, and while the combination of flavors here may seem particularly unfamiliar to the modern palate, this was by far the most enjoyed dish at the test feast. Knowing that, I made quite a lot of it for the actual feast, and we still wound up with the servers scraping the last bits from the bottom of the pot for folks who wanted third helpings.

Ingredients

• 1 pound of tilapia filets, cut in 1" cubes
• 1 Large onion, coarsely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• The white and pale green portions of one head of cabbage, coarsely chopped
• 1 Large egg
• 1 cup cottage cheese
• 1/2 cup Ricotta cheese
• 1 cup chicken broth
• Approximately 3 T vegetable oil
• salt to taste, but perhaps a bit more than you would think
• black pepper to taste

Steps

1. In a medium-large pot, saute onions in oil until they become translucent
2. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more
3. Add fish and cook until somewhat whitened on the outside, perhaps 3-4 minutes
4. Add all other ingredients and stir vigorously
5. Turn heat down low and cook for an hour or two, stirring occasionally

Serves 8ish. This multiplies up quite well for large batches.

Source
The Prodromic Poems, translated by Henry Marks in Byzantine Cuisine

I will tell you the tale of the hotpot. Take the hearts of four snow-white cabbages, then the belly of a pig and a piece of the neck, and a fine swordfish head, the best pieces of the carp, from the large blue fish, four pieces, very thin, but oversalted, from the good bluefish, twenty pieces, from the sturgeon, the loin, and fourteen eggs in addition, a piece of Cretan cheese; about twelve buckets of soft curds, a quarter part from mountain cheese, a liter of the best oil and a handful of pepper, twelve whole cloves of garlic as well and fourteen onions, twenty mackerels fresh and sixteen in brine

I have pared down the varieties of fish for ease of preparation, and while I have attempted it with heads, etc. of the fish it does not seem to significantly impact flavor, so I have omitted it here. It should be noted both that the Prodromic Poems are fairly loose with their language, and that this translation was from Greek to English by way of French. Nonetheless, the specificity of the recipe is unusual for the period, and it does work essentially as writ.