Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome

Roman recipes rarely tell you how much or how long. The ten books gathered under the name of Apicius assume a cook who already knows, and they run to close to 470 numbered formulas, sorted by subject: the careful cook’s preserves and spiced wines, minces, garden vegetables, legumes, fowl, sumptuous dishes, quadrupeds, seafood, and a closing book called The Fisherman. Sauces carry the whole collection, built on liquamen or garum (fermented fish sauce), honey, reduced wine, pepper, and heavy handfuls of herbs. Joseph Dommers Vehling, a working chef rather than a classicist, made this first English translation in 1936 and added a critical essay, notes on the manuscripts, and a dictionary of obscure kitchen terms. Nothing else survives from ancient Rome that puts you this close to the stove.