ApiciusReseñas

Original Roman recipes with extensive footnotes. It includes a recipe for carrots cooked in honey and butter that was used by medieval Jews. Thus, I consider it a means of portraying what one full inn in Bethlehem was serving, after applying Mosaic dietary laws. Certainly it is reasonable to assume that Romans were eating in this manner in the Earliest Middle Ages. Another source noted that the Vehling translation left out some things and otherwise has errors.

Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome by Apicius : Apices ,imperial Rome by Apices Joseph Dommers Vehling
This book starts with TOC where recipes are listed along with how to use the book, numbering of recipes and other information.
Each recipe starts with a title. NO real listing of ingredients but tells you what to do, with the item you need. No measurements for adding oil, broth, wine and other fluids. same with spices, NO measurements. Tells you how to cook the dish
Not your typical cookbook by any means. Lots of fun things to read about.
No pictures, NO nutritional information.
Other works by the publishing company are listed at the end of the book.

Translating Street-Latin isn't the easiest thing to do and this translation by Barbara Flower Elisabeth Alföldi-Rosenbaum was, for its time, a worthy attempt. It is however, rooted in the time that it was translated and as time goes by, it becomes more and more obvious how poor the translation really is. Just as the perception of 'authenticity' is deeply rooted in the time of interpretation and as more information is gained, so our perception changes. It would do to remember that when this book was translated, people thought it was authentic for vikings to have horned helmets!

A greated deal of authenticity should be expected from translation, than interpretation, however Street-Latin does require a greater level of interpretation than would be required of classical texts. As a consequence, although a valiant attempt at the time, this translation is showing more and more inaccuracies.

Latin on the left page, translation on the right. This. Copy is good, no dust jacket, and some Chile took a light crayon to a couple of pages.

A curiosity I found at the library book sale. It's the only cookbook, I believe, that has come down from the ancient world and quite interesting to poke around in. Any one for sea scorpion with turnips? Or how about a nice boiled ostrich?

Marco Gavio, soprannominato Apicio dal nome di un famoso ghiottone vissuto nel secolo precedente, sarebbe nato intorno al 25 a. C., in base alle testimonianze di Cassio Dione, Giovenale, Seneca e Tacito. Uomo agiato, aderì alla moda dell'epoca, in cui si gareggiava per emergere attraverso la magnificenza e l'opulenza del vivere. Esperto gastronomo, si dedicò alla composizione di un vero e proprio trattato per la tavola adatta ai nuovi ricchi, ai nuovi nobili e ai potenti novi equites.
Secondo la testimonianza di Seneca, essendosi ridotta la sua ricchezza per paura di non poter più imbandire i sontuosi banchetti a cui era avvezzo si tolse la vita, morendo quindi per timore di morir di fame. La sua è una cucina talmente eccessiva da fare orrore, con carni dei più svariati animali, struzzo, colombo selvatico, gru e una quantità smodata di salse sofisticate, tra cui il liquamen che richiama alla mente l’oraziano garum. Circa cinquecento ricette, capitoli dedicati a carni, pesce, e salse, una passione per pepe, garum, olio, miele, levistico, aceto, vino, cumino, ruta, coriandolo.
Un'opera interessante che ci aiuta a comprendere la quotidianità del vivere dei Romani e ci fa riflettere su quanto sia antica la ricerca sfrenata del piacere del palato.

An exceptional resource. Drawings.

I was thrilled to receive Christopher Grocock and Sally Grainger's new comprehensive translation of the Apician cookbook, "Apicius, a Critical Edition". It is a masterwork.

I was also pleased to receive Grainger's "Cooking Apicius". Grainger is both a scholar and an excellent cook of Ancient Roman food. Her book is written in a friendly, personal, and sometimes chatty manner, and contains many Britishisms, but, then, she is British, after all.

Her discussions of various ingredients and cooking techniques were quite informative. I have cooked from the Flower/Rosenbaum translation, and also own Andre Dalby & Sally Grainger's "Classical Cookbook", "Around the Roman Table: Food and Feasting in Ancient Rome" by Patrick Faas, "Roman Cookery: Ancient Recipes for Modern Kitchens" by Mark Grant, "A Taste of Ancient Rome" by Ilaria Gozzini Giacosa. I have found all these books instructive, but I enjoy working out the recipes myself and making my own decisions on what substitutes to use here in the US.

At the same time, I always appreciate hearing how another cook interprets a recipe, and I very much appreciated Grainger's explanations throughout of her decisions to make certain interpretations or use particular ingredients. Also of great use are her experiments making garum and liquamen.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in cooking recipes from the Apician cookbook. And it is especially useful to those who are shy of starting out from the original recipes themselves, which can be rather vague.

Food as historical-social documentation is fast becoming one of my favorite subjects to dally in, and this book takes the title. It has been argued as civilization's first real, official "cookbook," and it's completely fascinating. You get a glimpse into the mechanics of the spice trade and migration of ingredients a la Waverly Root's Food Encyclopedia, as well as insight into what the Romans thought would render food safe. It's a fascinating document in the way the Ancient Chinese forensic manual The Washing Away of Wrongs is fascinating--a sort of window into historical and cultural modes of epistemic and moral codification. If you're into this stuff as I am, check it out. Similar food anthropology excavation stuff, albeit in entirely different contexts, comes up in Harvard essays deconstructing post-WWII Betty Crocker cookbooks, and museum entries on pioneer cookbooks, etc. I just totally get off on this sort of thing.½

Who would have thought that a Roman cookery book would have come down through the ages when so much other great literature has been lost? I see that my copy was awarded as a school prize for ancient history - no doubt my choice raised eyebrows.
This book is worth a look for any cook - and a number of the recipes are feasible. The principal problem for the modern cook is reproducing those great staples of the Roman kitchen - liquamen (or garum) and defrutum. When I first followed these recipes I substituted anchovy sauce for liquamen but that really did not capture the taste of the original. Now that Asian travel has broadened our minds and palates, I suggest that nam pla (Thai or Vietnamese fish sauce) is a much more realistic substitute - the method of manufacture follows that of the Romans fairly closely. Similarly, it is now fairly easy to buy a substitute for defrutum - reduced unfermented grape juice. Fench or Californian bottled verjus is readily obtainable. The nam pla and verjus can be combined to make the Romans' table condiment - oenogarum.
The recipes show that the Romans liked their food highly spiced and seasoned. Apart from the ubiquitous liquamen, defrutum and vinegar, various pungent herbs and spices were all pressed into service: lovage, asafoetida, thyme, rue, pennyroyal, etc.
The determined Roman gourmet may find her local butcher's eyebrows raised at some of the requests for these recipes: cow's udders, wombs and dormice (glires) do not commonly adorn the carnal remains on the display shelves.

Marco Gavio, soprannominato Apicio, è passato alla storia come il più grande esperto di gastronomia dell'antichità. Alle raffinatezze culinarie egli dedicò la sua vita e anche il suo patrimonio, peraltro ingentissimo, fino a quando, secondo la testimonianza di Seneca, si ridusse in povertà e si suicidò. L'opera a lui attribuita, "De re coquinaria", rivela l'evoluzione dei gusti alimentari e insieme lo stile di vita della classe dominante romana fino alle soglie della caduta dell'Impero. Il testo, accompagnato da note sulle singole ricette e sugli ingredienti citati, è preceduto da un'introduzione che illustra le curiose abitudini culinarie degli antichi inquadrandole nel contesto storico e linguistico delle diverse epoche considerate.

Questo libro è anche un manuale pratico che comprende tutte le ricette del libro X (Halieus, "il pescatore") del classico trattato di Apicio De Re Coquinaria. Le ricette, tradotte in italiano contengono tutte le indicazioni utili per la loro realizzazione per l'appassionato di cucina e per il cuoco professionista che vi trovano combinazioni di tecniche e ingredienti a volte nuove e a volte impensate. Il pesce fresco era uno degli alimenti più ambiti e costosi nelle città dell'Impero. I cuochi delle case patrizie ponevano grandi cure nella sua preparazione, ricorrendo spesso a ricette prese a prestito dal mondo greco.

Recommended

500. 1st ed. no dw. Signed. Ltd ed #423/530. Companion to Platina, see entry. Advance PR for Platina tipped in. John Davis Batchelder Collection (Library of Congress). Illus. with drawings by Vehling of ancient Roman cooking utensils and apparatus.