Ancient Roman Meat Rolls Wrapped in Caul Fat

[sheherazahde]

I had heard that the ancient Romans had food venders on the street and ate something like a hamburger that contained sweet white wine and pine nuts. It turns out that isn't really the case. They did have street food. Every civilisation has street food and the ancient Romans were no exception, but this recipe that was touted as a "Roman

Comments

[anais_pf]

While I am unlikely to try to replicate your results, I applaud you for attempting this!

[sheherazahde]

Thank you

[helenatroy]

OH! I *love* this experiment!

I tried a similar experiment - just on my own, not inspired by Rome or anything, to make sausages, kind of like meatballs. You know how they came out? Kind of bland...

I used ground turkey, shredded romano cheese and couscous, along w/ the basics - salt & pepper

Wonder what that's about - 'kind of bland'? Both recipes use grain and ground meat.

[sheherazahde]

Just not enough spicing in my opinion. I thought the juniper berries would do something but I couldn't really taste them.

[falnfenix]

this may interest you. it's not directly related to this particular recipe, but it's a source of plenty of other recipes from a similar time period. :)

[sheherazahde]

That does look like a SCA cooking site. I used to be in the SCA Cooks' Guild

There is a free translation of Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome, by Apicius on Project Gutenberg

[falnfenix]

ah! i didn't mention the SCA because you didn't have it listed in your interests. :) that's Cariadoc's site...i think he's one of the SCA's founders.

[sheherazahde]

I haven't been active in the SCA for years but I still like to dabble in historical food.

[brother_dour]

The ancient Romans had their own fish sauce called garum. I don't know how similar it may be to Asian fish sauce, but maybe it would make a difference in the flavor?

[sheherazahde]

The recipe specified "liquamen" instead of "garum". But I did the research and according to the experts the Asian fish sauce is a pretty dead on replica for either. They are made in pretty much the same way out of pretty much the same things. It's basically umami and salt.

[brother_dour]

My apologies. I guess there's only so many ways to make fish sauce

[sheherazahde]

No need to apologize.

[gwyddno]

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, this recipe is basically a variation on the theme we in Wales call faggots:

1 pig's liver, chopped (I use the food processor to blend it to a very coarse paste)
A couple of onions, roughly chopped
Plenty of chopped fresh sage
Other fresh herbs (e.g. parsley or thyme) if so desired, also chopped
Breadcrumb to bind
1 pig's caul (called the pig's apron (ffedog) in my part of Wales) to wrap.

Set the oven to heat to 180C/Gas 6-7 (c. 350F)
Mix everything except the caul together in a bowl
Lay the caul out flat, taking care not to tear it unduly.
Spoon the mixture onto the caul in approximately faggot-sized portions, leaving enough caul between faggots to bring up and wrap.
Cut the caul, wrap the faggots and put them on a baking dish or tray, sitting on the overlap. Bake for about 30-40 minutes.

Serve hot from the oven with mashed potato and onion gravy. They'll keep well in the freezer and will reheat from thawed in a microwave (though you might find it better to reduce the power slightly)

[sheherazahde]

Basically you can use caul fat instead of intestines to wrap sausage.
Thanks for the Welsh example for this.

Your recipe sounds like a nice liver sausage but otherwise the only thing it has in common with my recipe is the caul fat.