Let's face it cabbage is boring, right?
Wrong, at least not according to some really crazy ancient Roman writings,
but before we delve into that let's recreate an ancient Roman recipe for cabbage.
So thank you to Bright Cellars for sponsoring this video as we learn why the ancient Romans thought cabbage was just the bee's knees,
this time on Tasting History.
So this recipe comes from Apicius's 'De Re Coquinaria' or on the subject of cooking,
and Apicius includes six recipes for cabbage. One is made with olives, another with pine nuts
and raisins served on boiled spelt like cabbage and grits which is actually probably pretty good.
Most of them call for boiled cabbage, though one is somewhat ambiguous and might be
raw cabbage kind of like a coleslaw, but I opted for one of the recipes that is the most interestingly flavored, I think,
and it does call for boiled cabbage because Hippocrates prescribe boil cabbage
as a treatment for dysentery and while I feel fine right now
if Oregon Trail taught me nothing it is to be constantly vigilant for dysentery.
"Cabbage Another Way: Arrange the boiled cabbages in a dish, dress with garum, oil, wine, cumin.
Sprinkle with pepper, chopped leeks, caraway seed, and fresh coriander."
So the big question is what kind of cabbage to use in this recipe because the Romans had numerous varieties available.
Some were tight heads of cabbage, but many were more leafy green cabbages similar to bok choy or Napa cabbage
or kale, and it's that leafy green kind of cabbage that is called for in this recipe,
and since kale has absolutely no place in my kitchen because it is the devil's weed I have opted for baby bok choy
but whatever kind of cabbage you want to use get two pounds of the stuff.
Then you'll need one and a half tablespoons of garum or another fish sauce.
I'll put a link in the description to where you can get some really nice garum.
Three tablespoons of olive oil, one teaspoon ground cumin,
and a quarter cup or 60 milliliters of wine.
It's best to use a sweeter white wine for this recipe
similar to the gladiolus that I got in my latest box from Bright Cellars who is sponsoring today's video.
What's cool is that the term gladiolus while here refers to flowers, I'm assuming,
comes from the Latin gladius which was the sword that gave gladiators their name.
And what's crazy is that Bright Cellars did not know that I needed a sweet white preferably with an ancient Roman name,
yet here it is in my box completely unexpected and that is what I love about Bright Cellars.
You get introduced to all sorts of new wines.
In my box today I had a couple that I know like
Folk & Fable and Vanishing Act red blends but I also got some new bottles like Aquaforte San Giovesi
and I know that you're not supposed to choose a wine completely based on the label
but it is one of the prettiest labels I have ever seen, and of course the Gladiolus-
oh that is nice. It's sweet but it's also acidic so it's not it's not too saccharine.
This is actually perfect for like summer, but you know what I'm in LA so it's perfect any time of year.
Clearly Bright Cellars knows my taste and for them to get to know your taste
all you have to do is take a simple seven question quiz on their site then they'll curate a box and deliver it to your door,
and today Bright Cellars is offering 60^ off of your first four bottle box.
That is four bottles for $38, that's a good deal.
Now before I finish this glass of wine I should let you know what else you'll need.
Some fresh pepper chopped leek caraway seeds and coriander leaves or cilantro.
All those ingredients are really going to be to your taste.
So first remove any discolored leaves from the cabbage and then trim the stem
freeing the leaves so you can wash them thoroughly, and please do wash them thoroughly because
it is crazy how much dirt gets into the bottom part of these cabbages, just gross.
Then bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the cabbage in and boil for about 90 seconds.
Once the stems are tender take the cabbage out of the pot and set it in a dish
and while they cool you can start your dressing. In a saucepan add the wine, garum, olive oil,
and the cumin and whisk everything together then set it over medium heat and bring to a simmer.
Then let it simmer for just a few minutes as we examine the Roman obsession with cabbage.
To say the ancient Greeks and Romans loved their cabbage would be quite the understatement.
It was said that the philosopher Diogenes lived on nothing but cabbage
and he once said to a young courtier "If you lived on cabbage you would not be obliged to flatter the powerful."
To which the court here replied "If you flattered the powerful you might not be obliged to live on cabbage."
So maybe not everyone agreed that only eating cabbage was a good thing but
Diogenes' love of cabbage was widespread in the ancient world
namely due to its supposed medicinal benefits.
As I mentioned Hippocrates prescribed cabbage is a treatment for dysentery
and the physician Erasistratus believed it could help cure paralysis
and you should eat it if you are spitting up blood
to give you cabbage flavored blood I suppose? <_<
Hm.
He also said that it would increase the amount of milk a new mother would produce
and that many of the women of Athens would eat a lot of cabbage soon after giving birth
but perhaps nobody believed in the salutory properties of cabbage more than everyone's favorite Roman curmudgeon
Cato the Elder.
"For medical value, it is the cabbage which surpasses all other vegetables.
It may be eaten either cooked or raw... it promotes digestion marvelously and is an excellent laxative."
If you're having upper digestive tract issues he gives detailed instructions on how to handle that.
First you boil some cabbage and then you turn it into a sort of juice mixed with a bit of cumin.
Before bed you take a hot bath drink some honey water, and then some of this cabbage juice and nothing else.
Kind of similar to that cabbage soup diet that was really big a few years ago
but a little bit different because the next morning you drink some more cabbage juice then go on a 4 mile walk,
at which point you're supposed to feel quite nauseous, and so you come back home lay down
and force yourself to vomit.
"You will evacuate such a quantity of bile and mucus that you will wonder where it all came from.
He says different varieties of cabbage can be used as poultices to
fix black swollen ulcers on the skin, headaches, eye aches, arthritis and even a swollen spleen
though how you know that it's your spleen that's swollen, I'm not exactly sure. I'm sure there is a way.
but I would have no idea.
Cabbage could also treat pain in the liver, heart, lungs, diaphragm.
"In a word, it will cure all the internal organs which are suffering; if you grate silphium into it,
it will be quite good."
And maybe the most impressive is what he calls parsley cabbage which could be used to treat
cancerous tumors which he says no other medicine can treat, and that last part is probably true,
but I'm guessing the cabbage didn't really do anything either.
In fact as I read this I'm starting to think has he tested any of these remedies out?
And he must have known that his readers would kind of be questioning him at this point
because then he tells you that he did test one of them out.
"If you save the urine of a person who eats cabbage habitually,
heat it, and bathe the patient in it, he will be healed quickly this remedy has been tested.
Also if babies are bathed in this urine they will never be weak and puny..."
Now you'd think that that was the most outlandish claim but it ain't.
"In case of deafness, macerate cabbage with wine, press out the juice,
and pour it with warm water into the ear and you will soon find that your hearing is improved."
He's got to be trolling us right? He's got to be an ancient troll just knowing that in 2000 years people would
would think that they believed this right, right? Right?
Now in a lot of ancient writings they tell you certain foods that will cure different diseases but
rarely do they give you any reasoning behind this idea
and Cato does while it's kind of ridiculous, he at least makes an effort.
See "When all the veins are gorged with food, they cannot breathe in the body, and hence a disease is caused."
And that's probably a reference to the theory of pneuma which stated that in the arteries it wasn't blood
but air that was traveling through and would go to different parts of the body,
and while that's not exactly true it is how oxygen gets to different parts of the body so it's a little bit true,
but Cato's reasoning is completely wrong.
See he says that it's because you have too much food in your body
and it's squeezing all of those vessels so you need to take some cabbage to get things moving,
that's ridiculous.
Now usually Cato the Elder's claims about things are not this ridiculous,
that usually goes to Pliny the Elder who I absolutely adore.
And Pliny the Elder does write about cabbage and has some kind of crazy things to say about it, but he makes sure
that you know that it's not his crazy stuff he's saying, he credits other people and makes sure that you know
they said this.
"They say that as there is a natural enmity between cabbage and the vine,
it combats the effects of wine; that if eaten before drinking, it is sure to prevent drunkenness,
being equally capable of dispelling crapulence if taken after drinking."
By the way if you've never heard that word crapulence, it's now one of my favorite words, it's basically a fancy way of saying
you have a hangover from either too much drink or too much food
and I think that we should bring that back along with bedight.
Next time I have a bad night I'll say that I'm feeling crapulent.
Also that idea of cabbage and wine being mortal enemies lasted for a long time.
Nearly a thousand years later in the 10th century the writer of the Geoponica said
"When one is cooking cabbage and adds even a drop of wine, it will not cook."
And there is no way that is true, right?
Right?
I think I need to test it and I will get back to you.
Pliny goes on to say that cabbage could treat leprosy, hair loss, and I really think this one was a joke...
"Cabbage is extremely beneficial for diseases and injuries of the testes,
and even better when employed with bruised beans."
Bruised beans, really? I mean this can't be real.
Now the ancient Roman who most famously loved cabbage was neither a physician nor a writer nor philosopher, but an Emperor.
The Emperor Diocletian came to power during a time of turbulence for the Roman empire.
It had grown a bit too big for its britches and was getting attacked kind of on all sides
and his solution was to create the Tetrarchy where he divided the Roman Empire into four different regions
each being more or less sovereign.
Once everything was going relatively well he did the unthinkable and retired
to become a cabbage farmer.
Well in his absence things kind of fell apart rather quickly
and people came begging him to come back as Emperor to which he said
"If you could only see the cabbage that I planted with my own hands,
you definitely wouldn't dare suggest that I replaced the peace and happiness of this place
with the storms of a never satisfied greed."
And you can't really argue with that.
Now another story about Diocletian that I absolutely love has nothing to do with cabbages but
I love it so I'm going to tell it anyway.
It comes from the Talmud the main text of Rabbinic Judaism.
See while Diocletian did eventually become Emperor, he was not born
to a high status family. He was actually born to the son of an ex-slave and became a swine herd.
Well one day when he was Emperor the leader of the Jewish community came to him and said
"We have teased Diocletian the swineherd but we respect Diocletian the Emperor."
To which Diocletian said "You must show respect even to the smallest and lowest of the Romans,
because you can never know which one of us will rise to greatness."
A lesson to us all be kind to everyone no matter their current station,
and now after that Mr. Rogers moment I'm going to finish this wine,
but first I'm going to do as the Romans did and eat some cabbage.
So once your dressing is simmered for a few minutes pour it over the cabbage covering the greens well, then top it with a bit of pepper,
caraway seeds, cilantro and leek, and here we are the cabbages of ancient Rome.
I got a bit of the green and I got a bit of the stock. I actually like the stock even more than the green but here we go.
Hmm!
Very complex. I really like- I like the leek because
you know bok choy is not most flavorful of things or any cabbage,
but these leeks they add a little bit of spice because they're raw but there are so many flavors in this dish.
Cabbage I guess is kind of like a blank slate.
You know, you can layer any flavors that you want on it and this one layers a lot of different flavors,
the cumin, the caraway, I mean they all they all pop out which is really nice.
I also like it because you do get that that kind of umami of the garum, but it is not salty.
It is not fishy in any way. It's not overpowering in any way.
Really quite nice and I feel very healthy
and that's why I think I've earned the rest of this glass of wine.
So make sure to follow me on Instagram @tastinghistorywithmaxmiller
and I will see you next time on Tasting History.