Humankind has called some crazy stuff food over the years.
Different continents, cultures, and eras have a different set of things we consider regular
old food.
Food history is one of the big new areas of history research.
Today, let’s talk about Garum, a strange fish sauce that took the Roman world by storm.
How was it made, how popular was it, why did we stopped eating it, and why it might just
come back.
And I teamed up with Professor Elliot who actually made and ate the stuff…
Yum.
I’m Tristan Johnson, and this is Step Back History.
Garum is a food that has origins all the way back to ancient Greece.
However, the first document we have about the process of making garum comes from an
astrology book of all things that dates to the first century CE.
Fishermen would process their fish and place the blood and guts in a container with some
salt.
This concoction needed to ferment in the sun for several months.
Simple as that, you have garum.
While garum worked as an umbrella term, there were a variety of byproducts and qualities
to the stuff.
The sediment left behind in the fermentation process goes by the name allec, a sort-of
fish paste.
And the brine left behind was muria.
Garum itself was pretty pricey at its peak, and was often diluted with wine, honey, vinegar,
water, and or herbs.
There was even a cheat method to make it by boiling fish in a strong brine and straining
the liquid.
There was a wide variety of the stuff.
The fish used for garum mattered a lot in what it’s quality would be.
The Romans considered tuna the top fish, the grey poupon of fish guts.
Though mackerel was also considered a top-notch garum fish.
There was also a variant where tiny fish they would normally just throw out would go in
the garum pot whole.
It seems in different places, different fish and parts of fish made up the garum, and scholars
aren’t sure what was the proper way to make it if there even was one.
The stuff apparently had quite a smell to it, but there was no rotten fish in garum.
They fermented it like sauerkraut or beer.
Because there’s so much salt, there’s no bacteria or other microbes putrefying the
fish parts.
Garum needed fish guts because the fermentation occurred with the help of enzymes that come
from them.
The sun then adds energy and helps the process along, and the salt pickles everything.
This fermentation process released a lot of the protein from the fish, and so garum was
quite nutritious.
Because of this process, you wanted as little bacteria in there as possible from fish handling.
So often the places where garum was made would be close to the sea.
Garum was an integral part of Roman cuisine.
One surviving Roman recipe book had garum as an ingredient in nearly 350 of its dishes.
Scholars and journalists refer to it as the ketchup of its day, and the Roman poet Martial
wrote an epigraph about the stuff.
It was also pretty expensive.
It cost about 500 US dollars today, but was found in pretty much any Roman kitchen.
There was fancy garum only the super wealthy could afford.
The champagne of garum if you will.
And if there’s a champagne of garum, you can bet there was the box of pink zinfandel
garum even slaves could budget.
The stuff even had medical applications.
They considered it an ungulate in healing for both humans and animals.
They used it for scabies in their sheep, as an antidote for dog AND crocodile bites, a
salve for burns and ulcers, or as a laxative.
Massive installations for making garum were found all around the Iberian coast, especially
near the strait of gibraltar where huge schools of tuna cross from the Mediterranean to the
Atlantic.
Other factories have turned up around southern Europe and north Africa.
Another place famous for its garum was Pompeii.
Yeah, the place where a volcano buried the city, and the 12th Doctor got his face.
Bones discovered in a garum factory in pompeii helped find a more precise date for the eruption
that buried them.
So, why isn’t garum a staple of every kitchen today?
Well it has to do with salt.
Salt was cheap in the Roman empire, but once it collapsed, different rulers started to
tax it.
The price increase made garum difficult to produce.
In the wake of the Roman collapse you also had a surge in mediterranean pirates.
These pirates often raided coastal cities, where all the garum was made.
So, after the Roman empire, it pretty much disappeared.
But not entirely!
A few pockets in southwest italy continued making it.
Today they make a sauce called colatura di alici, which traces its origins to garum.
It was super obscure.
Most Italians didn’t even know about it, but it's slowly coming back.
Many high end restaurants are starting to buy it as a secret ingredient for their dishes.
It’s apparently really really good, and has a powerful umami flavour every testimonial
about it online says is remarkable.
Chefs are considering it a long lost missing link in Italian cuisine.
Some even call it the great grandfather of worcestershire sauce, one of my favourites.
A fish sauce which comes from southeast asia is also rather common, and is becoming popular
around the world.
Their sauce is made in a similar fashion to garum, and can be found in most asian grocery
stores.
So the long lost Roman ketchup might be due for a comeback.
Leave a comment below if you would want to try this stuff.
If you want to see someone eat the fermented fish, Professor Elliot actually made and tried
this stuff over on his channel.
It’s part of an amusing series called Fanstastic Feasts and where to Find them in which they
try all sorts of strange foods from around the world and back in time.
I should have a clicky thing to go watch him give Roman style garum a try.
If you liked this video, maybe you should stick around for a few more.
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Speaking of people who are making Step Back possible, I’d like to thank these wonderful
people as well as Don and Kerry Johnson for their support on Patreon.
Also thank you Professor Elliot for eating garum so I didn’t have to.
Thanks for watching and come back next week for another Step Back.