Cuminatum in Ostrea

I love reading about history, including culinary history. My travels through books and along the Internet take me to a lot of recipes. Many of those recipes, along with the resulting dishes, have long histories that date back decades, centuries and, in a few cases, perhaps a millennium or two. Yet, the recipes I find are usually the present day versions of those recipes, with little to no discussion about how we got to this point or that recipe.

Every once in a while, I will stumble upon someone who takes the time to find and talk about those recipes. In this case, it is the Historical Italian Cooking blog. The recipe that caught my eye is called cuminatum in ostrea et conchylia, which is Latin for cumin sauce for oysters and shellfish. The recipe dates back to at least the 5th century C.E., during which the Roman Empire collapsed (476 C.E.). We can go this far back because the recipe was found in the midst of a collection of recipes compiled in De Re Culinaria, also known as Apicius. The only surviving version of the Apicius dates back to the 5th century. 

Yet, cookbooks are sometimes akin to history books: they recount the recipe at the time of publication. This particular recipe may be much older, perhaps dating all the way back to the 1st century C.E. Some have attributed the Apicius to Marcus Gavius Apicius, who noble who was renown for his love of luxury foods. The Roman philopsopher Seneca once remarked that Apicius "proclaimed the science of the cookshop" (Seneca, Consolatio ad Helviami 10) and then corrupted the age through his example.

As the Historical Italian Cooking blog explains, Romans considered oysters to be a "costly food." Oysters may have been a luxury to the point that there was a reluctance to share them. The Roman poet, Martial (known as the father of the epigram, after all, he wrote 1,561 of them) recounted the following interesting epigram about a guest's response to the host's dinner: 

I dine with you at my own cost,

So why not fare the same, both guest and host?

You swallow Lucrine oysters large and fat,

I suck a whelk and cut my lips at that.

You're served with mushrooms, I chew fungus still,

You have to do with turbot, I with brill

Plump yellow doves your appetite assuage, 

I have a magpie starved within its cage.

I am by your side and yet I'm far away.

The dole has gone. Let's fare the same, I say.

Clearly, oysters ranked with other luxurious food items, such as mushrooms, turbot, and "plump yellow doves." (By the way, the underlying message in this epigram is as timeless is as true today as it was when Martial wrote it back in the first century A.D.) Other epigrams and poems by Martial underscore the oyster as an expensive food for Romans. 

Yet, even a costly food item like oysters has its limits. In another poem, Martial wrote, in part: 

I WILLINGLY accept your dainty fare

If hospitality be undesigning: 

Not so, if you imagine that I care

For nothing in the world so much as dining; 

A dozen oysters will not make you heir

To my reputed wealth for which you are pining; 

The feast is elegant; that I admit

But on the morrow what is left of it? 

Upon the morrow? Where is it to-day

The moment after it has passed your gullet?

Thus, oysters won't make you rich during Roman times, but they were certainly enjoyed by the rich.

This leads me to how Romans ate oysters. For that, I turned back to the Historical Italian Cooking blog. The author writes that in books wrote in the 2nd century, Galen's De Facultatibus Alimentorium, and in the 6th century, Anthimus' De Observatione Ciborum, recount that Romans ate oysters both raw and cooked (either boiled or fried). 

However, the recipe in Apicius provides for the oysters and shellfish but did not provide a cooking method. it provided only a sauce, and one that has its base in cuminum or cumin. In fact, the sauce requires a good amount of cumin (or cuminum plusculum). The recipe also calls for other spices (black pepper and lovage), herbs (fresh parsley and mint, the recipe calls for dried mint but you can use fresh mint), and a liquid mixture that consists of honey, garum and vinegar. If you do not have lovage, Historical Italian Cooking advises that, according to Pliny, you could use anise seeds, or according to Dioscorides, you can use fennel seeds.

For this recipe, I decided to prepare the sauce to serve with raw oysters. While I do not have authentic Roman garum (check out this post by Historical Italian Cooking on how to make it), I do have a significant amount of Vietnamese fish sauce (check out my post with a brief discussion of the history of fish sauce, including a reference to garum). I have modified the recipe slightly from the one provided by Historical Italian Cooking to show both how the writer described the preparation and how I prepared this dish. 

In the end, I have to say that I was not a big fan of this sauce. While I like cumin as a spice, I came to the realization that I am not keen on cuminum plusculum. The large amount of cumin overwhelmed the flavors of the oysters, with the brininess being lost in the loud notes of the spice. 

CUMINATUM IN OSTREA

Recipe adapted from Historical Italian Cooking

Serves several

Ingredients:

• 1.5 kilograms (about 3 pounds) of oysters
• Pinch of freshly ground black pepper; 
• Pinch of fennel seeds; 
• 4 tablespoons of cumin;
• 1 bunch of parsley, minced finely
• 1 tablespoon of dried mint leaves
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

Directions:

1. Prepare the sauce. Mince the parsley (and mint, if you use fresh mint). Pound them in the mortar with the pepper and the fennel seeds (or anise seeds or lovage), adding the cumin as you work. Move the mixture to a bowl and then proceed to mix in the honey and fish sauce (or garum), diluting it with the vinegar. 

2.  Finish the dish. Shuck the oysters and reserve the liqueur. Add some of the liqueur to the cumin sauce. Spoon some of the sauce over the shucked oysters and serve immediately. 

ENJOY!