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Feast Recipes from the Quinquatria Minervae

Feast prepared by
Ly. Genevieve Darroch

Served in Four Removes

First Remove

 
Marble Rye Bread
Whole Grain Wheat Bread
Purchased from:
Bakery Haus (map)
611 Jefferson St
Burlington, IA 52601
(319) 752-2136


Whipped Butter

2lb butter
Whip throughly


Whipped Honey Butter

2lb butter
1c honey
Mix and whip thoroughly


Whipped Dill Butter

2lb butter
1/4c Dill
Mix and whip thoroughly


Antipasto Platter

Italian Roast Beef, thinly sliced
Pastrami, thinly sliced
Farmer's Cheese, thinly sliced
Provolobe Cheese, thinly sliced
Store-bought Artichoke Salad
Store-bought Garlic Marinated Mushrooms
Black Olives
Sliced Bell Peppers


Tuna Boats

Dress Albacore tuna with lemon juice and serve on Romaine lettuce. Garnish with sliced egg.


Second Remove

Gaio Mazio's Pork
From the Food Network

5 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds (1 kg) pork shoulder meat, cubed to 1-inch square
1 apple, peeled, cored, and finely chopped
1 leek, finely chopped
2 tablespoons flour
Red wine, to cover all
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon black pepper
Garum (fish sauce, use Thai nuoc mam), for seasoning
1 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro leaves
1 teaspoon powdered caraway seeds
1 teaspoon powdered lovage seeds
2 tablespoons ground mint

Heat some olive oil in a pan and then add the meat, apple, and leeks. Add the flour. Let it cook for 5 minutes, turning the meat often. Add enough red wine to cover the pork. Continue to cook over a low flame. After 2 hours, add the honey, vinegar, black pepper, garum, and spices. Cook under the same low flame for another 2 or 3 hours, stirring occasionally.


Genevieve's Note: Cover after you add the wine.


Tangy Salad Dressing
Roman Cookery, Ancient Recipes for Modern Kitchens by Mark Grant, p 134

One uncia of lovage, one sextans of skinned raisins, one sextans of dried mint, one quadrans of white or black pepper,. To avoid more expense, these ingredients can be mixed with honey and stored like this (Collemula on Agriculture)

There are several recipes for digestive dressings, so called because certain vegetables like lettuce were thought to cause flatulence and which therefore required measures to render them safe for polite company. These dressings were generally diluted with vinegar.

30g/1oz lovage or celery leaves
1/2tsp raisins
1/2tsp dried mint
1tsp ground white pepper
2tbsp clear honey
1tbsp red wine vinegar
sea salt (optional)

Finely chop the lovage leaves and raisins, then combine in a small bowl with the other ingredients. If you wish, salt can be added to taste, but with it's sharpness the sauce can stand on its own without salt. Stir and serve with a green salad.


Third Remove

Garum
A Taste of Ancient Rome by Ilaria Gozzini Giacosa, p 29

If this recipe still seems too complicated, try the following: Cook a quart/liter of grape guice, reducing it to one tenth its original volume. Dilute two tablespoons of anchovy paste in this concentrated juice, and mix in a pinch of oregano.

Genevieve's Notes: I also added some black pepper to the grape juice when I condensed it. It might be possible to try thawed frozen grape juice concentrate.


Guinea Hen with Sweet and Sour Sauce (Apicius 240)
A Taste of Ancient Rome by Ilaria Gozzini Giacosa, p 107

Guinea Fowl:  Prepare a chicken, boil it, and remove it from the water. [Sprinkle with] silphium and pepper, and roast. Grind pepper, cumin, coriander seeds, silphium root, rue, dates, pine nuts; pour on vinegar, honey, garum, and oil, and mix. When it has boiled, thicken with starch and pour over the chicken; sprinkle with pepper and serve.

1 guinea hen
pepper to taste
1 garlic clove, pressed for its juice

For the sauce:
2oz (50-60g) pine nuts
10 pitted dates
1tbsp total cumin, coriander seeds, and rue
2tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, pressed for its juice
1tsp vinegar
1tsp garum
1tsp honey
1tsp cornstarch (if necessary)

Today we can skip the initial boiling because our meat is available fresh (see the discussion on page 87). Gut and clean the guinea hen, sprinkle with pepper and garlic juice, and roast. Meanwhile, prepare the sauce: Grind the dry ingredients together, moistening while you grind with the liquid ones. Heat in a small pan. When the sauce boils, add the dissolved starch if ncessary to thicken. You can serve the sauce apart or cut the hen into pieces and cover it with the sauce.

The guinea hen (gallina numidica or africana), which was introduced from Africa, appeared only on the Roman table perhaps after Carthage was taken (146 BC). In one of the Martial's clever epigrams (13, 73) he described Hannibal, after having had his fill of Roman geese but unable to enjoy the birds of his own region during his campaigns in Italy against the Romans.


Asparagus

Clean, peel and trim fresh asparagus. Keep in cold water until ready to cook. Bring salted water to boil. Add a handful of asparagus to the boiling water and cook until crisp tender (approximately one minute). remove and serve promptly. Sprinkle with parmasean cheese.

Saffron Rice

Boil rice in chicken broth or stock (2 parts broth to 1 part rice) for 15 minutes. Take rice off heat, stir in saffron to taste and let sit with lid on until tender.

Vegetable Soup
A Taste of Ancient Rome by Ilaria Gozzini Giacosa, p 82

Farrica Barley Soup: Soak [dried] chick peas, lentils, and peas. Dehusk barley and boil with the legumes. When it has boiled well, add sufficient oil and over this chop these greens: leek, coriander, dill, fennel, beet, mallow and tender young cabbage; put these finely chopped greens in the pot. Boil young cabbage and grind a generous amount of fennel seeds, oregano, silphium, and lovage. After you have ground them, mix with garum, pour over the legumes, and stir. Over this add finely chopped young cabbage.

7oz (200g) each, dried lentils, chick peas, and peas
7oz (200g) barley
7oz (200g) beet greens
2 leeks
1tbsp total coriander, dill and fennel
1/2c olive oil
1 small savoy cabbage

for the sauce:
1tbsp total fennel seed, oregano, and lovage
2 garlic cloves, minced
1tbsp garum

This is a genuine minestrone, full of vegetables and legumes and further thickened by the addition of barley.

Soak the dried legumes for 24 hours; rinse and cook them along with the barley in salted water. After three hours, add the beet greems and leeks, cut into soup size pieces, and the herbs. Then add the olive oil. On the side boul and chop the cabbage or broccoli, which should be added to the minestrone in the final half hour of cooking. Combine the sauce ingredients together and add only when the cooking is complete.


Fourth Remove

Pyramid Cakes (Pyramides)
Roman Cookery, Ancient Recipes for Modern Kitchens by Mark Grant, p 42

In his book, On Cakes, Iatrokles makes mention of khoirinai and what are called pyramous, which he says are no different from what people call pyramis. For these are made from toasted wheat soaked in honey. They are served to those who have stayed up all night for religious festivals (Athenaeus, The Partying Professors)

I have fought battles with this recipe, staying up late at night to contemplate not prayer but the oven. Should the wheat be toasted before being soaked in honey? Or after? My experiments have resulted in either brittle cakes that endanger the teeth or soggy lumps that do not hold together. The latter is important because the name of the cake refers to those famous pointed Egyptian monuments. The Greeks lent humorous sobriquets to everything the Pharoahs had earlier constructed: obelisk means 'small kebab stick', and pyramid probably derives from this ridiculous cake. The version I present here does work and will not affect delicate dentistry, although the wheat flakes are toasted after being soaked in honey, rather than before.

100g/3oz wheat flakes
100g/3oz white flour
100g/3oz clear honey
2tbsp water
1tbsp olive oil

Soak the wheat flakes in honey for 6 hours or overnight. THen combine all the ingredients and knead into a sticky dough. Smear a baking tray thoroughly with olive oil. Use your fingers to shape a spoonful of the mixture into a little pyramid about 1 inch in height. Arrange the pyramids on a baking tray. Bake for 15 minutes in an ove pre-heated to 200*C/400*F/Gas Mark 6. Take out and stand to cool.

Genevieve's Note: I added 2tsp cinnamon for flavor.

Sweet Wine Cakes (Glykinai)
Roman Cookery, Ancient Recipes for Modern Kitchens by Mark Grant, p 107

Glykinai: the cakes from Crete made with sweet wine and olive oil, so says Seleukos in his Glossary (Athenaeus, The Partying Professors)

Eastern European pastry often lacks the crumbliness that those of us from the northern paers of the continent associate with recipes involving large amounts of butter. Ancient pastry entails a similar shock, which is reinforced by the absence of sugar. Although these cakes might be dubbed sweet, or glykus in Greek, to the modern palate it is a very subtle sweetness derived from the grape juice, which I use in preference to wine for this very reason. The dryness of these biscuits demands an accompanying drink, and a glass of wine will compliment their sweetness.

200g/7oz light white flour
60ml/2oz olive oil
80ml/3oz white grape juice or very sweet white wine
1 egg-white

Combine the flour and olive oil with your fingers so that they form a crumble-like consistency. Add the grape juice or wine and knead into a smooth dough. You may need a little more flour, grape juice, or wine to achieve this smoothness. Gather the dough into a little ball and place in a plastic bag to rest in the fridge for an hour. Oil a baking tray. Roll the dough out thinly and use a pastry cutter about 2cm/1in in diameter to form the biscuits - a cutter in the shape of a flower produces attractive biscuits. Arrange the biscuits on the oiled baking tray. Brush each biscuit with beaten egg-white glaze. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes at 190*C/380*F/gas mark 5. Cool on a wire rack and serve.


Pear Pudding (Apioi eis Kykliskous)
Roman Cookery, Ancient Recipes for Modern Kitchens by Mark Grant, p 154

They slice the pears into thin discs which they dry and store away. When food is short during the winter and spring, they cook these discs as a substitute for foods that contain little nourishment. (Galen on the Powers in Foods)

Accompanied by cream, this recipe makes a pleasant fruit salad. Alternatively it can be served with a dash of Spiced Sauce (see p. 31).

250g/1/2lb dried pears

Gently braise the pears in a little water until they are plump. Cool and serve with the resulting juice.