If you wanted to play the big shot, el jefe,
at a dinner party what would you serve? Champagne, caviar, lobster perhaps? Well not an ancient Rome. You got to think
more along the lines of honeyed dormouse, or flamingo tongue, sow's womb even, or perhaps a roast pig stuffed with honey and tracta. And that is exactly what we're making today. We'll
also take a look at one of Rome's most infamous, if fictional, culinary show-offs as
we take a seat at Trimalchio's feast. This time on Tasting History. We are in week three of Rome
Month sponsored by Total War Rome Remastered coming out April 29th.
It is a history-based strategy game that I looooved playing in college
now remastered in all its glory. And just as Rome Remastered is
played on epic imperial proportions, so is today's dish eaten on
epic imperial proportions. From the Apicius 'De re coquinaria.' Porcellum Assum Tractomelinum - roast
pig stuffed with tracta and honey. Gut the clean pig through the neck, then dry. Grind one ounce pepper, honey,
wine, bring to a simmer. Crumble dried tracta and mix
with the ingredients in the pot. Stir with a sprig of fresh laurel,
then cook until smooth and thick. Stuff the piglet with the
mixture, tie up, set in an oven, arrange and serve. So you should feel free
to tone this one down using a pork loin or some pork chops, but if you want to
go whole hog what you'll need is: one suckling pig, one ounce or 28 grams of pepper. Now I can just hear you scoffing. "Tut tut. Surely a Roman ounce and
a US ounce are not the same thing Max. You have not thought this through tut tut." But to paraphrase Salt-N-Pepa let's
talk about weights and measures. See a Roman pound and a US
pound are quite different. The Roman pound or libra which is actually
why we still use lb to abbreviate pound was about 3/4 of a US pound but a US pound is
16 ounces while a Roman pound is 12 ounces. So do a little fancy math and you will find out
that there are 0.967 Roman ounces to a US ounce. Basically the same for all intents and purposes. Now what I do think is kind
of weird is how specific the recipe is in the amount of
pepper, one ounce of pepper, but does not give specifics for any other
ingredient. It's really quite aggravating but for my recipe I'm going to be using: one cup
honey, 2 cups or 473 milliliters of wine, I'm using white wine but you can use whatever
you want. Two leaves of fresh laurel or bay. I actually couldn't find a bay tree anywhere.
I did order one but it's like this big and so it's going to take months to grow enough
to actually get anything off of it. So I did find fresh bay leaves but
it's not a sprig, it's just the leaves. So I'm using two.
And a bunch of tracta. Now what is tracta? Well it's sheets of
dried dough made of unspecified groats, flour and water, and Cato the elder
has a recipe that i'm going to follow, but there are actually kind of different
variations depending on what groats and what flour you use. So I'm going to be making one
version today and another version next week, because I'll have to use it
again for next week's recipe. But this week we'll need three cups
or 500 grams of coarse grain semolina, and three cups or 500 grams
of fine ground durum flour, plus some water for soaking the groats.
Now let's make our tracta. Put your semolina or the groats
into a bowl and cover with water and then let them sit for about an hour.
They should soak up most of the water but if there's a lot left over pour that
off and then start adding in your flour. You can add more water if needed but this
should be a very dry dough so don't overdo it. Once all the flour has been worked in knead it
until you have a nice smooth dough. Then take off pieces and roll them out very thin. Now
we are making a lot i mean a tract of tracta so it's going to take up a lot of space
once it's all rolled out, but it needs to sit out for about a day to completely dry. You can
also put it in a very, very low oven and it will dry a little bit faster but don't cook it.
Just let it dry out. Once the tract is dry break it up into a bowl this is going to
basically be like bread crumbs in a stuffing. Then grind your pepper and add it to a
large pot with the wine and the honey. Then mix everything together
and set it over a medium heat until it's simmering. Then slowly add in the
crumbled tracta and stir it in until smooth. Smooth is a relative term. I
don't know how smooth they got it, because if they wanted it super smooth
then why wouldn't you just use flour. If you're using the ground tracta there's
going to be some pieces left to it but it will kind of become a homogenous clump. Then
add your bay leaves or stir in a sprig of laurel and leave it to cook for about five minutes. And while that cooks set your
oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit or 150 celsius and get out your nice clean pig.
Once the stuffing is ready stuff it into the pig and sew him up. Then set in the oven
cooking for about 15 minutes a pound. You can also put a little bit of olive oil
on him just to give him a nice sheen and darken him up a bit. Now while he roasts and
I toast hit that Like button and Subscribe as we sit down to that most
infamous feast from the Satyricon, a dinner which boasts dishes that
might put our poor pig to shame. To the Satyricon! Part satire, part adventure part drama and part adult erotica
quite the literary smorgasbord. It's thought to have been written
by Gaius Petronius an aristocrat and courtier to the Emperor Nero in the first century. That's what makes him classy. Oh he was the epitome of class. He actually
advised the emperor on his daily outfit. And Tacitus, Plutarch and Pliny of
the Elder all credit him arbiter elegantiyarum, judge of elegance.
The Tim Gunn of ancient Rome. When did you go Grecian on us? "He was a man whose day was passed in sleep, his
nights in the social duties and amenities of life: while the industry of others may rise one
to greatness Petronius had idled into fame. Nor was he regarded, like the common crowd
of spendthrifts, as a debauchee and wastrel, but has the finished artist of extravagance." So basically if you were poor and spent your days
sleeping in your night's partying you were lazy and debauched but if you were rich and did the
exact same thing you were merely extravagant, and as someone who considered himself
luxuriously extravagant due to his high status Petronius did not care for
those beneath him especially when they tried to work their
way up the ladder to meet him. And he used parts of the Satyricon as an
indictment of these Roman social climbers, and none was more infamous than
the character of Trimalchio. Trimalchio was a former slave who bought
his freedom and then speculating in the grain market had become extraordinarily wealthy. Just the kind of person that Petronius would
detest but while Eliza Doolittle had Henry Higgins to teach her that entering high
society required more than just wealth it required class Trimalchio had no such tutor. He is portrayed as a boorish lout who
wallows in his new money and back then before lambos and Berkins became a thing the
way to show off your money was with food. So the main character of the Satyricon
an educated and well-pedigreed man named Encolpius goes to Trimalchio's villa for
a feast. He is completely taken aback by the murals on the wall which are all of
Trimalchio showing how he made his wealth. Not classy at all. Declassé Then Encolpius notes some of the
foods set out for the guests. "On the tray stood a donkey made of corinthian
bronze, bearing panniers containing olives, white in one and black in the other. Two platters flank the figure
on the margins of which were engraved Trimalchios' name and
the weight of the silver in each. Dormice sprinkled with poppy seed and
honey were served on little bridges soldered fast to the platter, and
hot sausages on a silver gridiron underneath which were dams in
plums and pomegranate seeds." And by the way Apicius where
our recipe for today comes from has another recipe for dormice and one of these
days if I can find dormice maybe i'll make them, and maybe I won't. Then Encolpius
takes his place on one of the couches. In ancient Rome you would lie on
sofas at a big feast while you dined, which probably require a lot of
Tums if I went because i have terrible heartburn when i lie down after eating. "At length we reclined, and
slave boys from Alexandria poured water cooled with snow upon our hands, while others following, attended to our feet and
removed the hangnails with wonderful dexterity, nor were they silent even during
this disagreeable operation, but they all kept singing at their work." A pedicure at a dinner party distastefully
extravagant but not something I would turn down. Finally after keeping his guests
waiting, rude then just as it is now, Trimalchio enters. He is carried in surrounded in
a nest of cushions and he's showing off his rings, and his gold and ivory arm bracelets as he
picks his teeth with a silver quill. "Friends, it was not convenient for me to
come into the dining-room just yet, but for fear my absence should cause you any
inconvenience I gave over my own pleasure..." though gracing him with his presence he
still continues to ignore them as he finishes up a game of dice. "Trimalchio snapped his fingers; the eunuch hearing the signal held the chamber
pot for him while he continued playing. After relieving his bladder he called for water
to wash his hands, barely moistened his fingers, and dried them on a boy's head." Charming, but now that he's there the feast can begin
and the foods that are served are extravagant, even for an ancient Roman feast. Peahen eggs made of pastry that when opened "Contained a fine fat fig-pecker
embedded in a yolk seasoned with pepper." He showed off his wealth by doing things
like sending to India for his mushrooms, and "...if you asked for hens milk you
would get it Hens don't make milk... A huge roast pig is brought out
and when his belly is sliced open sausages and meat puddings come tumbling out and
then bottles of hundred-year-old wine come out and Trimalchio cries "Ah me! To think
wine lives longer than poor little man... I offered no such vintage yesterday, though
my guests were far more respectable." I think we all know someone like
this guy. He's very well written. Now he wasn't right to mention
it because that's just rude, but he was right to care because it was all
about who was invited where and who showed up. That is how you measured success. Even the layout of where you sat on the
couches mattered. It was all about status but it was an implied status symbol
not something you actually mentioned. That's well- that's just not classy. Though classy or no, there is
one dish or rather 12 dishes that I would have loved to have
seen from Trimalchio's feast. Basically it was a giant platter with the 12
zodiac symbols and an adjoining dish for each. "Ram's vetches on Aries, a
piece of beef on Taurus..., the womb of an unfarrowed sow on
Virgo... a bull's eye on Sagittarius." Get it? A bullseye on Sagittarius who was
an archer, it's kind of clever even if not very appetizing. Now while all of this
seems rather over the top it is nothing in comparison with most of
the rest of the Satyricon because as I said while it is a
satire and part drama and adventure there's a lot of erotic material in it that
would really make anyone including myself blush. For example, the main character's name
and Encolpius literally means crotch and he has quite the voracious appetite for
all things carnal but also has a problem with impotence and this is one of the tamer
things in the- in the book or in the work. Not really going to go into all of the other
things right now, it's not the place, however I am going to link to an episode of one of
my favorite podcasts Literature and History, where the host goes through the Satyricon
and talks about all of those wonderful little parts that will make you blush.
Now before we finish our own dish fit for a Tremolchian feast take a look at this tasty
little treat from Total War Rome Remastered. So you'll know that your pig is done
roasting when he reaches about 170 Fahrenheit or 76 Celsius when a thermometer
is stuck on the inside. Then set him out to rest for about 10
or 15 minutes and he's ready to carve my roast. Stuffed pig fit for my
own personal feast of Trimaxio. I'm actually really, really
excited about this skin. It's actually my favorite part
of any roast pig. So crispy. And tear it off with my teeth. It's wonderful.
It smells so good. Ah and it cuts so prettily iIm gonna try the stuffing first.
Hmm. Hmm! That's um.. that's peppery. But it's also sweet. Really like sweet and spicy. Super peppery. So I'm curious because it took time
for pepper to get to to Rome from the East but I leave my pepper to to sit for months and months
so I can still kind of use the same amounts. I'm curious if it wasn't quite as strong
because it's very, very peppery but it's also really really good because it
has that honey there to sweeten it up. The texture is odd. It's very chewy. It's not like bread
stuffing at all, and I'm curious- I'm curious if this is how it was. You
know the recipe is only so specific so you can't really know but it's good. It's just the
the texture I- I- It's not what I would go for. Now the pork just fell off the
bone. It- it's oh looks so good. Mhm :) It's amazing. It's so moist and it gets a little
bit of the flavor of the stuffing but not a lot. It's fairly pork flavored but that's what
I like. I just like a roast pig you know. Get a roast pig. It tastes really good, and
speaking of roast pig I have a wonderful little quote that I want to share from Macrobius, one
of my favorite ancient Roman authors where he is talking about a roast pig that could have totally
been served at Trimalchio's feast but it wasn't. "How disgusting just to list the sorts of food! Indeed, Titus, in his speech
supporting the laws of Fannius, reproaches his contemporaries for serving Trojan
pig, so-called because it is "pregnant" with other animals enclosed within, just as the famous
Trojan horse was "pregnant with armed men." Definitely an Instagram-worthy dish which
you should probably follow me on Instagram: tastinghistorywithmaxmiller even though I'm
probably not going to be making the Trojan pig. Now next week we are going to be making an
early Roman cheesecake called wait for it- placenta or placenta or
placenta depending on which version of Latin pronunciation you want to follow. I'll actually talk a little bit
about that next week probably. So join me next week for dessert as we
wrap up Rome month here on Tasting History.
One of my favorite stories from Ancient Rome!
I'm wondering if the stuffing was more like overcooked pasta seeing as it was made with durum wheat and semolina