We are building an ancient Roman garden
in our backyard. Yeah... it's not that. It's this. It's still in the very, very early stages.
In fact I only currently have one herb so far, at least that you can't get at the store and that's rue, and it is fantastic and interesting, and potentially deadly so I figured I would
use it to make some ancient roman artichokes. So thank you to Magic Spoon for
sponsoring this video as we make artichokes and meander through the gardens of ancient Rome this time on Tasting History. So I finally got a rue plant. It is one of those
herbs that is used a lot in ancient Roman and Medieval cookery, but it's really quite hard to find especially fresh. You can get dried online but the fresh hard to find and very, very different. One of the differences is that the dried rue does not numb your tongue but fresh rue does numb your tongue. It also has this very bitter quality but then there's also
this wonderful freshness and almost a sweetness behind it, and besides its culinary uses it was also used a lot in medicine. It was thought to make your eyesight better and said to be good for digestion and Hippocrates said that it could be an antidote for most poisons, very impressive. Though Aristotle said that it made your sweat smell... so that's less than appetizing. But the real interesting thing about this herb is that it can be quite deadly if you eat too much of it, and even
just a little bit can be used as an abortifacient which what it was used in in ancient times in the
Middle ages for that purpose so don't eat too much, and if you're pregnant don't eat any at all. But if you're an adrenaline junkie like me (I'm not) then yeah go ahead and make this dish I found it in the ancient Roman cookbook Apicius 'De re Coquinaria' from the 1st century. "Another Artichoke. Pour
over boiled artichokes, this thickened sauce: pound celery seed, rue, honey, pepper, add passum,
garum, and a little oil. Thicken with starch, sprinkle with pepper and serve." Pretty vague but seems doable. So for this recipe what you'll need is: one tablespoon of rue. If you're using dried rue go with two teaspoons. One teaspoon of celery seeds, two teaspoons of honey, a half teaspoon of pepper. I am using long pepper which was very popular in ancient Rome. They had regular black pepper as well as grains of paradise and several others but the long pepper just has a far more
aromatic smell and flavor than than does regular black pepper so if you can find it, get it. one cup and a little more of raisin wine so the latin term One cup and a little more of raisin wine. So the Latin term for this was passum and basically it's a wine made
with raisins and so it's a lot sweeter than your typical wine and it's still made in different
forms but etymologically speaking the closest would be what is known now as Passito, so use that
if you can find it. Then two teaspoons of garum, two tablespoons of olive oil, and one tablespoon of
wheat starch or cornstarch. Then you'l also need four artichokes. So what's a little weird about this is that in some translations of Apicius this word for artichokes 'sphondylos' is actually
translated as mussels, but later on in the book there are other recipes for mussels that
use the more specific term mitulis and I've made one of those dishes here on the show now
those recipes appear in the section on seafood, makes sense. This is a section on vegetables and
and gardening so why people would think that there would be a mussels recipe in gardening section
I don't really know so that that's one clue. Now this translation discrepancy doesn't
actually have any bearing on the recipe today that we're making but I just thought it was kind of interesting and i am glad that it is a recipe for artichokes because I love artichokes and that brings me to our sponsor Magic Spoon because not only do I love artichokes but I love cereal. Honestly I could very happily eat cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and in college I
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tasting history to get $5 off of any order. You can also just visit magicspoon.com /tastinghistory but for now no cereal for me because I am making artichokes. Now the thing about
making artichokes is that there is an enzyme in artichokes, as there is in a lot of fruits and
other vegetables, that will will rapidly oxidize and turn the artichokes black, and if you're
handling them they will turn your hands black and you can't really wash this off very
effectively. There is a way that you can rub lemon on them and that definitely helps but the best way
is to use gloves. Though we're not really doing a lot with the artichoke so you could probably get away without it but you know what i'm not taking any chances. Since they're boiled what you want to
start off with is a very large pot with about a gallon of water, and bring it to a boil. Then stir in two tablespoons of salt. For the artichokes first cut off the stem so that they can sit flat.
Then slice off the top inch of each artichoke and snap off the small leaves at the base. Now
many people also snip off the tops of the leaves but if unless they're really, really spiny you don't have to do that they're going to soften and that part's not edible anyway so so it doesn't really matter and it looks better if they're not cut off. Now while the gloves will stop us from getting
our hands black, putting a glove on an artichoke is just not practical, so on those parts that you just cut you can rub some parsley or vinegar, but most effective is actually lemon and it really does
not affect the flavor so i think you're fine even though it's not in the recipe. Once they're all prepped put the artichokes into the boiling water. They won't sink but that's okay. Then adjust the
heat to maintain a gentle boil and cover the pot and let them cook for 40 minutes to about an hour. Depending on the size it's going to take a different amount of time, but when you get close to 40 minutes go ahead and start your sauce by mincing up the rue and grinding up the pepper
and celery seeds then put them into a small saucepan and mix in the oil the garum the honey
and the raisin wine and set over low heat and slowly bring to a simmer whisking as it heats
the ingredients will all combine much better when heated in a separate cup dissolve the starch
into a couple tablespoons of the wine and as soon as the sauce is simmering pour in the starch and
stir then let it simmer for five minutes or until it starts to thicken. So while the artichokes cook and the sauce thickens i want to tell you about one of my favorite places in all of California.
It's called the Getty Villa and it's in Malibu and it overlooks the Pacific Ocean. Basically it is
a Roman villa in Southern California. It's filled with art and artifacts from the ancient world but
most impressive are the gardens. They have several gardens filled with flowers, and statues, and herbs, and water features, and recently when I visited the villa it really made me want an ancient Roman herb garden of my own. Unfortunately, I don't have a villa. I know, it's really a travesty. But I do have a little section of the backyard that can be transformed into an herb garden. The question is what exactly do I want to put into this herb garden, and so I figured I'd better do some research into the gardens of ancient Rome. Ancient gardens were numerous and they were varied.
Some of the earliest examples were small gardens at the back of a house where the family could grow
food for their household. But by the late Republic those with money who could afford an area of their house known as a peristyle began to use that as their garden. Now these gardens were so much
more than just flowers and herbs. They might have walking paths, benches, sundials, and outdoor eating
areas, and they were decorated with fountains, mosaics, frescoes and statues. Something I'm really hoping to have for our garden. Though the common statue that Romans had at the
entrance to their garden was the god Priapus who was the protector of gardens and fruit trees, and the male genitalia. Quite the varied resume. And he's often depicted as having an engorged
phallus of several feet or even up to a meter so having a statue of him protecting your garden
is probably going to go against the HOA. But seriously you can go look him up. I actually did
not include an image of the full him because they are quite graphic from ancient Rome, and I was worried that the video would actually get flagged Now while I'm sure I would be quite content with
one of these peristyle gardens they were nothing compared to those at the giant country villas of
the ancient Roman upper class. The kind of garden that Varro said "Should afford him both profit and pleasure." These could include larger structures like fish ponds and rabbit warrens. "In addition to this... are usually kept places for snails and beehives, and also casks in which dormice are kept confined." And I'm not gonna lie the idea of raising dormice is rather tempting "But the care, increase, and feeding of all these, except the bees is evident." To keep the weasels out Varro says
that the walls need to be very high and made of very expensive plaster and frankly it's just not my budget. But Pliny the younger was always much more sensible so I wanted to see what he had to say about his gardens at his villa at Laurentum. He said they had a border of rosemary
and were shaded by grapevines both of which I have. Though his grapevines were so extensive that you
could actually have like a walking path beneath "Which was so soft and easy to tread that you may
walk barefoot on it, the garden is chiefly planted with fig, and mulberry trees, fragrant with the scent of violets." So let's consider that a goal for the future, but for now I'm sticking with the
herbs and I do have a limited space so I needed to make some decisions on what herbs I was going to get, and luckily Columella had some suggestions "...Now is the time, if pickles cheap you seek, to plant
the caper and harsh elecampane and threatening fennel; creeping roots of mint and fragrant flowers
of dill are spaced now and rue, which the Palladian berry's taste improves. and mustard which will make him weep who air provokes it..." Well I don't want to weep, so I'm not going to do mustard, and the fennel I could do. They actually used to use the cane from the fennel stock to whip naughty children because it didn't leave a mark I guess which is actually why he calls it the threatening fennel, but frankly all of those I can find at the grocery but The rue which the Palladian berries
taste improves, Palladian berries being olives I can't find that at the grocery store and so that
ended up being the first herb to add to the garden but there are others that i really, really want now
this is not an extensive list or exhaustive list it is extensive not an exhaustive list, but these
are at the top of it. Lovage, so this is actually the most common herb in Apicius and it used to grow everywhere but now it's quite hard to find especially here in the United States. It kind of looks like Italian parsley but it tastes more of celery, and the biggest difference is that it
can grow up to eight feet high, and if Pliny the Elder can be trusted, which he usually can't, it's
very good to control flatulence. Marshmallow, now the marshmallow plant has been cultivated in Egypt for at least 4,000 years. One application would be thickened and then sweetened with honey to make a
sort of like mushy lozenge, and that ended up being recreated in the 1800s in France though they used sugar and egg whites and that became the precursor to today's marshmallow that you get at the store. Now I'm not going to use it as a laxative which is what Horus says it's good for but I might try
out what Pliny the Elder says, "Whosoever shall take a spoonful of the marshmallow shall that day be free from all diseases that may come to him." Now one that I really, really want and I actually think
I can find is wormwood, and I just talked about wormwood in the episode on absinthe but in ancient Rome they would use it in in different foods. They also used it in their ink to deter rodents
and fleas from eating papyrus when written upon so my extensive papyrus collection will finally be safe, Pennyroyal, so this is one of those other herbs that I've wanted for a really long time they actually used it in a version of kykeon which was the ancient potion that I made when i first
started the channel. It also can be quite deadly in certain quantities so it's one to be careful with but the reason that I want it is because it's said to keep away mosquitoes and we have a terrible mosquito problem, and in the 17th century they actually started using it to keep
away rattlesnakes. We don't have a rattlesnake problem but if we did i would really need that. Now there are a lot of other herbs from the ancient world that I would love to have but I am going to just mention one more and that is borage. Both Dioscorides and Pliny the Elder believed that
borage was actually the drug Nepenthe from Homer's 'Odyssey'. "Then Helen, daughter of Zeus took other
counsel. Straight away she cast into the wine of which they were drinking a drug to quiet all pain and strife, to bring forgetfulness of every ill." In the 16th century herbalist John Gerard said
"The leaves and flowers of borage put into wine make men and women glad and merry and drive away
all sadness, dullness and melancholy." Well I'm sold, and the good news is we actually got our hands
on some borage seeds. I do see some borage wine in the near future. I could enjoy it with my ancient Roman artichokes. So around 40 or 45 minutes take one of the artichokes out of the pot and test to see if it's done by gently pulling on one of the bottom leaves. If it pops right off and the meat
at the bottom kind of scrapes off pretty easily then that means they're done. So transfer the
artichokes to a wire rack set over a baking sheet. Let them sit for about a minute and then flip
them upside down and let them drain and cool for 10 minutes. And then pour a bit of your sauce on top and sprinkle a little extra pepper on and here we are ancient Roman artichokes. The thing is when you pour it on top most of the sauce actually is on the outside and the top of each leaf while the edible part is down here so maybe save most of it on the side so you
can dip which is what i'm going to do. Hmm! Perfect. Eating these is such a- they're so fun. I
love eating artichokes it's kind of a laborious process but makes a great appetizer because you can like have a conversation while you're doing it. Even if you're just talking
to a camera but it's a long appetizer, good for a long lunch. Now when it comes to the flavor the artichoke taste well, it tastes like an artichoke there's not- you know I love
the flavor of artichokes but it's it's fairly neutral. It's kind of- a nutty- a cross between like nutty and asparagus without the funk of an asparagus. I just love them i also love the texture. Now if you're missing that funk it's in the sauce. It's an ancient Roman sauce it has
garum in it, and garum is just going to kind of give you that- that musky funk. Musky Funk, that could be a a band name. What's cool about it though is that because there is so much
of that sweet wine and the honey in there it's sweet. There's also a small hint of bitterness
that is in there, and i guess it comes from the rue. I don't know that I'm necessarily picking up the flavor of the rue but there is the bitterness of the root, if that makes any sense. Now the fun thing with artichokes is even once you've done all of the leaves you still have the glorious heart in the center. The flavor is pretty much the same maybe just a little
bit stronger but you get a nice big bite of the meat which is nice after you've just like gotten
scraps for the last 15 minutes. So definitely make these if you like that musky funk of ancient
Roman cookery, and if you don't then just some butter or remoulade sauce works really really well, and I will see you next time on Tasting History.
For those interested in a picture of Priapos (aka Biggus Dickus)- https://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Priapos.html
Is there a substitute for rue or is it so unique in taste that nah?
u/jmaxmiller:
If your already looking into herbs like Borage, have a look at Hessian/Frankfurt Green Sauce (https://www.frankfurt-tourismus.de/en/Discover-Experience/Cuisine/Recipes/Frankfurt-Green-Sauce). It has a nice tie to Goethe and is one of the defining dishes out the federal state of Hesse in Germany.