In ancient Rome the tumultuous year of civil war
69 AD was known as the Year of Four Emperors, and today we are making a dish
named after Emperor number three, Vitellian peas an ancient Roman form of the
British side dish mushy peas. We'll also take a look at some of the events of this wacky year in Roman history and see why the Emperor Vitellius is mostly remembered for having food named after
him. Vitellian peas this time on Tasting History. So this is week two of Rome Month sponsored
by the folks over Creative Assembly and their release of Total War Rome Remastered out on
April 29th. Now I used to play the original version in college for hours at a time. It's
honestly a wonder that I even graduated, but let us take a look at what the
remastered version is going to look like. Today we're going to be discussing one of
Rome's less famous emperors Aulus Vitellius. Is it just me or does that painting make it
look like he's wearing overalls. Has to be the least flattering portrait of a Roman Emperor ever. Anyway during his short stint at the top "All of the most costly viands were brought from
afar... and were prepared in so costly of fashion that even now certain cakes and other dishes are named Vitellian, after him." Case in point Pisam Vitellianam Sive Fabam, or vVitellian peas, or vitellian fava beans depending on the translation. This is the recipe from Apicius, De Re Coquinaria. Vitellian peas: boil the peas or beans, stir until smooth. Pound pepper, lovage, ginger; and
over the spices put yolks of hard-boiled eggs, three ounces honey, liquamen, wine and vinegar. Put all this including the spices which you have pounded, in a saucepan. Add oil, and bring to a boil. Season the peas with this stir until smooth. If lumpy, add honey and serve. Definitely less cream and more hard-boiled egg than your modern mushy pea, but I can still see a
resemblance. So for this recipe what you'll need is 1 pound or 450 grams of dried peas, or fava beans. If you're in Britain you can use marrowfat peas for this. They work perfectly. You
can also use split peas especially here in the United States where it's a little hard to find
marrowfat peas you could also use fava beans, or broad beans for this. Either one is great. A half teaspoon of pepper, one teaspoon lovage leaves, or lovage seeds but if you use those use
half a teaspoon. A half teaspoon dried ginger root, three egg yolks from hard boiled eggs, three
tablespoons of honey. Now this is weird because it's the only ingredient in the recipe that
they're very specific about how much to use, no other ingredients. So i don't know if you're
using like three times as many peas as someone else do you still use the same amount of honey?
It makes no sense you either need specifics for everything or nothing. That said it's kind of to
taste. You know it's like how sweet do you want your peas. One tablespoon of liquamen or garum. I'll put a link in the description to where you can find garum or Colatura di Alici. A half cup or 120 milliliters of wine. Now you can use red or white for this it's not specific. I used white so I
could keep the color of the green peas but if you use red it'll just make it darker. Two tablespoons of wine vinegar. Again red or white it's up to you. And one tablespoon of olive oil. So first depending on the type of dried pea or bean that you're using they might need to be soaked for
a few hours so go ahead and soak them if they do. Otherwise put them into a pot and add just enough
water to cover them before setting them over a medium heat and bringing them to a boil. Then let them simmer for about an hour and a half though make sure to keep an eye on them because you might
need to add water you don't want them to dry out. Now when they're about 10 minutes left on the
peas grab your mortar and pestle and grind up the pepper, the ginger, and the lovage all together.
tThen add your egg yolks and pound until smooth. It should be like a paste then you can add
all the liquid ingredients into the mortar if you want but it's actually easier to just
add them into the pot, makes less of a mess. So take a small saucepan and add the honey,
the garum, the wine, and the vinegar and mix. Then mix in the egg yolk mixture and finally stir
in the olive oil and set the pot over medium heat. Then bring it to a boil and let it simmer for
about five to seven minutes. Which is just enough time to head back to that year of Roman Civil War
69 AD. Now in Total War Rome Remastered not only do you have to manage your army and fighting other empires, but you also have to manage the Senate and your own people. And in the year 69 it was your own people you really had to watch out for. Picture this Italy 69 AD. The Roman Empire is
still reeling from the suicide of the Emperor Nero just six months earlier. Now donning the laurel wreath is the new Emperor Galba. A man who was an inspiration to pretty much nobody. One such uninspired citizen was Aulus Vitellius. Now up to this point Vitellius had had a mediocre
career but it wasn't that bad considering that he was born into the equestrian or equites which is
the second tier of Roman society, but his father was Consul three times which allowed Vitellius
to move his way up into that top tier of Roman society. He was actually a companion to the
Emperor Tiberius after the Emperor had retired on the isle of Capri and while there became good
friends with the future Emperor Caligula. They bonded over a love of gambling and horse racing. And Vitellius says bon vivant lifestyle made it somewhat surprising when he became Consul in 48
and Pro-Consul of Africa in 61 and even he had to be astonished when in 68 he was appointed as head
of the army of Germanica inferior or the modern day Netherlands area. Most shocking was that it
was the new Emperor Galba who made the appointment though it might have been a bit of a backhanded
compliment. "...since Galba openly declared that no men were less to be feared than those who thought of
nothing but eating." And that Vitellius's bottomless gullet might be filled from the resources of the
province, it is clear to anyone that he was chosen rather through contempt than favor." Though with Vitellius's lifestyle putting him so much in debt that he had to sneak out of Rome pawning his
mother's pearl earrings just to pay for his way to his new post. I'm guessing he didn't really care why he got the job, it was just that he got the job. But when he did get there he
was welcomed with open arms by the legion, partly because most of the military did not like the
new emperor and also because Vitellius was cool. Everybody liked him. He was generous and jovial
and he didn't put himself above everyone and he knew all of the common soldiers, "And at the post houses and inns he was unusually affable to the mule drivers and travelers, asking each of them in
the morning whether they had breakfasted and even showing by belching that he had done so." He spent lavishly on his soldiers and gave them whatever they petitioned for, so that "hardly a month had passed when the soldiers... hastily took him from his bedroom... dressed in his common house clothes
and declared him Emperor." Other armies in Russia and Gaul and Britannia joined in to declare him Emperor as well, and he took the name Germanicus instead of the traditional Caesar and off he went to Italy to get rid of Galba, but then he found out that Galba had been murdered and there was a
new Emperor on the throne, Emperor Otho. Which is how my little sister used to say Arthur when she
was growing up, though actually maybe it was ofo? I can't remember. Anyway at the battle of
Bedriacu,, Vitellius's armies defeated Otho and Otho committed suicide. Easiest coup
ever. Though seeing as in just a few months there were three emperors I'm guessing that the
coin makers of Rome were getting kind of annoyed. Now the author's Suetonius says that Vitellius
entered Rome with great pomp and circumstance. He was quickly acknowledged by the Senate as
Emperor and made offerings to the people's then favorite ex-Emperor Nero. He actually tried to
model himself after Nero and during one of his very first banquets as Emperor he asked one of
the flute players to play Nero's greatest hits. "No new crap. Taking care of business. Now!" That is a great historical regret of mine is the fact that we don't have sheet music from ancient Rome
especially that we could have actually known what Nero's music sounded like. How cool would that be? Now as Emperor Vitellius actually did some really cool stuff. He expanded many of the imperial
offices to include people from the equites, that second class that he was born into. He also put an end to the sale of furloughs by centurions to their soldiers. It'd be like if today military members had to pay their drill sergeant five hundred every time that they went on leave. But those are not the things that Vitellius is remembered for. Sadly Vitellius is remembered
for being a glutton and that's about it. "He divided his feasts into three, sometimes
into four a day; breakfast, luncheon, dinner, and a bout of drinking. And he was readily able to do justice to all of them through his habit of taking emetics. An emetic is something
that would induce vomiting, and it is true that there were some ancient Romans who would
induce vomiting so that they could eat more but it is not a vomitorium. That is something very
different. That was never a room where you went to do that. A vomitorium is a later term that
refers to part of an arena where patrons would spew forth. Same etymology though. Vitellius was
known for inviting himself over pretty much daily to wealthy people's villas where he would
demand that a feast be prepared costing no less than four hundred thousand sastercis
according to Suetonius. Now that is between like $200k-$800k roughly somewhere in there,
so I think that that's probably crazy EXCEPT that another author Cassius Dayo says that there
was one dish that he had made for a million sasturcis That dish might have been served at a
dinner given by Vitellius's brother. "Two thousand of the choicest fishes and seven thousand birds are said to have been served. On a platter so large he called it the shield of Minerva defender of the
city... He mingled the livers of pike, the brains of pheasants, and peacocks. The tongues of flamingoes and the milt of lampreys brought by the captains and triremes from the whole empire from Parthia
to the Spanish Straight." So I made a mistake and instead of leaving well enough alone I looked up what milt was, because I had never heard that term and it turns out that it is the reproductive
fluid of some male animals... like lampreys... D: Anyway, Suetonius says that Vitellius "Being a
man of an appetite that was not only boundless but also regardless of time or decency could never
refrain even when sacrificing... from snatching bits of meat and cakes amid the altars... and devouring
them on the spot." Kind of like filling up on communion wafers. Suetonius goes on for the next chapter to discuss how horrible Vitellius was, how he would refuse to pay his debts. He loved to
torture and execute people just on a whim. He also accuses Vitellius of poisoning his own mother because of an Oracle that said that Vitellius would have a longer rule if his mother died first. Now while no author is particularly complementary to Vitellius they all agree that he was audacious and licentious, and prone to protegality. Suetonius seems particularly harsh on the man but
you have to realize that Suetonius's own father was in the army that Vitellius's army defeated at
that first Battle of Bedriacum so he's probably not a very impartial judge, and it just goes
to show that history is not always written by the victors, history is written by those who write stuff down. Now Vitellius's over-the-top lifestyle surely would have caught up to him sooner or
later, had he not been Emperor number three in the year of four Emperors. See almost as
soon as he took power a commander in the East was also proclaimed Emperor, and his name was
Vespasian, and Vespasian had a general under him who was excellent on the battlefield and had like
the coolest name ever: Marcus Antonius Primus. *Rolling out intensifies So Primus led the Sixth Legion into Italy
and defeated Vitellius's army. Oddly enough at that same spot Bedriacum at the Second
Battle of Bedriacum, and when Vitellius heard this he went to Vespasian's brother who was in
Rome at the time, and offered in exchange for his wicked life two things: to resign as Emperor and a hundred million cistercies, and the brother took it. So Vitellius went
to the palace steps to tell all of his men and the people of Rome that he was stepping
down. It was a nice ride while it lasted boys but let's pack it in. Unfortunately, they did not agree. And when Vespasian's army came into Rome there was a great deal of street fighting where
Cassius Dayo says, "50,000 Romans died. Much of the city was destroyed including the Temple of
Jupiter and Vespasian eventually took the city and Vitellius "Put on a girdle filled with gold pieces
and took refuge in the lodge of a door-keeper tying a dog outside the door and putting a couch
and mattress against it." I love that image, this Roman Emperor like pushing furniture
up against the doors. It's kind of silly. Well anyway they found him, you know after not too
long, and they wrapped a noose around his neck, and tore off most of his clothes, and dragged him
through the streets where people would pelt him with dung. Many of the people were the same ones
who wouldn't let him abdicate just days before. So fickle. Then he was taken to the Gemonian Stairs also known as the Stairs of Death, not just a clever name, where he was tortured
and executed. He was beheaded, his head being paraded around the city and his body being
thrown into the Tiber River. That's Rome baby, for when you play the Game of Emperor you win
or you die, and he died. And Vespasian ended up becoming Emperor and actually quite a good one. So if you want to stay Emperor in the PC strategy game Total War Rome Remastered you better learn
how to command an army better than poor Vitellius. So once your seasoning is cooked for a few
minutes go ahead and mix it in with the peas, and stir until smooth, and if you do
want those peas a little sweeter go ahead and bedight them with a little more honey. Then serve it forth, and here we are Vitellian peas. Factoid for you these peas and other foods are not
the only things named after the emperor Vitellius because the oldest surviving Beowulf manuscript
is known as Cotton Vitellius A XV because it was kept in a bookcase that had the Emperor
Vitellius's bust on it in Sir Robert Cotton's library. Just thought that was kind of cool.
Anyway let's try these peas. Vitellian peas. They look green, they actually don't look
very, very appetizing but here we go. Hm. That's weird, it's not bad... It's like so much other Roman food. Who put those flavors together? Because you can kind of taste the savory-
I mean you can taste peas but then there's also like the savoriness from the garum,
then wow that honey is sweet. They're weird. I don't know if I like them or not... I really don't know but sometimes that's okay you know? You don't need to know how you feel about every
little thing including Vitellian peas it seems. I think they actually might grow on me.
The after flavor is is actually quite nice. Anyway Vitellius was known for having great
feasts so next week we are going to cover one of the most famous feasts in Roman literature, Trimalchio's feast from the Satyricon. So make sure to join me for the continuation of
Rome Month next week on Tasting History. ^_^y
I'm not proud of this but every time I hear 69 A.D. my mind just goes "nice"
An episode about a 69 AD emperor on 4/20. Nice.
That was a fun episode! I'd like to see Max try a couple spoonfuls to try and explain what he's tasting rather than leave it on "IDK". I mean, I'm never going to make this so I'd like to hear why these historic figures might like that slop!
Oh dear god. Not Vitellius! That year was crazy.
He bonded with Caligula over horse racing? That should be horse "racing", if I know Caligula.
Max quotes Cassius DIO? Is that.......a Jojo reference?
When your guac game could use some improvement