A lot of people have been asking me "What is the
hardest ingredient for you to find? Is it flamingo tongue, or white horehound maybe?" And yes those are hard to track down but at least they exist. Now I've got to go with that
lost and possibly extinct herb silphium from ancient Rome. So today we're making a sauce for fried fish from ancient Rome which calls for this mysterious
ingredient. So thank you to Noom for sponsoring this video as we pick through the murky past
of silphium. This time on Tasting History. So i was picking through the Epicius De Re Coquinaria
looking for a recipe that uses silphium for today's episode and there are lots that use silphium,
he even has one that's just a silphium sauce but I decided on either a fried fish sauce or the womb of a sterile sow. Then it turned out that all the sows that I know are rather fertile, so it's
the fish sauce. "Sauce with herbs for fried fish" Whatever fish you like, clean, salt, fry. Pound pepper, cumin, coriander seed, silphium root, oregano, rue, pound. Moistened with vinegar, add dates,
honey, defrutum, oil, liquamen. Pour into a pot, let it boil. When heated pour over the fried fish. Sprinkle pepper and serve. Now the author doesn't give us any quantities for the ingredients so
what i'm making today, my interpretation far from the gospel truth. If you want to change it up go
right ahead. Now the amount that i'm making today though is good for about two fried fish. So what
you'll need: is a whole fish or filet. Salt for seasoning. Now usually the Romans use liquamen,
or garum, for seasoning and they do mention that in this sauce but they also say to salt the
fish, so i'm just going to use regular salt though actually I got a really cool fancy salt
that was given to me so if you have any of those cool fancy salts that you can never actually find
a use for go ahead and use it for this. One-half teaspoon black peppercorns, one half teaspoon cumin seeds, one half teaspoon coriander seed, one half teaspoon silphium, but wait you just said that it was extinct or at least we don't know what it was, and that is true. So you can either leave it
out completely that's okay some historians would say to do that, but some historians would also say
swap it out for something called asafoetida, or hing. And that's because it sometimes may have
been used in Rome as a substitute but we will get into that later. For my part I'm using the
asafoetida because the flavor is very interesting. One teaspoon fresh oregano. If you can only
find dried oregano use half a teaspoon. One half teaspoon dried rue. Now this is a really
interesting ingredient one because it's almost impossible to find at least here in America
that's not dried. Now if you can find it, if you're growing it in your garden go ahead and use
the fresh because that's probably what they would have used, but double it so use a full teaspoon. But
if you're using the dried then a half a teaspoon. Now we don't know did they use just the leaves, or
did they use the berries, not sure both are edible, very different flavors. We think though that they
were probably using the leaves in something like this, so they're kind of bitter, so you can
swap out with any kind of bitter herb, but another thing to watch out for is if you're
pregnant you shouldn't be eating it which is weird. 3 tablespoons red or white wine vinegar. 3 dates minced. Two tablespoons of honey. One tablespoon of defrutum. Now here's another ingredient that you
might not have heard of. Defrutum was a a reduction of must. So must is the fresh squeezed juice of
grapes which includes the seeds and the skins and everything and then it's reduced by about half
to become like this nice sweet syrup. The modern version is called Mosto Cotto, or vincotto, and it's very, very similar probably. We don't know for sure and i'll put a link in the description to where
you can get that but you can also just take some grape juice, and reduce it yourself. It
won't have the the other parts of the grape it's just the juice but you can reduce it
yourself, it'll be similar. What you don't want to add is any lead which probably would have
been included in the original recipe, but don't add that. Two tablespoons of olive oil, plus more
for frying, and one tablespoon of liquamen, or garum. Again, you're probably not going to be able to find
garum so go ahead and use Colatura di Alici which is what I use, i'll link in the description,
or any other kind of wonderful fish sauce eastern Asia has a lot that you can get at pretty
much any store. So before I get started cooking I wanted to mention the sponsor of this video -
noom. So last spring to now from when I started the channel until now I uh, I may have put on a few
pounds, my eating habits have changed and not for the better. Not actually because of the food, but because i'm home all the time as so many of us are doing research, so actually maybe it's the history
that's made me fat. Anyway that's why I'm super excited to actually get to try noom because noom uses psychology to help change your habits, and that would include your eating habits to live
a healthier lifestyle, and maybe lose some weight. Plus you get paired with a real life coach and
goal specialist who can help you on your journey. So actually just before I started filming this
episode I went on to noom.com and took my online evaluation, and i'm starting my personalized
program this week. So if you want to try it with me, just click the link in the description
so you can take your own online new evaluation. Now let's get to cooking. So first make your sauce.
Go ahead and chop up your herbs nice and fine, then add your pepper cumin and coriander into a mortar
and grind everything up. Once it's ground add the asafoetida if you're going to use it, along with the
oregano and the rue, then mix everything together pounding the ingredients into submission. Then
transfer all of that into a small saucepan and add the vinegar, the honey, the defrutum, the oil, and
the garum, and the dates. Mix everything together and then set it aside while you prepare your fish. Now when it comes to frying fish there are a lot of ways to do it this is the way that i'm doing
it but it's not the only way to do it. So make sure your fish is nice and clean and pat it dry.
You can take off the fins or leave them on, you're not going to eat them probably but you actually
can. Then make several slices about halfway through the meat of the fish, and then season it with the
salt making sure to get some into those openings. So here's the question: do we flour this fish, or
do we not flour this fish? I am not flouring this fish. It doesn't mention it in the recipe so we
don't actually know they might have put some sort of flour on there. I don't know, but you don't need
flour to fry a fish you just have to have a little bit more oil, and when you put it in DON'T MOVE IT.
Just leave it alone until it's cooked on that side. If you are going to flour it then you can use a
little bit less oil but you do need to kind of move it around for the first few seconds until
it gets a nice crust so it doesn't stick to the pan. Either way you do it pour your olive oil
into a pan and heat it on medium-high heat until it's nice and hot, about 400 degrees fahrenheit or
205 degrees celsius. Once it hits that temperature turn it down to medium and put the fish in very gently away from you Again do not move this fish, it will break up if you're not flouring the fish. Just go ahead and leave it untouched in the oil to fry for about four or five minutes while we talk
silphium. "We find it stated by the most trustworthy among the Greek writers, that this plant first made
its appearance in the vicinity of the gardens of the Hesperides and the greater Syrtis. Immediately
after the earth had been soaked by a rain black as pitch. This took place seven years before
the foundation of the city of Cyrenae, and in the year of Rome 143." That was Pliny the Elder so
you know it's got to be true. I mean what's hard to believe right? 143 years after the foundation of
Rome some sort of black rain came down around the area of like Benghazi, Libya and all of a sudden
silphium just magically sprouted out of the ground. What's hard to believe? I also love that he makes
sure to mention that this story came from the most trusted of Greek writers who was probably Theophrastus, because he's like you know don't don't take it from me it's not my word it's that guy
so if you got a problem with the story take it up with him. Anyway it wasn't long after the silphium
came magically sprouting up that the people of Cyrenae settled the area supposedly on the good
advice of the god Apollo. Thanks Apollo! Anytime! The plant ended up becoming one of their main
exports to Greece, Rome and Egypt and even became their national symbol appearing on their coins
as far back as the 6th century BC. So now while the plant itself silphium was very precious Pliny
says that it was the sap or the juice that came from the stalk and the roots which he called "laser
or laserpicium" which was really, really precious. He said that it was actually sold for its weight
in silver which is why "The dictator Caesar at the beginning of the civil war took from out of the
public treasury besides gold and silver no less than fifteen hundred pounds of laserpicium" but Pliny claims that the farmers of Cyrenae allowed their sheep to graze on the silphium so that "Within the memory of the present generation, a single stalk is all that has ever been found there, and that it was sent as a curiosity to the emperor Nero... Had been no other laser imported into
this country, but that produced in either Persis, Media, or Armenia, which is grown in considerable
abundance though much inferior to that of Cyrenaica. And even that is adulterated with gum
sacopenium, or pounded beans." Okay so you don't to blame the poor sheep when you just said that
Julius Caesar had 1500 pounds of the stuff. That's not really fair is it? Also just for a little
context those three places that he mentioned: Persis, Media, and Armenia were under the control of
the Parthian empire, which we discussed at length in our episode on Parthian chicken, and that's why
a lot of historians think that it's possible that this knockoff silphium, sometimes cut with pounded
beans I guess was asafoetida or hing because that was growing in those regions at the time, probably. I guess it'd be kind of like if the recipe for Coca-Cola just completely disappeared and all
that we were left with was Pepsi cut with RC Cola, very, very sad. So Theaophrastus, father of botany and
that most trustworthy Greek that Pliny mentioned, discusses how silphium was only grown in one strip
along the north African coast about 125 miles long, he also says that silphium couldn't be cultivated.
It had to grow wild and there were attempts to cultivate it but the the product was inferior
and it just never really worked, so after the Romans took over the area they blew through the
entire supply in just over a century. BUT WHY? What was so special about this plant? We don't
really know but definitely one reason and probably the main reason was it was tasty, or at least
they thought so. I mean even hundreds of years after the plant supposedly went extinct it's
still showing up in recipes like the one that we're making today. There's a great scene in
the Greek comedy "The Birds" by Aristophanes where the main character immortal from Athens is
cooking when Poseidon, Hercules and another god come walking through the door. "The grater for the
cheese - can someone get it? And bring the silphium . Hand me the cheese. Now fire up the coals. Greetings, Mortal. We three are gods and urge you to greet us! But I'm grating silphium right now." I love that. I mean who has time for the gods when you're eating silphium. That's how good this stuff was. It'd be
like me with anything that had the words molten and chocolate in it. So yeah they thought it was
tasty and it was probably mostly used for food and that's why we're talking about it here on Tasting
History, but it also had a number of other uses. "When the gut protrudes and will not remain in its
place, scrape the finest and most compact silphium into small pieces and apply as a poultice..." So that
was Hippocrates, Father of Medicine describing how silphium could be used to treat what iI'm assuming
is a hernia, but it comes from a work called "On Fistulae" and in the work Hippocrates
describes in the most vivid of terms every horrible malady that the human body
will go through. I'm not going to read them right now, but I am going to put a link in
the description to where you can read it. It's really gross but it's really interesting. Now
going back to Pliny the Elder he goes to town and names off 39 remedial uses for silphium. "Laser, a juice which distills from silphium...
reckoned among the most precious gifts presented to us by nature
is made use of in numerous medicinal preparations. Employed by itself, it warms and revives persons
benumbed with cold. It is given to females in wine to promote the menstrual discharge mixed with
wax it extracts corns on the feet after they have been first loosened with a knife." He also says that
it's a diuretic, and a digestive, and can neutralize the venom of serpents and poisoned weapons. It's also good for gout, pleurisy, quincy, sciatica and epilepsy, but my favorite thing that he says
is actually what it should NOT be used for "For my own part, I should not recommend, what
some authors advise. To insert a pill of laser, covered with wax, in a hollow tooth, for toothache; being warned to the contrary by a remarkable case of a man, who after doing so, threw himself headlong
from the top of a house. Besides it is a well-known fact if it is rubbed on the muzzle of a bull it irritates him to an extraordinary degree and if it is mixed with wine, it will cause serpents to
burst - those reptiles being extremely fond of wine." I just love this guy. What world is he
living in. Drunk snakes going around. I love you, I love you Pliny. Never change. <3 Anyway,
it also had several ties to carnal relations. It was thought that silphium
was actually an aphrodisiac. The seed pod was shaped like a heart
and also appeared on Cyrenae's coins, and some scholars have actually linked that
to the heart being a symbol of love today. <3 There's a little story about the plant's tie to
amour from Pausanias's "Description of Greece". He tells a story of the Discordi, who were the twins
Castor and Pollux from Greek mythology. You might know them better as Gemini the constellation. These rascally brothers did everything together,
from fighting to falling in love. And one day they show
up at the house of a Spartan named Formion and ask if they can stay, and Formion's like "yeah, of course
you can stay just don't stay in this one room", because that was where his maiden daughter
lived. WELL, "By the next day this maiden and all her girlish apparel had disappeared, and in the room were found images of the Discori, a table, and silphium upon it." Now silphium was
an aphrodisiac, but it was also a contraceptive, so make what you will of that story. So yeah that's silphium possibly extinct, possibly still hiding in plain sight and just lost to history and forgotten. Some people actually think that it's the ferula tinjitana or tangier fennel, or maybe it's ferula communis known as giant fennel. We don't know and that's why the asafoetida that I'm using today
is just a guess, and you would not be wrong to leave it out completely. It's up to you. Either way I used it, and I am ready to finish up this fish. So by now your fish should be done on one side,
and all that you got to do is gently,very gently flip it over. If it feels like it's stuck then
that means it's not cooked all the way and you just got to give it another minute and then flip
it over. Once you flip the fish turn the heat to medium low and strike up another burner so you
can start heating up your sauce. It should only take a few minutes to get this amount of sauce to
a boil which is why we're just starting it now as our fish finishes frying. Fish finishes frying, fish finissis frying. It's so hard to say. I took so many takes to get that. Once the fish is fried
on the other side go ahead and set it onto a wire rack with paper towels underneath. Don't put it directly onto paper towel because then it ends up losing the crispness and it kind of
gets soggy on one side of the fish and nobody wants a soggy fish. Then as the recipe says go ahead and pour the sauce over the fish and sprinkle with pepper. I actually swapped the two,
did the pepper and then the sauce I don't think it really matters but I just - I can't read. So here we are: our fried fish
with sauce from ancient Rome. I'm going to take my bite right out of the
middle. Try not to get any any bones that's always the, it's always the scary part with
whole fish, not that it really matters. *munch munch O_O Hmm! Okay, it's so so like anything from ancient Rome the flavors are so so foreign. It's really sweet... at the beginning, and then it's not sweet. It turns into something very savory and then salty. It's like it's going down the line of all of these different flavors and there's there's this
onion, which is actually probably the asafoetida that kind of spiced onion flavor, oh
but it's really good and it's so crispy. I did a good job frying this fish. Yeah I would suggest you make this sauce. I need some more sauce on there. The sauce is really good, honestly this sauce could go on anything *monch monch I just love how the flavor keeps changing along
the way. It's so interesting. It's wonderful. Yeah, it's also really light and and uh and that's
that's just, that's lovely. I don't make a lot of light things here. I use a
lot of butter and whatnot. Anyway, make sure to subscribe to Tasting History, and I will see you next time <_< on Tasting History.
This episode was great! It's wild that an entire herb that was widely used and loved is now extinct.
Everyone knows that it enrages bulls when you rub it on their nose. Everyone.
YES!
Also I need some of what Pliny the Elder was smoking when he wrote what not to do with Silphium.
I never thought I would watch a recipe show. But I LOVE watching Tasting History! This episode was great.