Salt and other condiments / by J. J. Manley.

  • Manley, John Jackson.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Salt and other condiments / by J. J. Manley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    offered to the Latin public, each bearing on the bottle a label with the old name, and pretending to be concocted form the original recipe. These imitations, as we learn, were of very unequal merit, the liquor sometimes running thick and turbid, as the epithet applied to it, fcecosum, sufficiently indicates ; but in general, though varying greatly in taste, quality, consistence and colour, they were defecated and clear. Garum was everywhere held in the highest esteem, and notwithstanding the number of different fish used in the preparation, the demand was so constant that dealers sought to increase the quantity, and heighten the flavour, by mixing with it a variety of other fluid ingredients, as oil* wine, vinegar and waters. Hence recognised “ brands,” took the several names of “ elaiogarum,” “ oinogarum,” “oxygarum,” and “ hydrogarum,” which were used not only as fish sauces, but as liqueurs to stimulate the appetite, and we are told— “ That all the topers, to prepare ’em, Drank every man his glass of garum.” Some garum, of an expensive kind, costing, as Pliny tells us, as much as five hundred sesterces a gallon, was made from the blood of the thunny and other fish, and those who made a present of a flask of it to friends, generally took care to allude to its value :— “ Of Scomber’s precious blood I send A garum'd bottle to my friend ; Costly and thick, the last that dript From bleeding gills and entrails ript.” Alec, like garum, was at once the name of a fish and of l ™ad fT.it' This differed *e garum only n being thicker, being generally made from the dregs and feculence which remained after the garum liquor had been “°5 CleaK T\e fiSll °rigina'^ ”**«* ^ smalt C “ halecula ’’ ‘hough many other small species were afterwards pressed into the service, salt being largely employed. The halecula was a small nnri comparatively worthless fish for eating, bm o7 strong K