Foodstuffs for the Roman Legionary in the field

[TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS]

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The name of the <em>garum</em> comes from the name of the small mediterranean fishes early used in making this sauce: the <em>garos</em> or <em>garus</em> The smell of the garum depended a lot from its quality, it could be done firstly with fish entrails scrap, till to oysters only... And while the first filtered one smelled quite good, the final one really stinked...<br>
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It seems that the best garum was produced in Spain by a carthaginian company and was called <em>garum sociorum</em> (the society garum, Plinius N.H. XXXI, 94), it was made just with mackerels pieces, not entrails. In the normal garum making, the first and purest filtered liquid was the <em>gari flos</em>, and the most reputed was the <em>garum nigrum</em>. The first garum was consumed pure, but the worst one had to be obviously corrected by any sort of added ingredients due to its disgusting stink.<br>
The worst one was often the only food given with the bread to the slaves... You can easily guess its "smell" and quality...<br>
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Once all the liquid was filtered, the final result mass was the <em>allec</em>. Even the allec could be different in quality dependig from the fishes kind and pieces. Apicius got a very special kind of allec with livers of red mullets killed only in the garum sauce (Plinius N.H. IX, 66). He invented many kinds of special garum like <em>oxygarum, hydrogarum, oenogarum,</em> etc. But it's clear that <em>garum</em> and <em>allec</em> were made in hundreds of ways and flavours by any cook, or thermopolium, or housewife.<br>
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This is the classic fish sauce you commonly find in Italy (and in France, Spain or Portugal, I guess), it's the closest modern subsitute of the allec:<br>
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"Pasta d'acciughe": ground anchovy packed in stone jars, covered with a mixture of common salt, saltpetre, bay salt, sal prunella, and a few grains of cochineal; allowed to ripen for 6 months (Europe); ground and packed in jars, cans or tubes as consistent sauce.<br>
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You could take it as part of your field food and eat it cold with bread, cheese and olive oil.<br>
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You can find hundreds of recipes, but maybe the simplest, quickest and delicious is:<br>
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<span style="text-decoration:underline">crostini con mozzarella e pasta d'acciughe al forno</span><br>
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Put in a pan some really good extravirgin olive oil, then put sliced bread, put the pan in your warm oven till the bread will be toasted, then put on the bread some original italian sliced mozzarella cheese, put on the mozzarella cheese a good mix of olive oil and pasta d'acciughe, then put the pan in the oven again, till the mozzarellla will be almost melted, don't burn the mozzarella and enjoy the "crostini" well hot!<br>
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Valete,<br>
Titus<br>
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