This week, we’re back with more Apicius! I covered the background of this particular book of ancient Roman recipes in my previous passion blog post, so feel free to look back to find out more about the probably-not-a-real-person-but-still-a-prolific-chef wonder that is Apicius. Here’s the link the the Gutenberg Project’s free upload of the entirety of the translated document, footnotes, introductions, index, and all:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29728/29728-h/29728-h.htm#bkvii_chxiii

I decided to do a week of nothing but root vegetables. My vision: acquiring as many root vegetable recipes as possible, and running through each in rapid-fire succession. Searching through the old-world roots of Apicius, the recipes I found were mostly to do with carrots, parsnips, and beets. (I originally had some recipes listed for cow-parsnips and water-parsnips, but these turned out to be herbs where only the greens are used in cooking. Fun fact about cow-parsnips: allowing their sap to absorb into your skin makes you extremely sensitive to a burning reaction triggered by the sun!)

Why roots? Well, the thought was planted in my mind by my love for Shakespeare’s little-performed play Timon of Athens, whose titular character abandons society and runs away to live in a cave in the woods and eat nothing but roots when he feels his friends have abandoned him. (Mood? Mood.) In the beginning of the play, a cynical character who already lives the root-eating lifestyle says a wonderfully biting prayer of grace:

“Immortal gods, I crave no pelf;
I pray for no man but myself:
Grant I may never prove so fond,
To trust man on his oath or bond;
Or a harlot, for her weeping;
Or a dog, that seems a-sleeping:
Or a keeper with my freedom;
Or my friends, if I should need ’em.
Amen. So fall to’t:
Rich men sin, and I eat root.”

It’s interesting to consider how the root vegetable diet was synonymous with poverty in this Elizabethan portray of ancient Greek culture. (Money may be the root of all evil, but is money the evil of all roots?) The idea of honoring this fascinating play with a roots week on my blog really took root, if you will, as I was presenting a paper about Timon at a conference a few weekends ago. I found seven recipes that centered on the use of carrots, parsnips, and beets. Turns out, I can’t find parsnips anywhere in the local area, so I substituted more carrots into the parsnip recipes.

Let’s get right into the recipes! I’m giving each of these a distinct descriptive name, since the names Apicius gave them usually all go something like “beets another way” and “parsnips that will appeal to your tastes”. I’ll quickly summarize and review my experience with each dish below. In the end, I’ll rank all the dishes.

0: Raisin Wine Sauce

Okay, so this isn’t actually one of the recipes, but I did have to make some sort of raisin wine sauce, as many of these recipes asked for either reduced wine, wine sauce, raisin wine, reduced raisin wine, or some other variant of these. I boiled down some grape juice with raisins, but unfortunately burned it when I combined it with my roux of butter and flour. The second try, I had no grape juice, and it was past midnight and the convenience stores were closed, so I just boiled raisins in water, then poured this into the roux. This worked better, producing a strange sort of not-quite-sauce. I couldn’t find a good way to get the raisins out, but they started separating themselves out as the oily sauce boiled down and the raisins filled with juices and peeled away. I don’t know how to describe this creation. It wasn’t quite sauce. It tasted fine. Let’s move on.

1: Beets with Raisin Wine

This one is pretty similar to the beets with leeks recipe (below), but with a less interesting range of flavors. The nuts are a nice textural touch (I used walnuts). I don’t have polypody (the root of a fern) so something’s missing on the seasoning front. As it were, they’re boiled and seasoned beets with the weird raisin sauce and a few walnuts. They’re okay, but nothing to write home about and the leeks version of this is better. 7/10: it’s alright, but it’s missing something.

2. Beets with Mead

With all the recipes that simply said “cook” instead of specifying a method, I decided to bake, in order to provide some variety when compared to the boiled and fried roots in other recipes. I didn’t have mead, so I just poured some straight honey on these beets, seasoned them and let them bake. (Listen, it was two in the morning.) The results? I baked them too long and they started caramelizing. That was interesting. I think the sweet notes in beets need contrast and the honey was overpowering, but it was an interesting experiment and a welcome and unusual note when I had to finish all of these recipes mixed together for every meal the following day. 4/10: interesting does not mean good.

3. Beets with Leeks

I couldn’t find leeks in stores, unfortunately. I couldn’t even find green onions! So I used onion powder and hoped for the best. I love leeks and know this would have been better with them. Still, this recipe is excellent. It’s got sweet notes from the raisin wine and tangy notes from the vinegar. It’s well-seasoned. It has a rich broth. 8/10: the favorite so far.

4. Beets with Mustard

This recipe is simple and underwhelming. baked with mustard powder and some other seasonings. As with the mead beets, a welcome and unique twist, but not incredibly good on their own. A little dry, but I think I baked them for far too long. Eating a shriveled beet covered in mustard powder dust reminds me of the cinnamon challenge and also of mulch. 2/10: did not incorporate well.

5. Fried Carrots

Simple enough. I sliced the carrots and fried them. They tasted like oily carrots. Nothing to write home about, though it was greasier than most of the ancient fare I’ve made thus far. 6/10: I don’t know if I am personally a fan, but it worked well enough.

6. Carrots, Baked and Salted

For some reason, the carrot just didn’t want to bake properly. It wouldn’t soften the way I expected to. For this reason, I over-baked all my baked dishes and let them all dry out a little. This one is underwhelming. It is simply a baked carrot with some salt. The vinegar is a nice touch, but it isn’t enough to save this dry and unappealing root. 3/10: not particularly appealing.

7. Boiled Cumin Carrots

They are boiled carrots. They taste like boiled carrots. I don’t know what I expected. Unimaginative seasoning palate. 5/10: boiled carrots.

Final ancient root recipe ranking, from best to worst:

Beets with Leeks (8/10)

Beets with Raisin Wine (7/10)

Fried Carrots (6/10)

Boiled Cumin Carrots (5/10)

Beets with Mead (4/10)

Carrots, Baked and Salted (3/10)

Beets with Mustard (2/10)

That’s all for this week! If you are, for some reason, still reading this mess of a blog, tune in next week for whatever I think up when I have access to a fully stocked kitchen over break.

Carpe diem.