A large Roman ship that sank full of fish sauce has been discovered of Italy's coast. Photo:Boris Horvat/AFP
Posted on 12/12/2015 4:36:54 PM PST by SunkenCiv
In spite of the mystery that usually surrounds ancient shipwrecks, it is almost certain that the ship was sailing a route between Italy, Spain and Portugal in order to transport a precious cargo of Roman garum. The clue lies in the shape of the clay jars, as the sauce itself has all since seeped into the sea.
"After we filmed the wreck and analyzed an amphora [clay jar] and some fragments that a robotic craft brought back to the surface, we realized the ship was carrying a huge quantity of fish sauce when it sank," said Trigona.
"The amphora are almost all of a certain type, which was used exclusively for garum."
Garum -- a sauce made by fermenting salted fish intestines - was a mainstay of banqueting tables and street food stands across the Roman empire.
The sauce was highly prized for its nutritional qualities and was also a rich source of monosodium glutamate - a compound widely used in the food industry today as a flavour enhancer.
In addition to the fish sauce, archaeologists also identified two types of jar which were only manufactured in the area around the river Tiber in Rome. It is thought they were probably being used to transport some of the area's excellent regional wines to the Iberian peninsula...
"She most likely sailed out of Rome along the Tiber and sank a couple of weeks later while making the return journey, weighed down by all that fish sauce."
For now, no further analysis of the wreck is planned and Trigona called for vigilance in order to protect the sunken cargo from would-be looters.
"At 200 meters nobody will be able to dive it but that won't stop people trying to pull things up using deep sea fishing nets."
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.it ...
A large Roman ship that sank full of fish sauce has been discovered of Italy's coast. Photo:Boris Horvat/AFP
Probably still good due to the salt.
Interesting!
Odds are that it still smells exactly the same!
Sounds just wonderful but the quality probably had a lot to do with what those fish had been eating. :)
Is that the stuff where they throw fish in a bucket then place it in to sun to ROT
Not really.......ugh and yuck, puck, vomit.
Stink Bait
Looks more like fermented fish intestines.
Someone who hated fish sauce probably paid to have it sunk.
Worcestershire sauce. I wonder if its still edible or can be used as a steak marinade? That would be real cool to have a steak marinaded in a sauce that was over 2000 years old.
No wonder the average life span of a Roman was 21 years. Wonder how many died of food poisoning.
Livia: “Don’t eat the figs.” (From I CLAUDIUS)
So the Romans knew about Umami. BUT, did they know about Sriracha? That is the question.
The BBC’s “Supersizers Go” series appealed to my interests in both history and food. They had some interesting things to say about garum in their “Go Roman,” episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5MyeInm4xg
Ingredients:Anchvy-fish,salt,sugar,water.
Product of Thailand
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