Posted on 02/07/2020 9:20:48 AM PST by SunkenCiv
A factory to make Roman fish sauce about 2,000 years ago has been found in Ashkelon -- about 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) outside the ancient city.
The location of the vats on the southern city's outskirts shores up the supposition that the fish sauce, called garum, had to be manufactured out of town because the process was an olfactory abomination.
The fish farms that provided the raw material for this ancient industry were no joy to live next to either, it seems.
Being a reeking concoction that begins with drying fish guts and then a fermentation stage, adding spice and serving, it is no wonder its production was kept afar from residential areas...
"This is a rare find in our region and very few installations of this kind have been found in the Eastern Mediterranean," says Tali Erickson-Gini from the Israel Antiquities Authority.
"Ancient sources even refer to the production of Jewish garum," she adds. "The discovery of this kind of installation in Ashkelon evinces that the Roman tastes that spread throughout the empire were not confined to dress but also included dietary habits."
...Garum seems to go back over 2,500 years to ancient Greek and Phoenician cuisine. They shipped it in the same type of clay vessel (an amphora) that they used for wine and olive oil, and one theory posits that the noun itself derived from the Greek word for shrimp -- sounds like garida.
If anything, modern epidemiologists suspect garum of spreading tapeworms hosted in fish throughout the Roman Empire, including to areas where fish were unknown. To be clear, if you eat an uncooked fish contaminated with cysts of Diphyllobothrium latum -- i.e., the fish tapeworm -- you get the worm.
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
Now, we just use Amazon...............
We have a town in Virginia, Kilmarnock, that boasts “that’s the smell of money.” I suppose if it’s money for you maybe it is. When it ain’t money for you it’s a stench.
Here are the other GGG topics introduced since the previous Digest ping:
May not be a bad skill to learn, considering...
Being downwind from a pulp mill on a hot day is no picnic, either.
I’d like to make (with modifications) some.
You can say that again.
In the episode Supersizers Eat: Ancient Rome, they indulge in some garum.
Pulp mill start up morning alarm clock...don’t plan on sleeping in...
;>)
If this is anything like padaek, (Lao fish sauce) I understand.
And do not pass on the dried salty minnows that you crumble over the rice and veggies!
Most of today's 'brown' steak sauce is made with fish sauce, notice the anchovies on the ingredients list.
[snip] Titus complained of the tax which Vespasian had imposed on the contents of the City urinals (used by the fullers to clean woollens). Vespasian handed him a coin which had been part of the first day’s proceeds: ‘Does it smell bad, my son?’ he asked. ‘No, Father!’ ‘That’s odd: it comes straight from the urinal!’ [/snip]
https://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/suetnius/vspsn.htm
We have a paper mill in Spring Grove, York County, PA. And when the wind is right.....peeewww!
In my town, we have our dairies and feed lots for beef cattle. Often city dwellers will move here and then bitch about the smell. Go figure.
In Mike Duncan’s podcast series “The History of Rome” he gives a very detailed explanation of what garum is (and what it is not), how it is made, etc. Was very fascinating.
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