The Romans ate Lark's Tongues?

[Daniel Rogov]

When discussing Roman dining habits, well worth keeping in mind the dictate of Careme to the effect that "Roman cooking was sumptous and magnificent but fundamentally barbarous".

[Eden]

in addition to the Pliny note about flamingo tongues we also have a quote from Historia Augusta (Elagabalus XX.5-6) that Heliogabalus imitated Apicius

by eating camels' heels, and also ate the tongues of peacocks because he'd

been told that they would immunize him against pestilence.

Martial discussing the flamingo also seems to have gone for tongue 'I have

my name from the reddish/coloured feathers, but my tongue is delicious to

the gourmets.

Suetonius lists flamingo tongue amongst the many delicacies favoured

by Vitellius.

re actually eating birds tongues, I haven't tried any, and don't particularly(morning crankiness aside) want to, but Little Miss Foodie had duck tongue during her blog last fall & said it was quite good. Coincidentaly, the duck tongues were eaten at Lark!

[Adam Balic]

Adam, Hello....

A fun dialogue but, not having been around either 30,000,000 years ago and having been born a bit (just a bit mind you) after Apicius, I cannot vouch for any of this personally. 

As to personal taste, the only bird's tongues that I have tasted were those of parrots and an assortment of songbirds (shot by noble hunters in Igoumenitsa in Greece) and to tell the truth, I think I would prefer eating a handkerchief.

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Daniel -

it would fun to know the truth about the Romans and there dieting habits, but I guess we never really will. Recontructing a pot from a shard is possible, but what went into the pot and how it was prepared is another thing entirely. Fun to speculate though.

I have eaten ducks tongues a few times, quite nice except the gristly root.

[hathor]

Ciao tutti!

Daniel: are you sure about no hummingbirds in Europe?? The reason I'm sceptical is that we are innundated with them, particularly in the red geraniums. They are thriving here in Italy...must have been a awful lot of them escaping from somewhere.

Adam: you're not 'supposed' to eat the root of the duck tongue...I was always told to just chew around it. Not for the squeemish on a first date, I suppose.

And coincedentally, the subject of 'vomitoriums' came up last night at dinner, so I got to show off my new found knowledge. Grazie!

[Daniel Rogov]

Ciao Hathor...

I've taken the information about the lack of hummingbirds in Europe from Science (referred to before) but will indeed check. I have sent off emails to the appropriate departments at the Universities of Geneva and Torino. Will post again when I have further information.

[Adam Balic]

Ciao tutti!

Daniel: are you sure about no hummingbirds in Europe?? The reason I'm sceptical is that we are innundated with them, particularly in the red geraniums. They are thriving here  in Italy...must have been a awful lot of them escaping from somewhere.

Adam: you're not 'supposed' to eat the root of the duck tongue...I was always told to just chew around it. Not for the squeemish on a first date, I suppose.

And coincedentally, the subject of 'vomitoriums' came up last night at dinner, so I got to show off my  new found knowledge. Grazie! 

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Hathor - now you tell me.

I don't supose you have a photo of the birds, so that the species can be identified?

Hummingbirds are regularly sighted in the UK, but to date these have turned out to be Hawkmoths, which make a similar sounds and don't look disimilar.

[Andrew Fenton]

When discussing Roman dining habits, well worth keeping in mind the dictate of Careme to the effect that "Roman cooking was sumptous and magnificent but fundamentally barbarous".

Even better to keep in mind that literary representations of Roman cooking (which is what we've been discussing here) are never ideologically neutral. They're always examples of satire, or moralizing, or some other authorial program. I'd be as leery of relying on Petronius as a reflection of the Roman palate as I would relying on Homer Simpson for the American. Elagabalus' camels' heels are even sketchier: remember "Nuts & Gum: Together at Last"?

A good book to read on the topic is Emily Gowers, The Loaded Table: Representations of Food in Roman Literature (Oxford 1993)

[Eden]

A good book to read on the topic is Emily Gowers, The Loaded Table: Representations of Food in Roman Literature (Oxford 1993)

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Ooh a new book to read on roman food. somehow I missed this one.

one tiny quibble. Most of what we're discussing is roman literature, which would certainly have it's various agendas, but we've also mentioned De Re coquinaria(apicius), which I certainly wont say is agenda-free (no cookbook is) but is at least a different type...

[hathor]

Thanks for the book recommendation Andrew, it looks interesting.

Maybe my hummingbirds are hawkmoths, which would mean no hummingbird tongue dinner for me! I'll try to take a photo, but now that I've said that, you know I'll never see one again!

[Adam Balic]

A good book to read on the topic is Emily Gowers, The Loaded Table: Representations of Food in Roman Literature (Oxford 1993)

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Ooh a new book to read on roman food. somehow I missed this one.

one tiny quibble. Most of what we're discussing is roman literature, which would certainly have it's various agendas, but we've also mentioned De Re coquinaria(apicius), which I certainly wont say is agenda-free (no cookbook is) but is at least a different type...

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Not sure how trust worthy Apicius's book is either, in terms of representing Roman food. Basically, there are three Roman epicures with the name Apicius, the most famous one (Marcus Gavius Apicius) lived in the 1st century AD. His name became proverbial with 'high living'. De Re coquinaria most likely was published in the fourth century AD, so who knows if Apicius had anything to do with the book at all and how much the recipes altered over time. Any book which uses the name Apicius is going to be politically loaded though.

I note that the book refers to silphium/laser, which was extinct by the 4th century. Either the book is old and out of date, the ingredient is still mentioned as a prestige ingrdient or it refers to Asafoetida which was used as a later substitute.

[Andrew Fenton]

Not sure how trust worthy Apicius's book is either, in terms of representing Roman food. Basically, there are three Roman epicures with the name Apicius, the most famous one (Marcus Gavius Apicius) lived in the 1st century AD. His name became proverbial with 'high living'. De Re coquinaria most likely was published in the fourth century AD, so who knows if Apicius had anything to do with the book at all and how much the recipes altered over time. Any book which uses the name Apicius is going to be politically loaded though.

I've always thought of "Apicius" as being to Roman cooking what "Webster" is to American dictionaries: a brand name that indicates quality, but that isn't necessarily an indication of authorship. Anyway, it's worth noting just how few of A's recipes show the crazy-go-nuts luxury of the stereotype: he's much more interested in, for example, trying to make cheap ingredients taste expensive. Dormice seem weird to us, but they're evidently pretty easy to raise on a farm, just like snails.

I note that the book refers to silphium/laser, which was extinct by the 4th century. Either the book is old and out of date, the ingredient is still mentioned as a prestige ingrdient or it refers to Asafoetida which was used as a later substitute.

Evidently silphium came close to dying out sometime around the early first century when, in the course of a dispute with the merchants who sold the plant, the north African nomads who gathered it tried to wipe out the harvest. There's also a wonderful, sad story in Pliny (Natural History 19.40, for the folks following along at home) that silphium was killed off by overgrazing of sheep in North Africa, and that the last known stalk was brought as a gift to the emperor Nero. So that's mid first century. I suspect that later references to silphium were actually asafoetida (which had evidently been a long-standing substitute, having been introduced to the Mediterranean from Asia by Alexander's returning soldiers).

[hathor]

Not knowing my silphium from my asafoetida, I did a little googling, and now I"m even more confused. Why would asafoetida be considered an alternative to silphium? Other than both being abortificants (sp??) what else do they have in common? They don't look alike, or belong to the same family, and asafoetida seems only to be commonly available as a resin. It also seems too bad that we lost silphium, it was a cure-all and a perfume!

thanks!

[Adam Balic]

Actually, they are likely to be quite closely related. Images of silphium indicate the it is part of the ferula genus (most likely), the giant fennel group. Asafoetida is Ferula asafoetida.

lSilphium

I have seen another species of giant fennel in Sicily and also an abortificant, which is a pity as it had a fantastic scent, like across of regular fennel fronds and tarragon.

[scordelia]

Ciao tutti!

Daniel: are you sure about no hummingbirds in Europe?? The reason I'm sceptical is that we are innundated with them, particularly in the red geraniums. They are thriving here  in Italy...must have been a awful lot of them escaping from somewhere.

Adam: you're not 'supposed' to eat the root of the duck tongue...I was always told to just chew around it. Not for the squeemish on a first date, I suppose.

And coincedentally, the subject of 'vomitoriums' came up last night at dinner, so I got to show off my  new found knowledge. Grazie! 

←

Hathor - now you tell me.

I don't supose you have a photo of the birds, so that the species can be identified?

Hummingbirds are regularly sighted in the UK, but to date these have turned out to be Hawkmoths, which make a similar sounds and don't look disimilar.

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Yes, post pictures! I had always heard that Europe had no native hummingbirds and that this was part of the success of John Gould's The Family of Hummingbirds. Although Chicago has no native parrots, but a bunch of green Amazons escaped about 50 years ago and now Hyde Park has a thriving population of them.

FYI, John Gould was an English ornithologist who did many folios including Birds of England, Birds of Europe (in which no hummingbirds appear) and The Family of Toucans. His hummingbird portfolio used gold and silver leaf that was handpainted over to duplicate the luminosity of hummingbird plummage and was the most expensive folio produced for its time (published 1862 for $5000 a copy, Audubon's Birds of America was $1000), but despite the price, it was successful because it was so exotic and beautifully done. Also, Edward Lear (of Nonesense Omnibus fame) was one Gould's illustrators, although he did not contribute to hummingbird folio.

Here is a link to an ornithological print dealer with some Gould hummingbirds in inventory if you want to see them:

Gould's Family of Hummingbirds

Edited July 6, 2005 by scordelia (log)

[mrbigjas]

Even better to keep in mind that literary representations of Roman cooking (which is what we've been discussing here) are never ideologically neutral.  They're always examples of satire, or moralizing, or some other authorial program.  I'd be as leery of relying on Petronius as a reflection of the Roman palate as I would relying on Homer Simpson for the American.  Elagabalus' camels' heels are even sketchier: remember "Nuts & Gum: Together at Last"?

you know, i've been laughing about this for a day and a half now.

yet more proof that there is indeed a simpsons quote for every situation.