Ha, that bread, panis quadratus; the entire village where I grew up makes it like that, usually minus the string, but they cut it finely on the top, add the sun and all.
On the average you'll find them much less tasty than your modern palate is used to. Maybe if they spruce it up with modern standards like salt (which was uber-luxury then).
The recipes of Ancient Rome were quite heavy on herbs and spices, so they were anything but bland. Instead of salt, they used liquamen/garum, which is a fermented fish sauce similar to colatura/nuoc mam/nam pla. I've cooked quite a few of them. My web page (from around 20 years ago, with lots of dead links) is at
http://web.onetel.com/~hibou/Apicius.html
I like Ancient Roman food (the oldest complete recipes available), used to cook it quite often, and have served it to family and guests. It isn't to everyone's taste, possibly due to unfamiliar herbs (e.g. rue, lovage), spices (e.g. asafoetida), and their putting fish sauce in everything, including sometimes puddings.
Depending on how "ancient" you're looking for, Cooking the Roman Way is a very interesting read and focuses on Italian recipes passed down among families over generations. These will tend to be shaped by history and altered as availability of ingredients changed.
Presumably, the person altering the recipe knew what the old version tasted like, so while it won't necessarily be authentic, I think it's probably better than the wild guesses made during translation of actual ancient recipes.
That's a modern Italian cookery book. The cuisine of Italy has changed out of all recognition in the past 2000 years. Ancient Romans had none of the new world ingredients which are staples of modern Italian cuisine: tomatoes, courgettes, pepper, maize, potatoes. Nor did they have aubergines or basil despite their trade with India.
We have absolutely no problem translating the original recipes, which are in Latin. The only ambiguity is in ingredient quantities and cooking times, but any competent cook is able to figure those out.
Honestly, I just really want to try gruit beer. I've never been a fan of hops, so I've always been really curious what unhopped beer tastes like.
(edit: I mean, I already drink a lot of malt-forward lightly-hopped beers like scotch ales, sweet stouts, and bocks, but I really want to try a beer with no hops at all)
I absolutely love this stuff and nothing has stoked my interest in it as much as the Townsends (formerly "Jas Townsend & Son") channel on YouTube
Townsend "explores the 18th century" through food. There's a lot of similarities to 1st century Roman cookery, which it must be (at least distantly) related to.
I tried this recipe long before it appeared on HN. I utterly failed!! :( The bread was good but there was no way to keep the shape. And it was just so massive.
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[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 62.7 ms ] threadWho would have thought it's from Roman times.
The complete text (in Latin) of Apicius's De Re Coquinaria is here: http://users.ipa.net/~tanker/apicius.htm
In addition to Apicius, there are recipes in De Agri Cultura by Cato.
Presumably, the person altering the recipe knew what the old version tasted like, so while it won't necessarily be authentic, I think it's probably better than the wild guesses made during translation of actual ancient recipes.
We have absolutely no problem translating the original recipes, which are in Latin. The only ambiguity is in ingredient quantities and cooking times, but any competent cook is able to figure those out.
> fish sauce
Garum?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garum
Edit: Okay, saw your other comment here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16205619
Asafoetida (called hing in Hindi) is an interesting spice. I think it is a resin of some kind. It is used a fair amount in Indian cuisine.
(edit: I mean, I already drink a lot of malt-forward lightly-hopped beers like scotch ales, sweet stouts, and bocks, but I really want to try a beer with no hops at all)
Townsend "explores the 18th century" through food. There's a lot of similarities to 1st century Roman cookery, which it must be (at least distantly) related to.
https://www.youtube.com/user/jastownsendandson
It's difficult to say the least(mostly due to weird measurements).