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Condimentum in Aubellionen

We know that you enjoyed the food at Jingles. So here's the first in a series of recipes so that you can make these dishes again! This dish is from the first, Roman, remove.

Red Snapper with Seasoning

8 red snapper filets
2 T butter
2 T flour
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup passum (see following recipe)
1 t vinegar

1/4 t liquamen (see following recipe)
1 t olive oil
1/4 t pepper
1/4 T fresh lovage, finely chopped
1/4 t caraway seeds
1/4 t celery seeds
1/4 t dried onion

Broil snapper filets. Meanwhile, melt butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour thoroughly. Cook as a roux for five minutes. Stir in wine, passum, liquamen, and vinegar until mixture is smooth. Add herbs. Pour over snapper filets.

Liquamen:
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup white vinegar
1/2 t salt
1/2 bunch fresh oregano
1 tin anchovies

Boil until reduced by half; strain until clear and store.

Liquamen is a fish sauce which appeared to be as common as soy sauce in the Chinese diet. There were commercial places which manufactured liquamen during Roman times. Liquamen appears to be used like salt is used today.

In the cooking of the wine sauce with which the Red Snapper was served, one of the ingredients used was "Passum". Romans used to make several specialty wines for cooking, some of which are passum, defrutum, caroenum and sapa. Passum is a raisin wine, which is supposed to be very sweet.

In "APICIUS Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome" translated by Joseph Dommers Vehling, it only mentioned passum in passing as a raisin wine.

However, in "APICIUS The Roman Cookery Book" translated by Barbara Flower and Elisabeth Rosenbaum, there is a much more detailed description: "Another specially prepared cooking wine is the passum. Like defrutum, it was used to sweeten sauces. It is not only sweeter than defrutum, but has a different flavour. Palladius (XI, xix) even says that one can use it like honey." It goes on to give two recipes for passum. These recipes appeared to be similar to the making of wine, except that raisins were used instead.

Unable to make raisin wine, and unable to locate any to be bought, I had to determine how to make a reasonable substitute. In the Flower and Rosenbaum translation: "Instead of passum we have used very sweet Spanish wine, being aware, of course, that this wine provides only the sweetness required, but not the original flavour. " Since I wanted to more closely approximate the original flavor my solution was as follows:

Passum:
1 cup red port wine
1/2 cup raisins

Combine wine and raisins in sauce and place on low heat; reduce liquid by one half

The red port wine was used because it is a very sweet wine to begin with. The cooking raisins should give off some of their unique flavors into the wine.

Sources:

APICIUS The Romas Cookery Book, translated by Barbara Flower and Elisabeth Rosenbaum, Peter Nevill Limited.

APICIUS Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome translated by Joseph Dommers Vehling, Dover Publications.

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