Ovis Apalis (Ancient Roman Soft Poached Eggs)

poached
apicius
ancient
roman
eggs
#1

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The oldest cookbook was compiled in first century AD by a guy named Apicius. He was a foodie’s foodie, and thanks to his Kardashian-like riches and fame, he was able to devote his life to eating and cataloging recipes. To give you an idea how long ago this was, he existed during the reign of the second emperor of Roman Empire, Tiberius (who ruled after Caesar Augustus, and who was followed by Caligula). His statue shown above.

The cookbook by Apicius is called “De Re Culinaria”, and it is full of recipes that both the rich could afford, as well as the commoners. But, what I really like about this cook book is that it is quite obvious how fatty the recipes were. Most are keto compliant.

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This recipe is one of those that could afforded by the upper and lower classes. They are soft poached eggs with a luscious, creamy topping made predominantly with crushed pine nuts. Here’s a fresco on a wall in Pompeii that shows what they would have looked like

Now…this the recipe written in Latin:

IN OVIS APALIS. PIPER, LIGUSTICUM, NUCLEOS INFUSOS. SUFFUNDES MEL, ACETUM, LIQUAMINE TEMPERABIS.

Loosely translated as “for soft-poached eggs. Mix together pepper, lovage and water-soaked pine nuts. Blend some honey, vinegar and fermented fish sauce”

So, this is the closest I came to making this dish. In the morning, I placed a heaping teaspoon of pine nuts in a glass of water, and let them soak all day long. Then I pulverized dried celery seed In a mortar and pestle. Celery seed closely resembles the taste of lovage (herb).

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I then crushed the soaked pine nuts in the mortar and pestle, mixed with the celery seed powder

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I then mixed in fresh ground pepper

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For the rest of the ingredients, I added a tablespoon of red wine vinegar, 1/8 teaspoon honey, 1/4 teaspoon anchovy paste and 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

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This is what the resultant sauce looked like. Very similar to the Pompeiian fresco perhaps

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I then poached a few eggs, not too long to keep yolk soft and runny

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Final plating. Could this be what an ancient Roman person would eat for dinner?

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The eggs were nice and runny

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The perfect bite (which was delicious!! Like a nutty flavoured Benedict sauce)

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(matt ) #2

Are you kidding me with this? Wow!!! You just keep upping the bar!

#3

Hey, you never know. Someone may need some keto food ideas for their next toga party or Caligulan orgy.

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#4

Beautiful!!! Love this post!

(Richard Morris) #5

Outstanding Fiorella

I have made Puls Punica (Carthaginian porridge) from Apicus’ recipe before I was keto

  1. Soak a pound of spelt well in water.
  2. Add three pounds of fresh cheese, 1/2 pound of honey, one egg.
  3. Mix thoroughly.
  4. Pour into a pot and cook.

It was interesting … no way to ketofy it tho.

(Larry Lustig) #6

You can actually buy a product that descends more or less directly from the garum in the original recipe. It’s called colatura di alici. It’s feircely expensive by weight but you just need a few drops and there’s nothing else like it.

#7

Good idea. The neighbours would perhaps not appreciate me keeping a barrel of fermenting fish sitting in the sun.

(Henna Selnes) #8

Oh. My. Goodness. I would love a cookbook like that. I absolutely love old to ancient cookbooks. You are amazing. Thank you for the picture steps. If I was not so full from when I ate today,I would make this now. Maybe next day. Sigh. I bet you was happy with that. :plate_with_cutlery::egg:

#9

Oh my goodness. Me too! If I stumble into a used book store, I go straight to the cookbook section and look for antique recipes.

And yes, this recipe turned out very delicious. Nice to see that even a couple of millennia ago, the human taste buds were still pretty similar!

(Cindy) #10

Go to Amazon and search for Apicius. You’ll find several versions available at very reasonable prices.

#11

Some various versions of recipes as free downloads on the internet, too. Historians don’t all agree on the context, interpretations, meanings…etc…so you will get different versions of the recipes. You can also tell which historian knows their way around the kitchen or not. For example, this recipe calls for soft boiled eggs, or contrarian interpretation is soft poached. Today, we have sophisticated cooking tools and timers, and the eggs we buy are of standardized sizes (small, medium, large, x large and jumbo) so we can soft boil to rocket science perfection. But, back in the day, egg sizes were not standard and no sophisticated boiling and timing techniques. I highly doubt they soft boiled the eggs and risk screwing up a batch of eggs. Soft poaching is easy to do, just by visual inspection, you can tell when the egg has reached the soft point, regardless how hot the poaching liquid is.