Garum is afermentedfish sauce that was used as acondiment[1] in the cuisines ofPhoenicia,[2]ancient Greece,Rome,[3]Carthage and laterByzantium.Liquamen is a similar preparation, and at times they were synonymous. Although garum enjoyed its greatest popularity in the Western Mediterranean and theRoman world, it was in earlier use by theGreeks.[4][5] The taste of garum is thought to be comparable to that of today's Asian fish sauces.[6]
Like modern fermentedfish sauce andsoy sauce, garum was a rich source ofumami flavoring due to the presence ofglutamates.[7] It was used along withmurri in medievalByzantine andArab cuisine to give a savory flavor to dishes.[8] Murri may derive from garum.[9]
Pliny the Elder andIsidore of Seville derive theLatin wordgarum from theGreekγάρος (gáros),[10] a food named byAristophanes,Sophocles, andAeschylus.Garos may have been a type of fish, or a fish sauce similar to garum.[11] Pliny stated that garum was made from fish intestines, with salt, creating a liquor, the garum, and the fish paste named (h)allec or allex (similar tobagoong, this paste was a byproduct of fish sauce production).[12][11] A concentrated garum evaporated down to a thick paste with salt crystals was called muria;[13] it would have been used to salt and flavor foods.[14]
The 10th-centuryByzantine manualGeōponika (Agricultural Pursuits) includes the following recipe forliquamen:[15]
What is calledliquamen is thus made: the intestines of fish are thrown into a vessel, and are salted; and small fish, especiallyatherinae, or small mullets, ormaenae, orlycostomi, or any small fish, are all salted in the same manner; and they are seasoned in the sun, and frequently turned; and when they have been seasoned in the heat, thegarum is thus taken from them. A small basket of close texture is laid in the vessel filled with the small fish already mentioned, and thegarum will flow into the basket; and they take up what has been percolated through the basket, which is calledliquamen; and the remainder of the feculence is made intoallec.
Garum was produced in various grades and consumed by all social classes. After the liquid was ladled off the top of the mixture, the remains of the fish, calledallec, were used by the poorest classes to flavor their staple porridge orfarinata. The finished product—thenobile garum ofMartial's epigram[16]—was apparently mild and subtle in flavor. The best garum fetched extraordinarily high prices,[17][better source needed] and salt could be substituted for it in a simpler dish. Garum appears in many recipes featured in the Roman cookbookApicius. For example, Apicius (8.6.2–3) gives a recipe for lamb stew, calling for the meat to be cooked withonion andcoriander, pepper,lovage,cumin,liquamen, oil, andwine, then thickened with flour.[18] The same cookbook mentions garum being used asfish stock to flavor choppedmallow leaves fried in a skillet.[19]
In the 1st century AD,liquamen was a sauce distinct fromgarum, as indicated throughout theCorpus Inscriptionum Latinarum IV. By the 5th century or earlier, however,liquamen had come to refer togarum.[20] The available evidence suggests that the sauce was typically made by crushing the innards of (fatty)pelagic fishes, particularlyanchovies, but alsosprats,sardines,mackerel, ortuna, and then fermenting them inbrine.[21][22][23][24] In most survivingtituli picti inscribed on amphorae, where the fish ingredient is shown, the fish is mackerel.[20] Under the best conditions, the fermentation process took about 48 hours.[25]
The manufacture and export of garum was an element of the prosperity of coastalGreek emporia from theLigurian coast ofGaul to the coast ofHispania Baetica, and perhaps an impetus for Roman penetration of these coastal regions.[26] Although garum was a staple of the Roman Empire's cuisine, few production sites are known to have existed in the Eastern Mediterranean. In 2019 a small 1st-century factory was discovered nearAshkelon.[27] A 2013 storm uncovered Neapolis, a major center of garum production, atNabeul in Tunisia.[28]
Pliny the Elder spoke of a type of garum thatRoman Jews may have used, as normal garum may not have contained exclusivelykosher seafood.[29] In the ruins ofPompeii, jars were found containingkosher garum,[30] suggesting an equal popularity among Jews there.
Each port had its own traditional recipe, but by the time ofAugustus, Romans considered the best to be garum fromCartagena andGades inBaetica. This product was calledgarum sociorum, "garum of the allies".[26] The ruins of a garum factory remain at the Baetian site ofBaelo Claudia (in present-dayTarifa) andCarteia (San Roque). Other sites are a large garum factory atGades (Cadiz)[31] and atMálaga under thePicasso museum.
Garum was a major export product fromHispania to Rome, and gained thetowns a certain amount of prestige. The garum ofLusitania (in present-day Portugal) was also highly prized in Rome, and was shipped directly from the harbour of Lacobriga (Lagos). A former Roman garum factory can be visited in the Baixa area of centralLisbon.[32] Fossae Marianae insouthern Gaul, located on the southern tip of present-day France, served as a distribution hub for Western Europe, including Gaul,Germania, andRoman Britain.[33] Garum factories were also located in the province ofMauretania Tingitana (modernMorocco), for example atCotta andLixus.[34]
Umbricius Scaurus' production of garum was key to the economy ofPompeii. The factories where garum was produced in Pompeii have not been uncovered, perhaps indicating that they lay outside the walls of the city. The production of garum created such unpleasant smells that factories were generally relegated to the outskirts of cities. In 2008, archaeologists used the residue from garum found in containers in Pompeii to confirm the August date of the eruption ofMount Vesuvius. The garum had been made entirely ofbogues, fish that congregate in the summer months.[35]
When mixed withoenogarum (a popularwine-based Byzantine sauce),vinegar,black pepper, oroil, garum enhanced the flavor of a wide variety of dishes, including boiled veal and steamed mussels, even pear-and-honeysoufflé. Diluted with water (hydrogarum) it was distributed toRoman legions.Pliny (d. 79) remarked in hisNatural History that it could be diluted to the colour ofhoney wine and drunk.[37]
Garum had a social dimension that might be compared to that ofgarlic in some modern Western societies, or to the adoption offish sauce inVietnamese cuisine (callednước mắm there).[20]Seneca, holding the old-fashioned line against the expensive craze, cautioned against it, even though his family was fromBaetian Corduba:
Do you not realize thatgarum sociorum, that expensive bloody mass of decayed fish, consumes the stomach with its salted putrefaction?
— Seneca,Epistle 95.
A surviving fragment ofPlato Comicus speaks of "putrid garum".Martial congratulates a friend on keeping up amorous advances to a girl who had indulged in six helpings of it.[20]
The biological anthropologist Piers Mitchell suggests that garum may have helped spreadfish tapeworms across Europe.[38]
Garum was also employed as a medicine. It was thought to be one of the best cures for many ailments, including dog bites, dysentery, and ulcers, and to ease chronic diarrhea and treat constipation. Garum was even used as an ingredient incosmetics and for removal of unwanted hair and freckles.[39]
Garum remains of interest to food historians andchefs, and has been reintroduced into modern food preparation.[40] InCádiz, Spain, in 2017, one chef used its flavors for a fish salad recipe, after Spanisharchaeologists found evidence of garum inamphorae recovered in the ruins ofPompeii, dating to 79 AD.[41]
Garum is believed to be the ancestor of the fermentedanchovy saucecolatura di alici, still produced inCampania, Italy,[40] as well as the fermented anchovy andsardine pastepissalat in theNice region, France.[42]
Herculaneum. Stamps on jars of garum. 2569: Kosher garum
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