Roman Food and MMO's....

A year or so back, the MMO "City of Heroes" released Issue 12, the 12th in the series of free expansions. One of the new game play scenarios for Issue 12, was time travel, and one of the places you could go was ancient Rome. I love Rome, not the city (as it stands now) but the history of it and the HBO series. I also love the Rome of "Angles and Demons", "Jumper", even "Roman Holiday".
Here is my take on Historic Roman Food, a little history, a little Alton Brown and a little MMO fun. This article was originally written for The City Scoop, a e-fan-zine on the discussion boards of "City of Heroes/City of Villains".


With Issue 12’s subject matter and myself being a bit of a food historian, I thought I would step back and shed some light on the food of ancient Rome, the Italian peninsula and the whole of the Roman Empire.
The first major food fallacy is that there was no pasta in Italy before Marco Polo. This is so wrong; however it was not the pastas we are used to. Since the tomato is a New World crop as is corn, bell peppers and chilies, these were not staples in the Roman diet, so no Marana, no Bolognaise, no nada. However there were wheat dumplings that were boiled in salted water or stuffed with fillings of cheeses, herbs and meat, then baked or boiled. These were often served with sauces of browned butter, cream and cheeses, plain or with the “Roman Ketchup”. This sauce was truly the ancestor of Worcestershire sauce and the Asian fish sauce, and was made similar to the Asian style. The leftovers of the fishing industry were set in the warm Roman sunshine to ferment, with a lot of salt to keep the flies away. After about a month, the guts and heads were reduced to a lemon yellow paste that was used on just about everything from the morning portage to the evening meals.
Most food was boiled, since it was easier to maintain a temperature in water. And when you are cooking over open fire this can be a plus. Mini ovens, similar to the Middle Eastern Tanginess were often used as well. Terracotta vessels, often with leaded glazes, were placed in or near the fire and left to bake all day. Bread was the main staple of the Roman diet, for all classes, from slaves to the wealthiest Senator. But don’t think that it was the white fluffy stuff we have today. All of the Roman flour was stone ground and leavened with wild yeasts. It had most of its proteins in tact, had a more chewy texture and, if you were poor, little bits of granite from the mill. Fish was also a main stay of the free Roman diet, since it was readily available. Meat was highly prized since it was so hard to store. Beef wasn’t really that often eaten, keeping cows for dairy was common though. Chickens and other domesticated fowl were also kept for eggs. Goats and sheep were also a source of proteins. However there were other meat sources, most common to the larger cities and the lower classes. Rat and pigeon were common tavern fair, often being caught in the building itself.
Speaking of taverns, yes wine was the primary drink of the Roman world, but again not as we are used to it today. Most wine was diluted with water or milk, heated, spiced or sopped up with bread. It was really a social faux pas to be drunk or drink undiluted wine.
Any liquid that could be fermented was, this was a natural occurrence and a great way to preserve things. Grape and other fruit juices for wines, wheat for beers and honey for mead, all fermented using the natural wild yeasts in the air. The quality of the beverage again was dependant on a person’s station and personal wealth. The poor receiving the dregs, wine with more in common with vinegar than with Chianti. One thing is true, all wine was red, and this is due to the nature of the wine making process.
No meal would be complete without desert, and Roman meals were no exception. Bread could be layered with fruit, honey and cream to make a trifle / parfait, or English style puddings could be baked with mashed fruit, bread crumbs, honey and spices. It would be a long time before cannolies and tiramisu.
If you are ready for your own Roman Feast, here are a few recipes, and instructions on how to make a clay oven.


Fast clay oven

Measure the inside of your standard oven or interior of your BBQ, if you are cooking over an open fire you can skip this step. Head to a hardware store or garden center and buy a terracotta pot set, pot and saucer, which will fit in your oven or BBQ. Make sure that when the pot is turned upside down, not only will it fit in your oven but there is room between the lip of the pot and the lip of the saucer. Preheat your new clay oven by placing it into your main heat source and then turning on the heat. If you are using an open fire, just let it get to a decent temperature before you start cooking.


Clay oven fish with herbs

4 whole dressed trout or other fresh water fish
Fresh herbs, rosemary, thyme, dill, bay leaf, parsley
Butter
Salt

Lightly grease a sheet of aluminum foil (not authentic but great for easy cleanup) with butter. Lightly salt the fish, inside and out. Stuff the fish with the herbs. Preheat your oven and clay oven to 350 deg. F. Then bake for 15 - 30 min or until the fish is firm, and slightly flaky. Pepper is a nice touch, but also not historically accurate. If you want to you can buy a cedar plank from a cooking supply store to add more authentic flavor.


Pear and plum pudding

2 pears, slightly soft, peeled and cubed
2 plums pealed and cube
½ of unseasoned bread crumbs
Up to ¼ cup of honey (depending on the sweetness of the fruit)
1 egg
Cinnamon, nutmeg and clove to taste

In a medium bowl add the fruit, mash with the back of a wooden spoon until a paste is formed. Add the bread crumbs, honey egg and spices; stir until it is well combined. Grease a shallow baking dish, pie tin or cake round with some butter; pour the mixture into the dish. Bake inside your clay oven, at 350 deg. F. for about 30 min or until the mixture is set and a knife sent into the center comes out clean. Turn out and cool, then slice like a cake or leave in the pan and spoon out portions.

(These recipes were taken from a BBC/History International show on Roman England.)

"What a long strange trip it has been"

That is a wonderful quote attributed to the late, great Jerry Bear, Jerry Garcia, and I can think of no other quote to describe this year as a whole. I feel overly lazy about not writing, not posting not anything but when life has you, not only by the short and curlies but in a choke hold as well you kind of take a break from it all.

In May of this year...
The lovely couple who introduced me to my husband, had their children removed from their custody and were arrested on false charges. They were released and the charges were "put on hold" until the case could be investigated fully.
My father was rushed to the hospital with chest pain. This is not all that uncommon as he has COPD, Congestive Heart Failure, a pace maker and is 74 this year.

In June of this year...
The couple who had their kids stolen moved in with us. Merging two households is not easy. They also had to use our computers, because theirs were "evidence". We were spending a lot of time researching the history of the types of crimes my friends were being charged with and how easy it was to find proof where none existed.
My mother was in the hospital for various reasons. She suffered from, Fibromyalga, Dermo-myocitus (which is something akin to a combo of Fribro and Lupis on steroids). On the 10th my mom turned 64.

In July of this year...
Early in the month we crammed 3 families, and 7 cats in a 3 bedroom 1400 sq ft house, headaches abound.
My friends were advised by their CPS lawyers that if they "cherished their freedom" they should get out of the state. Staying and protesting the CPS's placement of their children with the woman who was accusing them of these crimes was only fulling the "witch hunt" and would cause the ADA to pursue the criminal charges again. Also, actively assisting in their own defense was making them look as guilty as not doing anything. They left for locals unknown.
Both of my parents were in the hospital, this time for pneumonia. My dad when in first and second and my mom went in. She passed away, in hospice, at 9:15 AM AST on July 26. She was surrounded by family.

In August of this year...
My husband turned 34, and in a much needed shot of levity, we celebrated it at a local water park. We also hosted a memorial service for my mother at the retirement park my dad lives at. It was attend by a host of family, friends and neighbors and a bunch of men in plaid skirts. Both of my parents were very proud of our Scots heritage and my dad, being a member of the Scottish-American Military Society , hired a piper to send mom off in style. SAMS members also acted as ushers.
While placing my mothers ashes into a urn suitable for the service, the twist tie holding the bag closed came loose and some of the ashes "poofed" out of the urn onto the counter of my dad's kitchen. We still laugh about that.

In September of this year...
Round about the 16th, we received a call from the Hillbourough County Jail, in New Hampshire. Our friends that had their children stolen by CPS had gotten arrested again. They were in a park, after hours, and when they police checked their ID's, a Governors warrant popped. Our local ADA had re-issued the charges against them and wanted them back ASAP. They were fighting extradition and the soonest the New Hampshire courts could set a date was in October.
On the 22nd, I turned 34. It's occurred to me on several occasions that I haven't had a decent birthday, a birthday without strife or turmoil since 2000.

Well it's October; when it was explained to my friends that all our stated need as proof that extradition was necessary was to state that there was an open case against them here, they waved their fight. New Hampshire gave our county 10 business days to retrieve them. If they have not been removed from New Hampshire by the 25th, the New Hampshire judge can either release them (hope and pray) or grant our state an extension. They may be closer, close enough to visit at least, by next week.
My dad is back in the hospital, as of yesterday. Our local hospital SUCKS!!!!! They claim poverty and have to close down two wings, then spend millions of dollars on new paint and never have enough beds when the Snow Birds arrive.


And yes, this post has nothing to do with cooking....

Basic Clam Chowder

Within the world of Azeroth, the world of World of Warcraft, there are loads of seafood recipes. This could be because there are several seas and oceans and fishing in a major part of the game. Or it could be that the Game Developers just like seafood. Among these recipes for baked, smoked and roasted fish there are crab cakes and clam chowder. There are no less than three crab cake recipes, one that is actually made with spider meat*, and five versions of clam chowder in the game. This week’s blog will focus on clam chowder.

Real chowders are neither Kosher nor low carb, as they MUST have both bacon and potatoes in them. If you make “chowder” with out one or both of these ingredients it is just a cream soup. Another important ingredient is a flour/fat mix called a roux, a traditional French thickening agent that is the base for all modern cream soups and gravies. To make sure your chowder doesn’t taste like Cream of Wheat with clam bits make sure you cook your roux for at least 2 minutes to cook out the cereal taste from the flour.

In a good New England style clam chowder you need both clam stock (or juice) and milk. You can get your clam stock by making “Steamers” and the shucking the clams of their meaty goodness or you can by a good quality canned clam and a bottle of clam juice. I may be the Geek Gourmet, I may have gone to Culinary School, but I live in the real world and time is a factor, I like the canned clam method. Unless I have FREE cherrystone or little necks, I use canned. (Actually I don’t think I have ever made fresh clam stock, even in school)


Basic Clam Chowder Recipe

5-7 rashers of bacon, sliced
1 medium onion diced
2 carrots diced
2-3 ribs of celery diced
2-3 tablespoons of All Purpose flour
2 6.5 ounce can’s of minced or chopped clams
1 10 oz can of whole clams (optional)
1 cup of clam juice
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon of dried thyme
1 cup of whole milk
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large sauce pan or small stock pot render the bacon until the fat looks like light soap bubbles. Add the vegetables and cook over medium heat until they are tender. Lightly sprinkle the flour over the vegetables and cook for 2 minuets stirring constantly. Add the clams and the clam juice and the herbs. Simmer lightly for 15 minutes. Add the milk, simmer for another 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper. You can serve at this point or cool and store in the regenerator for 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months.

New Year

New Year, new ideas, new recipes, well that is the plan at any rate. Went I started the blog it was to attempt to overcome some serious writers block for an e-fan-zine that I was writing for at the time. Happenstance and circumstance being what they are, I left “The City Scoop” in mid-Spring of last year. It was a sad, yet amicable parting of the ways. I was kind of getting tired of the game, after 4 years of playing and wanted to move on. A friend of my husbands got us both into World of Warcraft. From a culinary stand point the game is much easier, as one of the things that you do in game play is make food, from recipes. Some items are easy to translate into real world food, Beer Basted Boar Ribs and Infused Mushroom Meatloaf, others not so much, Gooey Spider Cake and Rhino-lisous Worm –burger. And each new expansion comes out with more food!!!! I love trade skills…

From the latest expansion, The Wrath of the Lich King, comes “Infused Mushroom Meatloaf”. This is a recipe from a repeatable daily quest, located in the magical floating city of Dalaran, given by the NPC Katherine Lee. In game, to make this you take 4 infused mushrooms, found in Dalaran’s magically infused sewer system, add 2 “chilled meats”, looted off of any one of the myriad of animals in the new mega-zone Northrend, and mix in a meatloaf pan over a cooking fire. Once done you deliver the goods to a trinket vendor who gives you 9 gold, a Dalaran Cooking Award and a spice bag. In the RL world I infuse the mushrooms, picked from the grocery store, with garlic, lemon, bacon and Worcestershire sauce. While my meat is chilled, it comes from steers, not rhinos, mammoths, or “Shovel tusks” (whatever those are) though you can add veal, pork, chicken, turkey, etc.


Infused Mushroom Meatloaf

1 Pint of mushrooms cleaned, stemmed and diced
5-7 rashers (slices) of bacon diced
1-2 cloves of garlic minced
The zest and juice of ½ a lemon
2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce divided
1-1 ½ pounds Ground beef (I like 80/20 but leaner is ok) or your mix of meats
1 egg
½ a medium onion diced
½ cup of ketchup
¼ teaspoon of Tabasco sauce
¼ cup of seasoned bread crumb (optional)


Pre-heat the oven to 375.
In a large skillet render the bacon until the drippings look like light soap bubbles. Then add the garlic and stir for about a minute, making sure the garlic does not burn. Next add the mushrooms and cook until the give off all of their liquid. Add the lemon zest, the lemon juice, half the Worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper to taste. Reduce (boil off) the liquid until the pan is almost dry. Remove mushroom mixture from the pan and let cool.
In a large bowl add the rest of the ingredients, the meat, egg, onion, ketchup, bread crumbs, Tabasco, the rest of the Worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper to taste. Add the cooled mushroom mixture. Mix with your hands until combined, no more than a minute. You want to be careful on the mixing, over mixing leads to tough and dry meatloaf. Heck over handling meat in general leads to the Dark Side. Never “flip” meat more than once and never EVER, smooch burgers!!!!!!

Bake at 375 for about 45 -75 minutes or until the center of your loaf reaches a temperature of 150-155 deg. F. yeah I know that is not the 160 deg. The USDA wants us to cook things to; however you are going to let the meatloaf “rest” for 15 minutes for the juices to redistribute and the internal temperature to rise those last few degrees.

Slice and serve with your favorite meatloaf sides, I like Brussels sprouts sautéed in the same way as the mushrooms and mashed cauliflower.

Option 2:
If you like your onions a little more done, try sautéing them with the bacon before you put in the garlic. Bacon, onions and garlic is the base for many of my families recipes, handed down from my Grandfather Kelley Pettit.