Confectio Gari Pompeiani. Procedimiento experimental para la elaboración de salsas de pescado romanas

Abstract

Resumen: El presente trabajo hace públicos por primera vez los resultados de un proceso experimental fruto de la colaboración entre las universidades de Cádiz y Sevilla. Dicho proceso, en el que han participado arqueólogos y bioquímicos, se ha realizado en el Departamento de Ingeniería Química de la Facultad de Ciencias de la Universidad de Cádiz y ha consistido en la identificación de la naturaleza concreta y en la reproducción física de la afamada salsa salada de pescado greco-romana denominada garum (liquamen), de un subproducto alimenticio sólido de esta (hallec) y de una salsa secundaria y de menor calidad denominada en latín muria. El estudio filológico de antiguas recetas de confección del garum (confectio gari) y los resultados analíticos de los residuos de estos productos recogidos durante la excavación de la denominada bottega o tienda del garum de Pompeya han permitido simular su producción artesanal en laboratorio y obtener unos condimentos salados cuyo aspecto fí-sico y características alimentarias coinciden con los descritos por las fuentes literarias grecorromanas y con los que aún muestran los residuos orgánicos analizados de estas producciones. Palabras Clave: garum, Pompeya, proceso experimental, elaboración del garum Abstract: The present work publishes for the first time the results of an experimental process carried out in cooperation between the Universities of Cádiz and Seville. This process, involving the participation of archaeologists and experts in biochemistry, has been effected in the chemical engineering department of the University of Cádiz and has focused on the characterization and reproduction of the famous GraecoRoman salted fish sauce known as garum (liquamen), of a solid by-product of this sauce (hallec) and of a secondary, lesser quality, sauce known in Latin as muria. The philological analysis of ancient recipes (confectio gari) and the analysis of the residues collected in the so-called bottega or Garum Shop, in Pompeii, have permitted their artisanal reproduction in the laboratory. The physical aspect and alimentary features of these products coincide with those described in the ancient sources and with the organic residues under analysis.

Nuevas contribuciones tecnológicas al estudio de la salsa garum a partir del análisis químico de restos ictiológicos de la ‘Tienda del Garum’ de Pompeya (I.12.8)

“…1b) and pollen from culinary spices (Curtis, 1979;Bernal et al, 2013). These remnants were characterized as the last garum productions before the Vesuvian eruption (Bernal et al, 2013;Carannante, 2010;García et al, 2014;Curtis, 1979) and were found in the solid form, corresponding to allec.…”

“…The temperature was fixed at 50 ± 5 °C to maximize the fish protease activity, and the vessels were sealed for a week and maintained in the dark to simulate an amphorae exposed to the sun. Starting on day 8, the mixture was stirred for 5 min/day for 7 more days (García et al, 2014). At these times, fractions of liquamen and allec were separated by filtering through linen, and the allec fraction -allec reference-was collected -5 kg-and kept deep-frozen until analysis.…”

“…Garum was a liquid produced by the hydrolysis of small whole fish in the presence of salt, aromatic herbs and spices, through natural fermentation over several months (Curtis, 1991;Curtis, 2009). Garum sauce was the most popular condiment in Roman gastronomy, but there is not much information about garum production methods except that two fractions were obtained: a liquid called garum or liquamen -terms closely related and used by the Romans as synonymous-and a solid fraction containing non-solubilized remains, called allec, resulting from the filtration of the garum (Curtis, 1991(Curtis, , 2009Desse-Berset and Desse, 2000;García et al, 2014). The importance of these fish sauces in daily Roman life, as well as its high impact in Antiquity have been treated in detail by many authors, from the social to the economical point of view (Étienne and Mayet, 2002); and from the Strait of Gibraltar (Bernal, 2011) or Sicily (Botte, 2009) to the Black Sea (Bekker-Nielsen, 2005).…”

“…Archaeological sources provide very valuable materials that deal with the use of raw materials in ancient times and can make a crucial contribution to the determination of the ingredients and additives used during production. A practical example of this are the archaeological research on the six dolia found in the 'Garum Shop' of Pompeii (Curtis, 1979;Curtis, 1983) conducted by a Spanish-Italian group (Bernal and Cottica, 2010;Bernal et al, 2013), which has allowed new interdisciplinary studies on experimental archaeology of small-scale garum preparations (García et al, 2014). For the archaeological remains of fish or fish sauces in ceramic vessels, studies have focused on organic compounds as fatty acids, sterols and acylglycerol, due to the great physicochemical stability of these compounds (Brown and Heron, 2004;Garnier et al, 2009;Evershed, 1993;Dallongeville et al, 2011;Garnier et al, 2003;Passi et al, 2015;Pecci et al, 2013a;Regert, 2011), that could serve as biomarkers for the identification of ingredients that cannot be detected by bone or pollen analysis (Evershed, 2008).…”