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Liquamen ex Piris (A Liquamen from Pears)

Liquamen ex Piris (A Liquamen from Pears) is a traditional Ancient Roman recipe for a method of producing vegetarian (vegan) substitute for fish sauce using only pears and salt. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Ancient Roman version of: Liquamen ex Piris.

prep time

15 minutes

cook time

15 minutes

Total Time:

30 minutes

Serves:

20

Rating:

Tags : Sauce RecipesVegetarian RecipesSpice RecipesAncient Roman Recipes

Original Recipe

LIQVAMEN EX PIRIS.

LIQVAMEN EX PIRIS. Liquamen de piris castimoniale sic fiet. Pira maturissima cum sale calcantur integra. Vbi carnes eorum fuerint resolutae, uel in cupellis uel in uasculis fictilibus picatis condiuntur. Post mensem tertium suspensae hae carnes liquorem dimittunt saporis iucundi sed coloris albiduli. Contra hoc illud proderit, ut tempore, quo saliuntur, pro aliqua parte uina nigella permisceas. (from Palladius: Opus Agriculturae 3.25.12)

Translation

Liquamen from pears: Ritually pure liquamen (liquamen castimoniale) from pears is made like this: Very ripe pears are trodden with salt that has not been crushed. When their flesh has broken down, store it either in small casks or in earthenware vessels lined with pitch. When it is hung up [to drain] after the third month without being pressed on, the flesh of the pears discharges a liquid with a delicious taste but a pastel colour. To counter this, mix in a proportion of dark-coloured wine when you salt the pears. — Palladius: Opus Agriculturae 3.25.12

Notes on the Recipe:

Liquamen, made from fish is the pre-eminent flavouring and source of salt in Roman recipes. Indeed, there are few recipes that do not include liquamen or its cheaper form garum is some quantity or other. This incudes the otherwise vegetarian options. This is a problem, meaning that many people simply cannot taste Roman dishes. However, vegetarianism was fairly common in Greco-Roman culture; often during religious observances and sometimes even as a lifestyle. So, what would ancient Romans do... Well, the answer is supplied to us in the works of Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus Palladius, also known as Palladius Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus or most often just as Palladius. Palladius' primary work, the 14-volume Opus agriculturae written in the late fourth or early fifth century CE stands in the tradition of Roman agricultural treatises as exemplified by Cato, Varro, Collumella and Martialis (recipes from all of which can be found here). The Opus agriculturae, sometimes known as De re rustica.

Book 3 contains the description of Liquamen de piris castimoniale (literally Liquamen made from pears for religious observances). So we have a recipe for a vegetarian liquamen from an period source. This is a liquamen that you can make at home and which can be used as a direct substitute for fish sauce!

As liquamen itself is based on fermentation in brine, I think the recipe here calls for pears in a fairly strong brine solution (this also ensure that it keeps longer than a lactic fermentation of pears in a weak brine).

Modern Redaction

Ingredients:

6 whole juicy pears
35% of the weight of the pulped pears in salt

Method:

The best pears to use are juicy varieties with very tannic skins, like Williams (also known as Bartlett) and Comice.

Mash up the pears – stalks, skins, cores and all. Weigh the pears then mix – mix them with 35% of their weight in coarse sea salt. (So if you have 100g of pears you add 35g of salt.) If you want to add wine, I would add 50% of the weight of the pears in salt and then dilute with 20ml wine per 100g of pears. Personally I didn't bother with the wine.

Store in the back of your fridge for 2 months and let the salt do its thing. At the end of two months the pulp will have started to separate out. The heavier elements form a pale layer at the bottom of the jar, whilst the top part of the mixture is more liquid and is a pale pinkish-brown. When drained through a nylon sieve (like making jelly, do not press on the solids, let the liquid drain naturally so it does not become cloudy), the colour of the resulting liquid is a very pale version of the colour of fish sauce.

Stored in a clean bottle it will keep for months without refrigeration.

If you are desperate and can't wait two months you can prepare a quick pear liquamen like this: core and cut up a pear, boil it with 25% salt and a little water, remove the peel and pulp the flesh in the blender. In terms of colour this ends up much too pale, though the taste is essentially the same.