on the observance of foods

This weekend, I did some test cooking from the sixth-century dietary manual De observatione ciborum (Anthimus). I skipped the pennyroyal because you don't use an herb traditionally employed to induce uterine contractions unless all the potential diners are on board for that experiment, I skipped the spikenard because our probably-American stock is so old it's tasteless and true Nepali spikenard is endangered, and we were out of a couple of other odd ingredients. But I did buy a costmary plant:



This herb smells lemony and tastes bitter; you can use it fresh or dried.

One of the longest recipes in Anthimus is for a beef dish:

Beef which has been steamed can be used both roasted in a dish and also braised in a sauce, provided that, as soon as it starts to smell, you put the meat in some water. Boil it in as much fresh water as suits the size of the portion of meat; you should not have to add any more water during the boiling. When the meat is cooked, put in a casserole about half a cup of sharp vinegar, some leeks and a little pennyroyal, some celery and fennel, and let those simmer for one hour. Then add half the quantity of honey to vinegar, or as much honey as you wish for sweetness. Cook over a low heat, shaking the pot frequently with one's hands so that the sauce cooks the meat sufficiently. Then grind the following: 50 pepper corns, 2 grams each of costmary and spikenard, and 1.5 grams of cloves. Carefully grind all these spices together in an earthenware mortar with the addition of a little wine. When well ground, add them to the casserole and stir well, so that before they are taken from the heat, they may warm up and release their flavor into the sauce.

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