Stuffed Dormouse and Fish Gut Sauce: The Flavors of Pompeii (2019) | Hacker News Reader

Stuffed Dormouse and Fish Gut Sauce: The Flavors of Pompeii (2019)

nytimes.com

43 pointsdiodorus38 comments

Fun facts, the closest to ancient Roman fish sauce (garum) in ingredients today is probably Vietnamese fish sauce[1][2]. This is probably not only the source for the umami flavor but also the natural salty ingredient without the modern salt. This is not surprising since majority of Vietnam today (Central and South Vietnam) was ruled by Champa kingdoms until 16th century but Chams people were then evicted by the Nguyen lords from the North. Chams, Malay and Indonesian languages (top ten most popular languages in the world) has the word "garam", for salt and it is probably originated from the word garum.

If you want how ancient Pompeii lived and ate, please check this excellent video by Absolute History[3].

[1]https://scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3094604/did-fi...

[2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garum

[3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSw7eoBbM0U

They still make a fish sauce in Italy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colatura_di_alici

garam and garum do seem similar, but how latin word for something lost in medieval times could've come to indonesian language?

I'd imagine through trade, much like how it seems to be the explanation for why most languages call "tea" some variation of te, cha, or chai.

Yes most probably through trade. Check the provided video link on the ancient Pompeii, based on the archeological evidences they had trading activities with other Asian countries including India. It is already known that the Chams already settled in Vietnam during Pompeii time. Their ports popularity at the time probably similar to Singapore today and Singapore is currently the busiest port in the world. Another fun fact is that the Chams ancient capital city is called Simhapura or Lion City, and Singapore original name is Singapura. My gut feeling is that Champa was either playing the role of Singapore today or conquered Singapore, at the time of Pompeii.

There’s at least one loanword which arrived in Latin from a Trans–New Guinea language [0]. Latin→Indonesian doesn’t sound at all implausible to me, though equally it may be just coincidence.

[0] https://www.academia.edu/25619010/Things_your_classics_maste...

Latin is quite a strange language. It never really died, or it did die but with a slow and uneven death. The example you being is emblematic: as the international language of scholars in Europe, when the new word "Musa" gets adopted in the 18th century from the arabic "mauz", on one hand sure, it's technically Latin and thus yes technically there is a Latin word whose etymology traces back to an Austronesian root.

I'm the other hand though it clearly doesn't mean that this happened during ancient Roman times, which is the conclusion one would easily jump to under the assumption that Latin really died long long ago.

Lingua latina mortua est, vivat lingua latina!

I’m pretty sure I saw somewhere that it was borrowed into Latin in ancient times, though perhaps I was wrong. Still, a TNG→Arabic borrowing is nearly as good as a TNG→Latin one.

Are we talking about the name of a fruit that comes from the same place where the name was borrowed from? If so, why is that surprising?

Yes, we are. The only surprising thing about this is that one wouldn’t prima facie expect a loan into any European language from a New Guinean language before the Age of Exploration, and this particular word went through more intermediate languages than usual. Other than those features, there’s nothing particularly unusual about this.

I'd be very surprised if they were connected. Garam sira is apparently well attested as the origin and derivations from both words are common across the austronesian family. Similar sounds have been reconstructed in the proto- language as well. Not an expert here, but these sorts of false cognates are common enough and the distances far enough that it makes me suspicious. Do you have a more substantial source?

Based on the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database, the word sira is the common word for all Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, Proto-Chamic and Proto-Malayic for salt not garam [1]. Indonesian Aceh language, however, diverged from Chams around 1st century AD has word garam for salt. This indicates that garam most probably a loan word. Apparently, the most common words for salt in Austronesian language family (largest family of languages in the world) are sira, garam and masin/asin. These three words exist in modern Malay-Indonesian languages namely garam for salt, masin for salty and sira for salt-lick.

[1]https://abvd.shh.mpg.de/austronesian/

There's an origin note on the word in Malay, which indicates the root of garam is "garam sira", grains of salt. Do you have something discussing how garam could instead be a loanword, because nothing I've seen indicates this.

Have you checked the database? It contains basic 210 words for many major Austronesian based languages, and conveniently it includes salt as one of basic words inside the database. You can even search and cross check the basic word e.g. salt across more than one thousand Austronesian languages.

Another fun fact, the oldest known source of written Cham language is the Dong Yeng Chau inscription tablet written in 4th century AD recently discovered in Central Vietnam. This Old Cham inscription written in an Old Southern Brahmi script and even older than Old Malay language. Amazingly it's still very much understandable if you know the modern Malay-Indonesian language (top ten most used languages)[1]. As a comparison the most studied language in the Americas, Mayan Languages that was spoken around the time of Old Cham, its modern version is not widely being used now.

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%90%C3%B4ng_Y%C3%AAn_Ch%C...

There’s a fellow on youtube who makes dishes from antiquity, including garum. Worth a watch if you’re into cooking, or history, or both. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5S7Bb0Qg-oE

Fish sauce really is a gift of the gods and it saddens me that this pinnacle of flavour is nearly lost in the western world.

People see fish sauce and are shocked but Worcestershire sauce is a fish sauce.

Worcestershire sauce is delicious too but to be fair there are a lot of variants that omit the fish part.

Lea and Perrins definitely used fermented fish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WSiQAVzT1c

I had to look up the ingredients[1]: Anchovies, Tamarind paste and Beer among others.

[1]https://www.thespruceeats.com/homemade-worcestershire-sauce-...

Sure, in the sense that Caesar dressing is a fish sauce. The parts of Worcestershire sauce that you can taste are the vinegar and sugar.

Well you could always crack open a can of anchovies to augment the sauce. It's not as though anchovies are lost to time.

Not yet anyway...

Maybe I'm just too "in it" from having eaten Thai fish-sauce almost every day for many many years, but I'm not convinced that fish sauce tastes of fish any more than soy sauce tastes of soy or red wine vinegar tastes of red wine. It tastes of salt and umami and ... tastes like fish sauce.

I think you’re “in it”. I had a partner that loved fish sauce and insisted it didn’t taste “fishy”, but to me, who didn’t grow up with it and generally dislikes “fish” taste, it tastes extremely fishy.

IMO, fish sauce (and I'm picturing the red boat one my wife buys) is like manna from heaven when there's just a hint of it. Too much, and it starts to taste a little...poopy.

I use fish sauce in small amounts to make fried rice. (Also present, in large amounts: oil, soy sauce, garlic.)

It has no flavor that I can particularly detect at the end of the process. The smell when you open the bottle is overwhelming, and terrible. I wouldn't venture to sample it directly.

I’ve started making Caesar dressing from scratch when I want it, and the anchovies can really shine when you do it yourself.

Personally, I'm holding out until scientists finally isolate the ingredients of Bestchestershire sauce.

On the flipside, I’m an otherwise adventurous eater but I simply can’t stand the taste of fish sauce.

It’s why I now mostly avoid Thai food as a whole, the fish sauce is nauseating and overpowering.

It is still used in Italian cuisine - colatura di alici.

I see it used in recipes in the west often.

I'm making a pork recipe tomorrow that uses it.

Southern US recipes add it to a lot of stuff.

worth noting that Dormouse was (is) still eaten in modern times.

For example, this[0] made the news in Italy about ten years ago when a group of poachers was caught hunting and serving them (the dormouse is a protected species, but it's also a traditional food).

[0] warning: a bit graphic https://www.promiseland.it/topo-bollito/

The Romans also cooked with laser and rocket:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruca_vesicaria

We loved reading this at work yesterday. Other gems posted to HN in the last year:

Archaeologists uncover ancient street food shop in Pompeii (reuters.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25543742

Reconstructing the Menu of a Pub in Ancient Pompeii (atlasobscura.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26210774

The latter includes some recipies too!

I'm vegan on the whole but I still use a splash of fish sauce from time to time. Good stuff, and largely made from parts of fish which would otherwise go to waste

http://archive.is/a9oS7

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