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1. Cobwebs
   November 21st, 2006 at 10:57 am

   Even though this sounds fairly icky at first glance, it really isn’t all that different from the fermented fish sauces used in a lot of Asian cooking today. You can get a fairly good idea of what garum tasted like by tasting a little nam pla or nuoc mam.

2. Miss Cellania
   November 21st, 2006 at 11:59 am

   Sounds worse than a grape-flavored apple! But most likely nutritious.

3. gail
   November 21st, 2006 at 12:57 pm

   You’re right Cobwebs. It’s basically the same as Nam Pla and has been compared to anchovy paste, which nobody thinks is all that outrageous. It got its bad reputation from the manufacturing process, which apparently smelled pretty objectionable, but was supposed to have smelled fine when it was completely fermented and properly stored.

4. gail
   November 21st, 2006 at 1:02 pm

   Although I don’t think I’d trust the 2000 year old variety, and Roman hygeine wasn’t the greatest. Modern fish sauces are generally bottled using more sanitary methods.

5. Alex
   November 21st, 2006 at 3:24 pm

   I’m sure Roman hygiene is not as bad as this soy sauce made from human hair!

6. Gloria
   November 21st, 2006 at 6:59 pm

   Roman hygiene wasn’t the greatest compared to *today.* For two thousand years ago, it was pretty good.

7. gail
   November 21st, 2006 at 7:16 pm

   True, but they had an awful lot of lead in their diet and they washed their clothes in urine. If I had to choose an ancient society on the basis of cleanliness, I’d go with Edo era Japan. Always assuming I wasn’t in the lower classes.

8. Emmers
   November 21st, 2006 at 10:08 pm

   GAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMM!!!!!

   The best part of Latin class! Bwaha!

   My brother made a batch in his fifth year of high school and taped it. Now my Latin teacher shows it every year, and he still has the bottle (from like, 5 years ago). He won’t let us taste it anymore, though, because there’s some kind of unknown sediment in the bottle.

   I think we might go ahead and make some more this year.

9. gail
   November 21st, 2006 at 10:14 pm

   Awesome, Emmers! A sound classical education.

10. ted
    November 22nd, 2006 at 1:23 pm

    I seem to remember the report a couple of weeks ago saying that there was no liquid remaining, but that they could analyse some of the fish bones that were left in the containers. The containers were not sealed, and water replaced the actual garum.
    There were several types of garum that were made, from the cheap variety to the really good stuff. Still, fish is fish.

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