Gar-what?

Garum: fermented fish sauce.

Yep, my three favorite things all rolled up into one...oh wait.

This entry kind of goes along with that Legionnaire Salad a few entries down...but I'm going to file it under history rather than recipes, because I highly doubt that any of you are going to give the old garum fish sauce a try over the weekend.  For one thing, although apparently the flavor of the finished sauce was mild, the production process reeked to high heaven.  And that's saying something, in a culture like Rome's.

Oh, did I not mention that this is an ancient Roman predilection?  Well, technically it's Greek - but the Romans stole it from the Greeks like they did just about everything else, and so we're calling it Roman like we do the rest of it.

So basically (and I know I said I wasn't providing a recipe, but here I go anyway) to make garum, you take the innards of all your fish and eels and what-have-you, toss them in a barrel (or amphora), sprinkle on some salt, and add some weight to the top.  Then (apparently) this sits in the sun for a while (a long while) while everything goes to mush.  Yummy.  But we're not finished...the mixture has to be strained, so that you end up with a sort sludge called allec that's good for feeding the plebeians, and a thick and pungent liquid, garum of course, that is more expensive than caviar and that you can add to basically whatever dish you're cooking.  The beauty of a sauce...

If you don't feel like cooking, you can always just take your garum and water it down with water...or wine...or honey...or whatever you have at hand, really, and that will be a delicious snack for you, plus a treatment for both constipation and diarrhea, and as an added bonus it will get rid of your freckles.