Ancient Roman (slightly poisonous) Lentil Soup

Don’t try this at home! This was a calculated risk that I took when I was cooking food only for my own consumption.

But I had the ingredients, so I decided to make one of Apicius’ recipes as close to the original as possible.

Book V, section ii, number 3 – ALITER LENTICULAM: coquis. cum despumaverit, porrum et coriandrum viridem supermittis. <teres> coriandri semen, puleium, laseris radicem, semen mentae et rutae, suffundis acetum, adicies mel, liquamine, aceto, defrito temperabis, adicies oleum, agitabis. si quid opus fuerit, mittis. amulo obligas, insuper oleum viride mittis, piper aspargis et inferes.

My favorite edition/translation of Apicius is the Barbara Flower and Elisabeth Rosenbaum one because it has the Latin text on the facing page and I can double check or second guess how the translation should go.

Just to get it over with quickly, the two poisonous ingredients are pennyroyal and rue. Pennyroyal is in the mint family and can be pretty easily substituted with similar herbs to get the same taste. Rue, however, tastes like nothing else and is good at sharpening and brightening foods that would otherwise be rich and heavy.

Setting out the ingredients. From my garden, there’s fresh green onions, mint, coriander, rue, dried mint, dried pennyroyal and dried coriander seeds. From my pantry there are dry goods (red lentils, coriander powder, and asafetida) and bottled (fish sauce, white balsamic vinegar, olive oil, honey, and what looks like a regular bottle of red wine but is actually defrutum, where I’ve boiled down leftover red wine from several bottles until the volume was reduced)

Skimming froth from lentils

So I started off with the lentils and some water – boiling them and skimming off the scum.

Pot with lentils and some green vegetables, and a container to the side with white stuff in it which is the froth I’ve scooped out of the cooking lentils

I added green onions, instead of leeks because I didn’t grow leeks in my tiny porch container garden. It also isn’t the season for fresh cilantro, so while I had some frozen and used it, I also supplemented with parsley (which is abundant in my garden).

Then I mixed together ground coriander, pennyroyal, asafetida, mint, rue, a little vinegar, honey, and fish sauce. (See picture above) And then I slowly added defrutum and more vinegar to thin it out.

I also sifted in (while the lentils were boiling) some toasted wheat flour to thicken – this is how my southern relatives thicken stews at the end of cooking if the roux ended up not quite thick enough using a product called Wondra. It’s basically precooked flour – both for food safety and because that helps it clump less. I today my flour until it’s caramel colored because that also makes the process of making a roux for a dark gravy go significantly faster.

Finished soup with a toasted bagel and cream cheese on the side and the cookbook in the background

After serving in the bowl, I dressed it with some olive oil (which you can’t really see in the picture) and freshly ground black pepper. And I did like it with some added salt as well.

I usually make this thicker and next to a chestnut paste, because those two recipes are often considered together, and serve it as a dip. It’s also very good as a soup. I think I could go even lighter on the lentils to make a thinner soup… but then I might also cheat and try making it with a lamb broth instead of plain water. That would make it closer to the delicious lentil soup at a local Yemeni restaurant.

Good news – I did not die (or have horrible cramps or anything more than one would with regular high fiber dinner)