The World That Was - Etruscan Pesto (Moretum)

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was!

Today, I'll be making a bronze-age basil sauce - much like modern pesto! The origins of this recipe are pretty vague - contemporary accounts place it in "the North of Italy" - so we can guess this refers to an Etruscan recipe (as it was preserved as "moretum" in early Roman cuisine. While it's unknown if cheese was included in the original dish, the Romans would have included a hard cheese in their moretum.

In any case, lets now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!


Ingredients

100g Basil leaves

150ml or  1/2 cup Olive Oil

50g or 1/3 cup Pine Nuts

2-4 garlic cloves


Method

1 - Prepare the Pine Nuts

To begin with, we need to dry-toast our pine nuts. Toss 50g or a third of a cup of pine nuts into a frying pan, and place this over medium-high heat. Stir them around so they cook evenly, and turn a lovely golden colour. It's not known if this was done in antiquity, but it brings our the flavours of the nuts really well!

When they're done toasting, crush them into a fairly smooth meal. Put this aside while you deal with your herbs and garlic.


2 - Mince Garlic and Basil

Now we need to mince our other ingredients. Start by finely mincing the basil with a knife. You'll need quite a lot of basil for this recipe - as it's one of the major ingredients here. It'll give off a lovely herbal aroma when you chop it, which I personally love. Anyway, toss this into a bowl, along with your pine nut meal, and a few cloves of garlic that you handily minced offscreen. Pour in about 150ml or a half a cup of olive oil on top of this. 


3 - Combine Ingredients

Now, with your trusty fork, get to mixing. Stir and combine all of this together until it forms a lovely green paste. If you want, you can blend all of this together into a fine paste, much closer to modern pesto! You can now dig into this as is!

If you want to store this, pour it into a container of your choice, and top it off with a little more olive oil. The whole thing should be kept in the fridge and eaten within about 2 weeks of making it.


The lack of cheese in the recipe really highlights the flavours of the basil and garlic. Unblended, the mixture has a very sharp taste, and really cuts through most dishes you'd pair this with. However, when it's blended, it retains a much smoother, palatable taste - much more in-line with modern pesto! Moretum is first recorded by Columella - a Roman writer - in the 1st century AD, who refers to unnamed accounts for this dish - probably an Etruscan source that doesn’t survive to modernity. The Etruscans were a prominent cultural force in the North of Italy, but it was not the sole force there. So while it is likely that calling this "Etruscan" might be erasing smaller communes - such as those found in Veneto and Liguria - it is a simple filler for a gap in our understanding of pre-Roman cultures in the North of Italy. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The World That Was - Sumerian Date-Filled Pastries (qullupu)

Image
 Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! Today, I'm making some date-filled cookies described as being votive religious offerings to the Sumerian deity Inanna (also known as Ishtar - to the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians). It's unknown exactly how these cookies were prepared, being only described as "date-filled parcels of dough" - so I've reconstructed this based on modern Iraqi culinary traditions. In any case, let's now take a look, at the World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! Ingredients (for approx. 8 qullupu ) 1 cup/150g dates, pitted honey water 1 cup white flour 1 tsp salt 2 tsp cardamom powder 2 tsp ground cumin 100g butter, melted milk sesame seeds (for decoration) Method 1 - Make the dough To begin with, we need to make a dough. Pour a cup of flour into a large mixing bowl, along with a pinch of salt, a few tablespoons of ground cumin, and a few tablespoons of cardamom powder - you can buy this pre-ground, or you can tak
Read more

The World That Was - Palace Cakes from Ur

Image
 Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! Today, I'll be recreating a sweet treat recorded on some cuneiform tablets excavated from the site of the palace complex at Ur in modern-day Iraq. This is one of the few recipes from Sumerian cuisine where we have some measures for the ingredients! In this case, the sila is quoted, but a single sila is believed to be about 3 cup's worth of an ingredient, and the original palace cakes seem to have been made using several sila of flour alone! These cakes were possibly eaten by the rich and elite in Sumerian society, or perhaps used for large-scale gatherings. But today, I'll be scaling back the ingredients to suit a modern kitchen (and budget). So now, let's take a look at The World That Was! Ingredients 2 cups dates, roughly chopped 1/2 cup raisins/sultanas 180g / 1+1/2  cups flour (wheat, wholegrain, or barley) 500ml / 1/2 cup milk 1/2 cup cottage cheese 1 cup butter (room temperature) 2 eggs (room temperature) Directions: 1 - C
Read more

The World That Was - 11th Century Honey Cakes from Byzantium

Image
Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! Today, I'll be taking a look at a medieval Byzantine honey cake - which itself is based on an earlier Greek iron-age cake, amphiphon. This is going to be a light, fluffy cake with a rich, honey flavour! In any case, let's now take a look at the world that was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! If you like what you see, consider supporting me over on Patreon! Ingredients 1 cup flour 3/4 cup butter 3/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup walnuts salt orange rind 1 - Cream the Sugar and Butter To begin with, toss about 3/4 of a cup of room-temperature butter into a mixing bowl. Into this, place about 3/4 of a cup of sugar. Mix everything together using a wooden spoon, smearing the butter into the sugar along the side of the bowl. Do this until it takes on a rich, creamy texture. At this stage, beat three eggs into the mixture, taking care to mix them all thoroughly before progressing! 2 - Add Dry Ingredients Next, toss in about a cup's worth of
Read more