amphora of the garum
results of excavations widen the knowledge of a series of daily facts
and give to light the life in Pompeii
like any work of art and any ancient text can do.
the Regio I, district of artisans and
small dealers, has been recovered in a house a small amphora
still sealed, that contained the garum,
the famous fish sauce so pleasant to the Romans.
sauce was prepared making soak, to the sun, entrails
and fillets of raw fishes, envoys
to layers in a container, with salt and sweet herbs, and eliminating
partly the liquid produced by that elaboration. Despite the smell and
the repellent aspect of the mixture, the garum
was used in almost all the foods.
examined the content of the small amphora found in the house, it is
resulted that this garum,
two thousand years old, had been manufactured not with mackerel,
as usual, but with another blue fish, the vopa.
Perhaps, according the home made recipe, everyone used the type
of fish available; certainly there were different types of garum
furnished by the laboratories, one of which has been found in Pompeii.