A very small bibliography on garum
The literature on garum is endless! Monographs, conference proceedings, excavation reporst on garum workshops, and countless articles on every aspect of the subject span over half a century of intensive research. In the fields of public science, journalism and blogging, garum is also a hugely popular topic. With the exception of some of these non-academic outputs, much of what is written on the internet and the press about garum, along with relevant illustrations is inaccurate, wrong, or very confusing.
In this post we suggest some basic or just fascinating readings.
The following book by Sally Grainger, a historian of ancient food habits who also revives ancient cooking practices and recipes found in ancient Greek and Latin literature, is the most recent comprehensive work on garum. With extensive critical discussion of all aspects of the subject and with compilations of relevant data from the extremely extensive literature on garum it is a perfect starting point for readers who want to start learning about it.
Grainger, S. (2020). The story of garum: fermented fish sauce and salted fish in the ancient world. Routledge.
Similarly comprehensive and with a wider geographical and chronological coverage is the older study by Robert Curtis that literally defined research on garum.
Curtis, R. I. (1991) Garum and Salsamenta, Production and Commerce in Material Medica, Studies in Ancient Medicine. E. J. Brill Academic Publisher, Leiden, The Netherlands.
The following collection on processed fish, garum and others, in ancient Mediterranean is the outcome of an international conference that, besides interesting academic presentations, also included a range of gastronomic events on garum and other fish products from all over the world that gave participants the opportunity to involve their senses in their study of garum:
Mylona D.and R. Nicholson (eds.). 2018. Bountiful Sea: Fish processing and consumption in Mediterranean antiquity, Journal of Maritime Archaeology, vol. 14.
Among its papers, the one that follows here focuses and explains in detail this sensory approach and it includes some of the photographs used in this post:
Mylona D. and S. Grainger, 2018. Fish products in the ancient Mediterranean: smell, taste and texture in a conference hall. In Mylona D. and R. Nicholson, eds, Bountiful Sea: Fish Processing and Consumption in Mediterranean Αntiquity. Journal of Maritime Archaeology, 13(3), 219-224.
A unique archaeological find related to the small-scale production of garum and its retail sale is the so-called "Garum Shop" in Pompeii, 1st c. A.D. Various analytical methods have been employed to give us details about the exact use of the various areas of the shop and the vessels found there as well as the varieties of garum that were made and sold there. The results of the research have been published in the following article:
Pecci, A., Domínguez-Bella, S., Buonincontri, M. P., Miriello, D., De Luca, R., Di Pasquale, G., ... & Bernal-Casasola, D. (2018). Combining residue analysis of floors and ceramics for the study of activity areas at the Garum Shop at Pompeii. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 10, 485-502.
Food historians tried their hand in recreating garum. Sally Grainger, for example, not only studied in depth the ancient sources to collect all evidence on garum production, she also experimented in producing garum in the ancient way. She described the process and showed it in vivid photographs, some of which are used in this post, in the following article:
Grainger, S. (2012). What’s in an Experiment? Roman Fish Sauce: an Experiment in Archaeology. EXARC Journal, (EXARC Journal Issue 2012/1).
It can be found on line here: https://exarc.net/issue-2012-1/at/whats-experiment-roman-fish-sauce-experiment-archaeology
For the inscriptions on amphorae that describe their fishy content see the following article and the relevant data base:
PÉREZ, Jordi. La base de datos on line del Ceipac. Los tituli picti. Ar@cne. Revista electrónica de recursos en Internet sobre Geografía y Ciencias Sociales. [En línea. Acceso libre]. Barcelona: Universidad de Barcelona, nº 190, 1 de noviembre de 2014.
http://www.ub.es/geocrit/aracne/aracne-190.htm
Οι εντυπώσεις του Λιουτπράνδου από την Βυζαντινή αυλή τους Νικοφόρου Φωκά δημοσιεύτηκαν στο έργο του Relatio de Legatione Constantinopolitana που αποτελεί μια σημαντική ιστορική πηγή για την εποχή. Έχει δημοσιευθεί μαζί με δύο άλλα έργα του ίδιου από τον F.A. Wright to 1930 στο παρακάτω βιβλίο που είναι διαθέσιμο και στο διαδίκτυο:
Wrigth, F.A. The Works of Liudprand of Cremona, Antapodosis, Liber de Rebus Gestis Ottonis, Relation de Legatione Constantinopolitana, London. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.168391/page/n5/mode/2up
The cultural organization Turquaz that showcases and promotes Turkish traditional music and gastronomy organized an event to celebrate the publication of S. Grainger’s book History of Garum (see first entry) (https://www.turquazz.com/anatomy-of-a-talk-garum/). In 2021 it published a charming book in its Food Talks series, which, alas, is not freely available on line. Its title is Garum: ancient umami and modern gastronomy.