Numidian Chicken
Origin: Rome, Italy
Source: Apicius, 400
History
*Pullum Numidicum*, "chicken in the Numidian manner," sits in Book VI of the collection known as Apicius among a run of fowl dishes labelled by place. Its neighbour two recipes earlier is *Pullum Parthicum*, "Parthian chicken."
The method is compact. Clean the chicken, parboil it, wash it, dress it with laser and pepper and roast it. Then pound pepper, cumin, coriander seed, laser root, rue, dates and pine nuts, moisten with vinegar, honey, *liquamen* and oil, and bring it to the boil; thicken with starch, pour it over the bird, strew pepper and serve.
Two things follow from the text itself. The recipe calls for an ordinary *pullum* — a domestic chicken — so the Numidian label reads as a style rather than a bird, even though the same region later lent its name to the guinea fowl. And the play of dates, honey and vinegar against pepper and rue is thoroughly Roman; every ingredient belongs to the Old World.
Numidia was a Berber kingdom of northwest Africa, covering the north of modern Algeria and reaching into Tunisia and Libya. The political history usually attached to that name here, the account of silphium's harvesting to scarcity and its replacement by asafoetida, and the resemblance modern cooks find to later Maghrebi cooking, we learned from popular reference and food-writing sources, and we were unable to locate the evidence they rest on.
Ingredients
- chicken
- laser
- pepper
- cumin
- coriander seed
- laser root
- rue
- date
- pine nuts
- vinegar
- honey
- liquamen (Roman fermented fish sauce)
- olive oil
- wheat starch (amulum)
Instructions
- Boil the chicken, wash it, sprinkle with laser and pepper, and roast.
- Pound pepper, cumin, coriander seed, laser root, rue, date and pine nuts; temper with vinegar, honey, liquamen and oil.
- Boil, thicken with wheat starch, pour over the chicken, and finish with pepper.