Stuffed Pig's Stomach

History

This stuffed pig's stomach survives in De re coquinaria, the Roman recipe collection that bears the name of Apicius — a later, anonymous compilation (roughly 4th-5th century CE), not the demonstrable work of Marcus Gavius Apicius, the 1st-century gourmet the name recalls. The method is elaborate and clearly written for a trained cook. A cleaned stomach is first scoured with vinegar and salt, then packed with pounded pork, three brains with the nerves removed, raw eggs and pine nuts, and whole peppercorns. The stuffing is bound with a sauce of pepper, lovage, silphium (the prized resin the Romans increasingly substituted with asafoetida as true silphium grew scarce), anise, ginger and a little rue, moistened with the best liquamen — the everyday Roman fish sauce — and a little oil. The casing is deliberately left slack and pricked with a needle so it will not split; it is boiled, hung in smoke to color, boiled again until done, then dressed with more liquamen, wine and oil and opened at table. Brains as forcemeat and imported spices mark it as affluent Roman table fare, not common food. Popular food writing calls such stuffed-stomach dishes the ancestors of haggis, noting the practice long predates Scotland and that comparable offal-and-casing dishes recur across Europe and the Mediterranean; this paunch and a roasted stomach in Homer's Odyssey are cited among the earliest examples. The shared technique is real, but any direct lineage is unprovable.

Ingredients

• pig's stomach (venter porcinus)
• vinegar and salt
• pork pulp (pounded)
• brains
• raw eggs
• pine nuts
• whole peppercorns
• pepper
• lovage
• silphium (silfium)
• anise
• ginger
• rue
• liquamen (best quality)
• oil
• wine (merum, unmixed)
• wheat starch (amulum)

Instructions

1. Empty the pig's stomach well; clean with vinegar and salt, then water.
2. Make the stuffing: pounded pork forcemeat (sinews removed) mixed with three brains and raw eggs, folding in pine nuts and whole peppercorns.
3. Bind with a sauce of ground pepper, lovage, silphium, anise, ginger, a little rue, best liquamen and a little oil.
4. Fill the stomach loosely so it will not burst; skewer, bind, and lower into a boiling pot.
5. Lift out and prick with a needle so it does not split when half-cooked; then hang in smoke to color.
6. Boil again until fully cooked; blend with liquamen, unmixed wine and a little oil.
7. Open with a knife and serve with liquamen and lovage.