Apician Meat Morsels

History

Ofellae were small morsels of meat — the word is a diminutive of offa, "a morsel" or tidbit. They were versatile, everyday fare cooked almost every way: fried, simmered, seared, or roasted, and cut from beef, pork chops, or pork belly, perhaps also mutton or lamb. The name is older than this collection: Cato's De agri cultura already speaks of ofellae Puteolanae, a salted cured-pork preparation. The poet Martial praised ofellae so tender they needed no carving knife from the structor, the slave who portioned meat at table — a glimpse of the dish as genuinely popular Roman eating rather than only elite spectacle. Seven ofellae recipes survive in the compilation known as Apicius, with four more in the later Excerpta Vinidarii. This version — labelled Apicianae, "in the Apician manner" — has the cook bone the morsels, fold them round, skewer and oven-sear them, then dry them slowly over a gridiron before simmering in a sauce of pepper, lovage, cyperus (galingale) and cumin loosened with liquamen, the everyday fish sauce, and sweet passum — the characteristic Roman sweet-savoury balance. That "Apician" label reflects how the name became a byword for fine cooking; the surviving book is a later anonymous compilation (c. 4th–5th c. CE) carrying the name of the 1st-century gourmet Marcus Gavius Apicius, not his demonstrable work.

Ingredients

• ofellae (boned pork morsels)
• pepper
• lovage
• cyperus (galingale/nut-grass root)
• cumin
• liquamen (fermented fish sauce)
• passum (raisin wine)

Instructions

1. Bone the morsels, roll into rounds, skewer, and put them to the oven; then brown them.
2. To draw out moisture, dry them on a gridiron over a low fire, without burning.
3. Grind pepper, lovage, cyperus and cumin; blend with liquamen and passum.
4. Cook the morsels in a pot with this sauce.
5. Lift out, dry, and serve without the sauce, sprinkled with pepper. If fatty, remove the skin when skewering; you may also use pork belly.