Herb Relish (Moretaria)

History

Moretaria is a pounded relish of fresh herbs, its name from the same root as the moretum, the mortar-crushed preparation for which the tool itself is named. This version in the collection known as Apicius is an herb-and-seasoning relish rather than the cheese spread most people picture: fresh mint, rue, coriander, and fennel are pounded with lovage, then seasoned with pepper, honey, and liquamen, the everyday fermented fish sauce of the garum family that underpins the corpus, with vinegar added only if wanted, a small sweet-and-sour touch typical of Roman taste. Pepper, though imported, reached Roman kitchens through long-distance trade and is entirely of its period. The most famous witness to this family of dishes is a separate Latin poem, the Moretum, preserved in the Appendix Vergiliana and traditionally attributed to Virgil though almost certainly not his work; it lovingly describes a peasant pounding garlic, herbs, and salted cheese with oil and vinegar in his mortar at dawn. That cheese-and-garlic moretum, in its pine-nut variant, is often called a precursor of pesto, but Apicius's Moretaria omits the cheese and is better read as a cousin than the same dish. The book itself is a late compilation, likely assembled in the fourth or fifth century AD, that carries the name of Marcus Gavius Apicius, a first-century gourmet whose name became a byword for luxury, though the surviving text was gathered generations after he lived and the connection to him cannot be proven.

Ingredients

• mint
• rue
• coriander
• fennel
• lovage (ligusticum)
• pepper
• honey
• liquamen (fermented fish sauce)
• vinegar

Instructions

1. Pound together fresh mint, rue, coriander, and fennel with lovage and pepper.
2. Blend with honey and liquamen; add vinegar if needed.