Patina of Pears

History

The recipe survives in Book IV of De re coquinaria — the Pandecter, or "many-ingredients" miscellany — the layered, late-antique compilation that carries the name of Apicius rather than the demonstrable work of Marcus Gavius Apicius, the 1st-century gourmet the name is associated with. It belongs to a large family of patinae: the word names both the shallow pan the dish was baked in and the baked egg dish itself, a souffle- or frittata-like preparation the Romans served among the sweets of the mensa secunda, the "second table" dessert course. The book preserves dozens of these patinae. The method is characteristically terse and quantity-free: boiled, cored pears are pounded with pepper, cumin, honey, passum (raisin wine), liquamen (fish sauce) and a little oil, bound with eggs, baked, then finished with a dusting of pepper. Sweetness from honey and raisin wine played against the salt-umami of fish sauce is not a quirk of this dish but the ordinary Roman house style, an ancestor of later sweet-savoury cooking, and the recipe reflects affluent dining rather than everyday fare. Modern cooks prize it for exactly that jolt: the recreator Sally Grainger observes that "the addition of fish sauce to a dessert always causes consternation until it is tasted", and the pear patina recurs on cooking shows and Roman-feast blogs as an approachable, genuinely sweet ancient dessert.

Ingredients

• pears
• pepper
• cumin
• honey
• passum (raisin wine)
• liquamen (Roman fermented fish sauce)
• olive oil
• eggs

Instructions

1. Pound boiled, cored pears with pepper, cumin, honey, passum, liquamen and a little oil.
2. Beat in eggs and set as a patina custard.
3. Sprinkle with pepper and serve.