Colatura di Alici Archives ⋆ REVERIES & RECIPES

Pollice Verso (With a Turned Thumb) by Jean Leon Gerome, 1872

Gladiator Diet

I guess everyone has heard of the Paleo Diet – that’s what people ate 10,000 years ago. It’s basically meat, nuts, fruit and vegetables. There’s something a little more current, well, from about 2,000 years ago, the Gladiator Diet. It’s what Roman gladiators ate to stay in fighting condition. And surprisingly, it was almost a completely vegetarian diet.

Barley Gruel

Oat and Seed Cakes

No meat and potatoes for these guys. They ate mostly barley, beans and some pasta too, often flavored with fish sauce, trying to put on enough weight to cushion those sword and spear wounds in the arena. That wasn’t enough to strengthen their bones so they drank a sort of “sports drink,” a mix of wood and bone ash to build up calcium. They also drank goats milk and water but no wine. This combination of food and drink made them fit and tough.

String Beans a la Gladiator (based on what we know they ate and what was commonly available in Rome back then)

Ingredients:

1 lb. string beans
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 chopped onion
4 tbsp gaurm*

*The Romans used a fish sauce called garum. The modern equivalent is colatura di alici.

Preparation:

Boil the string beans for 5 minutes. In another pot sauté the onion in oil until soft, translucent and just beginning to brown. Add the drained, cooked string beans to the onions, add the colatura di alici and about 1/2 cup of the water you boiled the string beans in. Taste for seasoning. Colatura di Alici can be very salty and you may not need any more salt. Simmer for a few minutes and serve.

String Beans a la Gladiator

Some more information on the Gladiator Diet here –

BBC

Archaeology

Science Daily

Definitely not part of the Gladiator Diet

Click here for updated GALLERY II

Writing Site and Yelp

Pasta with Cherry Tomatoes and Colatura di Alici

This is a quick sauce and should be ready in about the time it takes to make the pasta. Don’t overcook it and keep the fresh taste of the tomatoes. Simple ingredients and yet the result is a complex flavor. Colatura di Alici is an Italian fish sauce similar to the ancient Roman and Greek garum.

(you can buy colatura di alici on-line)

Put a pot of salted water on the stove to cook the pasta.

Lightly toast the breadcrumbs in oil a pan and set aside.

Add more oil to the pan and cook the anchovies until they dissolve. Add the garlic and cook until very lightly golden. Add the chilli and cook briefly. Then add cherry tomatoes and capers.

When the pasta is almost done move it from the pot to the pan, adding a bit of the pasta water to the sauce. Mix the pasta with the sauce adding water from the pot as necessary.

When almost done, add the colatura di alici, breadcrumbs, and chopped parsley and blend. Taste for seasoning. Anchovies and colature di alici can be salty and you may not need any more salt. No cheese on this one.

If you have lots of cherry or grape tomatoes to cut in half, here’s a simple and quick way to do it instead of cutting them one at a time.

(sorry about the siren in the background – we live in New York City and didn’t notice)

Click here for updated GALLERY II

Writing Site and Yelp

REVERIES & RECIPES

Tag Archives: Colatura di Alici

Gladiator Diet

Gladiator Diet

Pasta with Cherry Tomatoes and Colatura di Alici

Pasta with Cherry Tomatoes and Colatura di Alici

This is a quick sauce and should be ready in about the time it takes to make the pasta. Don’t overcook it and keep the fresh taste of the tomatoes. Simple ingredients and yet the result is a complex flavor. Colatura di Alici is an Italian fish sauce similar to the ancient Roman and Greek garum.

Put a pot of salted water on the stove to cook the pasta.

Lightly toast the breadcrumbs in oil a pan and set aside.

Add more oil to the pan and cook the anchovies until they dissolve. Add the garlic and cook until very lightly golden. Add the chilli and cook briefly. Then add cherry tomatoes and capers.

When the pasta is almost done move it from the pot to the pan, adding a bit of the pasta water to the sauce. Mix the pasta with the sauce adding water from the pot as necessary.

When almost done, add the colatura di alici, breadcrumbs, and chopped parsley and blend. Taste for seasoning. Anchovies and colature di alici can be salty and you may not need any more salt. No cheese on this one.

If you have lots of cherry or grape tomatoes to cut in half, here’s a simple and quick way to do it instead of cutting them one at a time.

Click here for updated GALLERY II

Reveries and Recipes