Ancient Roman Pasta – Catillum Ornatum

Welcome to our kitchen. Today we prepare catillum ornatum, an ancient Roman recipe for fried pasta, as described by the Greek author Chrysippus of Tiana in Athenaeus' Deipnosophists. We start with the ingredients. We need flour, lard, white wine, lettuce, and black pepper. You can use any kind of lettuce you have at hand, remembering that the color you get from its juice can be more or less intense depending on the variety. We mince the lettuce, pound it in the mortar, dilute it with white wine, and strain the juice. Although the recipe is written in Greek, in the Deipnosophists we read that this dish was prepared by the Romans. What's even more interesting is that the pieces of pasta are called lagana in the text, a term that we've already found in the past when we prepared ancient Roman patina quotidiana, a dish that can be considered the ancestor of lasagna. Laganum was a typical Greek fried pasta that was also very popular in Rome, one of the many Greek preparations that also appeared in Roman cuisine. It's not surprising that when we look at the recipes of De Re Coquinaria, we find out that several of them have Greek names. This is because the Greek and Roman civilizations were closely linked, thanks to an intense cultural exchange including but not limited to culinary techniques or cooking ingredients. The preparation of catillum or natum is very detailed. We have to knead the flour with lettuce juice diluted with wine, add lard and pepper, then roll out a sheet of pasta and cut it into rectangular or square pieces that have to be fried in olive oil. We grind the pepper, then we knead the flour with two pinches of salt, pepper, lard, and lettuce juice. There are two main differences between regular lagana and catillum or natum, in addition to their shapes, since the former is made with only flour and water, whereas the latter requires many other ingredients. Lagana can be used as ingredients for more complex dishes, as we did in the case of patina quotidiana or for the dinner of the ancient Roman poet Horace, which we recreated in the past. In the same way, in the future, we'll use this lagana to prepare an ancient chicken dish. In the meantime, you can find the links to the videos for patina quotidiana and Horace's dinner in the description below. We roll the dough to obtain a sheet of pasta that is not too thin. Then we cut it into squares or rectangles. To learn more about historical pasta, read our new book, Early Italian Recipes, Cereals, Bread, Pasta, and Pies, which contains 114 recipes from the Antiquity to the end of the Renaissance, an introduction to the history of cereals in Italy, and an explanation of the basic methods and ingredients. This book is the second in the series, Early Italian Recipes, with the first being dedicated to vegetables, fruit, herbs, and flowers in historical cooking. If you're interested in ancient food, we recommend checking out our book, Ancient Roman Cooking, and our Patreon page, where you can find the translations of De Re Coquinaria and the recipes from Cato's De Agricultura, in addition to several other translations and articles on historical food. A list of our books on historical cooking, along with the links to buy us a beer and purchase our merchandise, can be found in the description below. We fry the pasta in olive oil. If you want, you can follow the author's recommendation and use a strainer to deep-fry the lagana. Decatillum ornatum was surprising, with the flavor of lettuce enhanced by the spiciness of pepper and balanced by wine. We paired it with a stew, as we will show in our next video. Meanwhile, you can try it with some of the dishes we've already presented, such as a pork stew with red wine, or also with a vegetable dish, like mushrooms or a rutabaga stew. You can find all the links in the description below. If you're interested in ancient foods and flavors, subscribe our channel and consider supporting us on Patreon.