Encytum – Ancient Roman Fritters

Today we prepare the ancient Roman Encitum, by Catos de Agricultura, written in the 2nd century BC. We'll start with the ingredients, we'll serve spelt, cheese, lardo and donna. First, we put the spelt in the mortar and leave it in water all night. There are some recipes of this type in medieval recipes, very similar to some traditional flour cakes, still prepared today in various parts of the world, for example in Strauben or Gialebi. We mix the cheese with the soccato spelt, depending on the type of cheese, you can also put it in the mortar. It is important to mix the spelt and cheese very well and, if necessary, add a little sour water. In the Tractatus de Modo Preparandi et Condiendi Omnia Cibaria, written about the end of the thirteenth century and which, according to the author, collected recipes from various countries, we find a recipe for Mistenbank, It is prepared with a dough of flour and wheat bran, placed in olive oil or lard, on a plate covered with basil and sugar, then crushed with sugar or olive syrup. This recipe comes from the Arabic cuisine. In which the dough prepared with flour and wheat straw is placed in sesame oil, on a plate that is ground on the bottom and then, again, triturated with sugar or olive syrup. This recipe, like the others we find in Cato's book, is originally Greek and is mentioned only a few times in the Deipnosophists. Cato recommends using the same root as the ingredients suggested for the globe, which is a part of every cheese and cheese, But this way we get a too firm paste that can't be sprinkled in a pan, as the recipe requires. We have two options, first of all, we can use a fresh cheese with a good water content. Second, we can keep some of the water juice from the cave. Finally, we must obtain a morbid paste which will be sprinkled in lard. We fry the spelt and cheese dough in lard, sprinkle it through a pan and we shape the frittelle into a spiral. If you prefer, use olive oil instead of lard. The transparency of the dough butter also depends on the panel used for the spraying and the amount of smoothly flowing butter in the hot butter. Instead, we used a horn with a pointed tip, with a spindle of about 1 centimeter. Cooking time depends on the thickness of the dough and the size of the frittelle. We cooked our encitum for about 1.5 minutes on the first side and 1 minute on the second side. To learn more about historic cuisine and read translations from ancient and medieval sources, go check out our Patreon page. If you're interested in ancient cuisine, read our book Ancient Roman Cuisine. If you are interested in the ancient Middle Ages, you should look at our new book, L'Osservazione Ciborum. Per un lato ricettario medievale, we recommend Registrum Coquine, which is a medieval recipe. All books are available in business and e-book editions on Amazon, in English and in Italian. To support our work, you can also buy us a beer or buy our merchandise. We serve the ancitum covered with olive oil. Despite the simplicity of the ingredients, it's become delicious, crunchy all over the inside and morbid all over the inside. The use of lardo makes the flavor pleasant and complex, but it would also be excellent with good olive oil. The ancitum makes a good ancient Roman pasta or a tomato dish, but you can also serve it at the end of your antique dish. Accompany with lardo, as we have done, or mulsum, a Roman wine made with masto di grano and lardo, a seconda delle direzioni di Catone. If you're interested in antique food and flavors, subscribe to our channel and consider supporting us on Patreon.