Fish Sauce

Fish sauce – which they called garum or liquamen – is fundamental to Roman food; in fact it is the ingredient that brings all the others together in a harmonious balance. Without it, the many flavours of the spices and liquids would be loud and discordant in the mouth, and the reputation that Roman food has for overpowering seasoning would be all too true.

The taste of fish sauce has recently been identified as the ‘fifth flavour’ alongside sweet, sour, salt and bitter. Umami is the ‘all-round-the-mouth’ meaty taste one gets from mushrooms and monosodium glutamate. It is not just salt flavour, there are all kinds of complex cheesy elements to it too, though the Romans used their fish sauce instead of salt and rarely used salt alone in their savoury or their sweet cooking. The effect of the sauce is not fishy or rotten or rank but immensely satisfying and integral to the cuisine. The Romans cooked with a variety of fermented fish sauces whose distinguishing characteristics can be difficult to understand in the modern world. It is only recently that I have been able to identify and classify the various types with any degree of accuracy. It may be that other food historians will have different opinions as to the nature of these sauces. I would not claim to have solved all the problems of interpretation. If you wish to read more about Roman fish sauce see the excursus on garum and liquamen in the appendix to our edition and translation of the Latin text.