Brǣdan Fisc: Reconstructing Apicius' Roman Fish Baked with Coriander
Fish seasoned with coriander and finished with vinegar, served as the Roman centerpiece of the third course at Ceilidh XVI, March 29, 2003.
Some historical recipes disappear and leave us to reconstruct dinner from shells, seeds, tools, and scraps of language. Others survive, but the reconstruction slowly wanders away from them.
Brǣdan Fisc belongs to the second category. I served this fish more than twenty years ago as part of an Anglo-Saxon-inspired feast, but I knew even then that the dish itself was Roman. The recipe came from the collection traditionally known as Apicius. Over time, however, the written version on Give It Forth became simplified. Olive oil and black pepper appeared as if they belonged to the ancient recipe. The fish was baked uncovered. The vinegar finish disappeared completely.
Going back to the Latin tells a different story. Apicius calls for fish coated with pounded salt and coriander seed, placed in a dish, covered, sealed, baked in an oven, and finished with very sharp vinegar. That method is much closer to what I remember actually serving than the simplified recipe currently preserved in the feast post. This article is therefore not about inventing a Roman fish dish. It is about recovering one.
Brǣdan Fisc – fish baked with crushed coriander seed and finished with sharp vinegar, reconstructed from the Roman recipe collection traditionally known as Apicius.
Unlike Sciellfisc, this dish is based on a surviving ancient recipe. The historical uncertainty lies primarily in quantities, fish species, the exact form of the sealed cooking vessel, and the relationship between the surviving text and my later redactions. Salt, coriander seed, enclosed oven cooking, and a sharp vinegar finish are all directly supported by Apicius.
Why This Recipe Matters
Brǣdan Fisc gives us an unusually useful lesson in historical reconstruction:
A surviving recipe does not automatically produce a faithful modern redaction.
A cook still has to interpret vocabulary, reconstruct quantities, select a modern equivalent for an unspecified ingredient, understand obsolete cooking technology, and make practical decisions in a contemporary kitchen.
Then another problem appears.
Once that modern redaction has been cooked, copied, edited, shortened, and republished for twenty years, practical decisions can begin to masquerade as historical ones.
That is what happened here.
- The olive oil was a practical measure I used to keep the fish from sticking.
- The vinegar really was used at the feast, with only a few drops placed on each fillet at service.
- The source calls for coriander seed, not simply generic ground coriander.
- The fish should be cooked covered and sealed rather than uncovered.
- Black pepper appears throughout Apicius, but not in this particular recipe.
The distinction between those details is precisely what a cornerstone reconstruction should preserve.
The Feast That Brought Brǣdan Fisc to Give It Forth
Brǣdan Fisc was served in the third course of Ceilidh XVI on March 29, 2003:
- Sciellfisc – Shellfish
- Brǣdan Fisc – Fish Baked with Coriander
- Pisan – Peas with Salt and Oil
The feast drew heavily from Mary Savelli's Tastes of Anglo-Saxon England, but this course should not be treated as a group of Mary Savelli recipes. The original Give It Forth feast record identifies the starred dishes as my own reconstructions and specifically identifies the coriander fish as Roman in origin.[1]
That distinction has become even more important as the feast has been revisited.
Sciellfisc was an evidence-weighted reconstruction built from Anglo-Saxon shellfish evidence. Pisan was another interpretive preparation. Brǣdan Fisc is different because an actual source recipe survives.
Read the companion article:
- Sciellfisc: Reconstructing Anglo-Saxon Shellfish from Middens, Manuscripts, and a Missing Recipe
- Original Ceilidh XVI Feast Record
- Reconstructing an Anglo-Saxon Feast: Ceilidh XVI Revisited
First, a Necessary Correction: Brǣdan Fisc Is Not the Roman Title
Brǣdan Fisc was the Old English-style name I gave the dish for the feast menu.
It is not the name used by Apicius.
The Old English verb brǣdan is genuine. Bosworth-Toller gives meanings including to roast or broil, with examples involving roasted flesh.[2] Combined with fisc, fish, the title worked perfectly well as a feast label for a fish cooked with dry heat.
But the underlying culinary source remains Latin and Roman.
SOURCE RECIPE Ius in pisce elixo – one of the fish preparations preserved in Book X of Apicius.
The Primary Source: Apicius Book X
The recipe appears among the fish preparations of Book X.
The surviving Latin begins:
piscem curabis diligenter ... salem, coriandri semen, conteres bene...[3]
A practical working translation is:
The recipe is exceptionally useful because it gives us much more than an ingredient list.
It gives us a sequence:
- Prepare the fish.
- Pound salt and coriander seed together.
- Coat the fish.
- Place it in a cooking dish.
- Cover the dish.
- Seal it.
- Cook it in the oven.
- Finish with very sharp vinegar.
- Serve.
What it does not give us is a fish species, ingredient quantities, oven temperature, cooking time, or precise description of the vessel.
Those are the spaces the modern redactor has to fill.
The Curious Problem of the "Boiled Fish" Heading
There is a delightful little textual wrinkle.
The heading places the recipe among preparations in pisce elixo, generally interpreted as sauces or preparations for boiled fish.
But this particular set of instructions does not boil the fish.
It explicitly tells the cook to put the fish in a dish, cover and seal it, and cook it in the oven.[3]
Older translators noticed the contradiction too. The surrounding section contains several recipes under essentially the same heading, even though their actual cooking methods differ.
This is an important reminder that ancient recipe collections are not modern cookbooks with perfectly standardized headings, indexing, and editorial logic.
The text can be messy.
Our reconstruction should not tidy it by silently changing what it says.
Cover It, Seal It, Bake It
The most distinctive cooking instruction is easy to lose in a modern redaction.
Apicius says:
cooperies, gypsabis, coques in furno
Cover it. Seal it. Cook it in the oven.[3]
The verb gypsabis refers to sealing with gypsum or plaster. Whatever the exact kitchen implementation, the important culinary point is clear:
the vessel was meant to be closed.
That changes the cooking environment significantly.
Instead of dry oven heat striking the surface of an uncovered fillet, moisture released by the fish remains trapped within the vessel. The fish is therefore baked in an enclosed, humid environment and partly cooks in its own juices.
That helps explain why the secondary source I used years ago described the recipe as fish "cooked in its own juice."
What Archaeology Can Add: Fish in Roman Britain
Apicius gives us the recipe. Archaeology tells us something about the wider food world in which Roman fish cookery operated.
Alison Locker's study of fish remains from 109 Roman-period British sites found substantial regional variation in fish consumption. Eel was the most common fish overall, while salmon was particularly important in some regions. Towns and villas tended to show a greater variety of fish, including freshwater species, marine fish brought inland, preserved fish, and evidence associated with fish sauce.[4]
The archaeological record therefore does not permit us to assign one particular species to this Apician recipe.
It does show that Roman Britain possessed a varied fish economy.
NOT DOCUMENTED The species intended by this particular Apician recipe.
Which Fish Should We Use?
The Latin simply says piscem: fish.
That gives the modern cook freedom, but it should be recognized as freedom rather than historical certainty.
My earlier redaction suggested salmon, trout, or tilapia. The current simplified version says firm white fish.
For a modern reconstruction, I would choose a fish that:
- holds together during enclosed baking;
- has enough substance to carry crushed coriander seed;
- is not so strongly flavored that the vinegar disappears;
- is readily available and responsibly sourced.
Cod, haddock, halibut, pollock, sea bass, trout, or salmon can all work in the modern kitchen.
None should be labeled the historically correct fish.
Coriander: The Ingredient We Can Follow into Roman Britain
The source calls specifically for coriander seed, not simply coriander as an unspecified seasoning.
That matters because Roman-British archaeology gives us direct evidence for the plant.
Historic England notes coriander among plant remains recovered from Roman contexts, including spectacular preservation associated with the destruction of Roman Colchester and finds from Silchester. Archaeobotanical evidence suggests coriander became one of the flavorings associated with Roman food culture in Britain and spread beyond urban elite settings.[5]
Additional Roman-period coriander has been identified at sites such as Lincoln, and Historic England describes the plant as a comparatively common Roman archaeological find.[6]
So here the textual and archaeological evidence cooperate beautifully:
| Evidence | What It Tells Us |
|---|---|
| Apicius | Coriander seed is explicitly used to season the fish. |
| Roman-British archaeobotany | Coriander was physically present and used within Roman Britain. |
| Modern reconstruction | Freshly crushed whole coriander seed is the closest practical interpretation of the ancient instruction. |
Why Whole Coriander Seed Matters
The current feast recipe calls for ground coriander.
That is not disastrous. Ground coriander is still coriander seed.
But the primary source gives us a culinary action:
put the salt and coriander seed into a mortar and pound them.
That produces a very different seasoning from stale pre-ground coriander.
Freshly crushed seed gives citrus, floral, and warm aromatic notes while retaining uneven fragments that cling to the fish.
For the cornerstone reconstruction, I would therefore return to whole seed and the mortar.
The Vinegar Was There After All
The current simplified recipe omits vinegar completely.
My kitchen memory does not.
I remember finishing the fish with just a few drops of vinegar on each fillet.
That detail is important because Apicius places the vinegar at exactly that point in the process: after the fish is cooked, immediately before service.
The Latin describes it as aceto acerrimo, very sharp vinegar.[3]
This does not suggest drowning the fish.
The verb describes sprinkling or splashing it over the cooked fish.
My remembered feast practice of using only a few drops per fillet was therefore much closer to the ancient method than the later written recipe suggests.
2003 KITCHEN MEMORY a few drops added to each fillet
CURRENT POST vinegar accidentally omitted
What About the Olive Oil?
The olive oil in the current recipe needs to be moved out of the historical ingredient list.
I remember why I used it.
I was baking fish on a modern tray and did not want it to stick.
That is a completely reasonable kitchen decision.
It is not part of this Apician recipe.
Olive oil certainly existed in Roman cuisine, and Apicius uses oil constantly in other fish preparations. In fact, oil appears repeatedly in the recipes surrounding this one.
But that makes the distinction even more useful.
If the compiler wanted oil in a recipe, he knew how to say so.
He does not say so here.
And the Black Pepper?
Black pepper presents the same problem.
Apicius uses pepper enthusiastically throughout Book X.
The recipes immediately surrounding our coriander fish include pepper repeatedly.
This one does not.[3]
The black pepper in the simplified Give It Forth version is therefore another modern addition rather than a source ingredient.
For the canonical reconstruction, I would leave it out.
Liquamen and Dill: A Different Kind of Recipe Drift
An earlier version of my Give It Forth redaction preserved a more complicated preparation:
- fish;
- salt;
- coriander seed;
- white wine vinegar;
- liquamen;
- dill.
The fish was placed in a covered casserole and baked, then finished with vinegar and liquamen and garnished with dill.[1]
That older redaction is actually closer to Apicius in several important ways than the current simplified version. It uses whole coriander seed, includes the vinegar, and cooks the fish covered.
But the liquamen and dill do not occur in the source recipe we are reconstructing.
There is, however, an intriguing reason they may have found their way into the redaction.
The very next fish preparation in Apicius uses coriander seed, water, and green dill, then finishes the cooked fish with vinegar.[3]
Liquamen appears throughout the surrounding fish recipes as well.
So the older Give It Forth redaction seems to have accumulated ingredients from the broader Apician fish-cookery environment, whether through the secondary recipe I originally consulted, my own adaptation, or both.
That is historically interesting.
But it is not the same thing as faithfully translating this particular recipe.
Three Versions of Brǣdan Fisc
| Apicius | Earlier Give It Forth Redaction | Current Simplified Redaction |
|---|---|---|
|
Fish Salt Coriander seed Covered vessel Sealed vessel Oven Sharp vinegar finish |
Fish Salt Coriander seed Covered casserole Vinegar Liquamen Dill |
Firm white fish Olive oil Ground coriander Black pepper Salt Baked uncovered No vinegar |
The 2026 cornerstone reconstruction therefore does not simply return to the oldest Give It Forth redaction.
It goes behind all of them and returns to Apicius.
A Brief Roman Medical Note on Coriander
Although this is a culinary recipe rather than a medical one, coriander also occupied a medicinal world familiar to Roman writers.
Pliny the Elder devotes an entire section of his Natural History to coriander. He describes the fresh plant as cooling and discusses numerous medicinal uses for the seed and herb.[7]
That does not mean this fish dish was designed as humoral medicine.
It does remind us that Roman ingredients could inhabit culinary and medicinal systems simultaneously. Coriander might be seasoning in one text and materia medica in another.
I would therefore resist assigning this particular recipe a therapeutic humoral purpose that Apicius never gives it.
The 2026 Evidence-Weighted Reconstruction
| Primary Source | Modern Kitchen Reconstruction |
|---|---|
|
Prepare fish carefully. Pound salt and coriander seed. Coat fish. Place in a dish. Cover and seal. Bake in oven. Finish with very sharp vinegar. Serve. |
Brǣdan Fisc – Fish Baked with Coriander 1½–2 lb fish 1½ tsp whole coriander seed ¾ tsp fine salt ½–1 tsp sharp wine vinegar, used sparingly at service Optional: the thinnest film of oil on the cooking vessel only if required to prevent sticking |
Kitchen-Ready Reconstruction: Fish Baked with Coriander
Yield: 4–6 servings
Preparation: about 15 minutes
Cooking: approximately 15–25 minutes depending upon species and thickness
Ingredients
- 1½–2 pounds fish fillets or a prepared whole fish
- 1½ teaspoons whole coriander seed
- ¾ teaspoon fine salt
- ½–1 teaspoon sharp wine vinegar, or enough for a few drops on each serving
- Optional: a very light film of olive oil for the baking vessel only, if needed to prevent sticking
Method
- Preheat the oven to 375°F.
- Place the coriander seed and salt into a mortar and pound until the coriander is well crushed but not necessarily reduced to a perfectly uniform powder.
- Pat the fish dry.
- Rub or press the coriander-and-salt mixture over the fish.
- Place the fish in a covered baking dish. If the dish is prone to sticking, lightly grease the vessel rather than coating the fish in oil.
- Cover tightly.
- Bake until the fish is just cooked through. Cooking time will depend on the species, thickness, and whether the fish is whole or portioned.
- Remove the lid carefully.
- Place only a few drops of sharp vinegar over each fillet or serving.
- Serve immediately.
Modern food-safety note: Use current safe fish-handling practices. USDA guidance generally uses an internal temperature of 145°F for fish, although experienced cooks may also judge doneness by opacity and texture where appropriate.
Experimental Sealed-Vessel Version
For cooks who want to explore the most distinctive part of the ancient technique, the vessel can be sealed rather than merely covered.
Simple Dough Seal
- ½ cup flour
- approximately 3–4 tablespoons water
Mix enough water into the flour to create a stiff, workable dough.
Place the lid on the baking vessel and press a rope of dough around the joint between lid and pot. The purpose is not to make bread. The dough acts as a disposable seal that helps trap steam.
Bake the fish as above, then break the seal carefully after cooking.
Ingredient Notes and Substitutions
Fish
The source gives no species. Choose according to availability, sustainability, and cooking properties. Firm white fish is convenient, but salmon or trout also work. Species choice remains a reconstruction decision.
Coriander Seed
Use whole seed and crush it shortly before cooking. This follows the source more closely and gives significantly brighter flavor than old pre-ground coriander.
Salt
Apicius gives no quantity. The modern amount is deliberately moderate. Increase or decrease according to fish size and whether the fish has already been brined or salted.
Vinegar
A sharp wine vinegar is the natural modern choice. Red or white wine vinegar both work. Avoid sweetened balsamic vinegar for the historical reconstruction.
Olive Oil
Not part of this particular Apician recipe. Use only as a modern anti-stick measure if your vessel requires it.
Black Pepper
Historically Roman and extremely common in Apicius, but absent from this recipe. Omit it from the canonical reconstruction.
Liquamen
Historically appropriate to Roman cookery and present throughout Apicius, but not specified here. It belongs to the history of my older redaction rather than the corrected recipe.
Dill
Dill appears in the very next Apician fish preparation but not in this one. It can be explored as a comparison, but should not be folded silently into the canonical reconstruction.
Modern Kitchen Adaptations and Dietary Notes
Gluten-Free
The standard covered-dish version is naturally gluten-free. Do not use the flour seal if gluten avoidance is required.
Dairy-Free
Yes. No dairy is required.
Pescatarian
Yes, for diners who include fish.
Fish Allergy
This dish contains fish and is unsuitable for anyone with a fish allergy. Feast kitchens should clearly identify it and control cross-contact.
Low-Sodium Adaptation
The salt can be reduced for medical or dietary needs. This changes the reconstruction quantitatively but not conceptually.
Why Is a Roman Recipe in an Anglo-Saxon Feast?
This deserves a direct answer.
Because I deliberately put one there.
Ceilidh XVI was an Anglo-Saxon-inspired feast, but Brǣdan Fisc was never meant to masquerade as a surviving Anglo-Saxon recipe.
The modern scholarly understanding of Apicius makes that distinction even more important. The collection traditionally attributed to Apicius is not simply the personal cookbook of one first-century gourmand. Christopher Grocock and Sally Grainger's critical edition treats it as a surviving Roman recipe collection assembled from culinary material with a complex textual history, much of it associated with professional cooks and the later Roman world.[8]
Roman culinary influence certainly shaped Britain for centuries. Archaeology demonstrates Roman-period fish consumption, imported and local flavorings, fish sauce, and coriander.
But Roman Britain and Anglo-Saxon England are not interchangeable.
A Roman recipe should remain Roman unless evidence demonstrates later continuity.
Brǣdan Fisc is a Roman recipe placed deliberately within an Anglo-Saxon-inspired feast. The Old English title is a modern feast label. No evidence presented here demonstrates that Anglo-Saxon cooks prepared this specific Apician dish.
Feast Placement
At Ceilidh XVI, the fish sat between two dishes whose evidentiary histories are quite different:
- Sciellfisc – an archaeological and textual reconstruction of shellfish;
- Brǣdan Fisc – an actual Roman recipe adapted for feast service;
- Pisan – an interpretive pea preparation.
That mixture would once have made me nervous because it is not a perfectly uniform historical menu.
Today I find it more useful to say exactly what it is.
The course is a small demonstration of the different ways historical cooks work:
one dish reconstructed from fragments, one translated from a surviving recipe, and one built from culinary possibility.
Steward's Table Notes
- Scaling: Scale by fish weight and portion size rather than multiplying baking time.
- Batching: Several covered pans will cook more predictably than one extremely deep pan of fish.
- Vinegar: Do not scale the vinegar mechanically. It is a finishing accent. Taste and apply sparingly.
- Make ahead: The coriander-and-salt mixture can be prepared in advance, but fish should be cooked close to service.
- Holding: Fish dries quickly under prolonged hot holding. Plan the course so it moves to the table promptly.
- Oil: If needed for modern equipment, grease the vessel rather than pouring oil over the fish.
- Allergen control: Fish is a major allergen. Clearly label the dish and prevent cross-contact.
Use The Steward's Table to scale this recipe for feast service.
Kitchen Copy
Reconstruction Journal
Original Feast: Ceilidh XVI, March 29, 2003
First Give It Forth Documentation: February 10, 2015
Cornerstone Research Revision: August 2026
Brǣdan Fisc entered Ceilidh XVI as an intentional Roman addition to an Anglo-Saxon-inspired feast. The underlying source was an Apician fish preparation using salt, coriander seed, enclosed oven cooking, and vinegar.
An earlier Give It Forth redaction preserved much of that structure. It called for coriander seed crushed with salt, placed the fish in a covered casserole, and finished the dish with vinegar. That version also included liquamen and dill, neither of which appears in the specific Apician recipe now identified as the primary source.
The dill is particularly understandable because the next Apician fish preparation uses coriander seed, water, green dill, and a vinegar finish. Liquamen occurs throughout the surrounding fish recipes. The old redaction therefore remained recognizably Apician but appears to have blended neighboring Roman culinary ideas into the specific recipe.
At some point during later editing, the feast recipe became much simpler: firm white fish, olive oil, ground coriander, black pepper, and salt, baked uncovered. The vinegar disappeared.
My memory of actually cooking the feast fills in two important practical details. I used oil because I was baking the fish and wanted to prevent it from sticking to the tray. I also remember putting only a few drops of vinegar onto each fillet at the end.
Those memories make culinary sense when tested against the source. The oil belongs to the modern equipment problem. The vinegar belongs to Apicius.
The 2026 revision therefore removes oil and black pepper from the historical ingredient list, restores whole coriander seed, restores covered cooking, restores the vinegar finish, and clearly separates optional anti-stick oil from the reconstructed ancient recipe.
The result is not an attempt to erase what I cooked in 2003.
It is an attempt to understand it better.
Confidence Level
Overall Confidence: High for the core recipe; Moderate for the modern execution.
This reconstruction has an unusually strong primary-source foundation. Its greatest uncertainties involve quantities, vessel form, fish species, and the exact modern analogue for sealing the ancient cooking dish.
- High confidence: fish is seasoned with salt and coriander seed.
- High confidence: the coriander seed is pounded in a mortar.
- High confidence: the fish is placed in a covered and sealed dish.
- High confidence: the fish is cooked in an oven.
- High confidence: sharp vinegar is applied after cooking.
- High confidence: olive oil and black pepper are not specified in this particular recipe.
- Moderate confidence: a tightly covered modern casserole reasonably reproduces the enclosed cooking environment.
- Moderate confidence: a flour-and-water dough seal provides a useful food-safe experimental analogue for the ancient sealing instruction.
- Lower confidence: exact salt and coriander quantities, oven temperature, timing, and chosen fish species.
- Modern testing: oil may be used sparingly on modern cookware if needed, but should remain labeled as a practical adaptation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Brǣdan Fisc an Anglo-Saxon recipe?
No. Brǣdan Fisc is the Old English-style feast title I created for a Roman recipe from Apicius. It was deliberately included in an Anglo-Saxon-inspired feast.
What does Brǣdan Fisc mean?
The title essentially means roasted or cooked fish. Old English brǣdan can mean to roast or broil. It is not the title found in Apicius.
What does Apicius actually put on the fish?
The recipe specifies salt and coriander seed, pounded together. After the fish is cooked, it is finished with very sharp vinegar.
Does the recipe use olive oil?
No. I used oil in my modern feast preparation to prevent the fish from sticking to the baking surface. Oil is historically Roman but is not specified in this particular recipe.
Does Apicius use black pepper in this recipe?
No. Pepper appears in many neighboring fish recipes but is absent here.
Why is the fish cooked covered?
Apicius explicitly instructs the cook to cover and seal the vessel before baking it in the oven. This traps moisture and creates a different cooking environment from uncovered baking.
Should I really seal my casserole with plaster?
No modern building plaster is necessary. Use a tight lid for the practical version. A flour-and-water dough seal can be used for experimental cooking.
Which fish should I use?
The ancient recipe does not specify a species. Choose a good-quality fish suitable for baking. Firm white fish, trout, or salmon can all work as modern choices.
How much vinegar should I use?
Very little. My remembered feast method was only a few drops per fillet. The vinegar should sharpen the finished fish rather than become a sauce.
Why did an earlier redaction include dill and liquamen?
They belong to the broader Apician fish-cookery tradition but not to this exact recipe. Dill appears in the immediately following fish preparation, while liquamen appears frequently throughout Book X.
Sources and Further Reading
- Give It Forth. "Kitchen Adventures: SCA Feast (Ceilidh XVI March 29th, 2003)." Preserves the feast menu and the history of the Roman coriander fish within the third course. Earlier indexed versions preserve the fuller redaction using coriander seed, vinegar, covered cooking, liquamen, and dill.
https://giveitforth.blogspot.com/2015/02/ceilidh-xvi-march-29th-2003.html - Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online, "brǣdan." Defines the Old English verb as to roast or broil and supplies period examples.
https://bosworthtoller.com/4930 - Apicius, De re coquinaria, Book X, 10.1.4. Primary Latin text for the fish preparation using salt, coriander seed, a covered and sealed dish, oven cooking, and sharp vinegar.
https://latin.packhum.org/loc/2003/1/83/2586-2589
Public-domain English edition and commentary:
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Apicius/10%2A.html - Locker, Alison. "In piscibus diversis: the Bone Evidence for Fish Consumption in Roman Britain." Britannia 38 (2007): 141–180. Analysis of fish remains from 109 Roman-British sites and associated evidence for regional fishing, preserved fish, and Roman culinary influence.
Cambridge Core - Historic England. "What Interesting Flavours Did the Romans Introduce to Britain?" Discusses archaeobotanical evidence from Roman Britain, including coriander at Colchester and Silchester and the spread of Roman flavorings beyond elite urban settings.
Historic England - Moffett, L. C. "Plant Remains from the Roman River Edge at Brayford Wharf East, Lincoln." Historic England Ancient Monuments Laboratory report discussing coriander as a Roman-period plant find and its widespread archaeological occurrence.
Historic England report - Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book XX, Chapter 82. Roman medicinal discussion of coriander, including the fresh herb and seed.
Perseus Digital Library - Grocock, Christopher, and Sally Grainger. Apicius: A Critical Edition with an Introduction and English Translation. Prospect Books, 2006; revised edition 2020. Modern scholarly critical edition of the Roman recipe collection and its complex textual history.
Prospect Books
Related Give It Forth Resources
- Sciellfisc: Reconstructing Anglo-Saxon Shellfish
- Reconstructing an Anglo-Saxon Feast: Ceilidh XVI Revisited
- Original Ceilidh XVI Feast Record
- Ancient Recipes: Roman, Greco-Roman & Anglo-Saxon Feasts
- The Historical Kitchen
- The Steward's Table
- Browse Apicius Recipes
- Browse Roman Recipes
- Browse Fish & Seafood
- Browse Ceilidh XVI
Final Thought: Sometimes the Recipe Is Not What Gets Lost
Sciellfisc taught us what happens when the recipe itself disappears.
Brǣdan Fisc teaches almost the opposite lesson.
The ancient recipe survived.
What drifted was our modern version of it.
A little oil went into the pan because fish sticks.
Black pepper slipped into a Roman recipe where pepper seemed perfectly at home.
Dill and liquamen wandered in from neighboring Apician preparations.
The covered casserole became an uncovered baking dish.
And somewhere along the way, the few drops of vinegar that I remember putting on every fillet vanished from the written recipe completely.
None of those changes is particularly shocking.
They are what cooks do.
But once a modern adaptation is labeled historical, every practical choice needs to be separated from the surviving evidence.
Going back to Apicius leaves us with a recipe simpler and stranger than the one we had been carrying:
Fish. Salt. Coriander seed. A sealed vessel. Oven heat. A flash of sharp vinegar.
And perhaps the most valuable thing we can do with an old reconstruction is not defend every decision we once made.
It is return to the source, put the pieces back where they belong, and cook it again.
AI Transparency
This historical reconstruction was researched, interpreted, and edited for Give It Forth using the author's surviving feast records, remembered kitchen history, the Latin text of Apicius, Roman-British archaeological scholarship, historical dictionaries, and modern secondary research.
Artificial intelligence assisted with source discovery, comparison of redactions, editorial organization, HTML formatting, proofreading, readability, and search optimization. Historical interpretation, decisions about evidence level, remembered feast practice, reconstruction choices, and final publication judgment remain the author's own.
Where the primary text, an older written redaction, and remembered kitchen practice differ, those differences have been preserved rather than silently reconciled.
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