Lucanicae – Ancient Roman Sausages Recipe

This dish was served as part of the Push for Pennsic 2004 – Early Roman Feast.

Originally published: June 29, 2025 at 3:44 PM | Updated: June 5, 2026

Updated 6/5/2026: This post has been expanded to current Give It Forth standards with additional historical context, Roman feast placement, Pennsic and camp cooking guidance, an appetizer-sized recipe for eight, dietary notes, FAQ, internal links to the full Roman feast menu, and structured recipe data.

What are Lucanicae? Lucanicae were seasoned sausages associated by Roman writers with Lucania in southern Italy. This version is inspired by Roman sausage traditions and the flavors of Apicius: minced meat, pepper, pine nuts, and liquamen or fish sauce, shaped small for feast service and grilled or gently cooked before finishing.

Lucanicae – Grilled Roman Sausages

Course: Gustum (Appetizer)
Origin: Ancient Rome
Served: Warm or Room Temperature
Event: Push for Pennsic 2004 – Early Roman Feast

Lucanicae are exactly the kind of dish that makes a Roman feast feel generous from the first course. Small, savory, highly seasoned sausages sit beautifully beside flatbread, olives, cucumbers, herbed cheese, cabbage, and chickpeas. They are rich enough to feel substantial, but when made small they remain appropriate for the gustum, the appetizer course meant to wake the appetite rather than exhaust it.

For modern feast cooks, they are also practical little flavor engines. The mixture can be prepared ahead, shaped small, chilled, transported, and cooked quickly on a grill or skillet. That makes Lucanicae especially useful for Pennsic-style service, primitive sites, and SCA dayboards where food needs to be flavorful, sturdy, and manageable without a full modern kitchen.

Historical Background

Lucanicae, the seasoned sausages of Roman origin, were named after the region of Lucania in southern Italy. Roman writers connect them with the Lucanians, and the name survived into later sausage traditions such as Italian luganega and Spanish longaniza.

Did You Know?
The Roman author Varro explains Lucanicae as sausages named from Lucania, describing the practice of stuffing minced meat into casings with seasonings. Whether read as food history, etymology, or both, the passage shows that Romans associated this style of sausage with a specific regional tradition.

For more on ancient Roman cookery, see the digitized Latin and English text of Apicius – De Re Coquinaria.

The surviving Roman cookery tradition does not give us a modern sausage recipe with neat measurements, temperatures, and timing. Instead, it gives us a flavor-world: pepper, liquamen, herbs, nuts, wine, vinegar, smoke, roasting, and meats prepared for household tables, taverns, military travel, and feasts. This redaction is therefore not a claim of exact reconstruction. It is a practical, feast-tested interpretation designed for SCA service, camp conditions, and modern food safety.

This is the useful place where historical cooking meets real-world feast work. A cook has to ask not only “what did the source say?” but also “how do I serve this safely, attractively, and generously to a table of modern diners?” For Lucanicae, the answer is to preserve the Roman flavor profile while making the shape and cooking method flexible.

Lucania, Soldiers, and Sausage-Making

The Roman explanation for lucanicae ties the sausage to Lucania, a region of southern Italy. Whether the Roman army truly learned the technique there or later writers preserved a convenient food etymology, the association matters. Sausages are portable, efficient, flavorful, and well suited to feeding groups. Minced meat mixed with salt, spice, and fat can stretch ingredients, cook quickly, and serve neatly in small portions.

That practicality explains why sausage belongs so comfortably on a Roman-inspired feast table. It is not merely meat in a casing. It is preserved knowledge: how to season meat strongly, how to divide it into portions, how to make it easy to cook, and how to carry rich flavor into a meal without requiring a large roast or elaborate carving.

For a feast cook, that ancient practicality still applies. A platter of small, bite-sized sausages looks abundant, serves cleanly, and works beautifully in an appetizer course. At Push for Pennsic, these are best treated as a gustum: a savory opening bite served with other small Roman-inspired dishes rather than as a large modern entree.

🏛️ Feast-cook note: A mound of small, meatball-sized sausages is pleasing to the eye and gives a generous impression while keeping portions appropriate for an appetizer course. About 1 tablespoon of meat mixture per sausage gives two or three bites, and 1 pound of meat makes roughly 30 small sausages.

Modern Interpretation

This simplified grilled version uses bulgur to approximate the grainy texture of some Roman-style forcemeats and mixes pork and beef for richness. Pine nuts add a distinctly Roman touch, and liquamen, or modern fish sauce, gives the meat its salty, savory backbone.

Historically, sausage could be stuffed into casings, but feast conditions are not always generous. This version may be shaped into small patties, rolled into bite-sized sausage logs, stuffed into casings, or gently poached in plastic wrap when casings are unavailable. The goal is not to make a modern deli sausage, but to create a flavorful Roman-inspired bite that can survive real event conditions.

The flavor should be peppery, savory, and slightly rich from the pine nuts. The fish sauce should not make the sausage taste fishy. It should deepen the meat, much as Roman liquamen does throughout Apicius-style cooking. If your fish sauce is very strong or salty, use a little less and add more only after cooking a test piece.

Why These Ingredients?

• Ground meat: Pork is especially appropriate for Roman cookery, though a pork and beef blend gives a rich, accessible modern texture.
• Bulgur: This is a modern practical choice that gives texture and helps the mixture hold together. It also echoes the use of grains and fillers in historic forcemeat traditions.
• Liquamen / fish sauce: Roman cookery used fermented fish sauces extensively. Modern fish sauce is the easiest substitute.
• Pine nuts: Pine nuts appear frequently in Roman recipes and add richness, texture, and a distinctly ancient Mediterranean character.
• Pepper: Black pepper was a prized imported spice and appears often in Apicius-style seasoning.

⚖️ Humoral note: Later medieval dietary theory often treated pork and beef as heavy meats that benefited from warming spices, salt, vinegar, mustard, or sharp sauces. While this recipe is Roman rather than medieval, the flavor logic still makes sense at table: pepper, fermented fish sauce, and accompaniments such as mustard, olives, herbs, or wine help cut the richness of the meat.

Fride Creme of Almaundys – Medieval Almond Cream Cheese (Harleian MS. 279)

Fride Creme of Almaundys – Cold Cream of Almonds, a Medieval Almond “Cheese” (Harleian MS. 279)

Fride Creme of Almaundys – Cold Cream of Almonds

Originally published: November 15, 2015 at 6:07 PM | Updated: May 19, 2026

Updated 5/19/2026: This post has been fully revised to current Give It Forth standards with expanded historical context, a clearer modern translation, a feast-scaled redaction serving eight, dietary notes, related almond-milk recipes, FAQ, source links, and structured recipe data.

What is Fride Creme of Almaundys? This fifteenth-century recipe from Harleian MS. 279 makes a thickened, drained almond cream: something between sweet almond curd, almond cream cheese, and a soft dairy-free spread. It was especially useful for Lenten and fast-day tables, when animal dairy might be restricted.

Almond milk cream cheese? Yes, yes, yes! This dish is definitely being added to my repertoire of things to make at feast. Despite the fact that the instructions sound forbiddingly difficult, this dish is very easy to make. It starts with my quick and dirty almond milk recipe and ends with a sweet, creamy Lenten substitute for cheese or butter.

Why Almond Cream Matters in Medieval Cooking

Almond milk appears again and again in medieval European cookery, especially in elite and urban recipe collections. It was not merely a modern-style dairy substitute; it was a flexible kitchen technology. Almonds could be ground, steeped, strained, boiled, thickened, colored, sweetened, or soured. The resulting milk or cream could stand in for dairy in fast-day cookery, enrich sauces, thicken pottages, and create elegant dishes for feast tables.

Fride Creme of Almaundys is especially interesting because it treats almond milk almost as though it were dairy. The cook makes a thick almond milk, heats it, salts it, lets it rest, drains it through linen, sweetens it, and dresses it in the manner of mortrewys, a soft, rich pottage or paste-like dish. The result is not cheese in the biological sense, since it is made from almonds rather than animal milk, but the texture and use are familiar: soft, spreadable, rich, and suited to careful presentation.

📖 Fast-day cooking: In medieval Christian food culture, periods such as Lent and many weekly fast days restricted meat and sometimes animal dairy. Almond milk gave cooks a luxurious way to create creamy sauces, soups, desserts, and “cheese-like” dishes without relying on cow, sheep, or goat milk.

This recipe also gives a glimpse into the practical intelligence of medieval kitchens. The almond cream is drained in linen, adjusted with sugar and salt, and loosened with sweet wine if it becomes too thick. This is exactly the kind of instruction that suggests hands-on cookery: the cook is expected to watch the texture and correct it as needed.

Original Text and Modern Translation

Original Text

Modern Translation

.xij. Fride Creme of Almaundys. — Take almaundys, an stampe hem, an draw it vp wyth a fyne thykke mylke, y-temperyd wyth clene water; throw hem on, an sette hem in þe fyre, an let boyle onys: þan tak hem a-down, an caste salt þer-on, an let hem reste a forlongwey or to, an caste a lytyl sugre þer-to; an þan caste it on a fayre lynen clothe, fayre y-wasche an drye, an caste it al a-brode on þe clothe with a fayre ladel: an let þe clothe ben holdyn a-brode, an late all þe water vnder-nethe þe clothe be had a-way, an þanne gadere alle þe kreme in þe clothe, an let hongy on an pyn, and let þe water droppe owt to or .iij. owrys; þan take it of þe pyn, an put it on a bolle of tre, and caste whyte sugre y-now þer-to, an a lytil salt; and ȝif it wexe þikke, take swete wyn an put þer-to þat it be noȝt sene: and whan it is I-dressid in the maner of mortrewys, take red anys in comfyte, or þe leuys of borage, an sette hem on þe dysshe, an serue forth.

12. Cold Cream of Almonds. Take almonds and pound them, and draw them up into a fine thick milk tempered with clean water. Put it on the fire and let it boil once. Then take it down, add salt, and let it rest a furlong-way or two. Add a little sugar. Then cast it onto a fair linen cloth, well washed and dried, spreading it broadly with a ladle. Let the cloth be held wide so that the water beneath may drain away. Gather the cream together in the cloth and hang it on a pin, letting the water drip out for two or three hours. Then take it down, put it in a wooden bowl, and add enough white sugar and a little salt. If it becomes too thick, add sweet wine so that it is not noticeable. When it is dressed in the manner of mortrews, garnish the dish with red anise comfits or borage leaves, and serve it forth.

Recipe can be found here: Full text of Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. Harleian MS. 279 (ab. 1430), & Harl. MS. 4016 (ab. 1450), with extracts from Ashmole MS. 1429, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS. 55.

For more information on this and similar recipes, please visit Dan Myers’ Medieval Cookery by clicking the link below.

xij – Fride Creme of Almaundys. Take almaundys, an stampe hem, an draw it vp wyth a fyne thykke mylke, y-temperyd wyth clene water; throw hem on, an sette hem in the fyre, an let boyle onys: than tak hem a-down, an caste salt ther-on, an let hem reste a forlongwey (Note: Other MS. forlange.) or to, an caste a lytyl sugrether-to; an than caste it on a fayre lynen clothe, fayre y-wasche an drye, an caste it al a-brode on the clothe with a fayre ladel: an let the clothe ben holdyn a-brode, an late all the water vnder-nethe the clothe be had a-way, an thanne gadere alle the kreme in the clothe, an let hongy on an pyn, and let the water droppe owt to (Note: two.) or .iij. owrys; than take it of the pyn, an put it on a bolle of tre, and caste whyte sugre y-now ther-to, an a lytil salt; and 3if it wexe thikke, take swetewyn an put ther-to that it be no3t sene: and whan it is I-dressid in the maner of mortrewys, take red anys in comfyte, or the leuys of borage, an sette hem on the dysshe, an serue forth.

Interpreting the Recipe

The original instructions describe several important techniques:

• Make a thick almond milk: This is not a thin drinking almond milk. It should be rich enough to leave body behind after straining.
• Boil once: Heating thick almond milk helps it thicken and set into a creamier texture.
• Salt, rest, and sweeten: The balance is not purely sweet. A little salt gives the finished almond cream a more cheese-like character.
• Drain in linen: This is the key step. The texture depends on removing enough liquid to make a soft, spreadable cream.
• Adjust with sweet wine: The recipe assumes correction. If the almond cream grows too thick, it may be loosened discreetly with wine.
• Garnish beautifully: Red anise comfits or borage leaves make this a feast-worthy presentation rather than a plain kitchen paste.

🌰 Texture note: This is best understood as a drained almond cream or almond curd. It will not behave exactly like dairy cheese, but when properly drained and sweetened it becomes smooth, rich, and spreadable.

Humoral and Dietary Context

In medieval medical and dietary writing, almonds were generally considered nourishing, temperate, and useful in refined cookery. They were often recommended in preparations intended to be gentle, strengthening, or suitable for restricted diets. Sugar, depending on context, was also valued medicinally as well as culinarily. Sweet spices such as cinnamon, cloves, mace, cubebs, and related spice mixtures were frequently associated with warmth and digestion.

Within that framework, Fride Creme of Almaundys makes sense as more than a novelty. It is rich without meat, creamy without animal dairy, elegant without being complicated, and adaptable for feast service. The optional additions of wine, saffron, comfits, and borage place the dish firmly in the world of careful presentation and sensory balance.

🥕 Dietary Notes:

• Vegan / Dairy-Free: This recipe is naturally dairy-free when made with almond milk and sweet wine or vinegar.
• Vegetarian: Suitable as written.
• Gluten-Free: Suitable as written, provided all garnishes and spice blends are gluten-free.
• Nut Allergy: This recipe is almond-based and is not suitable for those with tree nut allergies.
• Alcohol-Free: Use vinegar or verjuice instead of wine for curdling and omit the final sweet wine adjustment.
• Feast Service: Serve in small bowls, molded portions, or as a spread with wafers, bread, sops, or fruit.
• Camping/Event Use: Best made ahead and packed cold. Keep refrigerated in a cooler and serve in small portions with bread, wafers, crackers, or fruit. Not ideal for making from scratch at camp unless you have reliable heat, clean straining cloths, and adequate chilling.

Medieval Rabbit, Chicken, or Duck in Onion Sauce (Hen in Cyve – Harleian MS. 279)

Hen in Cyve – Medieval Chicken (or Rabbit/Duck) in Onion & Wine Sauce (Harleian MS. 279)

Conyng, Mawlard, in gely or in cyuey – Hen, Rabbit, or Duck in Onion Sauce (Harleian MS. 279)

What is “Cyve / Cyuey”? A savory medieval onion sauce thickened with bread and sharpened with vinegar and wine—balanced with warm spices like ginger, mace, cinnamon, and cloves. Wonderful with poultry, rabbit, or duck.

Updated 5/19/2026: This post now includes related recipes: .lxxiij. Conyngys in cyveye and .lxiij. Harys in Cyueye.

Medieval Stew in Onion Sauce

One of my favorite finds from The Ordinance of Pottage was “Hare in Cyve,” a richly flavored onion-based sauce that quickly became a feast favorite in my early SCA days. When I later discovered a related recipe in Harleian MS. 279 (c.1430), I knew it had to go on my cooking list.

Conyng means rabbit; Hare its larger cousin; and Mawlard means duck. The recipe offers flexibility—showing how cooks adapted this onion-thickened sauce (or cyuey) to whatever meat was available.

📖 A cyuey is a spiced medieval onion sauce thickened with bread and vinegar, balancing savory, sweet, and tart notes. It’s delicious with poultry, rabbit, or game.

Original Text (Harleian MS. 279)

.xlij. Conyng, Mawlard, in gely or in cyuey – Take Conynge, Hen, or Mawlard, and roste hem alle-most y-now, or ellys choppe hem, an frye hem in fayre Freysshe grece; an frye myncyd Oynenons, and caste alle in-to þe potte, & caste þer-to fayre Freysshe brothe, an half Wyne, Maces, Clowes, Powder pepir, Canelle; þan take fayre Brede, an wyth þe same brothe stepe, an draw it þorw a straynoure wyth vynegre; an whan it is wyl y-boylid, caste þe lycoure þer to, & powder Gyngere, & Salt, & sesyn it vp an serue forth.

Modern Translation

42. Rabbit, Hen, or Duck in Onion Sauce – Take rabbit, hen, or duck, and roast them almost enough, or else chop them, and fry them in good fresh fat. Fry minced onions and add all into the pot with fresh broth and half wine, along with mace, cloves, pepper, and cinnamon. Then take good bread, soak it in the same broth, and strain it with vinegar. When it is well boiled, add this mixture, plus ginger and salt. Adjust seasoning and serve hot.