Dulcia Domestica

Ancient Rome's honeyed stuffed dates: the stone drawn out and an almond set in its place, rolled in salt and glazed in warm honey

Origin: Ancient Rome

From the journey of Almond.

Dulcia domestica, 'home-made sweets', is one of the few Roman dessert recipes to come down to us in full, set out in the cookery collection that bears the name of Apicius and compiled around the first century CE. The instruction is brief and clear: take dates, draw out the stone, stuff them with an almond, a pine kernel, or a little ground pepper, roll them in salt, and cook them in heated honey before serving. It is the ancestral form of the stuffed date, a sweet that has scarcely changed in two thousand years and that still appears, in essentials, across the whole Mediterranean and the Middle East. The dish belongs to the bellaria, the dessert course of the Roman meal, when nuts, fruit, and honeyed sweets were brought out with the wine. The almond and the date were both luxuries of the eastern trade, the almond a comparatively recent arrival from the Greek world that Rome knew as the nux graeca, the date carried from the oases of North Africa and the Levant, and to marry them in honey was to set two prized imports on the same plate. The touch of salt, which a modern cook might think strange, is the Roman instinct for the savoury-sweet, the same instinct that ran fish sauce through Roman cooking; here it sharpens the honey and lifts the almond. Simple to the point of austerity, dulcia domestica is a direct and edible link to the ancient Roman table, and a reminder that the almond was already, two millennia ago, the nut the Mediterranean reached for when it wanted to make something sweet.

Ingredients

Stuffed dates

  • 24 large soft dates (Medjool are ideal)
  • 24 blanched almonds
  • 2 tbsp pine nuts (optional, for some of the dates)
  • 0.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper (optional, the Roman touch)

To cook

  • 1 tsp fine sea salt
  • 150 g honey

Method

  1. Toast the blanched almonds lightly in a dry pan until just golden and fragrant, then set aside to cool.
  2. Slit each date down one side and lift out the stone. Press a toasted almond into each cavity; for variety, stuff some with a few pine nuts, and dust a few with a little black pepper inside, as Apicius allows.
  3. Scatter the fine salt on a plate and roll each stuffed date lightly in it.
  4. Warm the honey gently in a wide pan over low heat until it loosens and just begins to bubble at the edges.
  5. Lay the dates in the warm honey and turn them gently for 2 to 3 minutes until glazed and glossy and heated through.
  6. Lift the dates onto a serving dish, spoon a little of the warm honey over them, and serve warm or at room temperature.

Notes

Dulcia domestica keep for a couple of days in a covered dish, though the glaze dulls; refresh with a little warm honey before serving. The salt seems unexpected to the modern palate but is true to the Roman taste for the savoury-sweet; reduce or omit it if you prefer. Walnuts were an equally common Roman stuffing if you wish to vary the nut.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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