Lactuca et Eruca

the Roman salad of lettuce and rocket, hot leaf corrected by cold on Pliny's instruction, dressed with oil, vinegar, and garum, and finished with lovage and coriander seed

Origin: Rome, Italy

From the journey of Rocket.

This is a reconstruction rather than a transcribed recipe, and it is worth being clear about which parts are documented and which are inferred. What is documented is the pairing. Pliny, writing in the seventies of the first century, sets the heat of rocket against the coldness of lettuce and states that the two are eaten together so that each corrects the other, a piece of humoral dietary theory rather than a culinary instruction. What is also documented is how Romans dressed leaves: oil, vinegar, and garum, the fermented fish sauce that supplied salt and savour to most of the Roman table, with the sharper version oxygarum made by combining garum with vinegar. What is inferred is the assembly, since no single surviving Roman text sets this out as a dish. The reason to make it is that the theory produces an unexpectedly good salad. Rocket alone is punishing in quantity; lettuce alone is dull; together, in roughly equal measure, they give a bowl in which the heat arrives in some mouthfuls and not others. The dressing is more surprising still, because garum tastes far less of fish than its description suggests and functions almost exactly as an anchovy does in a Caesar dressing, supplying depth that reads as savoury rather than marine. The rocket's other Roman reputation is inescapable and was already a joke by the time Pliny wrote it down: Columella has it rousing sluggish husbands, Martial reaches for it in a poem about impotence, and Ovid tells the man trying to fall out of love to keep away from it.

Ingredients

Salad

  • 150 g rocket (arugula), preferably a coarse, peppery bunch
  • 150 g cos or little gem lettuce, leaves separated and torn
  • 1 handful fresh mint leaves

Dressing

  • 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1.5 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 2 tsp colatura di alici, or 4 anchovy fillets crushed to a paste, standing in for garum
  • 0.5 tsp coriander seed, toasted and coarsely ground
  • 0.25 tsp lovage seed or celery seed, lightly crushed
  • 1 pinch black pepper, coarsely ground
  • 1 tsp honey (optional, to soften the vinegar)

Method

  1. Toast the coriander seed in a dry pan for under a minute, until it smells warm, then grind it coarsely with the lovage or celery seed.
  2. Whisk the oil, vinegar, colatura or crushed anchovy, ground seeds, and pepper together. Taste it, and add the honey only if the vinegar is aggressive.
  3. Wash and thoroughly dry both leaves. Tear them into large pieces and combine them in roughly equal weight with the mint.
  4. Pour over the dressing, turn it through gently with your hands, and serve immediately.

Notes

This is an honest reconstruction and not a translated recipe: the pairing of rocket with lettuce is Pliny's (Natural History XIX.44), the dressing follows the standard Roman formula of oil, vinegar, and garum recorded throughout the Apician collection, and the assembly is inferred. Lovage was one of the most heavily used Roman seasonings and is worth finding; celery seed is the nearest common substitute and gives much the same green, slightly bitter note. Romans would have used a considerably heavier hand with the garum than most modern palates enjoy, so the quantity here is deliberately restrained. Serve it as a first course, which is where a Roman meal would have put it, alongside eggs and olives.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

Mapping Culinary History

To explore — select an ingredient below.

Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
© 2026 The Gastrographer. All original research, narratives, and illustrations. All rights reserved.