Patina de piris

Name: Patina de piris
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Roman Empire
Ingredients: 500 g ripe pears (3–4 medium), peeled, cored, and roughly chopped; 4 large eggs, beaten; 2 tbsp honey (the Roman mel, use raw or thyme honey for authenticity); 100 ml passum (Roman raisin wine), substitute sweet dessert wine, Marsala, or port; 0.5 tsp ground cumin, one of the most characteristic Roman spices; 0.25 tsp ground black pepper; 1 tsp fish sauce (garum substitute, a few drops of Thai fish sauce works well); 2 tbsp olive oil (for cooking); 1 pinch salt

The ancient Roman pear soufflé from the kitchen of Apicius: poached pears beaten with cumin, pepper, honey, and wine, enriched with eggs and fried golden in oil: two thousand years old and still astonishing

Origin: Roman Empire

From the journey of Pear.

Apicius, De Re Coquinaria, the only surviving complete Roman cookbook, includes in its fourth book (Pandecter) a recipe titled 'patina de piris': a pear preparation of remarkable sophistication that sits somewhere between an omelette, a soufflé, and a sweet custard. The Roman patina is a category of dish named for the flat, wide pan in which it was cooked: a precursor of the modern tatin and gratin. The patina de piris calls for pears to be cooked, then beaten with cumin, pepper, honey, passum (raisin wine), and garum (fish sauce), combined with eggs, and cooked in oil until set and golden. The combination of cumin and black pepper with sweet pear and honey is characteristically Roman; the ancient kitchen did not separate sweet and savoury in the way the modern Western kitchen does. Pliny the Elder, writing a decade before Apicius's collection was compiled, named 41 varieties of cultivated pear in Roman Italy; evidence of the obsessive attention Roman orchardists paid to the fruit.

Ingredients

Fruit

500 g ripe pears (3–4 medium), peeled, cored, and roughly chopped

Eggs

4 large eggs, beaten

Sweetening

2 tbsp honey (the Roman mel, use raw or thyme honey for authenticity)

Liquid

100 ml passum (Roman raisin wine), substitute sweet dessert wine, Marsala, or port

Spices

0.5 tsp ground cumin, one of the most characteristic Roman spices
0.25 tsp ground black pepper

Seasoning

1 tsp fish sauce (garum substitute, a few drops of Thai fish sauce works well)
1 pinch salt

Fat

2 tbsp olive oil (for cooking)

Method

Cook the chopped pears in 50ml of the wine over medium heat for 8–10 minutes until completely soft and most of the liquid has evaporated. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.
Using a fork or blender, mash or blend the cooked pears to a smooth purée. Add the honey, remaining wine, cumin, pepper, fish sauce, and a pinch of salt. Stir well.
Add the beaten eggs to the pear mixture. Stir well to combine into a smooth, slightly liquid batter.
Heat the olive oil in a wide, non-stick pan (or the Roman patina pan: a flat, wide earthenware dish over charcoal) over medium heat. Pour in the pear-egg mixture. Cook over medium-low heat for 8–10 minutes, without stirring, until the edges are set and the base is golden.
Finish under a medium grill for 3–4 minutes until the top is set and lightly golden. Or, if using a pan with an oven-safe handle, finish in a 180°C oven for 5 minutes.
Slide onto a plate. Drizzle with a final thread of honey. Dust with a little extra ground cumin. Serve warm in wedges.

Notes

The Latin recipe text from Apicius reads approximately: 'Patina de piris: pira elixabis et purgabis. in mortario teres cum pipere, cumino, melle, passo, liquamine, oleo modico. ovis misces et patinatum facies.' (You will boil and clean pears. In a mortar you will pound them with pepper, cumin, honey, raisin wine, fish sauce, a little oil. You will mix with eggs and make a patina.) The translation and reconstruction here follow the standard Apicius scholarship of Sally Grainger and Christopher Grocock (Apicius: A Critical Edition, 2006). The preparation is remarkably good; the cumin note against the sweet pear is distinctive and not unpleasant; the fish sauce is completely invisible in the final flavour but its absence makes the dish flatter.

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control