Alexandrine Marrow
from http://www.3owls.org/sca/cook/roman.htm
Alexandrine Marrow - picture from a blogger
who used a type of orange winter sqush
Cucurbitas More Alexndrino. Alexandrine Gourds. Boil the gourds and squeeze them. Sprinkle them with salt and put them in a saucepan. Now grind pepper, cumin, coriander seed, fresh mint and laser root. Pour vinegar over. Then toss in some dates and nuts, and grind. Blend with honey, vinegar, stock, boiled wine, and olive oil. Pour this over the gourds. When this has been brought to the boil, sprinkle with pepper and serve. (Apicius Book 3, IV-3)
"Gourds in Roman times meant Old World species, obviously. Most of our pumpkin and squashes are New World. The generally accepted assumption is that "gourds" in medieval and Roman recipes refers to the genus Lagenaria, the Chinese Bottle Gourd. We don’t get those here. I tend to use baby marrows, as they’re apparently the same approximate shape as a Lagenaria, and the flesh is similarly green."
1 pack baby marrows
1 tsp each of ground pepper, cumin, coriander.
Handful of fresh mint
5 tblsp red wine vinegar
4-6 pitted dates
50 g pine nuts
3 tblsp honey
3 tblsp boiled wine (see above)
3 tblsp olive oil
Chop the baby marrows coarsely and parboil in salted water (they should be not quite tender).
Finely chop the mint and then grind in a pestle and mortar with the spices and 2 tblsp vinegar. Chop dates and nuts finely, then add to spices in mortar and continue grinding until you have a sort of paste. Add ground mixture to honey, the remaining vinegar, boiled wine and oil. (It helps to use the vinegar to clean out the mortar). Add to cooked marrow in a pot, and bring to the boil. Cook for a few minutes, until the marrows are tender and the sauce has thickened slightly.
Other Gourd Recipes from Apicius
There are lots of gourd recipes in Apicius. Here, for comparison and as a public service since they aren’t on the net elsewhere, are some of the others:
IV-1 Gustum De Cucurbitis. Gourd Antepast. Squeeze out the water from the cooked gourds and put them into a shallow pan. In a mortar, add pepper, cumin, a little silphium, that is laser root, a little rue, and blend with stock and vinegar. Put in a little boiled wine for color. Pour the sauce into the pan. When it has boiled a second and third time, remove and sprinkle over it a very small quantity of pepper.
IV-2. Aliter Cucurbitas Iure Colocasiorum. Gourds in broad bean broth. Cook the gourds in water as you would broad beans. Mix pepper, cumin, rue, and sprinkle with vinegar and stock. Simmer in a pan. Add to this a little olive oil. Put into the pan the chopped and drained gourds. Heat. Thicken with starch, sprinkle with pepper, and serve.
IV-4. Aliter Cucurbitas Elixatas. Stewed gourds. Cook in stock, oil and unmixed wine.
IV-5. Aliter Cucurbitas Frictas. Fried gourds. Prepare in a plain wine sauce with pepper.
IV-6. Aliter Cucurbitas Elixatas Et Frictas. Gourds stewed and fried. Put [the boiled gourds] in a pan. Sprinkle cumin over them, with a little olive oil added on top. Cook and serve.
IV-7. Aliter Cucurbitas Frictas Tritas. Gourds, fried and sliced. Season with pepper, lovage, cumin, oregano, onion, wine, stock and olive oil. Add starch to the pan to thicken, and serve.
IV-8. Aliter Cucurbitas Cum Gallina. Gourds with chicken. Apricots, truffles, pepper, caraway, cumin, silphium, fresh herbs, mint, celery, coriander and pennyroyal, dates, honey, wine, stock, olive oil and ginger.
