GARUM; THE ORIGINAL JUNK FOOD!

WE HAVE LONG SINCE MADE TASTY FOOD OUT OF OUR FOOD SCRAPS, RESOURCEFUL FOLK MAKE GREAT FORTUNES FOR THEMSELVES! Post No.14/IN  (A 9 minute read) 

GARUM! Who has heard of garum, I wonder? Well, of course, for the typical INFJ type, snippets of information can be very tantalizing indeed, if they hit just the right spot. Stumbling across the Phoenician/Roman salteries on my wander around the coastal town of Almuñecar in the province of Granada, Spain, I had his-story, or the remains of one of his-stories, right in front of my eyes. I had to know more.  

THE PHOENICIAN/ROMAN SALTERIES, ALMUÑECAR, SPAIN!

So, on returning home, the research began to find out the origins of GARUM. This really was stimulating information to me being a great puzzle lover, as I am always on the look out for just the right piece for a particular space in one of my pictures of times past. I am often trying to see in my mind how our planet earth actually was.

I am always trying to build the natural continuity between these eras of time. As such, I can see that there is a very definite circular pattern to each and every era of time. Each of those pictures even as they were being laid out and becoming a living reality, had many flaws. But maybe the greatest flaw of all was ever the inequality of that society, wherever it was in the world.

Time has seen the ownership of territories change many times and so it has been here in Spain too. It was Abd al-Rahman who began the Caliphate of Córdoba era, but even as he and his followers moved into Córdoba, what they found was the wonderful Roman city of Corduba! It was already built in effect, so it was a usurped city, what a surprise?

But the first to find Almuñecar, were the Phoenicians. They together with the Roman and Arab occupations of Al-Andaluz, wrote two thousand years worth of his-story for this country where I am living. In this chapter ten, I am going deeper into these periods of occupation and how the change overs occurred.

I had not intended to write of his-story in my first book ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN, but it was inevitable at times. It was necessary to include that information at that moment in my writing, to me at least! I love exploring the past and in this second book there is much his-story but hopefully told in an understandable and entertaining way!

My first book is available on Amazon, use these links: ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN e-book and ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN Paperback

The Phoenicians had built up great wealth through their production of a purple dye, made from the secretions of the MUREX, a sea snail. The ancient Greek word for the colour purple was, PHOINIKEIA, widely thought to be the origin of the Phoenician naming. They became great boat builders and began sea commerce and trading.

Indeed, they were the first folk to pull up onto the southern shores of my birth island of Gran Bretaña. They found tin in the region of Cornwall and that export only added to their wealth. Over in Spain the Phoenicians discovered silver and began to mine that as well. Even as they were sailing the seas of the Mediterranean and close Atlantic waters, they were accruing knowledge all the way!

I knew of the tin mining in Cornwall, I had been holidaying in that area as a child. I had my 3D images of the coast lines where these Phoenicians may have pulled up and come ashore. So, more of my childhood pieces slotting into a picture belonging to a time before mine! To add to the piracy days that I already knew well!

The Phoenicians also developed an alphabet which was then passed on to the Greeks and then the Romans. The Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Latin and Cyrillic alphabets have all been influenced by the Phoenician alphabet. It was three thousand and five hundred years ago now that they first arrived on the shores of Almuñecar!

It became an important staging post and they went from there on to Gadir (modern day Cadiz), building up one of the oldest cities in Europe around two thousand and one hundred years ago. But it was some 900 years Before Christ was born that they settled in Almuñecar and named in SEXI. From there their fish salting/curing production began and it became a major industry. They stayed for around six hundred years before being ousted by the Romans!

GARUM was of course, one of the major benefits of the Mediterranean coastline and its Phoenician ports. They were all set up, they just needed usurping. Because who had got the taste for garum if not the Romans? Only perfume had a higher cost at that time. It was a highly appreciated commodity. The Romans in their seven hundred years as masters of Spain, turned up the production of Garum to an even greater scale!

Even as I was discovering for myself on the ground, the Romans had literally moved the earth and constructed five aquaducts and seven kilometres of conduits, to bring sufficient supplies of fresh water to keep these highly productive coastal towns permanently supplied! So, what was Garum? And why was it so prized?

It was so simple really, so simple! I FEEL sure that it was the fishermen´s wive´s idea! Small blue fish were headed and gutted prior to being layered with salt to be salt cured. The heads and guts were the waste, the scraps, the JUNK. They were going spare but chopped up and layered with salt, then left to ferment under the hot Andalucian sun for a few months and the first liquid that drained off was known as LIQUAMEN.

The remaining fish junk had now become as a thick sauce, a fish sauce, akin to modern fish stock cubes. Concentrated flavour and Garum was poured over everything. Garum was mixed with wine, honey, herbs, all designed to add a new twist to the Garum experience. It became to the Romans as ketchup has become in our modern world of JUNK FOOD eating.

Slap some ketchup on it and you will add some concentrated taste to a pile of re-constituted scraps of food! The Romans were eating natural foods but salt was one of the few condiments that was widely used. So, Garum brought a new life to each and every dish! It was also used medicinally as a pep up tonic amongst other uses.

Taxes on salt and ever increasing prices saw Garum go out of the price range for the majority. The Romans could not keep everything going, their Empire had become too big and it was towards the end of the fourth century AD that the whole Garum industry broke down. The era of piracy came in and these coastal towns were pillaged and destroyed.

Another three hundred years elapsed before the Arabs came in 711 AD to take their turn as leaders of Spain. But they never sought to revive the Garum industry. So, a very interesting chapter this one and I really enjoyed writing it, having as I did some very clear 3D images of the remains of these eras in time.

Over in the far east, the Chinese have been fermenting mung beans for thousands of years too. The highly prized SOYA SAUCE being the result of this layering of mung beans (soya beans) and salt. The Vietnamese NUOC MAM (fish sauce), has been made for thousands of years in the same way as I have described above. They continue to produce and use today, very large quantities of fish sauce and they use it like the Romans did, to add extra flavour to a dish.

Where Garum began its life, is debatable? Clay pots found in the Mediterranean area from seven thousand years ago, have been confirmed as Garum pots which had remains of garum inside them! Ancient Pompeii has mosaics displaying Garum pots. The trade between Mediterranean Europe and Asia had begun but which way came Garum?

From west to east, that is to say, left to right? Or from east to west, that is to say, right to left? My own INFJ intuition is inclined to believe the latter, most wisdom has come from east to west! And just to add as a last word, what do you know but the Indonesian word for salt is? Yes, GARUM! Food for thought!

Next post I will give you a FEEL for the following chapter titled Abstract Distractions! Yes, we cannot always call the shots ourselves! So join me again or if you would like a reminder when I publish each post, just click the follow tab and send me your e-mail address. Any comments will be very welcome.

Happy news!! My second book is now ready for reading! These are the Amazon links: ON THE INSIDE LOOKING OUT e-book and ON THE INSIDE LOOKING OUT Paperback

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