Early Roman shipwreck carried fish sauce

[Strengthandhonour]

Early Roman shipwreck carried fish sauce
By DANIEL WOOLLS, Associated Press Writer




MADRID, Spain - A shipwrecked first-century vessel carrying delicacies to the richest palates of the Roman Empire has proved a dazzling find, with nearly 2,000-year-old fish bones still nestling inside clay jars, archaeolgists said Monday.
Boaters found its cargo of hundreds of amphoras in 2000 when their anchor got tangled with one of the two-handled jars.
After years of arranging financing and crews, exploration of the site a mile off the coast of Alicante in southeast Spain began in July, said Carles de Juan, a co-director of the project, who works for the Valencia regional government.
The ship, estimated to be 100 feet long with a capacity for around 400 tons of cargo, is twice the size of most other Roman shipwrecks found in the Mediterranean, de Juan said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Its cargo of an estimated 1,500 well-preserved clay amphoras was used in this case to hold fish sauce — a prized condiment for wealthy Romans, he said.
For nearly 2,000 years, the 3-foot-tall amphoras lay undisturbed except for the occasional octopus that would pry one open, breaking the ceramic-and-mortar seal in search of food or shelter.
Besides the size of the ship and good condition of its cargo, the site is also important because it is so easily accessible — in just 80 feet of water about a mile from the coast. Other wrecks are so deep they cannot be examined by scuba divers.
"I am not going to say it was on the beach, but almost," said de Juan, who was among the first divers to examine the shipwreck in 2000.
"We knew it was an important find but had no real idea until now," he said. "It is an exceptional find."
The last time a ship of this size and quality emerged was in 1985 off Corsica, he said.
Javier Nieto, director of the Center for Underwater Archaeology of Catalonia and not related to this project, also called it immensely important because of the good condition of the cargo. No other Roman shipwreck is currently under study in the Mediterranean, he added.
"For archaeologists, a sunken ship is a historic document that tells us about ancient history and how its economy worked," Nieto said from Barcelona. "This ship will contribute a lot."
This ship probably sank in a storm while sailing back to Rome from Cadiz in the south of what is now Spain. The storm must have been ferocious because it is odd for such a vessel to have been so close to shore.
"The crew did not care about the cargo or money or anything. They headed for land to save their lives," de Juan said.
De Juan and the other co-director of the project, Franca Cibercchini of the University of Pisa in Italy, presented their first report on the site at a marine archaeology conference last week in the town of Gandia, near Valencia.
When word of the find first spread in 2000, pirate scuba divers raided the site and stole some of the amphoras. This forced the Valencia government to build a thick metal grating to cover the remains and protect the jars.
What remains of the wooden structure of the ship itself — about 60 percent — is buried under mud in the seabed, de Juan said.

The cargo probably also includes lead, which the Romans used for plumbing, and copper, which they mixed with tin to make bronze for everything from plates to jewelry. The fish sauce is no longer in the amphoras because the seals were not hermetic and could not withstand 20 centuries under water. But traces of fish bone remain inside and these will help researchers determine how the sauces were made, de Juan said.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061113/...an_shipwreck_4

[Menydh]

The area, inhabited by Iberians proper, was known to be a producer of fish derivades since before the Roman times. Several factories of salt dried fish existed and traded with Phoenicians.

Salt dried fish and fish roe produces are still today considered a local delicacy, the most common being mojama, A salt dried produce from red tunna.

It wouldn't be surprising if they produced other derivatives from fish.

[Errigal]

I read some classical Roman recipes and saw many which called for a fish sauce like this. I tried both anchovy paste and a Thai fish sauce as replacements in the recipes and both worked well. Salted fish goes with chopped beef cooked on the grill as the old Roman recipes call for.

I also tried a Roman recipe for grilled trout stuffed with onions and honey which turned out very well. I replaced the honey with some maple syrup my father’s friend made and it was just as good as the original recipe.

Do you think mojama is a direct descendant of the Roman original?

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Strengthandhonour

This ship probably sank in a storm while sailing back to Rome from Cadiz in the south of what is now Spain. The storm must have been ferocious because it is odd for such a vessel to have been so close to shore.

A common mistake by many people is to think of the Mediterranean as a calm sea. Unlike in the Atlantic Ocean, storms could not be predicted in advance. It is very short, a matter of a few minutes, the time that it takes for a calm weather to turn into a nightmare storm. And often when you start you are still saling with full sails. Further, while the waves are not as big as in the Atlantic, the short distance between the crest of one wave and the next make the ships very unstable in the storms. On Atlantic storm waves you can still surf over the waves.

Originally Posted by A First Full of Snow

Do you think mojama is a direct descendant of the Roman original?

Not Roman, but Iberian. Though the Romans valued it highly and came to this coasts to trade it. So did the Carthagineans and the Phoenicians before them. There is plenty of evidence of the existance of factories to produce red tunna and roe salt preserves in the area, of about 3,000 years old.

In the picture, the factory of salazones (salted fish preserves) of Baelo Claudia, in Tarifa, Cadiz.


Also, the fishing technique of the almadraba, is known to have been used already then. Like today, red tunna entered the Mediterranean from the Arctic to lay their eggs. Boats made a circled net and the tunna caught inside was lifted to the boats with hooks.

Here there is an account, in Spanish.
An almadraba in the picture.


In the Spring, red tunna crosses the Strait of Gibraltar looking for the waters of the Mediterranean where the higher concentration of salt and the stream make an ideal environment to mate and to for their sperm to fertilize the roes.

The texture and taste of their meat at the moment of arrival is much appreciated due to it being high in fat. They lose gastronomical value when they are in their way back to the Atlantic, after having laid their roes.

Unfortunately modern techniques and demand are exhausting the highly preciated red tunna. The Japanese use huge factory ships which make the capture and processing offshore.