It’s quite common nowadays to infuse a bottle of vergine olive oil with some nice herbs and spices, to speed up the process of coughing up a nice salad dressing. But whereas having flavoured oil on the shelf is a bit of a luxury nowadays, thousands of years ago it was more like necessity. Especially if you were on a ship with no land — let alone fresh herbs — in sight.
What they did was shred and finely chop some lovely greens and chuck em in a big jar of olive oil. The ceramic jar would shield the oil from the sun and any staleness would be masked by the fragrant herbs. In return, the oil would keep the herbs from wilting down to nothing and losing all their flavour and aroma.
As you may have guessed, a jar like that would practically have been worth its weight in gold on a long ocean journey. Imagine having to eat mouldy bread or ship’s biscuits every single day without something nice to dip it into! Heck, you could even make a seaweed salad taste yummy with some good flavoured oil.
No wonder then that the jar found in this 2400-year-old shipwreck was almost empty. The amphora containing the salad dressing was found together with one holding some sort of Retsina. Alas, the bucket of seaweed that would have gone with all that was sadly lost — as was the recipe.
Note: scientists are reported to be extracting DNA from the jars’ contents. As soon as they come up with the full recipe of the dressing, we will let you know a.s.a.p.
Hat tip to earlpearl for the heads-up.
Unfortunately, once in a blue moon, I find that some hidden salad dressing in the fridge has overstayed its welcome…..and must be thrown out…..but 2,400 years old. That is even older than my finest wines.
hehe, that’s even older than you EP