Sitting at the restaurant of Bagni di Tiberio tasting the dishes prepared with love by Costanza is a journey through time and the history of taste.
Delicacy after delicacy the palate conveys to the mind flavors of the past that draw inspiration from ancient Greek and Roman cuisine.
It was precisely the Greeks who brought to the island the cultivation of the vine and the olive tree and so today, sipping a glass of Caprese wine, you can taste a product that is the fragrant heir of those vines that came from the East.
The restaurant of the Baths of Tiberius is located among ancient roman tanks of opus reticulatum where in the period of Tiberio were raised fish to prepare the Garum.
But what is the Garum?
His recipe was handed down by the writer Quinto Gargilio Marziale: a liquid sauce made of salted fish with aromatic herbs that the rich Romans poured drops on food. There were several variations of Garum depending on the fish used. Among the most valuable was the oxygarum prepared with vinegar, pepper and fine spices. Descendant of the delicious tiberiana sauce is the alice colatura di Cetara, PDO brand since 2020.
But let’s try to imagine what a Tiberian lunch on these terraces of the Villa di Palazzo a Mare would have been like following the suggestions of Marino Barendson, gastronomic historian and journalist. The guests would be seated on a three-seater tricline, spoons of various shapes and knives available to them. No forks. During lunch, the Romans used to wash their hands in bowls with fragrant water. Wine was mixed with honey and watered. It was precisely Tiberius who began to drink wine in absolute, without additions: from this comes his name Biberius, as Tacitus and Svetonius pass on.
Today it is Costanza to offer us some refined dishes of the ancient Augusteo-Tiberian cuisine.
The typical menu of an imperial lunch
To start a dish of Lucrino oysters and sea urchins, with side dishes of squid meatballs and croquettes of millet and farro polenta. To continue with cuttlefish scented with wild herbs Capri and fried of red mullet fragaglie and fish Capri with mint sauce, basil and red wine. As an accompaniment, wild crops that the agronomist Serpullo cultivated in mobile greenhouses at Villa Jovis and in all the imperial residences. Always present at the banquets: morel soup with candied bread and grilled sea bream with seasonal legumes, or even sheep meat with pomegranate sauce. And to finish a basket of cherries and apricots.
Aphrodisiac variations on the theme
Variations on the theme, as the writer Norman Douglas reminds us, are those dishes considered aphrodisiacs: shrimp Sibarita, snails with spicy sauces and Athenian eel. For dessert, a glass of mead and cold wild asparagus cake.
In conclusion, let’s toast together celebrating the ancient custom of the Commissio. You choose an guest who will honor with a toast the food just tasted: all others must drink to him with as many cups of wine as there are letters of his name. For example: seven cups for Tiberius, five for Livia and so on.
After this dream in ancient times of the lido dei Bagni di Tiberio we can return to the sweet reality of the cuisine of Costanza with its scents and colors, a dream that continues.
