Defrutum

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Defrutum is a reduction of must used by cooks and others in ancient Rome. It was made by boiling down grape juice or must (freshly squeezed grapes) in large kettles until it had been reduced by at least half. The sweetest defrutum was further boiled down into an even stronger concentrate called sapa.

The main culinary use of defrutum was to sweeten wine, but it was also added to fruit and meat dishes as a sweetening and souring agent and even given to food animals such as suckling pig and duck to improve the taste of their flesh. Defrutum was mixed with garum to make the popular condiment oenogarum and as such was one of Rome's most popular condiments. Quince and melon were preserved in defrutum and honey through the winter, and some Roman women used defrutum or sapa as a cosmetic. Defrutum was often used as a food preservative in provisions for Roman troops.^[1]

Defrutum is mentioned in almost all Roman books dealing with cooking or household management. Pliny the Elder recommended that defrutum only be boiled at the time of the new moon, while Cato the Censor suggested that only the sweetest possible must should be used. Both writers advised against the use of bronze or copper kettles, as the metals would react with the acids in the defrutum and give the finished product an unpleasant metallic taste. The preferred vessels for boiling and storing defrutum were made of (or lined with) lead. Geochemist Jerome Nriagu published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1983 hypothesizing that defrutum and sapa may have contained enough lead acetate to be of danger to those who consumed it regularly. Because lead poisoning can cause infertility and high infant mortality, some scholars hold that the digestion of defrutum, along with the eating food and drink with bronze utensils containing lead (which were mended with pure lead) was a contributing factor in the decline of Rome.^[1]

Modern cooks who wish to make defrutum should use a large glass or stainless steel Dutch oven or stock pot. Boil four litres (or quarts) of dark grape juice in an open pan slowly until 750 ml or three US cups of defrutum remains. The vapors can be sticky, so it is advised to either boil the juice under a fan or to prepare the defrutum outside. For additional flavor add one cup of hand-crushed dark grapes at the beginning of the cooking process.

[edit] External links and references

Jerome O. Nriagu; Saturnine Gout Among Roman Aristocrats: Did Lead Poisoning Contribute to the Fall of the Empire?; New England Journal of Medicine 308, 660-663;
Ilaria G. Giacosa; A Taste of Ancient Rome; University of Chicago Press; ISBN 0-226-29032-8 (paperback, 1994)
Pliny the Elder; Natural History; tr. H. Rackham; Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library); ISBN 0-674-99432-9 (cloth, 1956)
Marcus Porcius Cato; On Agriculture ; Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library); ISBN 0-674-99313-6 (hardcover, 1979)