First, no, we didn’t go blind. Almost did, but we made it through.

After releasing Italy In Bocca we got a few calls from various production companies and show runners wanting, well, more. They were interested in developing a show with us, and were wondering if we could come up with another concept that could be a series. The idea of reviving old, forgotten recipes was interesting to us, so obviously we found the oldest and most forgotten recipe: Ancient Roman Vermouth.

The recipe is the first in a book by Apicius called Apicius de re Coquinaria who wrote one of the first cookbooks in written history. In it are plenty of interesting recipes outlining the cookery and dining of ancient Rome such as fritters of milk-fed snails and a precursor to the pumpkin pie, but our eyes fell on the very first recipe, perhaps the most important, a degistf called Absinthium Romanum.

We went to work right away, getting the recipe translated from a professor at Columbia University, and then finding a cultural anthropologist that could tell us what the ancient ingredients translated to in our modern vernacular. After sourcing all the herbs and discussing why they were in there, we had to choose a base for the drink, exploring what wine would be closest to ancient Roman red. From there we brought it back to the lab, aka our Brooklyn kitchen and tried to put it together without going blind.

I watch this little film often as it was so incredibly fun going on this wild adventure to revive this ancient recipe. The amazing people that we met along the way who shared in the excitement, and then the proud moment of actually making something that wasn’t completely horrible is such and amazing memory. I can definitely see us doing this over and over again since the history of flavor is in my opinion never ending.

Our next food adventure … Penne Alla Vodka.