Digital render by Jeff Emtman featuring a public domain illustration of the lovage plant by Joseph Miller (via the New York Public Library’s digital collection)

Sally Grainger was originally a chef, but in her 20’s, she was gifted a copy of an ancient Roman cookbook called Apicius.

Apicius is a bit of a fluke. It shouldn’t have survived the 2000-ish year journey into the modern era, but it did. And in this episode of Here Be Monsters, Grainger explains how Apicius persisted due to being a favorite text for monks-in-training to practice their gilding skills. And thus, this fascinating book of recipes (featuring cooking instructions for boiled ostrich soup, complex sauces, and cucumbers stewed with brains) is still feeding people today.

While cuisine today might seem distant from ostrich soup, Grainger thinks that Roman food often gets inaccurately portrayed as overly decadent or overly spiced. Cooked correctly, the cuisine is quite balanced, she says. And in her book, Cooking Apicius, she uses her knowledge of ancient Roman life to put the recipes in context for a contemporary kitchen and contemporary cooks.

Sally Grainger cooking Chestnut Lenticulam. An ancient Roman recipe from the book Apicius.

Also, on this episode, Jeff also reads from a 1932 English translation of Apicius by Joseph Dommers Vehling, which is available in the public domain thanks to Project Gutenberg.

Producer: Jeff Emtman
Music: The Black Spot

Have you seen the new HBM stickers? They’re beautiful. Get yours here. As of publish date: if you buy 4, one of them will be free. The discount gets applied automatically when you add them to your cart.

In a strange, small, moss-covered forest in Bellingham, Washington, Jeff stumbled on to the most gruesome scene of hedonism he's ever seen.

While it's not common for humans to witness slug death orgies, every once in a while, someone's there with a camera in the right time and place.

These slugs are most likely European Red Slugs (Arion Rufus), which were first noticed in the Western United States by a Californian biologist who found one in a lawn in Seattle.

Now, the slugs are commonplace, and have incredible omnivorous, cannibalistic, and genetalial (not a word) appetites.

Some parts of slug life are akin to aristocratic Roman life under the rule of Caligula,a figure that historians love to hate...incest, murder, insanity, sloth, greed, etc. While the stories of his perversity and violence are often debated and overblown, no one in their right mind argues that he was a good emperor or even someone you'd want to grab lunch with.

This episode marks the launch of the long-awaited third season of Here Be Monsters. Be sure to rate us on iTunes and tell your friends.

Music: Phantom Fauna ||| The Black Spot ||| Lucky Dragons ||| Olecranon Rebellion <--New!

Bonus article with a great title: Perverted cannibalistic hermaphrodites haunt the Pacific Northwest!

Here Be Monsters

HBM154: Ancient Roman Recipes

HBM031: The Roman Slug Death Orgy