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Hypotrimma

hypotrimma · Apicius hypotrimma · Roman sweet cheese condiment

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Hypotrimma was a Roman condiment in Apicius's cookery book, a mixture of ground pepper, herbs, nuts, dried fruit, cheese, honey and fish sauce.

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A modern illustrative reconstruction of Hypotrimma: a thick cheese condiment with herbs, pine nuts, raisins and dates in a stoneware bowl.

A condiment with many ingredients

Hypotrimma is one of the more complex sauces in the Apicius collection. Its ingredient list combines sharp and sweet flavours with pepper and lovage, pine nuts, raisins and dates, sweet cheese, honey, and fish sauce with wine, vinegar and oil. Grape must boiled down, called defrutum or caroenum, adds a dense sweetness.

The text gives the ingredients and not the method. Modern versions therefore grind the dry elements in a mortar, add the cheese, and shape the result. That order is one reading of the list, not something the text records.

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Reading the recipe

Older translations sometimes render liquamen as broth, which changes the flavour of the mixture. The Latin and a specialist translation should be checked before any reconstruction is treated as the ancient product.

The sources give no quantities, so any proportion in a modern version is the cook's own choice and is not evidence of an ancient formula.

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History

Hypotrimma appears in the Apicius cookery collection, in the translation by Christopher Grocock and Sally Grainger. The text lists ingredients and gives no method or quantities.

Ingredients

Scaling: source batch only

PepperGround.
Not given by the source.
Lovage
Not given by the source.
Dried mint
Not given by the source.
Pine nuts
Not given by the source.
Raisins
Not given by the source.
Dates
Not given by the source.
Sweet cheeseBroken up or mashed.
Not given by the source.
Honey
Not given by the source.
Vinegar
Not given by the source.
LiquamenFish sauce.
Not given by the source.
Oil
Not given by the source.
Wine
Not given by the source.
Defrutum or caroenumGrape must boiled down.
Not given by the source.

Method

Risks and precautions · Standard risk

This is a historical condiment reconstructed from a cookery text. It is not a tested safety process; keep fresh cheese refrigerated when made today.

  1. Grind the dry ingredients in a mortar, or chop them, and combine them in a bowl.
  2. Add the cheese last, broken up, and mix evenly.
  3. Serve shaped into a ball or piped into a bowl, garnished with dried mint.
  4. The method is the modern cook's own: the Apicius entry names ingredients only.

Places

Rome

Historical attestation · Region evidence

Attested in the Apicius cookery collection; the collection's date and compilation are uncertain.

See Romeon the mapLocation source 1 →

Related

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