The traditional Romanian preparation with ancient origins, indispensable for holidays. It was the delicacy on the Romanian tables

Some of the traditional Romanian dishes that are almost indispensable in winter meals have ancient origins. Among them are pork sausages, considered a delicacy in certain regions of the Roman Empire.

Sausages were part of the diet of the ancients. Photo: Freepik.com

Many of the traditional dishes placed by Romanians on holiday tables were taken from other cultures and adapted to Romanian cuisine.

The neighboring peoples or those who lived on the current territory of Romania inspired the Romanians in making some of the most appreciated dishes. Sarmales come from Ottoman cuisine, the term coming from the Turkish sarma (“to wrap”), but the Romanians adapted the recipe, using sauerkraut and pork.

The name cozonac has Slavic origins, being similar to the Bulgarian term kozunak. Boeuf salad was the creation of a French chef, Lucien Olivier, from the 19th century, but Romanian cuisine has simplified it, replacing its “luxury” ingredients, such as game, caviar or veal tongue, with more accessible ones. Zacusca comes from the Slavic and Nordic peoples, for whom it was an appetizer eaten before the main meals, after a ritual meant to whet their appetite, a “Swedish buffet”, also simplified over time.

Meatballs are specific to the Middle East and would have arrived in Romanian space during the Ottoman Empire's domination, and soups are also a product with Ottoman origins, which Romanian cuisine diversified and gave it its own identity. However, Romanians have preserved traditional dishes, the recipes of which have been prepared for thousands of years in the Carpathian region.

Sausages, the dish with Roman origins

Pork has been consumed in Romania since ancient times, but the Romanians would have been the ones who spread here some of the oldest dishes that have entered, over time, into the traditional Romanian cuisine.

A scene depicted on Trajan's Column shows that, along with a sheep and a bull, a pig was sacrificed in a religious ritual that took place in front of the emperor Trajan and his army in a march camp near the Dacian fortresses, before their assault.

The scene of a sacrifice, illustrated on Trajan's Column. Photo: Radu Vulpe. Trajan's Column

At the beginning of the 2nd century, a part of Dacia came under Roman rule, and the settlers settled in the new cities of the Empire brought with them some of the foods valued in Rome. Pork sausages were among the Roman delicacies.

Marcus Terentius Varro (116 BC – 27 BC), one of the great Roman scholars of his time, offered, in the work De lingua Latina, details about how they were prepared.

“A thick, stuffed intestine is called lucanica (“Lucanian sausage”), because the Roman soldiers knew it from the Lucani; as what they discovered in Falerii they call “Faliscan sausage”. There is also fundolus (sausage-sack), from fundus (bottom), because, unlike the other intestines, it is open at only one end. From fartura (filling) the pieces prepared from the organs for sacrifice are called farcimina (fillings); from here we also farticultim (stuffing)”Varro notes.

The scholar also mentioned the sausage called apexabo, made by stuffing the small intestine, called the hila, which had a hat-shaped protrusion at the top.

“The third type of sausage is longavo, so called because it is longer than the other two,” the author mentioned.

In his work, Varro also talked about other recipes used by the Romans to prepare meat and about the names of the dishes. Steaks, stews, minced meat, ham preparation, slicing and spice mixes were described by the author.

“Succidia (“pork's leg”) is so called from sues caedendae (“cutting pigs”), because the pig was the first domestic animal that the owners began to slaughter and salt to preserve the unadulterated meat,” adds the scholar.

Pork, fish, salads and spices were part of the main meal of the day, while cakes, milk, cheese, honey and fruit were the ingredients of the morning meal.

“The suckling pig was considered a real delicacy, the meat being served in the form of a stew or meatballs, cooked over a slow fire. Caltabosi or smoked sausages were highly appreciated”. informs Alberto Angela, in the volume A day in ancient Rome. Secrets and curiosities (Editura Corint, 2016).

Along with pork, there was no lack of wine on Roman tables, which existed in a wide variety. Toothpicks and “toothpaste” made from a sodium bicarbonate solution were often used, and bad breath was removed with flavoring pills.

What the Dacians' pigs looked like

On the current territory of Romania, the pig has a long history. It was one of the first wild animals domesticated by the tribes that lived, thousands of years ago, at the foot of the Carpathians. The Neolithic settlements in the southeast of Romania, related to the Boian culture, from the 5th millennium BC, preserved evidence of the consumption of pork, along with that of other animals.

“In the Neolithic era, as evidenced by the osteological and faunal materials discovered in Cernavodă, the pig was domesticated, which also lived in a wild state, being at the same time the object of hunting, then the goat, the sheep and the ox. Among the animals hunted in Cernavodă, bones of wild boar, deer, beaver, wild donkey and bur were identified. The food of the Neolithic man was then supplemented with fish caught in waters or lakes near settlements”informs Ion Horațiu Crișan, in the volume Medicine in Dacia (Ed. Dacica).

Animal husbandry was one of the basic occupations of the Dacians, historians showed, and among the animals that ended up on their tables were carp, chicken, pig, boar, deer, cattle, sheep, goats and horses.

Archaeologists such as Sergiu Haimovici showed that the Dacians raised pigs for meat and fat, evidenced by the numerous remains of these animals discovered in the ancient settlements. Domestic pigs had an elongated snout, a medium waist, thin legs, and a mature height at the withers of between 60 and 70 centimeters.

“The Geto-Dacians of the settlements whose fauna was studied had at their disposal a primitive type of pig, of medium to small size (even if there was, in this respect, some slight variation in size from one station to another), with low productivity. An individual could provide an amount of meat of about 60 kilograms, about a quarter of that of a cattle of the same historical period, thereby showing that pigs had (although they were raised exclusively as meat producers) a rather reduced role in covering the animal protein needs of the human population”, stated the archaeologist, in a study from 1987, published in Thraco-Dacica.

In some Dacian settlements, pork was first in the preferences of the inhabitants, the slaughtered pigs being aged between 3 and 6 months. In other places, pigs were slaughtered at maturity, which they reached around the age of two, the archaeologist pointed out. The pig received a mythical significance in the folklore of the Romanian people, and the rituals related to its slaughter also have archaic origins.