The evolution of world cuisines

 The Roman Empire had a fully developed imperial cuisine that drew on foods from all over the known world. Scores of Roman food preparations were passed down in the ancient cookbook colloquially known as Apicius, one of the earliest cookbooks in recorded history. The book was named after the famous Roman merchant and epicure Marcus Gavius Apicius, who lived during the reign of Tiberius (14–37 BCE). Not only did Apicius go to great lengths to find good ingredients—for instance, he reportedly once sailed all the way to Libya to eat some supposedly great prawns, only to return home without finding any to his satisfaction—his colossal banquets eventually drove him to bankruptcy and then suicide. Apicius (officially titled De re coquinaria, or The Art of Cooking) was actually not compiled until the 4th or 5th century, and its more than 400 recipes have been held in such high esteem that the book has been preserved in numerous editions ever since.

Most of the recipes in the book—even the sweet dishes that today would be considered desserts—included garum, a fermented fish sauce similar to Asian fish sauce and thought to be an early predecessor of Worcestershire sauce. The Romans added that fish sauce to nearly everything, but it does not appear in Italian recipes today. Romans also used lovage (an herb) extensively, along with cumin and coriander. Like garum, those flavours are rarely encountered in contemporary Italian cuisine. Meanwhile, basil, which is a staple seasoning in contemporary Italian cooking, is mentioned only once in Apicius.

Among the most-sought-after Roman seasonings was laserpitium, or laser, the extract of a wild giant fennel (silphium), which the Romans loved so much that they ate the plant to extinction. Laser not only was a versatile culinary ingredient but was used for medicinal purposes as well (primarily as a digestive aid); it may have also been perceived as a contraceptive. As a result, it was a key commodity traded in the Greek colony of Cyrene, in what today is Libya, and the plant even appears on Cyrenian coins of that period. Losing laser was a blow to Roman cuisine, equivalent to French cooking losing black truffles.

While references to laser are peppered throughout the Apicius, garlic is only rarely mentioned, and, when it is, the quantity is minuscule—often not enough to taste. With the absence of garlic and basil but an abundance of lovage, cumin, coriander, and fish sauce, the flavour profile of ancient Roman cuisine is clearly quite different from what is considered traditional Italian cooking today.