Recipe for Myma
(Baked Plaice)

by Athenaeus, The Partying Professors

Yeah, go ahead and click here to buy this book!
Roman Cookery: Ancient Recipes for Modern Kitchens.

Yes, this book has a new cover, but I like this one better. Blah, I am so horrible.

Plaice works wonderfully with the rich flavour sof that make up this dish, although in the process it loses its own identity, a typical feature of Roman cooking in which the disguising of a main ingriedient was held to be a consummmate art. A less delicate fish such as cod or haddock could be substituted, although plaice provides the dish with great succulence. Using fish avoids the inclusion of mashed offal, intestines and blood which the meat and poultry versions demand. Barley or lentils set this dish off nicely.

Original recipe:'Epaenuetus says as follows in his "Art of Cookery": a myma of every kind of meat, and also bird, shopuld be made by fiely chopping the soft bits of flesh, adding mashed offal and intestines and blood and seasoning with vinegar, baked cheese, asafoetida, cumin, fresh or dried thyme, savory, fresh or dried coriander, horn onion, toasted onion that has been been peeled or poppy seeds and raisins or honey and the seeds of bitter pomegranante. One can have the same myma with fish.'