However, _garum_ has been vindicated, confirmed, endorsed, reiterated, rediscovered, if you please, by modern science! What, pray, is the difference in principle between _garum_ (the exact nature of which is unknown) and the oil of the liver of cod (or less expensive fish) exposed to the beneficial rays of ultraviolet light--artificial sunlight--to imbue the oil with an extra large and uniform dose of vitamin D? The ancients, it appears, knew "vitamin D" to exist. Maybe they had a different name for "vitamins," maybe none at all. The name does not matter. The thing which they knew, does. They knew the nutritive value of liver, proven by many formulæ. Pollio, one of the vicious characters of antiquity, fed murenas (sea-eel) with slaves he threw into the _piscina_, the fish pond, and later enjoyed the liver of the fish.
Some "modern" preparations are astonishingly ancient, and _vice versa_. Our anchovy sauce is used freely to season fish, to mix with butter, to be made into solid anchovy or fish paste. There are sardine pastes, lobster pastes, fish forcemeats found in the larder of every good kitchen--preparations of Apician character. A real platter of _hors d'oeuvres_, an _antipasto_ is not complete unless made according to certain Apician precepts.
_Muria_ is salt water, brine, yet it may stand for a fluid in which fish or meat, fruits or vegetables have been pickled.
The difficulties of the translator of Apicius who takes him literally, are unconsciously but neatly demonstrated by the work of Danneil. Even he, seasoned practitioner, condemns _garum_, _muria_, _asa f{ oe}tida_, because professors before him have done so, because he forgets that these very materials still form a vital part of some of his own sauces only in a different shape, form or under a different name. Danneil calls some Apician recipes "incredibly absurd," "fabulous," "exaggerated," but he thinks nothing of the serving of similar combinations in his own establishment every day in the year.
Danneil would take pride in serving a Veal Cutlet à la Holstein. (What have we learned of Apicius in the Northern countries?). The ancient Holsteiner was not satisfied unless his piece of veal was covered with a nice fat herring. That "barbarity" had to be modified by us moderns into a veal cutlet, turned in milk and flour, eggs and bread crumbs, fried, covered with fried eggs, garnished with anchovies or bits of herring, red beets, capers, and lemon in order to qualify for a restaurant favorite and "best seller." Apicius hardly has a dish more characteristic and more bewildering.