Before I tell you all about this beautiful bread… check out the all-new look that A Spoonful of Sugar has!  After almost five years of blogging I felt it was about time I splashed out on a professional designer.  So, huge thanks to Teresa from Delicious Design Studio for my gorgeous new look.  What do you guys think?

Also, if you happened to be in Scotland this morning, and if you also happened to be listening to BBC Radio Scotland, then you probably heard me talking to Fred MacAulay & Co about cookbooks.  A big ‘Hello!’ to any listeners who’ve dropped in for a visit.

And so to the bread…

My Italianophile tendencies don’t just encompass present-day Italy. Oh, no… I’ve been entranced by Italy ever since we learned about the Roman Empire at school. For years I used to love trotting out Roman trivia–did you know that the Romans developed and named the concept of camber on roads?

Recently Dave treated me to a copy of Roman Cooking by Mark Grant. This book, although one of my newest, is also in a sense my oldest. It aims to recreate ancient Roman recipes for the modern cook from the rather vague or fragmented recipes that have survived the ages. It makes for fascinating and mouthwatering reading. We’d always been told at school that ancient Romans had decadent–and drunken–feasts, but the actual details of the food were somewhat glossed over. Twenty years later, this book has done a great job of filling in the gaps for me!

The book’s introduction does a great job of introducing Roman Empire cusine to the reader and of comparing it to the cusines of the rest of the Ancient World at that point in time.  It rather shattered my ideas of constant banquets for everyone, and I suddenly recalled that the class system was very much in evidence at that time.  The recipes in Roman Cookery are everyday, common people recipes and it’s quite reassuring to see how well they ate.

The book is divided into familiar chapters: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner at the Bar and Dinner in the Dining Room which reminded me that the ancient Romans were real people.    Breakfast seemed to be porridge of various types, but there was also a rose honey to sweeten things up which intrigued me.  There is a huge variety of breads on offer in the Lunch chapter and also some unusual fried pasta sheets which are a precursor to the lasagne we know today.  There’s plenty of vegetarian recipes, and indeed this might be a great book for a jaded vegetarian, as meat and fish were highly expensive.  Of the meat recipes included, I’m particularly keen on trying the Pork in a sweet wine and fig sauce which sounds incredibly good.  There’s oodles of historical information in the chapter introductions and recipe headers which held my attention nicely, but your mileage may vary on this.

While flicking through, the recipe for plaited bread (or Streptikos Artos) caught my eye. It’s a very simple recipe, but the use of wholemeal flour–white flour would have been prohibitively expensive for all but the richest at this time–and goat’s milk–the Romans tended to raise goats rather than cows–interested me. I’d never knowingly had goat’s milk until I bought some for this recipe and it’s really nice. It is a bit… goaty, but not oppressively so.

The only change I made to the recipe was to add some salt; bread without salt is a sad and sorry affair. The dough was one of the nicest wholemeal doughs that I’ve ever worked with. There was plenty of liquid which made the dough a bit sticky initially, but after a couple of minutes of kneading I had a soft and supple dough. This was due to the olive oil and also the acidity of the milk and I hoped that the lovely dough would produce a lighter wholemeal loaf than my usual efforts.

And so it did.  I was really impressed with this bread.  Really impressed.  For a start… look at the gorgeous shine that the crust has from the egg white!  It’s certainly the prettiest wholemeal loaf that I’ve ever produced.  The crust was really thin and crisp, shattering in a satisfying sort of way as I ate my first slice.  The crumb was soft and light with a really rich flavour, although I’d have liked a little more salt.  I’m guessing that salt was incredibly expensive back then.

In its niche, I think this is a really successful cookbook.  There are plenty of recipes, neatly placed in their historical context so this could be the perfect present for a cook or a historian or both!  Understandably there are no photographs, but I reckon that in this case it’s part of the fun of discovering ancient recipes.

Streptikos Artos (Plaited Bread)

Source: Roman Cookery by Mark Grant

600g wholemeal flour
150ml warm water
1 1/2 teaspoons dried yeast
1 teaspoons sugar
200ml goat’s milk (ewe’s milk could also be used)
60ml olive oil
1 tsp ground pepper
1 egg-white

In a cup, dissolve the sugar in the warm water (which should be at or just slightly above body temperature). Sprinkle the dried yeast on top of this, cover and leave in a warm dry place for about 15 minutes, until the mix starts frothing.

Meanwhile mix the flour, milk, olive oil and pepper together in a large bowl before adding-in the yeast mixture. Form a dough and then knead for five minutes until the dough is firm to the touch. Cover the dough with a cloth and leave in a warm place for about two hours for the dough to rise.

Once the dough has risen, knock it back (remove much of the air) and tip onto a floured board to knead thoroughly. Cut the dough into three equal sections and roll these out into ’sausage’ shapes of about 30cm in length. Join the ends of the three ’sausages’ and begin forming a plait, alternately overlapping the left hand end and then the right hand end across the centre. Every now and again gently press down on the middle of the plait to prevent the loaf from breaking up whilst baking.

Gently lift the plaited loaf and place on the centre of a greased baking tray. Cover with a cloth and allow the dough to rise again for about an hour and a half.

Once the loaf has risen gently glaze by brushing with the beaten egg-white and place in an oven pre-heated to 200°C for about 40 minutes. Cool before slicing the bread.