Cooking with Cato

When looking for Roman recipes to try and cook, I came across Cato the Elder’s de Agri Cultura, which happened to have a lot of recipes. I decided to look through this because I didn’t expect something like this from Cato. While looking through this, I came across the recipe for Libum. Upon reading it, I found it interesting and decided that I wanted to try and make it. Rather than using Cato’s instructions, mainly because it wasn’t very specific, I decided to look up a more precise recipe. I decided on one by PBS. The ingredients are 1 cup of all purpose flour, 1 egg beaten, 8 ounces of ricotta cheese, half a cup of clear honey, bay leaves, and a casserole dish to cover the libum in the oven. Then the process is as follows. Sift the flour into a bowl. Beat the cheese and stir it into the flour with the egg. Form a soft dough and divide it into 4 pieces. Mold each one into a bun and place them on a greased baking tray with a bay leaf underneath. Heat the oven to 425° F. Cover the cakes with your casserole dish  and bake for 35-40 minutes, until it is golden-brown. Warm the honey and place the warm cakes in it so that they absorb it. Allow to stand 30 minutes before serving. 

I enjoyed making this dish as it was relatively simple and easy to follow. The one thing is that sifting the flower took a while because I did not know how to sift with a strainer. Other than that, I would not say that I had trouble with the recipe. I think it would be a good way to start learning how to cook. In terms of how it tastes, I found it to be really good. It certainly was not what I was expecting, but I actually enjoyed it. First, the texture tasted more like a biscuit, which I enjoyed. Second was the sweetness of the cake. I like the way the honey was able to complement the cake without oversweetening it. Upon reflection of the recipe, I found that the ratio of flour to cheese that I used happened to be 1:1. However, when rereading the recipe that Cato put down, I realized that the ratio can either be 2:1 or even 4:1. In the future, I think I might wanna try the ratio that Cato put down rather than the ratio that PBS used. 

Before and after the baking process