Parallel fermentations.
From the sea to the woods, without losing the method
The first two chapters looked at garum as Rome knew it: fish, salt and sun. This third instalment starts from the same principle, but changes the raw material completely. There is no fish here — only mushrooms, roots and seasonal vegetables, each chosen for what it will give up after weeks of slow fermentation.
If time and salt can draw every last note of flavour out of fish viscera, why not out of a mushroom, a beetroot or a stick of celeriac? The Mediterranean is still the point of departure, only now it is not just the sea — it is the woods, the rain-fed fields and the soil around Madrid too. Each source gives the finished liquid its own character.
Botanical umami
The result is a dark, dense liquid concentrate, with deep, earthy notes that need make no apology beside a fish garum. I call it botanical umami: the same fifth taste Rome was chasing, only drawn here from the plant kingdom rather than the animal one.
The principle is the same as behind my fish garums: slow fermentation and a long wait. What changes is the starting point — and with it, the character of the finished liquid. Earthier, greener, with notes a fish garum never quite reaches. Every mushroom, every root, leaves its own signature.
The full range: from the lightest ferments to the deepest, darkest umami.
Patience as a technique
If there is one ingredient that never appears on any list but holds the whole thing together, it is time. Turning a root or a mushroom into a complex, refined condiment requires no clever trick — only enough patience, and the discipline not to rush it.
Simple things become complex once you leave them alone long enough.
It is the same patience I applied to Roman garum, now carried over to a completely different material. The technique does not change — only the ingredient, and with it, what that ingredient is capable of becoming.
A thread that runs through the table
On the table, these drops of vegetal essence rarely announce themselves. They work as a quiet thread through the menu, a note that appears and disappears without the guest quite being able to place it. It gives the dish a depth that connects garum's history to a contemporary cooking rooted as much in land as in sea.
For me, this third chapter closes the circle: from the Roman original, through the method, and on to a technique of my own that follows the same principle with a different material altogether. In the end, garum was never really about fish — it was always about time.
