I have always dismissed recipes which involved frying,
mostly as I don’t have the equipment or expertise. Also because I fear that
sickly fried smell that sticking to my clothes. Ok, I’m sure we can avoid that if
we are just doing small batches.
After discovering
that fellow Classicist and food enthusiast Tom O is confident and experienced
in the art of deep-frying I decided that I must be missing out on something.
Our first endeavour was Cheese and Sesame
Sweetmeats or Globi.. They are mentioned
in the Banquet of Philoxenus as ‘cheese-and-sesame
sweetmeats fried in hottest oil and sesame seeds…’ but sometimes are also known as
Roman Doughnuts.
In Andrew Dalby and Sally Grainger’s book The Classical Cookbook Chapter 2 is
based on this Banquet and gives us
recipes for some foods mentioned in the quotations which are found in
Athenaeus. Sally Grainger takes the basis of her recipe from a passage in
Cato’s On Agriculture 79.
‘Globi to be made
thus: mix cheese and semolina…Put fat in a hot copper pan: fry one or two at a
time, turning them with a pair of spatulas. When cooked, remove them, coat in
honey, sprinkle with poppy-seeds, serve.’
Grainger brings together the description from the Banquet and the main elements of Cato’s
recipe, although she does admit that some ‘enlightened guesswork’ was needed.
Her aim was to ‘work out a recipe which would reflect something of the ancient
flavour’ (p.54-5). We duly followed her suggestions for recreating these sweetmeats.
Her instructions advised us to cook the milk and semolina like a choux pasty
however I think we did not let the mixture thicken enough. Nevertheless instead
of forming quenelles with a pair of spoons we used a scoop to make round balls
of batter which were just about thick enough to hold their shape. I used the
finest semolina which has a consistency of flour although I will also be trying
the recipe with coarser semolina at some point.
Here is Sally Grainger’s recipe from The Classical Cookbook (pp.54-5) with a few alterations on our
part:
280ml milk
60g fine semolina
90g honey
120g ricotta cheese
85g sesame seeds, lightly toasted
vegetable oil for deep frying
Bring the milk to the boil and stir in the semolina.
Keep stirring until the mixture starts to thicken and watch
it carefully that it does not burn.
When the mixture has reached the consistency of a wet dough,
pour it into a dish and let it cook, stirring occasionally.
While it is cooling, toast the sesame seeds in a dry frying
pan on a medium heat until they turn a golden brown. Put them in a dish to cool
down.
When the milk mixture has cooled and firmed up add 1 tbsp
honey and the ricotta.
Mix it well and then add 60g of the cooled roasted sesame
seeds.
Prepare the vegetable oil in a deep-fryer. Test the oil with
a little mixture or a small square of bread. If it bubbles, rises and begins to
colour the oil is ready.
Scoop the mixture or form quenelles with two spoons and drop
a few balls of mix into the oil at a time.
Watch them carefully and turn if necessary. Remove when they
are turning golden brown, draining on paper towels.
Warm up the rest of the honey and toss the fried balls
in it, sprinkling in the rest of the toasted sesame seeds.
I will definitely be giving these another go! They are delightful either hot or cold. We enjoyed ours warm
with a cup of strong Arabic cardamom coffee. Another combination of interesting
flavours and textures: a deeply aromatic strong drink complimented by a syrupy sweet
treat.
