A confection of liquamen which is called oenogarum
Naturally oily fishes are caught/ taken, such as are salmon and eels and shad and sardines or herrings, and an arrangement of the following kind is made of them along with dried fragrant herbs with salt/ they are put together with fragrant dried herbs and salt in this way: A good, sturdy vessel. Well-pitched, with a capacity of three or four modii, is got ready, and dried herbs with a good fragrance are taken – these can be garden or field herbs – namely dill, coriander, fennel, celery, sicareia, sclareia?, rue, mint, sisymbrium (?wild thyme), lovage, pennyroyal, oregano, bettony, argemonia, and the first layer is spread out at the bottom of the vessel using these. Then the second layer is laid down using fish – whole if they are small, cut in pieces if they are larger – over this is added the third layer of salt two fingers deep, and the vessel is to be filled right to the top in this, with successive triple layers of herbs, fish and salt. It should then be closed up with a lid fitted and put aside as it is for seven days.
When the seven days are over, the mixture should be stirred right to the bottom, using a wooden paddle shaped like an oar, twice or three times every day. When this process is complete, the liquor which flows out of this mixture is collected. And in this way liquamen or oenogarum is made from it. Two sextarii of this liquor are taken and are mixed with half a sextarius of wine, then single bundles of (each of) four herbs – viz. dill, coriander, savoury and sclareia. A (one) little handful of fenugreek seed is also thrown in, and of the aromatics thirty or forty grains of pepper, three pennies of costum by weight, the same of cinnamon, the same of clove, and when pounded up finely these are mixed with the same liquor.
Then this mixture should be cooked in an iron or a bronze pan until it reduced to a sextarius in volume. But before it is cooked half a pound of purified honey ought to be added to it. When it has been cooked it ought to be strained through a bag like a medicine until it is clear – it needs to be boiling when it is poured into the bag. When clarified and cooled it is kept in a well-pitched vessel in order to give flavour to opsonia.