Thread by @onionweigher

Time to address the elephant in the room: ancient Roman recipes often include mentions of leeks, but they weren't really leeks, you can't just go out and buy leeks and use them when making ancient Roman recipes

These recipes from Apicius mention leeks and fresh dill and piglet, indicating a springtime basis for the recipe

Leeks as we know them today are ten times larger than anything the Romans had, and probably didn't even exist until the middle ages

Back then leeks meant a young cylindrical allium, like a young onion of early spring.

Leeks were a symbol of Wales since at least Roman times and even earlier because they were one of the few foods that grew in Wales back then. But they didn't look like modern supermarket leeks

In fact, there is an ancient custom of Welsh rulers to wear a leek in their hat, which was passed on to The Prince of Wales. They couldn't do that with a girthy modern leek, and in fact the one in the hat is quite small

If we zoom and enhance we see that the modern prince used a symbolic one made of fabric. Presumably to avoid His Royal Nose having to endure the scent of a fresh vegetable

However, this ancient custom represents the size of an ancient leek. An ancient leek is a premature onion. If you are going to cook an ancient Roman recipe and it calls for a leek, please, I beg you, use a scallion or green onion. It will taste awful if you use raw modern leek

Believe me! I've tried!

If you want to try cooking ancient Roman food here is one of the best preserved ancient Roman cookbooks. Retvrn but don't be a dick about it:
penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman…

Also, pro tip: the Romans often used lovage seed as a spice, which has fallen out of fashion in Europe but can still be bought in Indian stores, known as Ajwain. Asafoeitida is also a Roman ingredient to be found there but be careful with that one

Oh and if you need to use garum, Thai fish sauce is pretty much the same thing