COOKED BEANS FROM BAIÆ ARE CUT FINE [and finished with] RUE, GREEN CELERY, LEEKS, VINEGAR [2] A LITTLE MUST OR RAISIN WINE AND SERVED [3].
[1] Named for Baiæ, a town of Campania, noted for its warm baths; a favorite resort of the Romans.
[2] Wanting in Tor.
[3] These apparently outlandish ways of cooking beans compel us to draw a modern parallel in a cookery book, specializing in Jewish dishes. To prove that Apicius is not dead “by a long shot,” we shall quote from Wolf, Rebekka: Kochbuch für Israelitische Frauen, Frankfurt, 1896, 11th edition. As a matter of fact, Rebekka Wolf is outdoing Apicius in strangeness—a case of Apicium in ipso Apicio, as Lister sarcastically remarks of Torinus.
Rebekka Wolf: ℞ No. 211—wash and boil the young beans in fat bouillon (Apicius: oleum et liquamen) adding a handful of chopped pepperwort (A.: piper, ligusticum) and later chopped parsley (A.: petroselinum) some sugar (A.: mel pavo—little honey) and pepper. Beans later in the season are cooked with potatoes. The young beans are tied with flour dissolved in water, or with roux.
Id. ibid., ℞ No. 212, Beans Sweet-Sour. Boil in water, fat, salt, add vinegar, sugar or syrup, “English aromatics” and spices, lemon peel, and a little pepper; bind with roux.
Id. ibid., ℞ No. 213, Cut Pickled Beans (Schneidebohnen) prepare as ℞ No. 212, but if you would have them more delicious, take instead of the roux grated chocolate, sugar, cinnamon, lemon peel and lemon juice, and some claret. If not sour enough, add vinegar, but right here you must add more fat; you may lay on top of this dish a bouquet of sliced apples.
Id. ibid., ℞ No. 214, Beans and Pears. Take cut and pickled beans and prepare as above. To this add peeled fresh pears, cut into quarters; then sugar, lemon peel cut thin, cinnamon, “English” mixed spices, and at last the roux, thinned with broth. This dish must be sweet and very fat.
As for exotic combinations, Apicius surely survives here, is even surpassed by this Jewish cookery book where, no doubt, very ancient traditions have been stored away.