How I uncovered a potential ancient Rome wine scam (phys.org)
from ooli3@sopuli.xyz to archaeology@mander.xyz on 14 Jun 10:01
https://sopuli.xyz/post/28760516

#archaeology

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cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 14 Jun 10:08 next collapse

Ea-nāṣir the Roman version

verity_kindle@sh.itjust.works on 14 Jun 17:34 collapse

Indeed,lest we forget

lvxferre@mander.xyz on 14 Jun 16:12 collapse

I don’t think they replaced the sun-dried raisins with honey, otherwise the honey taste would be a bit too strong, too obvious. Instead my guess is that they used it as an additive in the final product, if the resulting passum was too dry. Because:

  1. As the text mentions, there’s a shortcut for making passum - to boil the must instead*. If the issue was space, time, or labour they’d likely do it instead of relying on yet another parallel culture.
  2. Grape sugar content might vary quite a bit from one harvest to another. And yet it you’re doing large scale production you want some consistency.

*you can do this at home with some grape juice. Even the unfermented version is delicious, it becomes syrupy (andgreat on vanilla ice cream).