Today: food. To those who don't know me yet although I've been here in the last 15 years, I live in the former Roman Dacia part of Europe: A prick into the surrounding empires but with it's own, distinct personality. Of which, in spite of 2000 years passing by, something has endured. What if I told you I routinely eat some stuff that used to be made into food 2000 years ago? And not any, not one of the neighboring populations quite has it? I know it's hard to keep a receipt secret for 2000 years, but there are precedents. "Posca" was a beloved Roman drink which they didn't bother write down because why would they? Everyone knew it. Well not anymore. Noone fucking knows for sure today what posca was like. And today we're only left with suppositions on what it actually was and the word "poș(ir)ca" in Romanian which denotes a very very bad wine. Like, when autumn came and the grapes were harvested, everyone made the good wine. But the good wine was drank before the winter was even gone so they had to resort to the bad wine. And in the spring, they'd even drink the almost vinegar remains at the bottom of the barrel, calling it "poșirca". That's in my Dacia, not sure about the general Roman territory. So how about tasting some Zacusca?
I routinely pay some 5 EUR (lei 25) on zacusca which doesn't plain suck. That's on par with one kilo of fine pork meat and I must say it's fair. Both taste and caloric value (when spread upon a significant amount of bread) will rival if not exceed the 200-500 grams of pork you eat occasionally. This shit was used by Roman soldiers to spice their bucellatum: https://cibiantiquorum.com/hardtack/ They knew.