Conditum, piperatum, or konditon (κόνδιτον) is a family of

spice In the culinary arts, a spice is any seed, fruit, root, Bark (botany), bark, or other plant substance in a form primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of pl ...

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

s in

ancient Roman In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

and

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

cuisine. The

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

name translates roughly as "spiced". Recipes for ''conditum viatorium'' (traveler's spiced wine) and ''conditum paradoxum'' (surprise spiced wine) are found in '' De re coquinaria''. This ''conditum paradoxum'' includes wine,

honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of pl ...

, pepper, mastic, laurel,

saffron Saffron () is a spice derived from the flower of '' Crocus sativus'', commonly known as the "saffron crocus". The vivid crimson stigma and styles, called threads, are collected and dried for use mainly as a seasoning and colouring agent ...

, date seeds and dates soaked in wine. In the

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

of the 4th-century CE, the main ingredients of ''conditum'' were wine, honey and pepper corns. Conditum was considered to be a piquant wine. A 10th-century redaction of an earlier Greek Byzantine agricultural work brings down the relative portions of each ingredient:

Let eight scruples of pepper ornswashed and dried and carefully pounded; one '' sextarius'' of Attic honey, and four or five ''sextarii'' of old white wine, be mixed., p
260
/ref>

References

Bibliography

* Andrew Dalby, ''Food in the Ancient World from A to Z'', 2003 {{Portal bar, Wine Ancient wine Historical drinks Food in ancient Rome Byzantine cuisine

See also

References

Bibliography