Ancient peoples often deliberately allowed meat to ferment — even when it developed a rotten stink as a result — because such fermentation made tough cuts of meat tender, and increased the amount of vitamins in the meat, at a time when vitamins from vegetables were often seasonally unavailable. Grey Goose Chronicles describes this in the article, “Rotten Meat & Fly Larvae: What You Aren’t Told About Traditional Diets: Fermenting seals, botulism, ancestral foods and the use of decaying meat in prehistory.”
As it notes,
Fermenting meat using lactic acid bacteria and other species leads to the pre-digestion of the protein strands, making it easier on the stomach and gut to absorb essential amino acids. Not only that, but many cuts and parts of the animal are extremely tough, and must be broken down either by lengthy simmering or through fermentation. Added to this is the fact that fermented foods are much richer in vitamin B complexes, and can better preserve vital sources of vitamin C, since the meat does not have to be cooked. Although muscle meat is devoid of many vitamins, eating the entire animal – eyeballs to tail – will provide vitamin C, as long as it isn’t destroyed through high temperatures.
Even today, many of the world’s peoples eat stinky fermented foods, but this was much more true in the past:
What one group finds odorously offensive (cheese, pickled eggs, fermented fish) another enjoys with relish. Clearly from the anthropological literature of the past few centuries we can also accept that people have the physical ability to tolerate rotten and putrid meat. We also learn that the most nutritious parts of the animal were the staple foods for hunter-gatherers around the world. Caribou paunch stuffed with half digested moss, blood, fat and entrails, then roasted over a fire. Blubber, pounded until soft, and dipped into fermented seal oil. Fish eggs left to mature until they look like and taste like cheese. Frozen pieces of reindeer meat eaten with marrow and kidney fat. Such recipes were likely the sort of fare our ancestors ate, especially during climatic downturns. Some evidence exists for fermentation methods: Neanderthals submerging meat in water for long periods of time, a Swedish Mesolithic pit filled with putrefying fish…
While fitness gurus and dieters today argue about whether ketogenic or gluten-free represents the ideal prehistoric diet, you’d likely come much closer by eating a can of surströmming with some pickled cabbage.
As Wikipedia explains, Swedes still eat a really rotten-smelling food:
Surströmming … (Swedish for ‘sour herring’) is lightly salted, fermented Baltic Sea herring traditional to Swedish cuisine since at least the 16th century. It is distinct from fried or pickled herring…
During the production of surströmming, just enough salt is used to prevent the raw herring from rotting while allowing it to ferment. A fermentation process of at least six months gives the fish its characteristic strong smell and somewhat acidic taste. A newly opened can of surströmming has one of the most putrid food smells in the world, even stronger than similarly fermented fish dishes such as the Korean hongeo-hoe, the Japanese kusaya or the Icelandic hákarl, making surströmming an acquired taste.
Ancient Europeans consumed lots of sea weed and fermented fish sauce, the way modern East Asian people do. As Vox notes,
ancient Romans had a surprisingly common recipe of their own. They used it more frequently than salt, and they manufactured it across the Roman Empire.
It was called garum — a salty sauce made from fermented fish guts (such as mackerel innards), which they doused every possible meal in….People had many ways of making garum, which makes it tough to know exactly what most Romans ate but easy for you to make a similar fish sauce at home.
It was so popular that poets wrote about it…While garum is similar to modern fish sauces, most taste testers report that its flavor is surprisingly subtle, teasing out the umami in seasoned foods.
Ingredients
- Mackerel (you may substitute anchovies, sardines, or other fatty fish)
- Sea salt
- Herbs (optional, preferably dried)
- A clay container
Instructions
Prepare the mackerel, using the whole fish or, preferably, only the blood and intestines. Mix it with sea salt — the best recipe with a ratio, from a 10th-century compilation called the Geoponica, recommends about one part salt for every eight parts fish. Dried herbs are optional.
Let the mixture ferment in the hot sun for two months. (Time varies by author, but one to six months is common, though as little as 20 days might suffice.) Stir to help dissolve the mixture and then strain the liquid from the top. Ideal coloration is clear, but your garum’s color may vary.
