 The average person today has a fridge full of condiments beyond the wildest dreams of even the richest king in the past. This full arsenal of options to add extra flavor and zip to our foods is severely limited if you were to rewind yourself back a few thousand years ago before globalization and industrialization made all these worldwide options available to anyone. Putting ourselves back in the ancient world of the Greek and Romans, we find ourselves short on many modern condiments, but in its place is a different type that was used as widespread as ketchup might be today. Made from fermented fish, garum is pretty similar to many modern fish sauces, common in east and southeast Asia. Massively popular in ancient times, it eventually fell out of flavor with the collapse of the Roman Empire. Over later in the 18th century, a Chinese fish sauce was brought back by sailors to Europe and became the origin of what eventually evolved into modern day ketchup. A few videos ago, we made a fishing pole complete with a silk fishing line and reel, as well as a fishing net to try and catch some fish. For this condiment, we're going to put them to the test and try and catch our own fish as the key ingredient to a garum. The other key ingredient to help it ferment is salt, which I've collected straight out of the earth in a salt mine in Utah. To get more information on the sauce, Lauren reached out to Max, from Tasting History, who recently also recreated his own garum sauce as well. Especially after watching your video and learning how much it's going to smell. From your video, I got that we just need fish and salt and maybe some herbs or something. You can't really do it wrong as long as you have fish and salt. Those are the only two necessary ingredients. A lot of the recipes say to add certain things, different herbs, so you could add things that were around at the time like rosemary or marjoram or oregano or really whatever you want that's going to kind of impart a little special flavor to it and layer it together for a while. Some of them say no more than eight weeks, some of them say four months. It probably depends on what the conditions are and everything, but then at the end, you should have garum. How do I know that it's not going to poison me? The thing that should stop you from poisoning yourself is the salt and that's what you want a lot of salt. That's going to stop it from putrefying. There's a slight difference between putrefaction and fermentation. You want the latter and you should be able to smell the difference. Neither of them are going to smell good. The one that you don't want is the smell truly like a dead rotting corpse. Something has gone terribly wrong. Yeah, and really you'll know that it's done too when most of it, if not all of it is liquid because it simply says to leave it in the earthenware jug for up to eight weeks and then stick a tap in the bottom or stick it in the bottom and let the juice flow. Okay. If there are any chunks in there, strain them out. You don't want those. And it goes on everything and you can even put it on like a salad so it's not even cooked. The flavor ends up being so different from what it smells like going in. Just give it a taste. It's not going to hurt. To see Max's suggestions, Lauren got one last thing to throw in for some extra flavor. Oregano. All right. Yeah. We're going to make it in this bowl so you can see the layers as I stack it. Now we're going to take 20% of this guy's weight and salt. So I'm going to layer it all, putting it in there, adding salt, adding oregano, more fish, salt oregano, and hopefully it'll ferment the fish, kind of disintegrate them until there's nothing but bones left. Let's go. Cover it with some oregano. Now the other layer of fish. So lovely. The next step is to let it sit in the Mediterranean sun for 15 days and let it ferment. You know what time it is. It's time to break into the tank. The Mediterranean sun's been cooking on this bad boy for a whole day. We're going to give her a stir. A little behind-the-scenes action. Honestly, not. Okay, there it is. This is really something. Okay, the bottom layer of the fish is definitely getting goopier. Okay, there's his head. This does not smell great. I told you that much. Andy, Andy's like on a beach somewhere having fun. Okay, this is horrible. That's enough. Okay, I'm just going to add more salt because it can't possibly get any worse. All right, back in jail. I absolutely hate this. I'm going to stir. I'm going to do some stirring. Oh God, I'm scared. Okay, you know what? I don't love this. Wow, this is absolutely disgusting. I need to make a spoon. One nice thing about garum is that it can be used to make a salad dressing using two of the ingredients we've also sourced. Olive oil. And apple cider vinegar. With our ongoing salad project, being able to also make our own salad dressing from scratch is a nice bonus. Make a simple salad dressing. Love this. Okay, well, the day has come. Straining the garum. Here it is. Okay, so there is definitely some liquid in here, which is good. That's what we want. That's the part that we will use. So the salt did keep it from putrefying, which is good. That's what we wanted, but we'll see if we have any liquid in here to enjoy. Glad I have long arms. I almost said it doesn't smell best, I thought. But then I actually smelled it. Success. Oh, this is awful. Getting poked with fish bones. Ouch. It's sharp. I'm going to get some sort of rare disease. Yuck. All right, so I made a nice lunch, and only way to make it better is add the garum. They use garum for a lot of different things. Here I have some bread, noodles, fries, my favorite, corn dogs, and a salad that I'm going to mix the garum in with the oil and vinegar to make a dressing. Yum. And they, just in time for lunch. Which we try first. What's the bread? In the top. Smells like fish. Tastes like fish. It added something. I will say that. Yeah, it tastes like a dirty fridge. It's very fishy. It definitely tastes like garbage can juice. So I would say it does taste like a fish sauce. What a coincidence. Yeah, I don't really put that on bread, but you do often put it into different noodle dishes. So we got some noodles. Okay, well maybe that was just too much, so we can try diluting it. Shall I do the honor? Yeah. Too much. Here you go. All right, so there's no seasoning in it except for our fish sauce. Stop making fun of my fork. It's fishy, but it is a flavor. It's definitely an improvement, I would say. I would, but I'm eating quite a lot right now. So we got the salad dressing. See if it has a little something else to it. Maybe it'll be a little better. That's pretty good. Really? Yeah. I think combined with other flavors, it's a lot better. By itself, not so much. And then we have some modern things you normally put a condiment like ketchup on. Yum, it tastes, uh-uh. The trick is to get just a little bit. It's actually kind of good. Just a hint of it is a trick, I think. It kind of takes a second to really sneak up. It really stays with you. Yeah, that part I'm not so fond of. That's a lot. Do you love it? I don't hate it, but I also don't like it. Well, should we get a real expert over here? But do you want some? Well, you heard of here first. It's great. It's great. Pretty good spread, made even better, with gum. So I can see where this is really revolutionary for the time. It has a lot of flavor to otherwise pretty bland food. But for me, it's a no. Yeah, in the salad dressing, it was way better. When it's mixed with other flavors, it kind of dilutes the fishiness and brings out more of the just saltiness. I think it's probably more of an acquired taste. Condiments have really come a long way. I would not eat this again. I would not buy it. Don't make this. Follow us on Instagram from our behind the scenes of how we made this. Support us on Patreon so we can afford more ketchup. Thanks. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to subscribe and check out other content we have covering a wide variety of topics. Also, if you've enjoyed these series, consider supporting us on Patreon. We are largely a fan-funded channel, and depend on the support of our viewers in order to keep our series going. Thanks for watching.