Garum Yum

Hannah Badger

Historical Fiction, Ancient Rome, Short Story, Fiction

Word Count: 1,059

Approx. Reading Time: 4 minutes

My father, Gaius Servius, is a man of little emotion, unless he is expressing his rage, disappointment, or pride; my eldest brother is the only one ever on the receiving end of the latter, something my other siblings and I resent him for. I like to imagine that before my mom died while birthing me, that he was more emotive, though I’m not sure that was the case; he seems as if he is cold and distant simply by nature.

I wake long before the sun and prepare for the day, and then as I finish dressing and tidying my cot in our small apartment, I realize that I am the only one awake. So, I promptly wake my brother who is my elder by only a year, Felix, and after he, too, is finished dressing, we talk about the gladiators’ fight we watched a few weeks earlier and played as many games of tic-tac-toe as we could before our father and Cassius woke and we left our small, sparsely furnished apartment to go to work.

As is the custom, our father oversees my two elder brothers and I’s education, which consists of learning to count money, read very basic things and being able to write the same amount, and we are of course taught his trade, he’s a baker. We trudge down the stairs of our apartment building to where my father’s shop faces the street, his shop is rented from the same man who rents him our apartment. He opens it up; Felix and I immediately prepare the ovens while my father and Cassius collect the ingredients. After the ingredients are out and the ovens are heating from the fire beneath, Felix, being the second eldest, is the one who makes the batter. Meanwhile, I go and prepare us all something for our morning meal, which tends to be porridge as it is inexpensive since we already have the ingredients it calls for, plus, it’s easy to cook. After our morning meal, my father and Cassius, the eldest, immediately leave to the market to purchase the herbs, fish parts and olive oil needed to make garum, as garum is part of a meal we sell with bread, and it needs to ferment in the sun so they must leave early enough to come back and have time before it’s the correct heat outside to ferment.

As my father and Cassius leave, Felix begins to bake the bread that has already been kneaded, while I clean the shop. As I begin cleaning the tablespaces, I hear someone coming in, so I pause what I am doing and get to where I was told from the age of four to stand when receiving payments for goods. A woman walks in, with a girl who seems just a few years my elder and a large man who seems to be their servant. The woman and her daughter are wearing fine clothes that lead me to assume they must be of the patrician class and that makes me stand just a little straighter and wish my clothing was of finer materials like theirs. I introduce myself as, “Maius Servius, how may I help you today?”. The woman tells me that they would like some loaves of bread, I tell her the price today and get what she has requested. The girl is all smiles as her mother pays for the loaves and the mother seems to notice that I’m curious as to why her daughter is so happy. She informs that her daughter, Aelia, has recently been engaged to the son of a Senator, and I don’t quite understand why that would be so exciting, as we only celebrated my nineth birthday a few weeks ago and I don’t yet concern myself with that marriage business. However, I do realize that her smile is incredibly bright and warm, no wonder she was given a name meaning ‘sun’. As they leave, the servant carrying their purchases, I realize that I had better return to tidying up before my father returns or he won’t be pleased with me.

The day rolls on and I am glad to be used to the heat of the ovens, otherwise this unusually hot summer day would make me feel as though I’m unable to do any work. Our father allows us time to ourselves to do as we wish in the city, as the unskilled laborer he employs, Cato, should arrive soon. We were, of course, given terms to being able to gallivant around the rest of the day. First, we must stay out of trouble; second, we must return shortly before it is time for our last meal of the day before we go to sleep at a reasonable time. Felix and I’s first stop was to head to the apartment to gather some things and the second was to meet our friends, whom were the sons of farmers and craftsmen, and then we all went to the least congested area we could find to entertain ourselves. A favorite game of ours, was Troy, a war game based upon the previously mentioned war. We used whatever we could find as swords, unless we were lucky enough to have had a wooden sword crafted for us, Felix and I were not, but we had large sticks. The sticks were given to us by an old fellow who had planned to use them as walking sticks, since they never worked for him, they became our trusted weapons. We played for hours before we were forced to retire home or face our parents’ wraths, which none of us wished to do so. Felix and I hurried home to the apartment and quickly began cooking some porridge and pouring the wine for our meal. Just as we were finishing and setting the food on the table, our father and Cassius came in, we all dug into our meals. Afterwards, it was my turn to clean the dishes we’d used, so I did, and then I bid my family goodnight. I changed into my night clothes and climbed into my cot. I heard Felix say, “Sleep well, Maius,” to me just before I fell into a deep sea of comfort and tranquility. Well, until the next morning, in which I would rise early like the bread I was learning to make.

Published: 19:00 ET, Saturday, 10th September, 2022