A friend asked me this the other day, and I was delighted. I’ve been ambushed recently by that pesky nuisance, Real Life, which has kept me away from my blog and my books. Now at last, hooray, an excuse for some research.

I didn’t know off the top of my head whether the Romans made jam. But I’m a historian by training, so I gave the stock historian’s answer. “I don’t know…but I know where to look it up.”

There are some excellent modern books on Roman cuisine, but the only surviving text from Ancient Roman times that deserves the name cookbook is On Cookery by Apicius. It’s fascinating, a mixed collection of recipes and notes. It’s meant rather as an aide-memoir for cooks than as a blow-by-blow “How to make…” instruction manual, because it lists ingredients and methods but very few quantities. Foods it covers range from familiar to exotic: from pork to parrot, from duck to dormouse.

But there’s no jam. At least not jam as we know it.

Of course they wanted to preserve all kinds of fruit, and Apicius lists various liquids for steeping or pickling them in. Wine, vinegar, honey, brine and even boiled rainwater are all there in his pages. But the aim was to keep the fruit fresh as fruit, so it could be enjoyed out of season. Jam-making started like that I suppose, but soon people valued the resulting sweet concoction as a delicacy in its own right. True, some of the Romans’ preserved fruits may well have turned out soft, sweet and squidgy, and could even have been used as spreads or decoration on puddings. That’s why some jam-makers claim the roots of their craft in Roman days. But they are pretty tenuous roots.

Having delved this far, of course I want to know when real jam was first made, and where. That’s what I love about research – one interesting trail leads on to another. The answer here surprised me. It hinges on when sugar became widely available and not too expensive. But when that was…I’ll do some more delving and post what I find soon, always providing that pestilential Real Life doesn’t interfere again.

Meanwhile back to the Romans. I can’t resist reflecting that everyone who’s ever endured Latin lessons probably remembers this famous – or infamous – piece of ??Latin verse on the theme of jam. And if you’ve managed to escape Latin lessons, don’t panic. Read it aloud to take in its full…er…well just read it aloud.

Caesar ad sum iam forti,
Pompey aderat.
Caesar sic in omnibus,
Pompey sic in at.

I wonder if there are any more verses?