Martin-Kilcher (2011, 420-21) refers to the description by Pliny (NH 31, 44, 95; 36, 95) of the drinking of garum (‘The same, too, with garum, which is now prepared in imitation of the colour of old honied wine, and so pleasantly flavoured as to admit of being taken as a drink’). And then to ‘drinks and remedies’ based on oenogarum (mixed with wine) and hydrogarum (diluted with water) (with reference to Curtis 1991, Index, mixed sauces, pp. 221-222).

Martin-Kilcher then goes on to discuss the presence of tituli picti on Baetican amphorae (Dr 7 and 9, 10?) referring to Lymp(hatum), or Lump ( ) as garum mixed with wine or water. A Dr 7/Panella Pompeii VII found in Pisa bears the dipinto vin(atum /ata) Lump( ), which Martin-Kilcher interpreted as possible evidence for the shipment in this amphora of such a drink. In two separate cases, Baetican amphorae (Dr 7 and Dr 9) with the dipinto Lump( ) were found with grape remains stuck to the pitch lining. The placement of fish amphorae (rather than the usual wine amphorae) in aristocratic tombs in Gaul and Britain was also interpreted as possible evidence for garum mixed with wine.

Reading Apicius, oenogarum  (οινογαρον), heliogarum-ελαιογαρον and hydrogarum-υδρογαρον were prepared by the cook by mixing garum with wine, oil, or water, respectively, together with spices, ground together in mortaria, as Apicius states in some recipes (e.g. I.XVII.1-2), to be poured over or to accompany already cooked dishes. Galen also describes the mixing of oil or vinegar and garos into a type of dressing (Grainger 2014: see also Cramp 2008, for residue analyses of mortaria in Britain; Curtis 1991, 8, note 12; 35, 138, note 131; 146; 189, note 20). St. Pachomius when ill was given vinum et liquamen in his Egyptian monastery in the 4th century (Ibid. 8, note 12). For the late Roman period, Ausonius of Bordeaux, writing after his retirement to his rural estate on the Garonne (c. 383-395) uses his expensive garum to pour over already cooked foods, such an egg-based patina or dish of mullets, in this case with the garum sociorum of Carthago Nova, made from mullet viscera (Grainger 2014, 5). Here we may notethe archaeologically attested 4th century and later production of salsamenta and associated thin, narrow spatheia at Aguilas (Ramallo 1984) and the recently studied amphora production, including imitations of the Tunisian type Keay 25/Bonifay Africana III, at El Mojón (Cartagena) (Quevedo Sánchez and Berrocal Caporrós 2022).

For Grainger, there were always two classes of fish sauce. Garum, including oenogarum, was the more expensive black-coloured liquid made from fish viscera and blood, not the cheaper liquamen made from whole fish. It is the latter which appears in the majority of Apicius’s recipes and was meant to be used as a cooking ingredient. Garum, with two exceptions, only appears in Apicius as part of the compound word oenogarum: once for a recipe (7.13.1: mushrooms with garum and pepper) and once, as a medicine (I.32) (Grainger 2014, 4, 6).

Whereas garum was traded in various sizes of small one-handled jugs for the use at the table (e.g. the Pompeian urcei of Aulus Umbricius Scaurus), liquamen and its derivatives (flos, allec) were exported in much larger quantities, in amphorae, with dipintos also carefully describing the contents, including ageing (which improved the quality).  And there were many grades of both types, as distinguished in Diocletian’s Price Edict. She also argues here that the text of Apicius, in ‘vulgar’ Latin, need not have been a late Roman text, as this was the norm for lower status writers, such as the cook assistant who she believes compiled these recipes (i.e. they were not written down by Apicius himself and date to the 1st century).

So, it is not clear if these mixed products could be bought ready-made (imported in amphorae; or urcei: Piquès et al 2021), despite the reference by Martin-Kilcher already noted with respect to lymphatum. For Curtis (1991, 164-165, note 25), ‘No extant titulus pictus refers to a mixed garum, not even oenogarum.’

Finally, the adding of oregano to garum is noted in the Geoponica (20.46.3-4) and recent analyses of Spanish amphorae have confirmed that they contained fish, flavoured with a wide range of such condiments (Proyecto GARUM, directed by Darío Bernal-Casasola; see also Bernal-Casasola, D. et al. 2021; Rodríguez-Alcántara et al 2021).