Boiled Eggs

The pine-nut sauce keeps this gustum interesting. I send out eggs when I know that my main dish will take a while to cook, as they help to stave off the guests' hunger for just long enough.

Sauce: Pepper and soaked pine nuts. Add honey and vinegar and mix with garum.

Eggs are a favorite gustum in the house, and only second to dormice. They are such a central food. Horace's quite brilliant phrase, "From the egg to the apples," sums up the perfect typical Roman meal. I laughed quite a bit when I first heard the phrase from snatches of dinner conversation.