Chef Tries to Recreate the World's Oldest Recipe | Sorted Food 

Archaeologist here! We can figure out the diets of people in the past by analysing the isotopes in their teeth and bones (we'd usually look for strontium, carbon etc.), this along with carbon dating and pollen analysis of ancient woods and preserved plant matter can show us how farming or settlement patterns changed the environment! A lot of it does come down to assumption and guesswork on our part but humans leave a trace of themselves in every part of nature :)

5:10 Pro tip: Before you chop stinging nettles, wash them quickly in hot water or heat them over a fire. The stinging cells are live ones and it only takes a few seconds of heat to kill and neutralise them. You can freeze the nettles too of course but that takes a bit longer and wasn't really an option 8000 years ago anyway. 8:23 No, there were no sunflower seeds in Britian back then, it's an American plant. They may have had rapeseed oil but it's doubtful. Siberian kale (the plant rapeseed and rutabaga are cultivars of) has been farmed for ten thousand years but probably more as a root vegetable than for its seeds and I'm not sure if it had reached as far as the British isles that early.

This brings me back to a 2016 archeological discovery. Approximately 3000 years ago in Denmark, some one screwed up making cheese so bad that they didn't even try cleaning out the clay pot and threw away the entire thing. This is the Bronze age where you'd have to make a replacement pot by hand. Should we set the Normals to cheese making?

As a history nerd, I loved watching this challenge! in case you were wondering, on the British Museum blog, there are several recipes from Ancient Greece that would be awesome to see Sorted try!

I'd really like to see a history mystery box challenge. Where the chefs get a mystery box filled with old timey ingredients and come up with a modern interpretation. Ancient ingredients, modern techniques

I'd love to see them try something from The Forme of Cury, the oldest english language cookbook. Especially if you get one that's still in middle english.

Found your channel while pregnant with my first baby, still watching two years later. currently feeding my second baby to sleep! Love this channel, it's gotten me through so much. Appreciate you ❤❤

I'd be really interested to see a few episodes on foraged/wild food. Nettle Pesto (Pesto d'urtica) is great, and one of the greenest things I've ever eaten. Wild garlic is great, and wild mushroom and sorrel soup is phenomenal.

I like how Ben surmises how ancient Britains might have oil from plants when he had a piece of red meat in his hands. Tallow. The answer is tallow.

I think the pressure is quite high on Barry since he is a sous-chef. I love it !

You could lookup the oldest preserved written recipe. I know there is some full Roman books preserved, including on how to make garum, Roman fish sauce, but it's quite possible something older, like cuneiform on clay has managed to survive the ages. Pretty sure I've heard of beer making guides from the Sumerians, not sure on a food recipe. But even an episode on Roman cooking would surely be fun as hell.

I'd like a recreation of the oldest recipes from around the world. Simply fascinating and well done guys!

Hey! Shout out to the great pudding debate.

Would love to see them try cooking a recipe or recipes from Apicius, A roman cookbook from around the 4th century.

Love this video! I would absolutely LOVE to see a Chef vs Chef with Kush and Ben taking this recipe and modernising it for the 21st century using the same ingredients

Traditional Norwegian dumplings ("raspeballer") are often made with a lot of barley flour added to the potato base. But served with fatty meats, like cured or salted lamb, pork knuckles, and bacon. Never lean venison. Very rustic, and VERY tasty if cooked properly.

I just want to spend a day in the kitchen with Ebbers, he makes these videos a joy to watch. He is always sharing his knowledge and experience.

We make something similar called muthiya (pronounced moo~ti~ya) with different herbs or vegetables, namely mint/dill/cabbage/lauki/carrot. Made by adding flour, besan (gram flour), corn meal, salt, crushed cumin, coriander, chilli powder, turmeric, sugar and oil and just enough water to combine. These are steamed or pan fried.

My mother used to cook nettle soup, that was very tasty. I think I should give it ago in spring.

Ben absolutely made this episode. He provided (nerdy) insight; he announced his ignorance (albeit very little); he defended Barry's thoughtful suggestions (as a leader should) when Jamie only attempted to make fun; and he remained practical. Good on you, Ben. What a good egg you are.

Love the Sorted/History crossover. Food and history are my absolute comfort zones (possibly the reason I liked you meeting with Max Miller so much)

Y’all, thank you for holding my interest for so manyhyears. I feel like you are warm friends that I spend time with every now and 😢then. So helpful to my social anxiety, y’all are awesome e!

Sorell and nettle are two great ingredients. We use sorell a lot in Hungary. Traditionally we prepare it like a thick creamy soup and eat it with soft boiled/sunny side up eggs, or meatballs, but I regularly make pesto from it, too. Also I love Ben's attitude towards the whole process, he was so humble and respectful. And yes, cooked barley after the brewing process looks exactly like that, that was my first thought.

Even the word “Nettles” makes me nostalgic for being a kid running around the Woods and Dells of Edinburgh , some of which barely even exist only 30 years later !

All the discussions on the history behind it being accurate is just so funny. Ben asking all the important questions. 😂

This would be interesting to see as a series! Proper old cooking using the same techniques and recipe PLUS the modern update with the same ingredients but with the techniques from the chefs!

Fun fact! I use nettle in my "NPR jam": nettle, peach, rhubarb. If you didn't know, NPR is National Public Radio here in the States, which my jam is an homage to!

More of this, PLEASE!!!!! Love this kind of rugged, simplistic cooking. Maybe do a few of these ancient meals and then do a modern take on them to show how far we've come in culinary growth. Pretentious Cavemen!

This was so cool! I went on a bit of a dive to find more info about where the recipe came from, since, as Ben rightly points out, written history didn’t exist a few thousand years later. Looks like it was pulled from ‘Prehistoric Cooking’ by Jacqui Wood. There’s a Guardian article about it from 2007. I would love to see how Ben would use these ingredients to create a meal, using cooking methods and other ingredients available to people at that time (maybe not hedgehog, though, they’re far too cute to eat!) Edit: prehistoric pass it on?!!!!

Thank you to the team at Sorted Food for posting this video today! I was just told that I have a non cancerous brain tumor which I did surgery for yesterday. This video has really brightened my day!

Now this is a video you could’ve shot with Max Miller. Please collab with him again

Would love to see you guys re-imagine this old recipe with modern techniques and modern spices

Sorrel is called zurkel in Flemish. It's still eaten, cooked down like spinach and mixed with potato mash.

I remember suggesting Nettle Pudding to you last year. So glad you made it. I just hope the nettles you picked hadn't started to flower or you might get some pain in your kidneys!

Sorrel is quite popular in Russia. We cook sorrel soup in summer, basically a couple of diced potatoes, any meat or sausage, sorrel leaves and a beaten egg right in the end. Delicious)

MAN! I love this channel so much. Please keep it up! Also my dream video is still Drunk chefs remote control Sober normals. Would be hilarious with guest chefs too! Keep it up Sorted :)

Would love to see you make old recipes and then try modernizing them, both with local ingredients only but modern techniques and again with the whole pantry unlocked!

Love the video, as usual. Would love to see Time Team Tony Robinson come on as a guest cook & you do recipes through the ages.

I think it would be really interesting to see the Chefs take these recipes and update them, trying to accomplish the same idea of the original dish but making it as good as it can be with modern ingredients and techniques.

The nettle pudding reminded me quite a bit of raspeball, a traditional Norwegian dumpling-like dish most often made of grated potatoes, flour, salt, and stock, mashed into balls and simmered. Very stodgy, but very tasty.

Speaking of Ancient Recipies, Sohla would be an amazing guest. Perhaps in a pass it on. Perhaps with her partner in crime, Ham.

It’s be cool to see you guys take these old recipes and advance them! Like not changing any of the cooking techniques or not changing any of the ingredients. Put a cap or limit on how much they change. That would be fun to watch!

This is really intresting, I hope you explore more of these ancient methods and what would have been avalable and what it's based on

If you want to do more ancient history recipes, you should do a crossover collab with Sohla el Wayly who does a regular History channel show where she tries to authentically recreate recipes from history and interviews experts.

can we do an updated version of these old recipes? that would be really interesting to see

I can't believe you let him do all that without just steaming or parboiling the nettles

15:05 The wort is the sugary water that the grain was steeped in, which is what gets fermented. The left over grain is just called "spent grain". - Time fore SORTED to take a brewery tour. And fun fact, many breweries donate that to farms who then use it to feed their animals and they love it. Some donate to be composted.

Would love to see more videos like this with a historical element maybe with a historian around. Our diets have changed so much since the inception of agriculture!

I don't get what you did here, assuming ancient people wouldn't understand flavour. I would have more assumed that the meat was charred on a stick over the fire, cut up and simmer until broken down to make more of a stew, with the nettles used to help break the meat down, then the remaining herbs added to the barley flour to make, essentially dumplings. Meat and Gravy - that's how it was done, not the dry meat and green goop.

As someone who loves history and food even more, PLEASE make another recipe like this. Pretty please?

It's a little late but for the future. The stinging part of the Nettle is on the underside of the leaf. If you stack them bright green side up before you cut it you won't get stung, or if you blanch the leaves before you cut them.

Jamie, everything looks like a massive burger to you...

"word of advice to them".... I was in bits, love the way Ebbers mind works. Idea time, give the boys the ingredients like this from really old recipes and make it a mystery box round, see what they come up with, but with no store cupboard. Thanks lads for another great vid, brightens my day.

One of my nephews went to a forrest kindergarten here in Denmark and on rainy days they found stinging nettels and cooked a soup over open flames. The children loved it

Would have been cool to see what Ebbers would do with those ingredients now a days

Pitepalt, an old Swedish recepie from the north that dates back to the 16th century. And is still eaten and beloved today 😊

Chef Simon Rogan has a very very similar but updated in his cookbook "Rogan". It also used savoy cabbage, dock leaves, onion, leek, porage oats and grated hard-boiled eggs, panko battered, deep-fried, and served with a ramson (wild garlic) emulsion

I would imagine a) They used a cut of venison a lot less lean, since from a fresh kill. and b) That the broth used was from the previous day, when you'd cooked the meat - or using the leftover trimmings.

Ben's reference to Otzi, the ice-preserved man was very timely, seeing that they just ate both a "bog falafel" and what looked like my recollections of human cadaver meat.

I'd like to see the guys recreate wartime recipes when ingredients were rationed and they had to work with what they had. My grandmother used to make a cake she had during WWII. She just called it War Cake.

I enjoyed listening to Ebbers nerd out and postulate while contrasting it with the methods we would use now to achieve a better result.

About sorrel - in Poland it's not forgotten. We mostly make soup called "Szczawianka" or "Zupa szczawiowa".Of course sorrel is great in salads, sauces etec., but usually it's used in a soup. It's easy to make and it's eaten with hard boiled eggs and mashed potatoes.

Ötzi's stomach contents: dried ibex meat and fat, red deer, einkorn wheat, and traces of toxic fern. He died two hours later.

I'd absolutely love to see you guys recreate old recipes from history such as Max does.

People in China were in fact writing in 6000 BCE! Tortoise shell writing at that time. So yes! Writing did exist back then. (Historian here, but also, access to internet search lol)

I love sorrel. It's phenomenal in sauces.

Honestly, Ebbers is just such a delight. I'd genuinely love to eat a meal with someone who just spent the whole time talking analyzing the history of an ingredient or what tools would be useful in the prepapration. What an absolute gem 💜

when working with nettles, just lay them out and roll over them. this will break the hairs and they won’t sting anymore. it takes longer, but it’s very well worth it!

Nettles have one of the highest concentrations of protien for a green plant. Would love to see more on updating ancient recipes.

I'm curious about how difficult it is on a show like this to always be positive about everything you eat. The reality is, there are some truly unpleasant cuisines and countries that just have abysmal food scenes out there. Yet, on a show like this you can't offend anyone so, how often do you have to pretend that you actually like something or are excited about it?

There are other shows that put a lot of work into recreating meals of the past and have lots of historical information involved to teach you about how it was figured out and made and how it tastes. However, none of those shows are made by the Sorted group of guys and I would watch most anything they make. I would love to see more episodes like this showing food from the past with their knowledge and wit:)

Discovered your channel Monday. Love the laughs! Thanks!

Oldest recipe? Was this ebbers favorite childhood dish?

I love this! I'd love to see the boys have to do a battle teaming up with a historical recreation group and have to use stone tools and fire. Remember Barry, rocks do not in fact burn! 😂

Barry Remove those rings. Ur a souschef now. Act accordingly

These historical recipes are my favorite videos from you guys

They wouldn't need a clay pot you can boil in leather as you keep enough liquid in whatever you are cooking. The liquid slowly seeps through the untanned leather or rawhide preventing it from burning and leather has a higher burning point than water and then they would drop hot rocks in to bring the water to the boil. You can also boil water in a paper bag using indirect heat. Also not sure why you used such a lean cut of meat, prehistoric people would have eaten the higher calorie fattier bits first and used the low fat bits to dry.

In case you have some leftover watercress... here is a traditional Turkish recipe you might give it a try: dice one onion and cook it in 2 spoons of sunflower oil until transparent. Add 1 spoon of tomato paste and stir. Add a bunch of watercress and cook for 2-3 minutes stirring... add half cup of coarse bulgur rice and a cup of hot water and salt. Stir. Cover the pot and cook at low heat, until bulgur expands and gets soft. serve it with garlic yogurt on top.

A favourite recipe is a batter made of flower, buckwheat flower, milk and eggs in a cloth bag boiled in water. We serve it with melted butter and brown sugar. The ratios of the ingredients is a family secret.

Making pennican a few different ways would be very interesting too. Foods that keep good for weeks or months on end and how that developed through history.

I wanna see what a chef could do with Dandylions, Juniper and Nettles in various modern recipes. All of these are long forgotten ingredients that it'd be fun to see proper use cases for. Especially dandylion as those wouldnt exactly be hard to get for most Brits haha

I was this many years old when I learned about Boudain! I grew up in Cajun country of south east Texas by the Louisiana border and have eaten Cajun Boudain all my life. You piqued my interest and I have read up on it. I'll be 70 in a couple of months and I still learn something new every day! I concluded I would like Cajun Boudain the best 😂

15:15 the wort is the liquid that you then add yeast to that becomes beer. the spent grain is ususally just called the mash, grist, or... spent grain. (side note you can use the spent grain to make snack bars similar to granola bars)

You guys should do a series where you take pantry ingredients that are usually left for ages and show us how to cool ways to use them up! (I’m talking tins in the back of the cupboard, random pickles, that kind of thing!)

Nettles have a really nice flavour to them and I believe are quite high in iron amongst other things. I quite like them, grew up eating them way back when in the Scouts while being taught to forage. Boil the stalks and leaves, discard the leaves, eat the stalks and drink the leftover liquid. Also the stalks make for a good building material for a bivvy :) One of the nicest cheeses I've had was an aged Edam with nettles.

Based on the "8 Oldest Known Recipes in the World" web article it looks like the recipe used whole barley not barley flour. Using ground flour is probably why it came out so dense.

Thrilled to hear a Max Miller name drop

Historical appreciation of food is so important.

Ben: "They wouldn't have black pepper back then." THEY STILL DON'T!!!

I think the natural accompaniment to an ancient recipe is to take identical ingredients, plus a couple more available at the time, and see what can be made to appeal to a modern palate, using modern techniques

2 or so minutes in, the small tune that plays over looking at the ingredients, sounds so much like a snippet of the Goosebumps tv show intro lol

Another reason why barry needs to hand that apron in. If you lived back in them times, you wouldn't know the flavours of today and that meal would seem like a royal feast

I love that last line. Science meets poetry.

I think this food would have been used more as a 'save for later' option, for when food was more difficult to come by or when horded foods were on the turn. As you say, it would taste better as its fresh components, but surely this tastes better then a half wilted sorrel. Also, remember there wasn't much temperature control too; there was no thermometer to shove in your steak to see if it was done, so if you had just come across a carcass and didn't know how fresh it was, boiling/simmering it for a few hours was the safest thing to do. Don't think about how you would treat items in their ideal, most fresh form, but how would you treat the items in questionable times with no refrigeration? If you didn't overcook them, you might run the danger of have a - in that time period - lethal bout of food poisoning.

"I'm hopeful it's not going to be terrible." A ringing endorsement, if I've ever heard one. 😁

It would be fun to see you do stuff from De Rei Coquinara (a Roman cookbook, which is quite possibly one of the oldest preserved cookbooks).

Idea for a new series: TIME TRAVELLING CHEFS: 1st recreate something historical (in this case the weirder and stranger the better) - followed by a challenge to modernize the ideas of the dish.

I would LOVE to see Barry and Ben use all the same ingredients, and try to make something "gourmet". Not so much to one-up an ancient civilization, but to show how far the art and science of gastronomy has come in 8000 years.

I'd love to see the guys go the other way and try and imagine what we might be eating hundreds of years into the future.

I would love to see the chefs now cook the same dish as we typically would nowadays to compare the evolution of cooking from then to now