That's correct, the week after I lost my job due to the "rona", I tried the drink like you're Winston Churchill for a week challenge. Never caught the Rona virus, didn't care either.
"To hell with it, I'll just live like a medieval peasant now." A more civilized version of every introvert's dream of just living in a cave away from society!
you probably have seen this, but there's a place in France where they're making an actual medieval castle using medieval tools, machines and other methods! They even have a place where they make food in medieval style. It's super fascinating.
Yes, yay! I love this! It's the Castle of "Guédelon"... The project's been ongoing for many years, now, and it's become a bit of a cultural landmark. It's absolutely awesome! To anyone who doesn't know of it, I heartily recommend you check it out.🤩
Little note, the pottage you made is still eaten in parts of Britain and Ireland. In Liverpool, it is known as scouse (or lobscouse, hence the nickname) and will be left on the range for...as long as it lasts. Every day, a little liquid is added and whatever vegetable or meat is available (even vegetable trimmings). One could certainly argue that the soup you eat on Friday has nothing to do with that on Monday. Very healthy and tasty - always something on the cooker to offer unexpected guests. Also, in Central Europe, where I now live, the diet is still very 'mediaeval peasant', and many of the dishes you mention are recognisable here; especially the bread (rye, wholegrain, with seeds, beans, etc added), lentils, dried peas (usually yellow but also green), LOTS of pork and beer. The annual pig-killing and sausage-making weekend is always fun and informative :) By the way, I often used to make the cheese, especially on camping holidays when the milk went off. Try adding chopped spring onion, wild garlic, wild mushrooms, or some other wild flavouring - even oats - a huge improvement. Also, you could have eaten hard cheese, or mixed it up with cider...or even water. Note to self: stop writing so much! Love your videos - keep it up - bye!
Wow! This is such great info! I love how some elements of the medieval diet have remained unchanged- just more proof that those medieval peasants knew what they were talking about!
here scouse varies, but the part of the province i'm from, it's browned chunks of fast fry slabs of beef with flour and water thrown on to make a THICK greasy gravy. considering what the province is called, it's unlikely to be the same elsewhere.
Eternal Soup/Stew was a big thing in the middle ages. Bring a cauldron of water to boil, in goes meat, vegetables, grains, legumes, root vegetables, etc. Just, throw stuff in there, keep bringing it back to a boil to ensure it stays out of the dangeer zone, top it off with water, etc. Meat and veg would over time break down and thicken the broth before getting replaced with new additions, you'd eventually get a "culture" affecting the flavor of the soup. Honestly, a pub bringing back somethign like that where "the house stew and some bread" was always a cheap and tasty thing to get with a beer or two would be awesome.
As well, pottage could be dried out into a little cake of stuff and taken out into the fields in a container, mixed in a wooden bowl with some beer, and consumed as a sort of instant lunch. Wood, bone, or horn spoons were probably in common use, too, which may not have survived on account of being worn out and either burned or used as compost fodder. Nobles could afford iron forks, spoons, ladles, and knives, although working daggers were also utilized as all-purpose tools and dining ware.
@kevinroche3334 I'm also verbose but enjoyed reading your comment. Informative, well written, and relatable. I've been living in Oaxaca Mexico for the past 37 years and enjoy seeing how folks in the countryside cook and eat. Once for a feast (12 December, Virgin of Guadalupe) I helped them prepare the traditional mole with a whole hog, but the soup we prepared with a whole goat (the first time I ever ate lights (lungs)) veggies chilies and tomatoes. All the Best
That ”failed” bread looks a lot like a typical Finnish rye bread. 😁 The most popular bread in Finland, it’s sour and dense and definitely an acquired taste.
You're missing one key ingredient that was certainly on most of the cooked meals in the era. Fire and smoke. Cooking with fire adds some flavour to all meals. And you may add or reduce that flavour when needed (ie. closed pot or grilling over the flame).
Also salt and of course other ingredients. Honey and pears can be used to sweeten the food. We have a lot of record that salt wasn’t very cheap, but still affordable for everyone and infact it was so important that a lot of german cities were founded a long the trade routes, including salt trade. The Deutsche Hanse also traded French salt to the Balkans where sea salt couldn’t be made in larger quantities due to the climate/weather there. The French also had a salt tax in place. German citizens of medieval cities also were required to own salt (mainly used for animals), weapons (if available some kind of protection) and so on. In the late medieval times we also have records that the somewhat to believed poorly armed peasants had Crossbows and a variety of other weapons and armor available. The channel „Geschichtsfenster“ is making very good videos about it. Another very weird thing is that a lot of ppl think beer was made with dirty water. Dirty water doesn’t make good beer as we know and the reason why ppl drank beer/ale was taste. Hunting small game was also fine. Only big game was prohibited, due to nobility etc later on.
@@xSoulhunterDKx Salt was incredible cheap if you were okay with a fishy taste. you could buy "used" salt and there was alot of it because salted fish was a stable for the richer citizens once a week.
"Good plain food, as good as the Shire could show, and homelike enough to dispel the last of Sam's misgivings, already much relieved by the excellence of the beer." Yeah, I get that impression.
My great-grandfather was a noted alcoholic. He had a horse and trap that would be capable of driving itself back from the pub each night while he slept. His kids would them put him to bed and the horse into the stable. The OG self-driving car.
Beer in the middle ages was definitely low alcohol but that doesn't meant that it was watered down. It just didn't have a sufficient amount of sugars to convert to alcohol or the lab grown yeast that we have today. A more accurate facsimile could be made today by using a zero alcohol beer to dilute the alcohol rather than water.
@@mustwereallydothis yeah but thats BS coming from the Anglo beer industry... the amount of sugar in your beer got also lower with time becausme more modern grain has more protein and less starch and only the anglos use labgrown yeast.
@nox5555 Until recently, my family was in the business of farming barley specifically for the brewing industry, as they had been since before the great depression. I suspect your confusion stems from not being aware that there are different types of barley. Malt barley is not the same as the kind grown for feed or human consumption, though some brewers do use feed barley for brewing beer from mixed grains such as wheat beer, as it contains more enzymes such as amylase which is essential for converting starch into sugars, than malting barley, which wheat doesn't have. As far as protein goes, it is not at all undesirable to have more of it. That is what provides the finished product with head and body. A whole lot of serious science goes into commercial brewing these days. While I can't claim to understand all of it, I can assure you that science is the main reason beer can consistently be so much stronger than it was in the Middle Ages. High alcohol content also wasn't usually a priority of brewers in the Middle Ages. Their goal was to make as much palatable beverage while using as little grain as possible.
@@mustwereallydothis Anglo... Also beer and feed barley are the same, beer barley is just the higher quality parts- the big difference is summer and winter barley. The science in Breweing is also only important in quality control. thats why your bottle of beer always tastes the same. The yeast used is still the same as in the middle ages, just cleaner. Beer in the middle ages was not only stronger in alcohol, it was also alot thicker. keeping you fueled while doing farmwork in the heat. There was stronger and even thicker beer that was used to replace whole meals on christian holydays. Food regulations were much stronger in the past and the public was much more active... there are historic records from alot of german towns that talk about mobs lynching cheating brewers. Drinking 6 normal beer in a day also doesnt makes you tipsy at all..
I had a great uncle who had an eternal pot of beans. He had a coal stove with a pot he would add beans to daily along with a piece of smoked meat (don't ask don't tell) and from my childhood recollections it never came out the stove in 8 years. We gobbled it up as kids and didn't die so there's that.
there's a restaurant somewhere that brags about having a 200 year old soup going or something. you can avoid the "danger zone" with heat and then all that happens is the items in the pot slowly disintegrate, since the softest parts are the most desirable in a stew, it tends to maintain its freshness
@@jamescheddar4896 The older I get the more I wish I had a coal stove, a smoked critter and an eternal pot of beans. Things we laughed about as children come back and hit hard later.
If you want a better perspective on what the 'medieval peasant' beer would've tasted like in those days, you can try what is commonly referred to as "tafelbier". We have a good selection of these in Belgium and we often use them to make stews. It does indeed have that brown bread flavour going on and is ridiculously low in alcohol percentage, especially compared to some of the other beers we have. Edit: Another fun fact: It used to be that monasteries (again referencing Belgium here, guess where I'm from) each made their own beer (blonde and dark), their own cheese and even their own bread. That's why in many places you can buy these items and they'd all share the brand name. Prime examples here are Maredsous, Chimay and Grimbergen, but of course there are many more.
@@nothanks9503 table beer is also called small beer. Historically made from the remnants of the full beer making process. With the mass production process used by your multinational beer making companies you'd be better off seeing if any local craft brewers are making any.
@@Jess_of_the_Shire What might also help is townsend. Yes the timeframe he tries recreate was way past the middle ages, BUT since it is about living on the american frontier they use a lof of the recipes and techniques and ingredients that a medievil farmer would also use every day.
@@daftwulli6145 Tasting history with mac miller is great though he doesn't have a ton of lower class stuff. I can highly recommend the Modern History TV, food video. He talks to a few historians that specialize in medieval cookery and honestly most of it sounds pretty great.
I think there'd be a big selection of edible, wild-growing, leafy greens that didn't get remembered in history books cause they'd be so specific to the location and local climate. Polk salad is still a thing in the American south and can be found growing up and down the Appalachian. In a rural part of China, my aunt still knows what to forage and makes dishes of a medley of wild greens just to keep the tradition alive. I know the world had a mini-ice age in the middle-ages but there's edible moss and definitely mushrooms. Tying into LotR, herb-lore would surely have been a major topic of discussion around the dinner table or in taverns. Rustic folks would have known where they'd likely find a particular plant growing in their area and could smell wild garlic, herbs, and weeds just walking by them.
Now you fully understand the nursery rhyme "Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in the pot nine days old". Yeah, they ate a lot of the same thing. But it was better than starving.
Townsends is another good channel for some period info. They are mostly the later times around colinization time but its still so informative. Tasting history does a super job of teaching you stuff too.
The thing is, the food townsends focuses on is very very different from medieval food. By colonial times, the Columbian exchange had happened introducing hundreds of new ingredients that were previously not available to Europeans.
Oh, but have you seen the Townsends and Tasting History crossover? I love Max's channel. Townsends is great, too, and once upon a time I knew a lot of the people involved, personally (before the channel started, when it was just the shop and rendezvous-going).
German history buff here: I have some insight on beer in medieval times. You'd be suprised to learn that beer made with hop was only really documented with around the 13th century. but it didnt really get wide spread use until the 15th century, where in bavaria they invented the "german bid of pureness" (sounds horrible with todays context ...). From there hop went on a conquest over all of the rest of europe. before that there was root/spice beer made with ... roots and spices. Here in germany it was called "Grut-Bier". The "Grute" was a special mix of herbs, roots and spices only known to select few who were called the Grute-Masters in their community. It was a highly prestigious position. Typical herbs used were: Yarrow, Ivy, Wild Wheat and Grain, Gale, Juniper, caraway. (I hope google translated these well). The reason Hop outcompeted the Grute was that it was easier to cultivate and produced more consistant fermentation and the very characteristic taste we now know as beer and ale. Sadly there is only few makers of beer like back then because many of the dominant herbs, like Gale are almost extinct. You can get traditional Gale beer from Belgium called "Gageleer" but its expensive. The reason we now have almost entirely forgotten this non-hop dominance in beer culture is because of the pro-hop propaganda wich sprung during the renaissance when everything old and medieval was shunned as regressive and primitive.
My culinary horizons also expanded when I learned the term “pottage” to describe me boiling the hell out of random things till reduced to a peasant mush. It’s a better term than “gruel” anyway.
Gruel was actually an entirely different dish, more like stewed oatmeal or whatever grain they had on hand with random extra bits thrown in for flavor.
As someone who researchs sewing in order to make clothing in styles from centuries ago, sometimes with techniques that were used when those clothes were fashionable, the connection and trying to understand the people of the past. Specially with the hygene side of things it's sometimes really angering how must people asume everything was filthy and people had no desire to clean themselves or their clothing, when in fact there was a lot of dedication in that aspect although they cleaned most things with different methods and didn't have access to what we have access to, those ways worked for them, and if you ever try a pre washing machine laundry day there is no way you think they payed even more attention and care to cleaning than we do today. Thanks for reading my little rant.
The idea of medieval people not washing is a misconception, it was in the early modern Europe where bathing and washing became unpopular. The medical thinking of the time was that bathing was actually harmful as it shed away skins natural barrier against miasma, and water would seep in the pores of the skin and disturb the body's natural balances. The second reason was the decline of bath house infrastructure in the cities because of tightened moral control, the medieval Europeans still had preserved the Roman bath house culture.
its also very time consuming and back breaking work! I just washed my 100% linen sheets in the tub as a form of self torture historical try it out to see how they managed it . took me and hour and a half to wash ring and rinse 2x to get all the dirt and water out !
I’m Orthodox (so basically a thoroughly average mediaeval Christian) and I can confirm this is almost exactly how I eat at home. You nailed it. Thankfully, fasting usually only involves skipping breakfast on SUNDAY, and does involve only having beer or wine on non-fasting days. Which can mean every day except Wednesday and Friday, only on weekends, or only with Sunday dinner depending on time of year. Which comes out to a pretty normal amount of drinking, actually. :)
Rye and barley have about a third of the gluten content of wheat. That's why in modern days you'll usually do no less than half wheat flour for (edible) bread. That said your version is probably closer to what a medieval peasant ate. Which is also why bread was eaten very differently at the time! You'd either cook with it or dunk it in some kind of soup or drink
I would say if this were done in the future you might consider pickled, salted, dried and smoked foods which would play a massive part in the diet of people before fridges were invented. Especially in winter when fresh food was harder to come by people would rely on what they had preserved. Dried fish was a huge industry in places like Scandinavia while salted pork was a huge industry through Europe well into the 19th century. Of course it would be difficult to do your own but it's worth considering.
I actually love barley I grew up eating it. My mom’s side of the family is Polish so we had a lot of barley but most people in America don’t eat it much I’ve noticed. I think it’s so good. Very unique, very hearty and the texture is very chewy in a good way. I think it almost tastes like tiny pasta in a weird way.
My Mom made beef barley stew also, with potatoes, carrots, celery, cabbage, rutabaga, turnips, onions (clean out the fridge!). But the best was made with oxtail. Spices were basic, like thyme and marjoram, pepper. She browned the beef first for flavor, and drained the fat before adding it to the stew. Now I'm hungry, , ,
@@IndigoChild1307 I usually eat it in soups and stews as well. But I like it so much I’ve made it as a small stand alone side dish, adding just salt and pepper and herbs and some butter. Just something I concocted myself.
Am seriously impressed with your level of research, and well done on pointing out that the middle ages were approx 1000 years long, and that water was commonly drunk. Have been eating very similar meals to what you have presented (my speciality is the 11th to 12th centuries) for over 30 years now as a historical reenactor. If you are ever in the UK, go to one of the medieval reenactments that take place - I suspect your knowledge will impress
The core foods can be quite delicious, I would imagine combining the seasonings of the upper and lower classes with peasant ingredients would yield food we'd love today. I don't consider medieval poaching a crime, I hope there were some households who were extra skilled at taking an animal & processing it in a few hours to evade detection, I would think some venison & hare added to all this would be quite delicious. The native people where I live, interestingly, ate a nearly opposite diet at that time- mostly hunted meat with produce as a seasoning or sugar source, wild meat contains most of the nutrients humans need- but garlic & onion relatives were still the main "spice."
@@Ballin4Vengeance The most common 'medieval' range I see is from around 500 to 1500 AD. Or 476 (fall of western Rome) to 1453 (fall of Constantinople, also invention of the printing press) for fancy precision. ~1500 starts the Early Modern period. For subdivisions, 500-1000 "Dark Ages" or "Early Middle Ages", 1000-1300 "high medieval"/"high middle ages", 1300-1500 "late medieval".
Very interesting. I have read the entire Diary of Samuel Pepys and he talks a lot about food and eating the diary. Many mentions of his "morning ale" or "morning cup". Eating plates of herrings or anchovies and oysters. If history really interests you try his diary. It covers 9 and a half years of his life. It is very candid, (it was written in a shorthand to keep it secret), and he encountered a huge amount of England in the 1660's. Try it you may like it.
@@Jess_of_the_Shirei dont think pepper was that common ,it was called black gold and ships filled with gold and silver went in opposite direction for import of pepper
I loved how you ended the video about respecting and acknowledging those who came before us. Human knowledge has been passed down for ages and it’s nice to see where we came from and to connect with our past :)
The beer that they drank is called "small" or "table" beer. It is often made from hops, yeast, etc... that have already been used once. Ironically, rather than your watered down beer you drank, small beer is almost the exact opposite; it is thick and has a lot of flavor. Basic recipes are super simple to make with only water, malted barley, yeast, sometimes rolled oats for extra flavor/nutrition, and, if you had access, molasses. Even without molasses it has a slightly sweet taste that does takes like liquid bread. As it isn't actually fermented only left overnight, you could have made it for your week. That might have cheered you up from your bread challenges.
Now it would be cool if you did a video eating like medieval royalty for a week. It would be interesting to see the contrast and sheer variety from peasant food
Ale then was MUCH different than modern ale, in that there was no hops. Instead, it was often flavoured with local herbs. Similarly, there was large beer (higher alcohol content), and small beer (much lower alcohol content, usually the second brewing of used grain). Modern “ales” (IPA, for instance) do include hops, and so are much more bitter than medieval times. However, as the period went on, especially in continental Europe, hops began to be added to become a proper beer similar to what might be recognised today.
In Germany, beer developed from a drink anyone could brew their own way,🍻🍻 to a highly regulated comodity. At first, some people would season it with meadowsweet or other potent herbs , like artemesia, that could have quite an impact on the body. Later, only hops , malt and water were permitted as ingredients.And only certain families, 👨👩👦👦 and of course the monasteries ⛪ or the city councel , held brewing privileges. Everybody else had to buy their beer. Brewing was a good cash source.💰 But now it was standardized and quality controlled. And hops is a mild sedativ that will not do harm, like some other plants.🍺
All true. In addition to the lack of hops, possibly the biggest taste difference comes from the fact that the yeast type used in ales is top-fermenting (known and used since 2000 BCE) yeasts which work in higher temperatures (room temp and even slightly above). While the modern brewing industry still uses these too, in many places the standard concept and taste experience is bottom-fermenting lager yeasts that were discovered at about 1800 AD. Those yeasts work in lower temperatures (abt 13C) and result in a clearer, paler liquid. Both visually and as a taste experience. Bottom fermenting yeasts have risen to prevalence because they were particularly easy to process to a state where the bottled beer can be sold in room temperature. And it stores for longer times, which is a plus in commercial production. Of course, today we can manufacture any kind of ale with the same requirements, but the preferences of the wider public are still being influenced more by this history of commercial production and sales operations than the history of beer as a drink.
Hmm. Come to think of it, early dynastic Sumerians were drinking beer at around 3000 BCE, so the top fermenting yeasts are even older then my first quick search indicated.
@@lumikkihusu7259 all nice an true but one major key is still missing in every ones comment about "beer back then" -- the grain regardless which kind has to be OAST-dried, hence all beers back then where SMOKED BEERS which is a vastly different taste experience. my city is one of the last that still produces at least one type of smoked beer by following the same methods like hundred of years before, Bamberg's "Schenkerla Rauchbier". it tastes depending on your eating customs like liquified smoked ham or eel, people say :D
@@lumikkihusu7259 beer was already brewn in what today is part of israel, the carmel mountain range, in *13,000 BCE* ! it seems people started to settle down not cuz they needed farmland for the ever increasing demand of grain for baking bread -- it wasnt "invented" / popularized yet -- _but for beer brewing_ >_>
The premise, along with the guidelines you set out, captured my curiosity immediately. Really enjoyed how the casual vlog/documentary style helped convey your experiences through the week, especially the less glamorous and labour intensive aspects. I have to imagine folks throughout history have found ways to make sweets and treats on a regular basis. I dunno how i'd make it through the week without a bit of honey or some jam. Baked fruits and sauces had to have been commonplace!
This is a fantastic journey. Thanks for taking us along. The “tastes like an antique store” broke me. As someone who’s tried to do homemade sourdough bread and been to too many antique store to count, this resonated with my soul.
You could have watered down your beer even more if you weren't in the mood. Also, you could use the un-risen bread in the same way sailors used hardtack. By crushing it to bits and putting it in the potage or a stew. Subscribed.
Impressive, and I think you did an excellent job with both the "challenge" and the video. The "cold" you got is pretty common from changing your diet and detoxing from lack of sugar, caffeine, and other common modern things in foods. I enjoyed this video and subscribed because of it, even though I have enjoyed a couple of your other videos as well. Keep up the good work!
Caffeine rises blood pressure which is the reason why coffee drinkers get head aches after they skip their regular cups. Last time I ran out of coffee I got very nauseous the second coffeeless day.
Yep, it sounds like you were going through the beginning of ketosis and your body was adjusting to burning both sugar and fat. That's a good thing! The symptoms go away and your body recovers its natural ability to run dual-fuel.
From a chicken owner’s perspective: chicken was probably a “special meal” because you couldn’t eat it every day. I raise about as many or more chickens than the average medieval family would and I even butcher the extra roosters for the table, but I find myself buying and eating more mass produced commercial chicken and eating my own fowl only a few times a year.
Less than a hundred years ago American president Herbert Hoover ran on the campaign slogan "a chicken in every pot," because it was considered a luxurious idea just barely within the realm of possibility at the time. The post-industrial world we live in really is a unique place in history
Yes exactly, this ive come across accounts of chicken being a bit of a special treat in this time period. It was absolutely not the 'common everyday meat' like it is today. Having owned a small flock of chickens myself as well, if I was relying on them for meat I couldnt imagine eating chicken more than once a week and maybe even a few times a month under those conditions. And it would be inconsistent waiting for new to mature through hatch and chick season. Of course, we also must remember our chickens now are MASSIVE compared to the common breeds of the past. ...It also reminds me of when I was really into bodybuilding and eating 150grams+ of lean protein a day. I was meal prepping at least a chicken breast a day. Simply impossible to build muscle back then the way I can now. We are truly spoiled in modern times.
@@amer6706 Its funny you bring that up because its the real reason we had chickens growing up. They are FAR more useful for egg production than for meat, especially if you have a small backyard flock in the 'burbs like we did.
don't feel bad about the bread, working with whole grains (especially if you're milling yourself or buying a similar equivalent to freshly milled) is a WHOLE different beast of bread making. I got my first grain mill a few years ago, and it has been a long journey learning how to work with it. The gluten content, absorbency, and the factor of the bran make working with it completely different than working with white flour. For a while I was determined to make 100% whole grain breads, but ultimately I decided that I'm okay with adding some white flour to improve the texture.
Don't resort to white flour, just get a very fine sieve and remove most of the bran 'sieved wholemeal' was the original white flour and is more nutritious since it contains fine bran as well as the germ.
I agree, actually i have only master making bread with whole gains when i either mix them with some white to lighten their denisty or go for a heavier dense bread, that never raises as high as white beads.
Garlic contains allicin (connected to the alliium family as all leeks are) which is indeed a prety solid antibiotic/antiviral, but it's dwarfed by modern antibiotics. Definitely good stuff.
And if you ever ate raw garlic, a really big clove, you'll feel like a bus hit your sinuses and tongue and you'll cry. I know I cried like a teenager watching "The Notebook" that day, holy fuck, that shit is picante.
It is better than the majority of antibiotics it is just entirely too cheap to produce for pharmacutical.companies to profit. The only drugs that will out perform allicin is stuff that will kill you if you take it for too long. It can kill drug resistant bacteria as well
@@ccaagg you shouldn't speak about things you don't have any experience with, spare the rest of us your stupidity. If you did a modicum of research you would realize how wrong you are. it can be used as a topical antiseptic but can also be used internally for its anti bacterial /antibiotic properties. It outperforms many conventional antibiotics and is capable of killing drug resistant bacteria. It performs better than most prescription drugs with far fewer side effects.
@@VeteranVandalYeah, learned that the hard way. I didn’t know garlic (like cinnamon) is caustic and will burn your flesh. lol Never ate a raw garlic clove again. 😅
Pro tip! If you dont want to do the shake method for butter you can make it by using a mixer (hand, wisk, stand, any type as long as you watch it). You simply put heavy whipping cream into a bowl and mix. You'll see it go through multiple stages, remember to scrape the sides and get everything back down into the bowl. Eventually youll notice the butter solids forming and seperating from a creamy liquid. From here you need to wash the butter until the water is clear and you can put things like salt, thyme, garlic, anything you want really in it. You can also save the liquid, thats buttermilk and it works super well for things like biscuits or pancakes!
I sounds to me like you were having an allergic reaction. The symptoms are pretty classic. You might be sensitive to certain yeasts and/or over fermented foods (and since there is a threshold effect with allergies, the ale might have contributed a bit)
As someone who's a Medieval Fantasy writer I found this to be a great display. Your closing thought about us looking back at our ancestors spoke to me particularly, as I always try to look at it from a perspective of 'what can I learn from their wisdom' rather than cold rational academics. As much as I love the grand schemes and styles of war and conflict (also a HEMA enthusiast) it's incredibly important and fulfilling to me to have the background context of everything as well :D
My grandfather was an avid hunter, and grandmother would always use the neck meat of the deer to make her mincemeat pies, as she said it was sweeter. Remember my grandparents were both born in the 1890's
thanks! I was given a MASSIVE buck and have like 3 enormous neck roasts i have NO IDEA WHAT TO DO WITH. lol. did she grind the neck meat or just finely dice?
Something to consider as well, is that a peasant lifestyle is agrarian in nature. You would work up much more of an appetite due to the amount of labor involved. You may also have had to eat smaller portions as the amount of food available to you after the nobles took their share of the harvest and such. That being said, being hungry makes you less picky about the food from a biological standpoint.
Peasants drank plenty of water as long as they had a good source of it nearby (which peasants usually did). It's a myth that they all just drank beer. You missed out on the fruit of the medlar tree which was one of the most cultivated trees in Europe. Fair enough it can be expensive to get that stuff these days and it was a winter fruit.
Uncertain in whose kitchen you filmed your food prep footage, but I love the 20th century furnishings. That cabinetry, those linoleum counters, the electric stovetop! It’s true to your hobbit/peasant aesthetic!
Also on the topic of your failed loaf of bread that was still wet. It reminds me of when my banana breads fail to rise enough. It breaks my heart becasue, although its a simple recipe, its a labor of love making breads. You put so much time in to prepping, mixing, proofing and so on then you see if collapse and I always feel like I failed so miserably.
Pottage is different during every season. Medieval beer was much less alcoholic. I eat a lot of pottage. It is tasty. Bread is dependent on who you were. Peasant bread was healthier that rich peoples bread. Water was drank if clean.
The godly loaf of bread you ended up with down the line definitely gave me feelings that one should not feel due to.... bread... BUT GOD THAT CRACKING WHILE CUTTING IT
That brick of bread would have been turned into porridge. Because peasants can't waste anything. (ETA: looks like you turned it into a trencher, which is ... appropriate.) I think that your bread issues might be because you have a too-modern oven. Because they'd be using an oven with less control over heat, I suspect they'd cook a bit higher at first then lower and longer. That might also get you a better rise -- but also your first loaf needed kneading. You shouldn't eat much raw kale. It's full of oxalic acid which interferes with absorbing calcium, and can upset the digestive system in un-fun ways. Cooking it fixes this issue. Currants are ... hard to find ... in America because for some reason the government of the USA went to some sort of war against currants and gooseberries in the 1900s. This is because "white pine blister rust" is a fungal disease that was ravaging trees in the northeast. This fungus has a two-stage propagation, and the other half (that isn't in white pines) is in plants of the gooseberry and currant species. They determined that those foods were less important than forests, imagine that.
@@burbujas4448 Oxalic acid also leads to kidney stones (crystallises in your kidneys, kidney stones are mostly made of calcium oxalate). As far as I'm aware it's basically only broken down by cooking. Though indigenous South Americans who grow and eat oca also process the tubers using heat (sun) cold (mountain air) and water to wash them before storage which reduces the sour taste (ancient process). That sour taste is oxalic acid. So. Basically no. Lemon juice is another acid. I did a quick google and kale is not considered a source of oxalates. Spinach is. Kale s actually recommended for people with kidney stones. ETA: Oca's latin name is Oxalis tuberosa, it's a sorrel. So that gives you an idea of how many oxalates are in it... given the acid is named for 'em. Don't eat raw sorrels!
@@callnight1441 Not actually true. The average age of death was brought down significantly by high rates of child mortality. But if you lived to the age of 5, you had a good chance of making it at least to your 50s, with a lot more people than you think living into their 70s or more.
@@callnight1441 Not true, or life expectancy would have to be even lower. If 1/3rd of all people die as an infant, the surviving people have to live to 60 to have life expectancy be even as high as 40.
Your personality and reflections make the video very entertaining to watch! Plus the idea of immersion in a different universe through food is also very compelling
Making an attempt at homebrewing beer would allow you to learn that skill and allow you to brew beer to a lower alcohol content, closer to something truly medieval.
Did you look at herbs like rosemary, thyme, sage, mint etc to add a bit more flavour to the food? I got the impression that peasants would use those as they were often to hand, but I'm not entirely sure when they would have been available in the UK. I'm figuring you picked the country and era at least in part because they were somewhat akin to the type of cooking you'd maybe get in Rohan or Gondor, but if you feel like doing the food of different countries in this era I'd be curious about them too. Unless Italy turns out to be waves and waves of pasta which wouldn't be that interesting! I have to ask though - did you at any point torture Dylan about who Belinda is/was?...
we would definitely have them from after the romans came at least. also pasta in italy is comparatively new afaik, it comes from the 13th century, before that there was apparently lasagna but it wasn't dried pasta like the modern sort.
Hey! My ancestors were horse theives from the other side of the border! Seriously. They stole the King of Scotland's own horses once! I'm here for the Tolkien, but this is also excellent. Love the shoutouts to Max Miller's work!
New subscriber here. I cannot believe that I am watching a video about recipes for Aunt Belinda's Cow Spleen Stew from a known descendant of horse thieves, but here I am anyway, crushing it. Well played, Jess... well played, indeed...
The two primary kinds of bread actually developed into two guilds that hated each other. The Brown Bakers and the White Bakers. The Brown Bakers were known for the more healthy kinds of bread while the White Bakers were known for the more tasty breads like cakes. The two guilds remained apart until a British monarch (I think Victoria but could be mistaken) ordered them to get back together.
Oh my goodness. I live in South Wales, about 20 minutes away from Blaenavon (there's a mining museum attached to an old coal mine called Big Pit), I had completely forgotten they used to do Christmas events where you could meet Santa in the mines. I would highly recommend a visit to anyone who has even the slightest interest in history. First video from this channel I've seen and it earned an immediate sub
The Hot water crust pie on day 5, i make this all the time, its very authetic british, but the not eating rust, thats for cornish pasties which is a bit different , meat and turnips and miners initials stamped on the, kneaded doigh to be stiffer, the curved crimped edge was the handle, but other crust eaten, cornish pasties very popular in UK,e specially with builders as its a meal in one often seen on worksites. i remembr as children beer would be mixed with water to get a similar 1% strength, i expect americans will think it odd that chidlren drank beer and cider at lunch with family
3:45 good, brief description! Most of the beers that were drank were classified as 'small beers' that had an ABV of 1 or 2%, which is less than the ABV of a lot of commercially available kombucha today. Small beers were hydrating, had plenty of essential nutrients and probiotics from the live yeast, and had enough calories to give the working class enough energy to get through a hard day. It was mostly what was served with meals along with fresh milk. And you are very correct: most had access to clean water or knew where to get clean water. However, areas where water was known to be 'sour' (like cities and towns with contaminated wells or streams) did see increased beer consumption due to the beer making process sterilizing the water.
I think I just found a new favorite channel. I am nearing the end of my first reading of the Lord of the Rings, and am a massive fan of fantasy in general, as well as real medieval history, so this is right up my alley.
+1 for more content like this. Though I admit I'm a bit biased in that I love historical cooking and cuisine. Also, I was so happy to see you mention Tasting History. Max puts out some great videos, as do you.
From what I know about “traditional” bread making, the dough was worked and proofed for much longer periods of time, like a week or so. This helps to develop more gluten, increases fermentation, and encourages yeast development. This is a long video that I skimmed, so I may have missed some details, but it didn’t seem like she kept any sourdough starter.
Great stuff - certainly an interesting challenge to undertake! Neat to get a more practical look at the lifestyle of people back then. Would be neat to see more "...like a Medieval Peasant" videos maybe about travel/garb/jobs etc haha
@@StephenHutchison if they wouldnt _WE_ wouldnt find in archaeological contexts skandinavian skeletal remains in greece, or people from the balkans in the british isles... and that even 1000 BC ! ... so dont talk uninformed nonsense. globalization isnt something new, just that people back then needed 1-2 months for a trip and stayed longer, instead of 1-2 hour jet flights multiple times a week
@@StephenHutchison Peasants might travel to town markets and religious pilgrimages. Merchants and artisans would travel for trade, especially annual fairs.
Actually, the bread is very similar to what happens when you work with coarsely ground grains like rye and barley. So funnily enough, the bread is pretty accurate for some parts of Europe. Also a note on the amount of time spent doing household chores hasn't really changed. We just use a lot more automation and economies of scale with premade items nowadays. Heck, I remember being a child and my mother cooking multiple times a day was the norm for us and that wasn't all that long ago (about 30 years ago). Yeah we had a fridge, but that was not really used for storing leftovers because it wasn't that big, and it wasn't that good at keeping food preserved. The freezer got a lot more use, and the fridge largely became a beer chiller. The thing that makes this childhood experience weird for me to think about, my friends who grew up in other parts of the islands or even in other states around the country have entirely different experiences that mirror the "conveniences of modern technology story" I didn't experience until becoming an adult and my parents finally being able to afford a new home AND new appliances about 15 years ago.
