@@thebiglebowski8591 I saw some Scouts make up some chili in a Dutch oven, and instead of pouring a batch of cornbread on top to cook, they mixed it in. The result was so inedible that Petey, the camp dog, refused to eat any after it was discarded. I'd call THAT a catastrophic failure.
Jon, soak groats at least overnight or even longer, and use more greens--greens pre-boiled shrink tremendously so you would end up with more proportionally in the recipe--use lots of lard, no flour on the bag. Boil it forever--really, 3 hours or more. then I bet this recipe would be congealed into a true pudding. We cook groats often--they expand a lot, and can take boiling for a long time without losing flavor. Once cooked into a congealed cake--you can store it and slice it up the next day and fry it in butter almost like a sausage--it's so delicious!
@@landomilknhoney similar, but no recipe--I just use whatever savory stuff I have. I save drippings from cooking meat to use in cooking groats, polenta, or even rice.
@@greywuuf this is what I was thinking. Maybe it was supposed to be something like a stuffing or dressing and some portion of the groats should have been leftover bread or something.
I used to make cakes for a group I belonged to and took pride in making my cakes from scratch. My first (and only) attempt at an angel food cake failed to rise when baked. I tasted it and it tasted good, but was dense like pound cake. So I mixed some butter, flour and brown sugar to make a crumble top and called it "Fallen Angel Cake. They loved it and ate the whole thing.
@@rainydaylady6596 Most likely the egg whites weren't whipped to stiff enough peaks. That's the most common reason for egg white-based desserts to fail, and angel food cake is basically whipped egg whites with a little bit of sugar and flour.
Thank you for showing the failure. So many don't show that. I love how much I learn from your channel and the encouraging words you always seem to have.
I'm also wondering if the "scald the vegetables" meant wilt them. It would probably change your groats:veg ratio. I'm theorizing, too, that the raw vegetables might shrink and leave water pockets. Just a thought.
I think this would make a wonderful bed for a stew as-is. Strong beef gravy, meaty bits, perhaps with carrot or parsnip in it. It may not have turned out well for a pudding but I can see this being an addition to something else. A vegetable hash to be served with fried or poached eggs, perhaps under a steak in sauce.
I have a question. My grandmother would make 'stirabout' when I was little. She'd use oatmeal but instead of butter and honey, jam or fresh fruit, it was savory. She used onions, a little bacon, some garlic (tiny bit) and a few savory herbs. It was delicious. We'd have it with breakfast and she'd serve eggs along side it. Is this anywhere near the same but without the stomach or pudding cloth? We're of Irish descent with her parents being recent to the US.
Yeah I am not a food historian but at the least they would have eaten this maybe it was not supposed to be a perfect "pudding" as we or people at the time had said. People ate some food those was bad even at the time because they expected it.
Mr. Townsend: The recipe ingredients for this pudding sound a lot like the base ingredients for groaty pudding. Next time, consider soaking the groats or steel cut oats for an insanely long time. As a young child, I remember my great grandmother’s groaty pudding. She would literally “soak”/cook the groats for half a day. The only way I can describe what I remember coming out would be groats that have disintegrated into a texture of thick congee. Boiling the steel cut groats was way too short. Respectfully, WS
my thought too--to get that gooiness--soak groats at least overnight and use more greens--greens pre-boiled shrink tremendously so you would end up with more proportionally in the recipe--use lots of lard, no flour on the bag. Boil it forever. then I bet it would be congealed into a true pudding.
I know it has been said already, but not often enough: DON'T THROW THE GREEN PART OF THE LEEK AWAY! Especially Not in the 18th century - they wouldn't throw away perfectly fine food!
There is an oatmeal product from Bob's Red Mill called Scottish Oatmeal. It is basically oats that are lightly stone ground, so it's a mix of almost whole grouts, coarse flour, and everything in between. It makes a very thick chewy oatmeal. Maybe the recipe was expecting you to use something like that?
A huge part of cooking, as I'm sure you know!, is learning from your mistakes and adding the new knowledge to your repertoire! It's wonderful to see recipes that may have been difficult for our ancestors as well! Thank you for this video!
scalded veggies and salt... I suspect they were meant to be squeezed off their excess moisture before being combined with other ingredients. The thing falling apart might be because of the excess moisture from the raw veggies wilting while boiling, creating pockets of air and water, breaking things apart.
I thought for a pudding you were supposed to rub the suet into the cloth then flour the cloth before adding the other ingredients. Could that make a difference?
No, it didn't stick to the cloth. Treating the cloth with boiling water before flouring was just the thing to do as with other similar puddings (like spotted dick)
He doesn't do the suet in the cloth. He dips the cloth in the hot water and flours it. He explained that all that does is act like a seal and help block water from destroying the pudding inside.
@@mrdanforth3744 I don't know where YOU live, but leeks are quite available in my supermarket in Texas and were always at the market in Pittsburgh too. My husband and his dad would go to the woods in the spring for wild leeks (they called them 'ramps'). The family adage was "if one person eats leeks - everyone eats leeks". The explanation was that leeks give you BAD breath - but-like garlic- if everyone has eaten them, no one notices.
Ah is that the last line was talking about? Makes sense to me. Wasn't too sure what the bottem left word was. Far away it did look like loosen but, I had no idea what firing was.
Personally, what amuses me is how many of these authors of these early how-to manuals took the time to write a book, often paid a good deal to get a publisher to print the book, in theory with the purpose of educating strangers on a subject the strangers are not expert in, and then the authors write like the reader can see what the author is doing, essentially defeating the whole purpose of using a book to learn a new skill instead of asking someone to show you. Basically they write as if you are in the room and cam see what a "handful" is or what onions chopped "small" look like, instead of giving readers actual points of reference. Shows you how undeveloped the concept of how-to books still was for the most part. Thankfully, people got better about it, but boy it took longer than you would have thought!
10:08: Also Townsends: "It's ready to go in the BOILING water, you don't want it to go into half-BOILING water, this goes into full-BOILING water. And this will probably BOIL, I'm guessing, one hour for this size, so let's get it into the BOILING water."
@@kinremnant4616 The bottom line says "slacken the string a little." But it's written "flacken the ftring a little." This is because back then the letter S had two different ways of being written. If it appeared at the end of a word, it looked like a normal S. If it appeared anywhere else in a word, it looked more like a lower case F (f), sometimes without the central cross bar, sometimes with a longer stalk on the bottom. In this position, it's called a non-terminal S. Especially against a textured background, it makes it much harder to read.
In its current form, it reminds me of rice pilaf. Did you cover the groats with a tight cover? Like rice at a 2 to 1 ratio, this will make the jelly you might be looking for. I personally wouldn't put flour on the cloth as it pulled the groats to it. It simply pulled the pudding apart in this instance. Precooking the veg would help break down fibers in the veg of that time. Older, tougher veg would need this precooking. Even oats that we currently have available aren't the same variety that would have been available in the original recipe. Great try. Good luck next time.
Gah! Don't throw away those leek greens! I like to steam them, and with just a little bit of butter, they make a perfectly fine side dish to any meaty dinner.
Was looking for a comment saying to not throw leek greens away! I use whole leeks in leek quiche, in leek soup, as soup vegetable, in salads (i.e. chop leek, grate two apples, add two spoons of natural yogurt or sour cream, season with some salt, optionally a bit sugar and/or lemon juice), idk why people throw it away, they are as tasty as the white part and imo they are even prettier, because they give fresh green touch to your dish!
The only reason people throw the green part away is because it became FASHIONABLE to the Great Chefs of the world back in the 80-90s. Before then they were used a lot but were so much more expensive than regular onions that they were rarely bought. They were the only onion I could eat without severe GI discomfort back in the 60-70s.. No one threw out the greens back then. They didn't become popular again till the Great Cooking Shows came along and for whatever reason the Chefs were throwing the greens away. Maybe because of the dirt just under the split in each green leaf and they couldn't be bothered to remove each leaf and wash the dirt out. 😕 So now everyone does it - they've never eaten them and I've heard people and chefs say it's because "they are not good to eat". I swear I've heard that, not a word of a lie. I can't believe my ears. My family and I have always eaten leeks with the green tops. It's the best onion for stuffing.
@@sheilam4964 THANK YOU! I always wondered why, as born in early 90' I didn't saw the cooking shows from these years, I was a toddler then. 😅 But even here, in the middle of the Europe I heard since I can recall (so current century, I think) people saying that the green parts aren't edible, but they couldn't tell me, why! The greens aren't toxic, they aren't woody nor anything else what would make them inedible, and people kept telling me that they shouldn't be eaten. O.o Sure, washing the dirt out is a bit tedious, but not enough to waste perfectly fine food!
Always stick my not so nice top parts in my freezer to add along with onion skins, potato peels, carrot tops, woody asparagus stems..... when making broth. No need to buy new to make a broth😊 Yes, I use a lot of green only cut off dry and withered.
It's very refreshing to see a chef get it wrong. Cooking is never perfect! So many shows think they have to show a perfectly done recipe, but the failures make you relatable. Great job Jon! I'm sure the next one will turn our awesome! 😊
The word "pudding" is derived from Old French "boudin", meaning sausage (example Cajun boudin). Another example of a non-sweet pudding is the English "steak and kidney pudding" which is a sort of steamed meat pie.
I love watching these when they fail or are kind of ambiguous - it just feels so much more authentic to how someone back then might also have to work around the issues!
I know that when you cook quick oatmeal for just a short time it doesn't stick together well. If you cook it for longer it forms much more of a gelatinous lump. Possibly more water for a longer time.
It's true. My mother used to boil groats. Then she wrapped still scalding hot pot with paper and put it under blankets for a hour or two more. It resulted in delicious, sticky lump - much tastier than modern, pre-boiled groats in plastic bags.
@@bitsnpieces11 It was :( Now no one has time to properly cook groats or kasha. Everyone use pre-boiled and pre-packaged convenience sized portions from markets.
@@FrikInCasualMode haha. Just two weeks ago I tried to cook exactly kasha. Oatmeal kasha :). I boiled that cursed oats from local supplier at least for two hours! (the instruction was "20-25 min") I thought I was damned. I posted on Facebook asking why. Nobody couldn't guess what's wrong. It was steel balls, not oats. But after two hours at least it cooked
I believe "it will be required to be taken up in boiling to slacken the string a little." means that you ARE to tie it very tightly and boil it until the ingredients soften to the point that there is some slack on the string due to reduced consistency of the contents. In other words "boil it until the string begins to slacken". Also, "Groats" can be any whole hulled grain, such as wheat or rye or barley, not just oats!
It sounds like a vegetable version of haggis. We have sweet and savoury puddings in the uk. Most of them have suet in common, and / or were cooked by boiling or steaming. (To add further confusion, in some areas of the UK, people will call the dessert course "pudding" .)
I would have boiled the greens for at least 5 minutes (blanching can equate to scalding). The reason why is because they come out so shreddable they turn to mush, and the extra liquid would help the oats. This is common in Indian cuisine to make greens into a puree, but it does appear in late medieval European cuisine from time to time as a method for using herbs in sauces. Likewise, the recipe here could be talking solely about using greens, including leek and spring onions -- more mush and less hard chunks of onion. For the groats, it is possible they are not talking about oats at all, but wheat, barley, or some other porridge-able grain product. These could be better at coagulating into a pudding type material. Also they could call it pudding when what they really mean is a porridge (like Groaty Pudding today), something more like a pilaf (German Stippgrütze is a good example), or what we think of as a stuffing -- the recipe does not say how much water goes into the pudding mix. Perhaps what you made is basically what they meant. Or maybe this author simply left out some important details. Sometimes these things were just hastily scribbled down and sent off to the publisher without any trial run. I would look at recipes immediately before this one in the same book, as the lack of description on method here implies that the author already taught it previously. Fannie Farmer's 1897 cookbook for example explains a lot in the chapter intros that never appears in the recipe itself.
Yeah, one definition I've seen is that pies are baked while puddings are boiled, and that's where the distinction is made (with yorkie puds being an exception, of course).
My grandmother used to make a scalded pudding, and my mother makes it sometimes too. She sometimes gets the texture perfectly dense, where other times it's a soggy blob. I remember my grandmother tying the pudding bag super tight, and if it's not tied tight enough you get a soggy pudding. So...here's what I wrote down while watching mom make scalded pudding: Mix 2-3 cups boiling water with 1/2 cup butter. Mix and boil. Stir the hot liquid into 2-3 cups white flour mixed with 1 tsp table salt. Make a stiff dough. Tie into a ball in the pudding bag and tie really tight. Cook submerged in the boiled dinner pot liquor about 3 hours. So...as a Newfoundlander, a boiled dinner (also called a jiggs dinner) consists of boiling together salt-cured beef or pork, cabbage, turnip (what most people outside NL call rutabaga), carrots and potatoes. The pot liquor is the liquid that everything boils in. Mom uses this liquid to add to her meat pan to make gravy. I also know she used to eat it with bread as a kid. It's savoury and salty, and can also be used in soup recipes in place of stock. We would eat the scalded pudding with the boiled dinner vegetables and meat and gravy. You can eat the pudding either with gravy, or top it with some fancy molasses. Hope someone found this information interesting.
...and remember that wall paper used to be hung using a paste made from oats. So if oat groats had been cooked to a creamy state, pressed together with scalded veg and lard (not tallow) by a string tied up so close that you would have to loosen the string during boiling, and allowed to set up after removing from the boil, the ball of ingredients would have held together.
with a suet type pudding which is similar to this you would generally flour the cloth before wrapping and you would twist the cloth to tighten it when wrapping so it hold everything tightly together while it cooks.
I cannot express to you how much I wish I had your set up or was a part of your family so I could eat all of the wonderful foods I've seen you make over the years. Please don't ever stop doing what you're doing!
i think hes right about the groats steeping... my father overcooks oatmeal by most ppls standards and then when it cools it becomes bread pudding consistency....the water ratio and how sticky you make the oatmeal might get you a ball
This is ‘white pudding’ it’s traditional in scotland and we still eat it in the modern day. Often these days the green veg and herbs are omitted, but there are many variations. If the mixture is cooked in a pan, it becomes ‘Skirlie’. I’ve even had it coated in batter and deep fried from a fish and chip shop (I don’t necessarily recommend it, the oats soak up the oil big time). I think the mistake here may actually be expecting the cooked pudding to be a solid mass. Some cloth-cooked dishes, like ‘clootie dumpling’ (a cloot is a cloth) do hold together (though I’ve eaten many that have fallen apart), but when we eat haggis or veggie haggis - even though they’re cooked in a modern casing - they’re essentially a pile of crumbs on the plate, rather than a slice of something that has form.
I think the "groats" should have been Scottish oats aka Scottish oatmeal. That's what I prefer as my oatmeal. In my experience with rolled oats, steel cut oats, and Scottish oats, the Scottish oats cook up much faster and have a creamier consistency. You have to put the pan into cold water immediately after dishing up or else "the mass" will solidify and take *forever* to get off the pan. The same goes for the bowls you serve them in. If the "groats" had been Scottish oats/oatmeal after cooling that pudding would have been a solid ball. I think there should also be a much thicker coating of flour on the pudding cloth. As for tasting "bland" may some diced garlic would kick the flavor up a notch.
I love your series. Between this and Tasting History, have lots to procrastinate with between my PhD work and teaching. Great to relax with and learn from and am planning to try some of these (maybe even in an outdoor cooking situation in the summer at camp or our family cottage in the woods)
I truly love your 18th century cooking along with the mistakes and success. It's truly educational, and I like history. Keep up the good work and God bless you and your staff
I'd be fine serving this as a side dish with baked chicken, maybe a good steak. I have a feeling that many even in the 18th century didn't make it perfect, they'd eat it just fine! Thanks again for all your content :)
My grandpa collects leeks for, among other local folk, my wife and I every spring, and it’s my favorite part of the year. He’s got a good walk to get to where he picks them, and he’s in his mid 70’s, so I think I’m gonna offer to take on the mantle sometime here soon, or at least to tag along. Gotta make memories and share love when you can, and I love him (and his leeks) a whole lot
I agree with others: if this is from a British Source, BARLEY groats would be what they were talking about. Oat has nothing to bind ingredients. And I couldn't eat the oats or barley, but a Course Ground Corn Meal sounds AWESOME with this recipe... even if it's boiled. Oh, and I would rub a fat on the cloth, not flour- that was the ONLY binding agent in what you did.
You mentioned how sturdy the cloth was. Perhaps the fine weave in combination with the flour did not allow enough water in to finish hydrating the oats. Steal cut are pretty sturdy and a require more water and cook time.
There are moment of experimentation on your channel that really makes me wish I had a neighbor with a similar historical knowledge, interests and drive like yours. It would be fun to try and try again. How fantastic would that be! I believe it is the journey which makes most of the fun. Great job as always, keep going!
@@nebbindog6126 it is indeed. Could be because I believe in treating people respectfully. Comment could of read like this: ‘Just a suggestion, but next time follow the recipe closely and chop the veggies more finely. Hope that helps!’ It comes across much more politely and less like you are barking orders. Just a thought. Hope this helps …hehe.
it's more akin to white pudding, oats, barley, beef suet and spices boiled in a sausage casing, again similar to black pudding, all the aformentioned plus blood, both really tasty.
I believe firstly, that the greens need to be processed first. They release a lot of moisture initially. Secondly, the oats were underdone, therefore not providing enough starchiness. They can be soaked longer, and cook the whole lot longer as well.
That's what I love about your videos!!! Experimentation and candor!!! I think it looked very appetizing. Wholesome! Happy Thanksgiving to you and your clan!
ABSOLUTELY DONT AND THE GREEN TOPS! If you're going to add the green tops add it to the boil water because if you cook the tops of LEEKS until they're soft enough YOU'LL GET GREEN SNOT! That is unless you've grown up enjoying eating your BOOGERS!....LOL
Well follow the old saying: If at first you don't succeed try try again. Been playing around with switchel recipes all summer and I must admit I am really loving the stuff better than gatorade.
@@itgetter9 Loved it on a hot day after mowing the lawn. Did it with molassus first but it wasn't very sweet so I added brown sugar which improved things. I then tried it with maple syrup instead of molassus and well I don't know about New Englanders but I thought it disappointing then I did it with honey and loved it then I started adding a few things like Nutmeg for my bone joints which helps, tried peppermint for my asthma but well that I would not do again as it really takes off the paint but I find adding fruit syrups like raspberry and blackberry improves flavor and nutrition. Sad thing is nobody else in my family cares to try it.
@@terrierkeeper Your switchel variations sound amazing! I will try them! I have done mine usually with just apple cider vinegar, ginger, and a bit of honey. Why did I never think of adding nutmeg, especially after watching so much of this channel, lol? Love the blackberry idea too! Your family doesn't know what they're missing!
I would try again, trusting the recipe more. Blanching the herbs and skipping the flour might help it to form a more homogeneous mass prior to cooking. With that same goal in mind, I’d wrap it as tight as I could, then loosen it halfway through as instructed. I’m guessing that maybe those steps you skipped help to hold its form until the cooking process firms it up. Flour is a desiccant and will pull water from the mixture, as will the unblanched herbs. I’d aim for a tight, sticky ball prior to cooking.
id love to see you attempt this again, using the new ideas you have. Would be a great way to learn, and maybe help interpret other similarly vague recipes
You should definitely try out making Irish Soda Bread, it's so sweet & crumbly in your mouth & it originated in Ireland (obviously) when baking soda was introduced in the 1830s. I made 2 loaves of it in the past few days & have not been let down!
I just love everything about this show and channel. It's like a little slice of calm in todays chaos. I've learned so much, and its been fascinating the whole way.
We have boiled savoury puddings in the UK, usually made with flour and Suet. Onion and leek are popular flavourings for them. I'd use the green part of the leek It's slightly milder than the white part, but has good flavour. It's often used for leek and potato soup to give it a vibrant colour too.
I once did a 17th century plum pudding in a bag recipe, and it also failed yet tasted delicious. So, I do not know where this went wrong LOL. I don't see how the groats were supposed to keep this together. Usually there's flour involved, to help form the crust.
Check out what is available in Scotland for oats. The recipe called for oat groats. To produce groats, the oats are hulled, removing the inedible outer husk. What remains is a whole grain, containing the fiber-rich bran, nutritious germ, and the bulk of the grain, the endosperm. The recipe likely meant for the groats to be milled or ground to produce a meal or floury product. So to sum up - grind some of the oats to flour or meal, and boil much longer!!
For starters, you didn't put nearly enough flour on the cloth. I've been eating and making boiled 'puddings' for 60+ years. Also, I think it should have been tied tighter and cooked for at least another hour. The oats should be rolled, which would then have cooked much more and thus bonded it all together.
ive never made a pudding but what your saying makes a lot of sense as he was tying it up i thought, it looks like he is about to make regular oatmeal in a bag
@@HeatherNaturaly Yes, agreed. Another hour in the boiling pot might have released more starch and made a more cohesive pudding. And there's always the possibility that some here have suggested: like a haggis, perhaps it wasn't meant to hold together.
I would love to see future episodes on this dish to watch the progression/steps you take to make it. I never thought about a savory pudding/oatmeal and think I might try it.
Perhaps you needed to cook the oats in to porridge first to make them sticky, similar to how the rice in Sushi is super sticky compared to normal rice.