Why Vampires Hate Garlic - A Transylvanian Recipe from 1580 

As a Romanian, I haven't felt so offended since 1753, when I was exiled from my native village. I've never seen a vampire!

BEEF WITH GARLIC HARVESTER SAUCE 1. Call for Max Miller. 2. Tell him to "prepare the meat like I told you." 3. Drink his bourbon.

The Best Recipe: 'Prepare the meat like I told you.' This reminds me of the old joke that a lot of French cookbooks tend to be 'How to make Duck Confit: Take duck, make it a confit'.

I love the way this guy writes a recipe. "Make the beef like I said. Add some garlic the same way as the last time. Ah, you know what you're doing, let's skip to the next recipe."

I have a friend who's hypothesis is that Dracula actually love garlic and tells people that he hates it so that way they'll season themselves for him

I wonder if Max made this episode to disprove all of the rumors about him being an immortal vampire who likes cooking dishes from his youth. Verdict is still out on whether or not he has a creepy portrait of himself in the attic.

The phrase "in very obstinate cases of vampirism" suggest that there are also mild cases of vampirism and now I am just very curious what that looks like. I don't really tolerate garlic, suffered from insomnia pretty much since birth and recently learnt that my family roots trace back to Romania. Also, my father resembles Bela Lugosi. Funny things.

I’m slowly compiling my home-cooking recipes for my boys to someday inherit and I now will most definitely be including one with “cook the beef like I told you” 🤭😂

The devil''s left footsept gave us garlic, his right footstep gave us onions... and then he stopped for a leek

"Good thing you like garlic so much or we'd be worried you were a vampire." - my mother, 1993, on 16-year-old me's night-owl ways. 28 years later and some things never change. I'm still a night owl...and I still love garlicky dishes.

Tangentially, I once very nearly caused the family of a good friend to hate garlic, wine, and perhaps me. Several years back, my friend and her family all came down with the flu. I passed along to her that I swear by a particular variation of Gluwein for the flu. And, she agreed that she'd try it. A couple of weeks later, I asked how it worked out. I could tell that she hadn't enjoyed the recipe because her response was, "I guess I'm too Chinese to appreciate it." Of course, that's true. She and her husband are both Chinese, and make use of Chinese medicine. But, I asked her what it was that didn't appeal to her. She replied that it was the garlic. I had told her to throw "a few whole cloves" in the wine. Her husband had taken that to mean a few whole cloves of garlic. Much laughter ensued as I explained the difference.

As a romanian, I must say that most of our recipes include garlic, it s tasty and has lots of health benefits!

I should write a cookbook like the Transylvavian cook did. Page 1 - Beef Stew, Just do it like i did last friday. For reference, ask a friend of mine, we probably talked about it.

“Prepare the beef like I told you.” LOL He must have had some diary out there that says, “1,001 Things I Told You To Remember”

I made this in my pressure cooker! I added paprika to the roast in honor of Dracula's Jonathan Harker and his obsession with paprika chicken. The garlic sauce is pure wonderfulness!

The way this guy writes recipes is a whole mood

Next up: Why werewolves hate silver, why Frankenstein’s Monster hates fire, and why zombies hate anyone who can move at over 3mph.

There was a meme going around the internet a month or so ago, that discussed the fact that a lot of things that have been used in folk medicine to repel vampires, witches, demons, etc., are actually antibacterial (garlic, silver, etc.). Then there was a thread imagining someone using hand sanitizer to repel/fight a vampire ... and someone else made a joke about a vampire saying "your tiny bottle of colored water can't hurt me ... Oh crap!" when the person pulls out pumpkin spice scented glitter hand sanitizer from Bath & Body Works.

My late father, a general practitioner, would have his patients try garlic pills (or fresh garlic if they liked garlic) for high blood pressure before moving to something stronger. He believed that a natural remedy should be tried first as those tend to be easier on the system than pharmacological sloutions.

If you eat a parsnip and your reaction is "you could just use a turnip," then you need a higher-quality parsnip! They should be sweet with a hint of carrot-y, licorice-y flavor to them, though milder than either of those.

I found out last year that my biological family has a long history of porphyria. In fact, my grandma succumbed to it shortly after my mom was born. I've always been exceptionally pale, and in the past few years, I've developed a fairly severe light sensitivity to the point I unironically wear sunglasses at night when driving because most headlights are blinding to me, and smells are incredibly strong to me to the point I can detect ones no one else can perceive. Oddly enough, I tested negative for porphyria, though I am a carrier of it. I do enjoy garlic and onions, though. Not to the extreme some of my friends and family do, but I don't dislike it. I suppose in modern mythology I might be called a dhampir, the offspring of a vampire and a human. If only it gave me incredible strength and rougish good looks. . .

I wonder how many people realize that "The Land Beyond the Forest" is basically a completely literal translation of Transylvania.

As a proved-not-to-be-vampire romanian, I really like this episode and the effort you generally put in every dish you make. Now excuse me, it's getting dark, and the phantoms start to appear. Bless!

Even here in the Philippines, alot of ‘evil creatures’ up to now are tend to be “scared” of the garlic. Thats why some of the houses in the provinces have wreath made from garlic hanging at the front door. 😄😁

"He's dead, Jim." "Well, I guess we'd better stuff him with garlic." "...why?" "Vampires."

There is another tradition regarding vampires here in Romania where if a horse won't step over a certain grave, it means there is a strigoi (or vampire) there.

Dracula : Dead and Loving it. That's an Awesome comedy to watch. Staring Leslie Nelson.

Wonderful recipe--can't wait to try it. Cute Count von Count impression too. The reason the Count likes to count is not because of a pun on his noble title (that belongs to Soupy Sales which you are too young to remember) but to the folk legend that if there is a vampire in the vicinity, scatter seeds or grains in his path. The vampire will be irresistibly compelled to count each seed until dawn--whereupon he'll go back to his grave or turn to dust: depending on which horror movie you've watched.

"If you don't like garlic, you're not gonna like the sauce." And if you don't like the sauce....... VAMPIRE!!!!

Garlic flowers are *intensely* garlic-y, the smell is eye-wateringly strong.

Da-ang, that story of Lucy reminds me of the time my cousin and I were at a bible camp in Jamaica, and moths kept getting in our room, so we shut all the windows. Then our grandmother visited us and said, "Why'd you boys close all the windows? It's way too stuffy in here!" and opened up all the windows. Which of course led to our room being infested with moths (and this being Jamaica, the suckers were huge). Looking back, I guess we can be glad nothing got in that could suck blood. I don't recall needing mosquito netting at that camp, I'm not sure how they kept the skeeters out there.

I think another interesting connection between garlic and vampires (and the plague, for that matter) is that rats and mice hate the scent of garlic because it's so strong. If it can keep away those rodents and the diseases they bring it's not a big leap to assume it can ward off vampires as well.

We made this Transylvanian delicacy for dinner tonight in honor of Halloween and it was agreed by the whole family to be one of the best meals we've ever eaten in our life.

Ahh, yes. Golbat plushie. Pokémon fact: the Pokédex states that Golbat can gulp over 10 oz of blood per bite, and the Japanese name of the annoying move Leech Life is Suck Blood.

The combination of eggs, vinegar, pepper and the roast broth (with has reduced while slow-cooking in the oven), is essentially a variation of sauce hollandaise, with beef fat instead of butter and vinegar instead of lemon juice. And to get the sauce of the right consistency, the broth needs to have reduced almost to the point of having no water.

I made this this evening. YUM! The beef made "as I told you" was good (I added 1/4 cup of port wine), but the sauce really MAKES this wonderful. I tasted a bit of sauce by scraping it off the whisk with my finger as I took it to be washed, and my reaction was "WOW!" FWIW, I have not seen any vampires since starting this, nor have I heard of any vampire sightings in my town.

As to why vampires are repelled by garlic, there is an old Roman saying: "Same things repel each other." Vampires are supposed to stink because they're from the grave. So garlic which also stinks repels them.

When I learned about the rice grain counting compulsion myth and realized that The Count from Sesame Street wasn't just a pun on his name I was shocked. And when I said so, someone from another country where the rice thing was known but the title "The count" was translated into a different noble title that broke the pun had the same shock in reverse.

The comment in the book about sitting in the kitchen! I feel validated that it was in so old a book. For around 15 years, we've kept a bar chair in the kitchen by the stove. The thought had never occurred to me, but I happened to see that an older, disabled cousin of mine had one so that she wasn't in extra pain while cooking. There is no virtue in standing to prepare food when it makes one uncomfortable or hurts to do it!

I am a vegetarian, but I was curious about this recipe. I made the garlic sauce and poured it over roasted carrots, potatoes, and replaced the beef with mushrooms and lentils (what I usually use in place of red meet). It was delicious! Thanks, @Max Miller!

Vampires dying in sunlight became a thing with the film Nosferatu. Since they did not get the license for Dracula, they changed a few things and added the sunlight as deadly weakness.

my great great grandfather used to have a book of stories, and one of them was from the old country of Belgium from his father. One of the stories was of a boy having a chance encounter with a vampire posing as a family friend/member while his only family was his father fighting in a war with all of his brothers off working or fighting in the same war. The boy curious as young boys do asks the vampire all sorts of things, the vampire feared not the cross, holy water, or wrought iron, but he did fear garlic. The boy conversed with the beast and posed a challenge him and his brothers would play when all were present, it would be a lap around the farm and jump into a nearby river, and such that should the vampire beat the boy at this game, he would willingly join the vampire. The boy had to claim every obstacle in the game truthfully and honorably, or the vampire would not play and would steal the boy's soul without mercy. The obstacles were a fearsome bull that guarded the farm from wolves, a bramble thicket that bordered the neighbor's farmland, an herb garden where ingredients for a meal that the boy was preparing when the vampire arrived, and then a river that was lower than a church up river. The vampire dodged and passed through the obstacles with ease, but found pause when he came to the garden, for the garden contained garlic and thyme. The vampire was sporting waiting until the final obstacle to overtake the boy and claim him for the night, but had failed to catch the whiff of garlic due to the alluring smell of a stew that the boy had made with thyme. the boy had cleared the garden and quickly found himself submerged in the river and cheered his victory. The vampire laughed and bowed proclaiming that any boy cleverer than a vampire was truly one blessed by the providence of the lord, and then vanished into the dark woods never to be seen again. Its far more expansive as to how the boy out-foxed the vampire, but A) i've not read GGGrandpa's book in almost a decade, and B) i love old school story telling

Max, you're a gem! I'm a librarian and absolutely had to have that book as soon as you mentioned that it was downloadable and free! Thanks a bunch!

This was amazing. Perfectly tender, and the garlic sauce surprisingly didn't taste too sharply of garlic.

I took a college course on vampires and interestingly vampires started out as appearing like bloated corpses. The origin of the beautiful, aristocratic vampire is thought to be from the story "The Vampyre" by Polidori (with the creature inspired by his friend, Lord Byron). And this was written from the same challenge where Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein." Also if you want to see a movie with the old-school folk vampire (specifically Sava Savanović who was mentionedin the video), then the Yugoslavian film "Leptirica" is available for free on RU-vid.

As a person of Transylvanian descent, I refute the blatant lies that vampires are afraid of garlic! *cackles with evil intent and fades into the shadows*

The sulfur compounds in garlic can act as an antiseptic and can be helpful for certain heart conditions. I'm severely allergic to eggs so sadly I won't be making your sauce but a proper garlic aioli might work. Thanks to Nigella Lawson I've recently discovered slow cooked roasts so I might give this a try.

I made this last night and I can't thank you enough for one, introducing that sauce to me and two, teaching me that you make a pot roast in a POT! I don't know if the method you used is antiquated or if I've just been oblivious, but no roasting pan has ever gotten me a piece of meat so good. You've literally improved my quality of life.

Fun Fact: In the past, You could tell if someone was a vampire if they didnt have a reflection in the mirror, but that was because of the silver the mirrors were made out of, (because vampires hate silver too). But nowadays mirrors aren't made with silver anymore, so if a vampire stands next to you in a mirror you will see their reflection and never know

If you want a romanian recipe with GARLIC, you should have made "Mujdei". That's a dip that consists mainly of garlic, crushed to a paste in a mortar with some salt. The rest varies depending on who you ask. Some mix the garlic-paste with yoghurt, some mix it with a shot of oil, some mix it with thyme and a shot of wine. Mujdei with grilled meat is scandalously good.

Thank you for the recipe. My wife and I cooked it several times and have since made it our own by customizing it. We have kept the sauce, parsnip and beef the same, but added red potatoes and carrots. We also keep the left over sauce to dip bread in.

Extra points for using Dance Macabre for the background music! LOVE!

FYI for other Canadians: If you don't see beef chuck at your local supermarket, it's probably labeled as 'blade' instead

My mother hates garlic, but there may be a good reason. Arsenic smells like garlic on the breath, and the part of Scotland most of her family came from has arsenic in the soil. On the other hand, she could just be a vampire.

“Dracula, Dead and Loving It!”? A man of taste, I see.

“Los Angeles must be filled with lots of vampires” Angel: allow me to introduce myself

I am doing a research paper on rabies right now and I'm thrilled that you mentioned it in relation to vampires and werewolves! This is one of the most exciting parts of my paper!

My father, who was an amazing cook, used to cook with a lot of garlic and various spicy peppers. Each year, while we were out fishing or hiking, my dad and I would receive the least Mosquito bites of anyone else among our family and friends. Dad told me it was because he and I ate the most garlic and peppers, things that protect you against Mosquitos and other things that...wait for it...suck blood. There is some science to back it up. The smell and oils in these ingredients do make a person a less desirable target for the little buggers' attentions.

I get the cookbook as my birthday present this year, and I have to say... Please make another one. I want more.

Love the "Dracula Dead and Loving It" clips! My absolute favorite Dracula movie!😅

Ahh yes, Bach. Nothing screams VAMPIRES like Toccata and Fugue!

Friends: Wow, you really cook all your food with garlic? You must really like the taste! Me: Uh, yeah...that's definitely why I cook with garlic....

Something I recently learned about cast iron pots is they put salt in a clean pot heated it to just before burning dumped it out and re salted heating again... This was a type of seasoning iron so it became what we would have thought of as non stick coating. Even today if you have a non stick that has aged you can heat salt in the bottom to cover and heat until very hot wipe out with a dry paper towel and the non stick coating will once again be like new.

"The right one gave us onions!" Something about the way he said this, and the idea of Satan "moseying," made me cry laughing.

Translyvanian prince: "Make the beef like i told you" Me: Where and when, my dear sir, did you tell me how to do this?!

The frankness of Max gladly taking a chair in the kitchen because he’s “old” has me dying. But also like I would definitely need a chair if I were cooking at a hearth. My stupid crooked spine does not support stooping over activities

Cookbook author: I'm not going to repeat myself so you are going to sit your ass down and read the whole cookbook

For those concerned about garlic and its bite (couldn't resist) you can blanch the garlic. Basically pour boiling water on it let sit for 10odd seconds. Or put in a pot w water when it boils pour out and repeat two more times. Do this a couple of times and the garlic keeps the flavour

Forgot to mention the golden cross, van Helsing put around Lucy's neck in her coffin, only for it to be stolen by a greedy nurse.

Interesting about garlic being medicine- in the Zoroastrian holiday celebrating the first day of spring (nowruz), you're supposed to put 7 items on the table representing 7 things you wish for the new year/represent spring. You put a whole garlic on the table, and it symbolizes health and medicine!

Max Miller is basically my spirit animal. This is the best youtube channel.

I’m a new subscriber that started watching your Titanic series. Since then I’ve been binging a ton of your videos. You’re so funny and honestly a joy to watch. I’m now at work watching laughing to myself so I’m glad I’m alone otherwise people would think I’m crazy! Anyhow, glad to have found your channel on YT. ❤️❤️❤️

"I think Los Angeles is full of vampires" Well, of course it is, have you ever played Vampire: The Masquerade?

The word 'vampire' actually comes from Serbia, it is probably the most widely borrowed word from our language. A lot of the lore about vampires comes from how Serbian peasants imagined vampires, however, our original vampires only choked people to death instead of biting them; biting came a bit later. I am of the opinion that vampire panic was often spread here to provide an excuse for people to arm themselves in preparation for fighting against Turks. I'm also amazed by how well you pronounced Sava Savanović's name; English speakers tend to butcher our names, but this was really on point, great job!

I’ve cooked most of the recipes from this book. Glenn had it translated a few years ago and it’s been big in the SCA. One of the pastries is almost identical to a modern danish puff.

The leaves of the garlic plant can also be used with a slow cooked roast. Garlic is my favorite crop to grow.

I can attest to garlic warding off blood sucking bugs like fleas, ticks, and mosquitos. My mom actually took garlic tablets for most of her life after she got a case of Gangrene back in the day from having Gallstones...mind you at the time doctors didn't think a 16 year old could HAVE Gallstones so they didn't do anything until she got a bad infection. She had her Gallbladder removed and ever since she took garlic tablets to help with her blood, she couldn't donate blood either because of the gangrene. She was rarely bothered by any blood sucking bugs, and we've lived in the south and had pets so..yeah, fleas and ticks along with mosquitos are an issue but they didn't bother her as much as the other family members. I myself have a high garlic diet and mosquitos tend to leave me be.

About to make this meal a Halloween Tradition

Loved the use of Danse Macabre. We performed that piece in the final concert of the symphony orchestra I was in.

This is the second recipe from your cookbook that my husband and i have tried now. I did make one small change - the sauce didnt seem to be thickening up the way i wanted it to, so I added about half a tablespoon of cornstarch to it, and that quickly gave it the consistency I wanted. You really are awesome for resurrecting so many delightful historic dishes.

An episode of drunk history with max Miller would be the greatest crossover the world has ever seen.

You Mr Max Miller, In my humble opinion stand head and shoulders above the rest of the culinary shows any place ..You bring fascinating facts , you have a presents that is captivating, you are humorous. When you are tasting your creations you have this ability of making me able to taste with you.! It’s insane! Talk about the power of suggestion! Thank you Max Miller I throughly enjoy your channel and creating these amazing ancient meals.

In high school, 2004, i did a work about Porphiria, was a A+ was so into vampirism and that stuff ♡

Little vampire lore to add myself, a lot of the renaissance era vampire hunting records say that a vampire would not rot, will have ruddy red skin, and be bloated with so much blood, presumed to have been drunk, that it seeped from the various orifices. Now, finding a corpse like that when you don't understand the science behind rot was probably creepy, but today we know that all of these features, though uncommon, are still part of the natural decomposition process.

I love that he talks about Bram Stoker's Dracula but shows clips from Dracula: Dead and Loving It 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Fun fact: Vampire is a word of Slavic origin, particularly Serbian origin as vampire hysteria in modern Europe has its roots in what is now central Serbia. Anyhow in 18th century northern parts of Serbia (south of the Danube river) were under Austrian rule. Austrian authorities in one small village reported to Wienna a case of Petar Blagojević, a villager that supposedly turned into a vampire. Other villagers demanded from a Austrian captain to allow them to preform a ritual to stop him from killing other villagers. Village was suffering from some disease but some woman reported that Blagojević, who died recently, choked them in the sleep, hence how it all started. Captian was sceptical at first but villagers said that they would all leave the village if he doesn't allow them to preform said ritual. Eventually he allowed them and he was there, alongside local priest when they preformed it. They dug up Blagojevićs grave, struck his corpse with a wooden spear and burned the corpse right there. When he saw a corpse, Blagojević was convinced that the man was indeed a vampire and he wrote everything in a report to Wienna. Eventually, report found its way in several medical books and many newspapers throughout 18th and early 19th century Europe. The word spread, and the vampire hysteria started.

"To cook meat, use a pot, beef and salt". Your recipe is straight from the Legend of Zelda, man.

This recipe sounds amazing. I love garlic so I must try it! There's this garlic sauce I make from the Julia Child cookbook using cloves of garlic cooked in milk and rice (which is the thickener after you puree it), then mixed with the drippings of the stuffed leg of lamb from the same cookbook. It's insanely mellow for how much garlic is in it!

While the folklore is inseparable from Romania, I'd like to point out that Austria wasn't innocent there either! In present-day Austria, there's a grave of a highborn woman, who was feared during her time and allegedly never came out, except during the night. She was buried in a coffin, wrapped in chains, put into a sarcophagus, and had a couple of feet of concrete poured on top of all that, and just to make sure, a Chapel was built on top of her grave! Also, during the Austrian Empire, a doctor was sent to present-day Romania to investigate the plague. He was accompanied by a bunch of soldiers due to the unruly times. The doctor investigated the corpse of an alleged vampire and wanted to debunk that pesky gossip, but the corpse belched and startled the soldiers who in turn chopped off its head, dragged the doctor away, and burnt the corpse!

I love that the historical first two steps for preparing a beef roast recipe are: 1) wake up and 2) pray. Sleep-cooking would be dangerous and praying might be nice, especially if the cow is a vampire. In that case make sure to use steel chains instead of butcher twine to wrap the roast thrice and stuff every orifice with garlic or Satan is coming for dinner! Though if Satan shows up at least we can thank him for the garlic and onions.

Oh my goodness!!!! This is absolutely DELICIOUS! I used onion, turnips, and carrots with the roast. Everything was tender and flavorful. But that harvester sauce took everything to an exceptional level of flavor. I halved the ingredients and used just one large clove of garlic and it was perfect! Thank you, Max! 😊❤️👍

You seem so safe, fun, and cozy. I Love your content, and personality

Fun fact: despite garlic being used for medicinal purposes, it actually has a lot of interactions with medications so you should always talk with your doctor about what you're taking before using it as a supplement/treatment.

I remember reading a comment where someone said that nobles in the Medieval Ages thought garlic was repulsive and to be only eaten by the poor. So the theory goes that vampires were a sort of manifestation that the peasants made of their fear of nobles, where these creatures would live in isolation, only coming to suck the blood of the poor. (Sorry for the poor grammar)

The tone of your voice is what intrigues me to your videos... I love food and you have such a love for food and history of cooking... then you show your own interpretation of historic foods. Your videos are incredible!

I made this for a family dinner party not too long ago, with the addition of carrots since my grandmother doesn't like parsnips very much. It was delicious! The vinegar in the sauce balanced the richness of everything else so wonderfully!

Max, years ago while working in Germany while staying at a small hotel 38 years ago, we had dinner at the hotel restaurant. On the menu was Alsatian garlic soup. It was served to with a pie crust covering the ceramic bowl's top, which you pushed into the soup to eat. It is one of the best soups I have ever eaten! I have tried for years to find a recipe for this Alsatian garlic soup, but have completely failed to find it. Is there any. possibility you could find it, do a show on this soup and give us the recipe. One other note, the broth was a clear golden yellow color. I don't know if it was chicken broth or a butter based broth.

An immortal life without garlic bread…no, not worth it.

That looks SO good!!!! My hubo is half Romanian… I’m totally going to make this for him sometime soon.

The scope of history that you cover with your recepies are fantastic!!!!!!!