Historical Cooking History is something I've always found fascinating, but I find food and drink just as fascinating (if not more so, which is why I'm here). Some of you may already know of my tendency to eat military rations. But I decided to go a step further, and begin actually cooking instead of opening pouches and cans. So today, I hereby present the historical food thread! In this thread, we discuss and cook historical cuisine to earn a closer appreciation to what our ancestors had to put up with, from simple pottage and gritty bread to exquisite banquet meals that the 99% could only dream of laying eyes on. In doing so, we gain insight into what daily life would have been like when our predecessors sat down to eat. We also eat food and drink alcohol, which is literally never a bad thing. When posting a recipe, make sure to include the original text whenever possible along with a plain English translation. Also, please try to stay as close to the original recipe as possible! I'm always incredibly frustrated by online historical recipes because so many people want to modify them for a modern palette, rather than truly experiencing the past. While some recreations may not be 100% possible (such as needing to use commercial fish sauce instead of making your own garum or an herb being literally extinct for a thousand years), I feel like it defeats the purpose of living history to try and modify it for our own sensibilities. If this means the final product kinda tastes like crap, so be it in the name of science.
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 00:55 |
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# ? Apr 26, 2024 09:58 |
To Seeth Fresh Salmon My first ever historical recipe, taken from The Good Huswives Handmaid of 16th century England. Recipe comes from All Gode Cookery. quote:To seeth Fresh Salmon. Take a little water, and as much Beere and salt, and put therto Parsley, Time and Rosemarie, and let all these boyle togeathere. Then put in your Salmon, and make your broth Sharpe with some Vinigar. quote:1 cup water I chose this because out of all the All Gode Cookery recipes, this was one of the easiest. All you do is mix ingredients in a saucepan, boil it, then pour it onto salmon and let it sit in an oven for a while. I chose Samuel Adams Cold Snap for the beer. Pickings at the local Publix were slim, but I figured the very low hop character and use of spices and citrus would more closely imitate medieval gruit beers. This is basically a two-step meal, and step one is throwing everything but the salmon in a saucepan and letting it boil. Within minutes, you're hit with an absolutely wonderful smell from the spices intermingling. I could easily see a medieval kitchen being one of the best smelling places to work, in spite of the heat. I had to try a few pans without pouring anything in to try and get the right depth, which is a lot harder than it seems, but I lucked upon the exact right size for all 4 salmon fillets and the 2 1/4 cups of liquid. I used a plastic spoon I had sitting in a drawer to try and even out the clumps of wet spices onto all the pieces. From there, it was into the oven for 20 minutes! And the verdict? Quite good, and not that far off from modern tastes! The strong smell isn't quite conveyed in the flavor, but you've still got it somewhere in there. The strongest flavor components are likely the beer and 1/4 cup of vinegar, and the salmon has a noticeable acidity not unlike if it had been given a squirt of lemon juice.
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 01:21 |
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This seems pretty good. Would like to try this myself soon.
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 01:28 |
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You're clearly meant to add as much salt as beer and water
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 02:27 |
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This is a good thread.
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 03:03 |
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This might be handy for one or both threads. https://maritime.org/doc/cookbook1945/index.htm
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 10:31 |
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I bought a Shakespeare-themed cookbook a while ago that had a bunch of historical recipes as well as modernized equivalents. Never got around to making anything from it but this might be a good opportunity.
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 18:53 |
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Hamcutlet Romanian julienned vegtables ?
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 19:19 |
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Pound of flesh
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 19:20 |
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Rich Chard dessert
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 19:23 |
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If you're interested in ye olde bread, this blog is really interesting.Debby Banham (University of Cambridge) and Martha Bayless (University of Oregon) posted:How to Make Anglo-Saxon Bread: Version 1 I've only tried the reasonably prosperous yeoman recipe, but it's pretty good.
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 20:18 |
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Ground uncooked peas do smell awful because they are poisonous, you might want to go for cooked pea flour (which is what is sold in stores) in case you underbake the bread.
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 21:41 |
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:Ground uncooked peas do smell awful because they are poisonous, you might want to go for cooked pea flour (which is what is sold in stores) in case you underbake the bread. But that just makes it more historically authentic* . *Not responsible for authentic early medieval food poisonings.
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# ? Feb 16, 2018 22:16 |
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golden bubble posted:If you're interested in ye olde bread, this blog is really interesting. I'm in India right now so it's on my mind, but basically if you add a little more flour to the "prosperous yeoman" recipe and roll it out real thin, you'll end up with roti. Cook up some lentils and you've got a meal that's historical and tasty and also eaten by probably hundreds of millions of people a day. chitoryu12, glad you went ahead and made the thread. Once I get back in the States I'll try and do some recipes that would fit the thread. I've got a fire pit in the back yard, too, and I've been meaning to work on my firebuilding skills, so I may try cooking some things out there; the roast beef Townsends did looks easy and tasty.
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# ? Feb 17, 2018 04:54 |
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Oh I love this kind of stuff, one of my favorite longrunning blogs was The Old Foodie, which sadly shuttered last year, though she posted once a weekday pretty much without fail for a whole decade so there's plenty of stuff to see.
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# ? Feb 17, 2018 05:20 |
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I always make hardtack for my students when we finally reach the Civil War in my 8th grade class. They hate it and I love watching their faces.
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# ? Feb 17, 2018 06:19 |
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:Ground uncooked peas do smell awful because they are poisonous, you might want to go for cooked pea flour (which is what is sold in stores) in case you underbake the bread. how many recipes in before the OP gives himself the shits
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# ? Feb 17, 2018 10:47 |
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If you want a proper old-timey beer to keep recipes authentic, Weistauphen has kept the same recipe since like the 1600’s. I’m also pretty sure I just butchered the spelling. E: wow, did I! Weihenstephaner Ugly In The Morning fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Feb 17, 2018 |
# ? Feb 17, 2018 21:56 |
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Some of the stuff from "Apicius de re Coquinaria" is not too bad. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29728/29728-h/29728-h.htm The difficulty is that liquamen/garum and laser aren't described. Laser is extinct and garum is pretty much just fish sauce but who can say if it's different than modern fish sauce. I made a vegetarian dish of leeks and beets boiled in wine that was not too bad. Very different than modern cooking but good none-the-less. "De re Cquinaria" is definitely worth a read. Not sure where they sell sows matrix, but I'm sure I could find some if I tried hard enough.
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# ? Feb 18, 2018 02:03 |
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Had a really great flatbread-with-Garum pizza the other day. Holy poo poo was it intense. I didn’t see garum on the menu when I was in Rome though
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# ? Feb 18, 2018 03:05 |
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:Rich Chard dessert
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# ? Feb 18, 2018 03:39 |
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How "historic" is "historic" for the purposes of this thread? I've got a 1965 Czechoslovakian cookbook I inherited when my mom died, and I've been wanting to dig into it and try some more Foods of My People. It's only a little over 50 years old, but I figure 1960's Eastern Bloc recipes probably aren't far from their peasant-toiling-in-the-field roots.
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# ? Feb 18, 2018 23:14 |
JacquelineDempsey posted:How "historic" is "historic" for the purposes of this thread? I've got a 1965 Czechoslovakian cookbook I inherited when my mom died, and I've been wanting to dig into it and try some more Foods of My People. It's only a little over 50 years old, but I figure 1960's Eastern Bloc recipes probably aren't far from their peasant-toiling-in-the-field roots. Go for it! Anything that you didn’t grow up eating because it predates you.
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# ? Feb 18, 2018 23:18 |
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chitoryu12 posted:Go for it! Anything that you didn’t grow up eating because it predates you. Awesome, thanks! Thank goodness I live in a city with a decent butcher, because dang there are some crazy protein options in this book. Gonna get my game on, in more ways than one.
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# ? Feb 18, 2018 23:38 |
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I think the go-to youtube for this kind of stuff is Townsends, it's also pretty good background listening.
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# ? Feb 19, 2018 00:53 |
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Party Plane Jones posted:I think the go-to youtube for this kind of stuff is Townsends, it's also pretty good background listening. Heard and same. Gotta thank chitoryu's other thread for introducing me to the Bob Ross of cooking videos.
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# ? Feb 19, 2018 01:20 |
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Chitoryu, I am in love with every single one of your threads. I have an unhealthy obsession with American pioneer-era stuff, so I'd love to try a meal one of these days--maybe next week when my mini-Patapons are back in school. I've always wanted to see what an authentic 1600s "first American Thanksgiving" would have really been like, if there's anyone out there who is way more familiar with that time period? I'm so excited for this thread!
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# ? Feb 22, 2018 21:20 |
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Great thread! This is one of those things I've dipped my toe in and I'm excited to see what others have done.mostlygray posted:Some of the stuff from "Apicius de re Coquinaria" is not too bad. Agreed that Apicius has some interesting recipes, and many that feature unexpected flavor combinations. On garum: we actually know a ton about it. We have descriptions (from Pliny, for example) of how it was made and the difference between garum (made with fish guts) and liquamen (made with whole fish). Garum also has its own academic subfield, with culinary historians, economic historians, and archaeologists all weighing in. It's super interesting if that's your bag. The closest you can get to it today is colatura di alici, which is worth trying. I've made several Roman dishes, including the panis quadratus from the Tavola Mediterranea blog. This recipe makes a huge loaf that didn't really fit in my pan well; it ended up a little too heavy. I'm going to make it again but cut the proportions to about 2/3. What I'm most proud of was adapting the Apicius recipe for lucanica sausages (from book II) and making Roman-style salami, with pine nuts, cumin and fish sauce. It's a nice salami: I chickened out and made it with half fish sauce and half salt, which gave it a nice funk. Next batch, I'll use 100% fish sauce for salting. The pine nuts don't really stand out, but like the Dude's rug, they really tie the whole thing together. I'm planning to make another batch in the near future and if there's interest, can document the process. I'd like to serve it up with homemade Pompeii-style bread and Roman-style cheese; a nice ancient snack!
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# ? Feb 23, 2018 14:04 |
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Zombie Dachshund posted:I'm planning to make another batch in the near future and if there's interest, can document the process. I'd like to serve it up with homemade Pompeii-style bread and Roman-style cheese; a nice ancient snack! Yes, please!
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# ? Feb 23, 2018 14:28 |
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Pata Pata Pata Pon posted:I've always wanted to see what an authentic 1600s "first American Thanksgiving" would have really been like, if there's anyone out there who is way more familiar with that time period? I'm so excited for this thread! The answer appears to be wildfowl, corn, porridge and venison, all washed down with some water. There was a lot of wild game available, but they did not have access to wheat bread, beer, cranberry sauce, and potatoes, and could not make pie crusts. Smithsonian posted:Of course, to some extent, the exercise of reimagining the spread of food at the 1621 celebration becomes a process of elimination. “You look at what an English celebration in England is at this time. What are the things on the table? You see lots of pies in the first course and in the second course, meat and fish pies. To cook a turkey in a pie was not terribly uncommon,” says Wall. “But it is like, no, the pastry isn’t there.” The colonists did not have butter and wheat flour to make crusts for pies and tarts. (That’s right: No pumpkin pie!) “That is a blank in the table, for an English eye. So what are they putting on instead? I think meat, meat and more meat,” says Wall. Edward Winslow posted:Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. William Bradford posted:And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion. golden bubble fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Feb 23, 2018 |
# ? Feb 23, 2018 22:08 |
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I'd loving die to know what garum was. Honestly, It probably tasted like 'more liquidy oyster sauce It's like not knowing why they couldn't write down "what ketchup tasted like, precisely" before they hosed up, makes me laugh. Big Beef City fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Feb 24, 2018 |
# ? Feb 24, 2018 02:55 |
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chitoryu12 posted:
The verdict is to post in Goons With Spoons.
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# ? Feb 24, 2018 03:01 |
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Big Beef City posted:I'd loving die to know what garum was. Have I got a deal for you, friend: you can find out for about $25.
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# ? Feb 24, 2018 12:47 |
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quote:Unique, precious anchovy sauce
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# ? Feb 26, 2018 00:57 |
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If you want some good entertainment and insight on 18th century (and a few earlier recipes) cooking, check out JAS Townsend & Son's Youtube channel. They're a reproduction wares house for historical recreators, but have a huge passion for how poo poo was actually done, and do a ton of very educational content on old recipes. Their mushroom ketchup recipe is a favorite of mine, although I don't make it often. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29u_FejNuks In additional notes, the SCA folks do a lot of work on recreating medieval recipes for modern use. I've made a few from Cariadoc's Miscellany that turned out pretty okay.
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# ? Feb 27, 2018 08:17 |
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Here's another fun site about medieval cooking, with a proto-cheesecake recipe to go with it.quote:Lese fryes: Take nessh chese, and pare it clene, and grinde hit in a morter small, and drawe yolkes and white of egges thorgh a streynour, and cast there-to, and grinde hem togidre; theñ cast thereto Sugur, butter and salt, and put al togider in a coffyñ of faire paast, And lete bake ynowe, and then serue it forthe.
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# ? Feb 28, 2018 00:00 |
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/mawmeny.html I'm looking at this as my next recipe, served over stale bread for authenticity.
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# ? Mar 2, 2018 21:56 |
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chitoryu12 posted:
Try cooling the salmon in the poaching liquid, and eat it cold. "Pickling" fatty fish like this has a long tradition worldwide and it's usually delicious.
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# ? Mar 2, 2018 23:46 |
Do you not realize that garum sociorum, that expensive bloody mass of decayed fish, consumes the stomach with its salted putrefaction?
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# ? Mar 3, 2018 02:01 |
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# ? Apr 26, 2024 09:58 |
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I did some shopping this morning and picked up a whole chicken, some steaks, and some chicken breasts. I also have shrimp and fish (tilapia, I think, or maybe catfish) in the freezer, plus ground beef. Other ingredients kicking around: potatoes, onions, eggs, celery, turnips, beans, mushrooms. Got any recommendations for an interesting recipe using one or more of these? I couldn't get mace or saffron at the store today but I have most other spices and some dried herbs. I'm planning to try Townsend's baked beans recipe tonight, if you can really call it Townsend's recipe because it's just navy beans, molasses, salt pork (I'm using bacon ends), and onions. My cast iron pot is too big for the size of batch I'm making, so I'll probably cook it in a casserole in the oven instead of in the fire.
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# ? Mar 3, 2018 17:18 |