Cooking Marathon! - 18th Century Cooking Season 1

foreign [Music] soldiers in the 18th century whether they be American British or French all had very similar rations Congress in 1775 established rations for the American soldiers and that ration stayed very similar for 150 years let's take a look at what was included in that ration foreign there were several different types of rations there were per man per day food rations that each man hoped he would get there were rations per man per week and then they were per company per week rations so the daily ration would include a meat component usually a pound of beef or three quarters of a pound of pork or possibly a pound of salt fish so another part of the daily ration would be the bread part each man was supposed to get a pound loaf of bread per day and if bread wasn't available then they would possibly be issued just just flour and if flour wasn't available then they might even get a substitution of cornmeal and to round out this daily ration they were given a pint of milk and a quart of beer the per company per week ration included candles soap items that the men would need that weren't food items the perk man per week rations were items that weren't as popular or common um peas it might also include beans rice or vinegar whenever possible the soldiers would also supplement their diet with whatever items they could they could procure locally from the local Village or from Farmers or even from the Wilderness around them so in the following video series we're going to take all these ration items and we're going to prepare them in an 18th century fashion soldiers in the 18th century commonly had short rations and they would supplement their rations and one of the things they would supplement their rations with was pumpkins or sometimes they were called pompons today we're going to take some pumpkins and we're gonna cook them in a couple of different ways so these first two pumpkins we're going to roast what I'm going to turn into a pottage and another one we're going to stuff with pears let's start with our pottage pumpkin I'm gonna take out the the pith and the seeds now we're going to take this Flat Rock that we've had in the fire for quite a while I it's got a nice flat side to it I'm gonna Place those down and then Heap coals on top of them foreign [Music] so this little pumpkin isn't going to take very long at all to cook up but in the meantime while that's working let's work on our other pumpkin so I've got a pair here we're dicing up that we're going to use to stuff our pumpkin with so if you've got some spices a little bit of salt and a little bit of cinnamon is the perfect time we're going to put these on our top of our pears here thank you and there we go and mix that up a little bit I'm gonna take our pumpkin and just cut the top of it off okay that's our pumpkin cleaned out we're gonna take our our pear dices stuff that full just so it'll fill up that cavity on the very top I'm going to place some of my precious butter there you go and then we're going to place our top back on so here's our pumpkin it's ready to go ready to start by the fire we've got it all stuffed and we're going to find a place nice right by the fire and let it bake on one side and we'll slowly rotate it as it as it Cooks so that it gets evenly cooked all the way around so while that pumpkin's cooking uh let's get started on our last one so not all pumpkins could be used when they were ripe there's one account of a soldier who coming off the battlefield finds a pumpkin he finds it green and he slices it up and Fries it so that's what we're gonna do with this one [Music] thank you so with this green pumpkin got it sliced up we're gonna fry it with a little bit of butter and add just a little bit of sugar to sweeten it up a little bit of salt along with the sugar and pumpkin loves a little bit of cinnamon let's get some butter in our pan and get that warmed up we got to keep these moving while you're while they're cooking or else that Sugar will burn in there but these have softened up and they look like they're ready to go very tasty let's see how our other pumpkins doing so these little pumpkins have only been on the fire for 10 or 15 minutes and they look like they're all ready so we're going to take them off and they're nice and soft on the inside [Music] so while this is still hot I'm going to take some butter and melt that in there and then add some milk and it should be ready to go maybe a little bit of salt [Music] looks really good A little bit of cinnamon really Set It Off let's see how our other pumpkins doing I think our pumpkin's done roasting here let's take this away from the fire to cool just a little bit [Music] get all the pairs out see they've been roasting well in there okay well there we've got most of it out we if you've got it you might want to add just a little bit of butter maybe even a little bit more salt should be ready to go three wonderful simple ways that 18th century soldiers could cook their pumpkin a pumpkin pottage a stuffed roast pumpkin and my favorite the fried green pumpkin it's very common for soldiers in the 18th century especially when they were on the March they'd be issued uh their their rations maybe several days ahead of time they'd be issued several days of meat and then they'd be issued uh their their flour their bread ration and because they were going to be gone for a while they would likely be given just flour instead of bread as that would just go bad and so there they were on the march with uh not very much equipment to use and all they had was flour and they'd have to make some kind of food with it today we're going to make a fire cake or Ash cake a very very simple thing that the soldiers who would be able to make with just the flower and a little bit of water [Music] so what are we going to need to make Ash cake well number one we're going to need to have good ashes we're gonna have to have a really nice Ash bed to work with good and hot so we don't have very much equipment we're going to try to do this with three different methods we're going to use a simple Bannock board or if you don't have a board like this maybe you could just use a a half split of firewood that's nice and flat we're also going to use a method where we put leaves around our our fire cake or our Ash cake so all you're going to need for that is some some large leaves like a grape leaf or a large tree leaf Burdock or or cabbage leaves something like that and the last method we're not going to use anything at all we're just going to make our cake and we're going to place them right on the coals so now our coals are getting really close to being ready to use let's make up our dough I've got a simple wooden Bowl here for us to make our dough in the flour that we've been issued and I'm going to make up three or four Ash cakes here if you have any salt available to you which the soldiers may or may not have had had salt that day or that particular time but salt will add a lot to the taste of your fire cake so in this case we're going to add a good bit of salt to it and we're going to stir that around while our while our ingredients are still dry this will be easy to mix and now we're going to need some water you want to add enough water to make a stiff paste and we're going to start out with maybe a little less than we need so that we don't go overboard for the Ash cakes that we're going to cook on the on the Bannock board we're going to get this to be a little stickier because we need to stick it to the board it needs to stay there while it's cooking okay we've got our dough mixed up it's a nice and the right kind of consistency a little stiff but still sticky enough to work with and I've got this we're gonna take this one we're gonna flatten it out on our Bannock board gonna get it nice and and uh thin thinner the better it's going to cook we need to make sure that it's sticky enough that it sticks to the board our board's got two holes in it so that we can prop it up Let's uh put this up by the fire and let this cook while I'm working on the other ones okay we got the fire banked up a little bit higher on this spot and I'm gonna place the board I don't want to get it too close so it catches on fire but I can feel the heat here that feels pretty good got our little stick here prop it up at an angle and that feels really good we're gonna let that cook let's use leaves for our next fire cakes I'm gonna keep watching that one to make sure it doesn't burn but here's a here's our next fire cake let's take out a dough section here and we're gonna make it into a uh a Patty may not make it as thin as that but you know finish we're gonna make it in relationship to the size of our our leaves I've got here uh some some Wild Grape Leaves and a some cotton wood leaves Depending on time of year you know different leaves are going to work better than other ones but you want a nice big leaf that's going to protect your little fire cake let's use a grape leaf on the inside because a little bit of The Taste does end up on the fire cake we're gonna put grape leaves on the inside and then to extra little extra protection because the leaves are going to slowly burn through now we're going to put the uh the Cottonwood leaves on and I've got a really nice coal section here we're just going to place this right onto the coals since it's got the coals right on top and below it it's not going to take that long to cook three four maybe five minutes that's something you're going to judge you're not going to be able to tell so it takes a little experience to know when that when it's ready to come out the ash bed it's really important that you're cooking on if your ashes are gray they're probably already too cool to do any cooking on like these uh this color this white hot ash over here it's really warm and that's the kind of Ash we're cooking with the stuff that's still white if it's gray it's gotten too cold to cook with urbanic board uh a biscuit looks like it still needs a little bit of time to cook it's not even I'll have to turn it over pretty uh shortly but this one's probably ready to come out it's been about four minutes or so I'm just gonna lightly scrape off our ashes from the top and scoop the whole Patty out there it is let's put it on top of this board so we can see how it turned out there we are [Music] feels like this one's just about done I could have probably left it in another minute or two but it's still hot it's still cooking so I'm just gonna go ahead and set this off to the side where it'll stay warm but it's still hot so it's still cooking on the inside organic board uh uh fire cake over here you can see it's starting to Brown up along the bottom side so I'm going to go ahead and rotate the board so the other side of the uh the top side of it can cook [Music] foreign [Music] we want to be real gentle when we turn this over so that we don't knock the bread off and I'm going to tilt this a little bit further ouch so that because our coals are getting a little cooler but they're still really warm right there so should cook right up well let's try our fire cake where we actually put it directly on the coals if we don't have good leaves to work with we can just try cooking our fire cake right on the coals it's going to char up on the outside but that's all we have to work with so let's do it we're going to place it right on the coals here I've got a nice hot section of coals [Music] we're going to place it right on there I'm going to use my tomahawks because this fire is hot [Music] there we go I'm gonna find some hot coals close by [Music] set them on top [Music] legit lightly and gently bury it in hot coals I'm not going to bury it completely I don't want to lose it in the fire I want to be able to see around the edges just a little bit so we can watch it cooking well it looks like our our Bannock board fire cake is ready to pull off it's browned up all over on the outside so we're going to go ahead and pull this off the board and put it onto our plate [Music] may be tough to get off but this one came off now you can see it's still a little uh damp on that side cooked completely on that side I I call that done well our Bannock Bread's off the other one's out it smells like our Ash cake that's cooking right here in the coals is probably ready to pull out too so let's pull it out look at that Dusty ashes off the top we still got some that are sticking to the bottom just gently might still be hot cold so it's not going to touch them a little bit of Ash is known to uh calm your digestive tract so the ash isn't going to hurt you a bit doesn't that it looks really good for cooking right there in the coals so there you have it you got the three different kinds of Ash cake or fire cake we've got our bannockboard cake the one we cooked right in the ashes and then the one we used the leaves for protection let's try these out definitely very edible I think I'll have them for supper tonight as we talked about in earlier videos pork was one of the most common and popular Meats in the 18th century it was one of the uh the meats that would be supplied in rations for soldiers was a common thing for Sailors and in the entire population a pork was salted so that so that it would last any number of months and could be transported used in ships the sailors could eat it later on today we're going to show you a method for assaulting and preserving your pork in an 18th century manner foreign is an ancient technique even even previous to the Romans very easily documented there are a couple different variations of salting sometimes they would just pack their meat in salt water or a brine sometimes they'd hard pack it with lots of salt and then there's even adding salt peter to it for a more deeper preservation technique that might last a little bit longer but didn't taste as well today we're going to prepare our salt pork in this two gallon Oak keg this one is a is a well bucket keg that we sell at James Townsend and Sun this this doesn't have the holes drilled in it you can ask for a keg like that if you want to do a similar project this one has been touched up on the inside we took a torch and melted out the the excess wax here at the top and we also prepared a little wooden lid that we'll press down on the pork keep it inside the brine solution before we get started packing our meat we need a a hot brine solution prepared there's a common misconception that salt pork is easy to come by these days you'll find something in a modern grocery store that's called salt pork but in reality it's it's nothing like what was known as salt pork in the 18th century this is is just a a cured but unsmoked pork belly product but it isn't actually prepared in a manner that 18th century salt pork was so rather than use a pork belly we're going to use a pork shoulder or this is a picnic I've got a pork already cut up into about one pound size pieces we gotta have it so we can put it in in layers so the salt can get into it so we got one pound pieces here we're gonna put about a a cup of salt into our into our Barrel here so that we've got a layer of salt in the very bottom we're going to spread that out make sure it's nice and even and now we're going to start putting our pork into the barrel we've got rind pieces on this so these rinds we want to make sure are toward the bottom or toward the outside edges with the the meat Parts on the inside you want to pack this tight you want to have as a smaller quantity of air pockets as possible each time we put in another layer of meat we put in another layer of salt make sure that's all spread out evenly [Music] it's tightly packed and we add more salt you can't add too much salt so don't worry about getting too much salt in this better to have too much than too little that's our final piece of meat keg is pretty much full there's still some space there at the top uh the final step here is going to be a pouring hot brine solution now that will fill in all the gaps and seal it up and then we'll put our lid on so a method in the 18th century to see whether our brine solution was brainy enough was to float an egg this is a just a regular raw egg still in the shell and we can see that this egg is floating in the solution so we know it's it's thick enough there's enough salt in here here's our hot brine solution we know that it's thick enough we're going to start pouring it on in on top until it completely covers our meat and then it's time for your wooden lid we're going to float that up on top and then finally to make sure that this lid presses down on top of the meat we're going to place a weight on top if we see some frothing that means something's going on we need to take care of that you need to pour the brine solution off you need to scald the brine solution then you can put it back on again well our keg is ready to store now in the 18th century it was traditional to process Pork and Beef products when they salt it they would do that in the fall when the temperatures were cool it would make this last a lot longer that's the same thing we're going to do we're going to take this keg we're going to put it in the refrigerator to keep it nice and cool so that it doesn't go bad it will probably last and and be good for several weeks put in a cool place like that in the 18th century they would they would use it all through the winter into the next spring when it comes time to use your salt pork you can pull it out of the barrel you need to soak it you need to soak it sometimes overnight but at least two hours you want to soak it in fresh water changing the water often so that you get as much salt out of that pork as possible you're never going to get it all it's going to be a salty thing but other than that you use it like you would any fresh cut you can use it in any recipe [Music] So today we're going to take a common soldier's ration and we're going to turn it into three different meals a soup a stew and a hash the foundation of our stew and our hash we're going to use salt pork and the foundation for the stew we're going to use fresh beef so the salt pork we're using today is a salt pork that we've prepared in an 18th century manner when it's time to use the salt pork you have to soak it you have to take several hours soak it in water change the water out soak it again until it's ready to to use if you don't soak it several times and get all the salt out it's inedible so the big difference between a soup and a stew is how much water we use when we prepare it and the first thing we have to do is to get this water going get it boiling I've got six pints of water started boiling here for the soup and I've got three pints for the stew let's start out with our soup while our six pints of water is getting ready to boil here I'm going to I'm going to Brown our salt pork in a little bit of fat [Music] I'm gonna let this set and sear a little bit Browning this meat first will release a lot of the flavors so we're doing this in small batches if we do too much at once we can't we can't get it to caramelize properly that releases too many juices once your salt pork is browned it's time to dump it in your boiling water if any scum develops on the surface scrape that off we're going to let this boil about 15 minutes [Music] now that our soup is boiled about 15 minutes with the meat in it it's time to add some other things I've got some carrots here and some parsnips we're going to add those so there's the carrots part of our parsnips from our pocket spice kit we need to use a little bit of salt and pepper oh okay good it's also now a good time to add a bay leaf if you've got it and we've got a little bit of cider vinegar just a splash or two of cider vinegar will really set this off now that we've added these things to our soup we're going to moderate the fire a little bit and let it simmer for about an hour now that our soup has uh simmered about an hour it's time to throw in some cabbage if we've got it and I've also got a little bit of Rosemary and Thyme I've got a little bundle here that I'm going to throw in you don't want to put this stuff into soon or or it'll destroy the flavors eat period recipes for soup like this will call for bread to be cubed up and tossed in at the end kind of like dumplings we're going to let this simmer for another 15 minutes [Music] for this recipe I've got about a half a pound of dried peas here we soaked these overnight so they're going to be ready to cook so I'm starting out with about a half a pound of beef here this should go really nicely with our peas coating this meat with flour and then Browning it will help thicken up the stew [Music] foreign so now that our beef is well browned we're going to add that to our three pints of boiling stew water and then we're going to add our peas let's get this beef in there without losing any of it there we go and now we're gonna add the peas so now that our stew is boiled for about 15 minutes we're going to add some potato some onion and some parsnips along with some salt and pepper we're going to let that simmer for about an hour you'll know this stew is ready when the peas break down and the stew thickens up and that really is a matter of how long you've uh you've soaked your peas if you haven't soaked them at all this might take two or three hours but if you soak them it won't take as long while our soups and stews are simmering here let's start the hash fairly simple dish I've got some uh finely diced salt pork here I've already browned this up with some onion and I'm going to take a couple of parboiled or already boiled potatoes I'm gonna dice these up and mash them put them in with that we also need to add a little bit of milk to give it some liquid to work with if you happen to have some allspice it makes a wonderful addition to the hash I'm going to form this up into patties and fry it in our frying pan [Music] well there we have all three dishes finished we've got a salt pork soup and the salt pork really has a wonderful flavor the saltiness balanced out with the other flavors actually extremely uh good here's our salt pork Ash it may not look great but let me tell you it is my favorite on the table here the salt work very tender just the right amount of saltiness and along with the potatoes and the onions definitely a favorite so the last dish here was the uh the stew this is uh the beef and the peas uh stew and it thickened up rather nicely the um the peas add their own kind of sweetness to it uh the beef is excellent in here um any one of these things uh you will definitely enjoy [Music] thank you in our past episodes we've covered what a soldier would do with his his daily ration his ration of one pound of meat one pound of bread is uh his a little bit of beer and a little bit of milk but a number of journals and Diaries of soldiers suggest that extreme want famine was much more common than plenty in Jeremiah greenman's diary he speaks of one occasion during a Quebec campaign here we were in a miserable situation nothing to eat but dogs here we killed another I got some of that by good luck with the head of a squirrel in a parcel of candle wicks I boiled them up together which made a very fine soup without salt and here we made a noble Feast without bread or salt thinking it was the best that I'd ever had eaten so I went to sleep contented on another occasion he wrote this morning when we arose many of us were so weak that we could hardly stand and we staggered around like drunken men and I happened to get a pint of water that a partridge had been boiled in Joseph Plum Martin's book he relates one story about a Thanksgiving where their entire ration was nothing but a Jill of rice and a tablespoon of vinegar that's what we're going to cook today a Jill of rice is about a quarter of a cup here I've got two man's rations I bit a good Providence I I came onto this bit of candle I'll add it to our feast [Music] and finally We'll add our tablespoon of vinegar because we have no salt [Music] Happy Thanksgiving Josh [Music] we realize this is a departure from our normal theme but we just wanted to give you a taste of what it was really like for soldiers in the 18th century here's some better days Josh in this video we're going to show you how to build an Earthen oven foreign s like this is easily documented for the 18th century in fact just about every ancient culture had a very similar oven there's one particular woodcut illustration from medieval times depicting an Earthen oven built on a wagon there are references in 18th century literature and also archaeological evidence that you would find Evans like this in private homes and in Fort settings there are also references to communal ovens where the baker would bake bread for an entire Village as part of our video series on 18th century cooking we're going to show you how to build a Earthen oven just like this one we're going to need several things to make our mud oven out of we're going to need sand that's the major component of our oven we're going to need a good bit of clay this is dried clay you can get at a masonry store or you can get a damp and play out of a ditch Bank you're going to need straw or dried grass or um maybe Haze you may need some bricks so some fire bricks even even regular bricks will work and you're going to need a canvas tarp to mix your cob together with and you're definitely going to need a good bit of water before you build your oven you have to consider what you're going to build your oven on there are historical examples of ovens built on tables or on brick or stone plinths on hards on the top of our very sturdy table we've laid out a layer of fire brick that's going to be the floor of our oven we've also chalked out here the design about 22 inches across at the bottom on the inside as the inside measurement is going to be the walls are going to be about six inches thick so we've got markings here so we can see about how big it's going to look on the surface the door width right here is about 12 inches across so we can get something as big as a pie in without too much trouble first thing we're going to do is we're going to build the core it's going to be like a sand castle just wet sand that we're going to build the oven over the top of sometimes you'll see other people doing it with sticks and things like this this is going to be much easier and quicker we've got this is where our door is going to be I just went ahead and put a couple bricks in here to be the inner core of the door they'll be removed and right here I've placed that brick wall to give us a nice flat surface to build up against so we've taken about an hour to put this together we've used very wet sand so that it stays into shape now we got to make sure that this stays wet until we get our first layer on there aren't very many critical things about the shape and the size of your particular oven but there is one critical thing and that is the height of the opening tunnel here compared to the height of your Dome these need to be a particular Ratio or else the air won't draw through this when you're burning the wood inside of the thing so this is a between 65 and 60 or about 63 percent height here compared to the height there the next thing we're going to do is put paper on this we're going to put paper we're going to wet it down so it'll give us a layer to separate so when we take the sand out it doesn't stick to the inner surface got the paper covering done on our sand inner core this will make it much easier to take the core out from underneath it now it's time to make the first layer of cob or mud to put on our oven this innermost layer of mud or or cob that we're going to put on our oven is just sand and clay about two parts sand to one part clay we mix those two together so that they're very well mixed and then we just put it on there we want to make sure it's got about the right consistency that we can still work it but it isn't so wet that it's sloppy and you want to make sure to have air on the side of a little more sand than too much clay the more clay you've got the more it's going to shrink and crack so you probably want to make up a bunch of this cob beforehand it ages well it won't it won't go bad waiting overnight and that way as soon as you're done with your sand castle core you can start putting it on right away and you don't have to worry about that drying out and blowing away while you're making your cough so learning just the right consistency that can be a trick as you see here I've been stomping on this pile for a little while this is starting to feel really good it forms up into a a ball like a snowball it doesn't deform easily it's not sloppy you can still form it into any shape you want and it's not too drippy either that's what you're looking for something that holds together well but still moldable so we're working on putting this first layer on this is a layer without any straw in it because that would just burn up anyway it's about three inches thick and we're starting at the very bottom we're going to work our way up that way we can watch as we go to make sure our thickness stays about the same thank you well we finished the uh the inner mud layer yesterday afternoon and we let this set overnight and it's uh it's just slightly firmer than it was we don't want to let it get too dry or else the next layer won't adhere to this layer properly we've scratched this layer a little bit so that the next layer of cob we put on here will adhere nicely this next layer of cob that we put on it's going to have a grass or hay or straw in it to give it a lot more strength than this inner layer we're going to mix our clay and our sand first as soon as that's getting close to the right consistency that's when we'll add our other uh binder material here [Music] so I've got this mixed up I'm going to mix this up just slightly wetter uh it's feeling like a pretty good consistency now under my feet and since since we're going to add in this dry straw here it's going to dry it up a little bit so I'm going to start with a slightly wetter uh mixture but we wanted to get this mixed first and then add in the binder foreign this will add some amazing strength to it when it dries up it really binds it together so it's helpful to make this cob up beforehand it really makes it work better if it's a couple days old but you don't want to let it get too old because as it's wet for a long time the grass will start to rot in there so you don't want that to happen if it's a day or too old keep it wrapped in plastic so it's wet and pliable it'll really work even better after a day or two so to make this go faster I suggest you invite a bunch of friends over have a cop party they can be stomping on this stuff while you're putting it on your stove everyone will have fun well I've got about five or six uh loaves of big loafs of of Cobb here ready to go I think that's a good start I'm not sure exactly how many it's going to take to cover this oven so we're gonna put this on and then I'll see how much more I need to make I've got uh Marks here on the table to uh get about two and a half or three inches for the outside layer we're gonna start putting on our loaf so we're going to make sure that they butt up well with the inner core here so there's a big airspace between them and I'll just start adding these on all the way around foreign [Music] okay there it is we've got the second layer of a Cobb type material on here this is the stuff with the straw that's that's built into it it does as you work it it kind of sags down some so you might want to start a little thinner at the bottom than the Finish expecting some of it to Sag down into position a little bit this gives us a good opportunity to look at the cross section about what's going on here you can see the cob's a little thicker down at the bottom than it is at the top because it's kind of sagged a little bit you can see our outer Cobb core our inner core that doesn't have this straw in it and here's the the sand core on the inside we're going to add a little bit to the outside here we're going to give it a nice rounded opening because the rounded opening is going to have more strength than this sharp edge well we've uh finished putting our rounded opening on the oven so it'll be a little bit stronger we made sure to to uh mate the the cob that we added back into this other stuff whenever you add two pieces together really have to work it so that the two pieces adhere to each other and it just doesn't fall off we added a little bit of sand on the front to help support that lip depending on where you're at your environment the time of year what the humidity is this cell will take two weeks three weeks four weeks maybe even a little longer for it to get dry enough for it to even you start to even think about warming it up from the inside while this is drying you don't want to to get it rained on so you're going to need to protect this from the weather but don't cover it with plastic so that it can't dry so you want to protect it from the rain but let it breathe so it's only been about 24 hours since we've been here last but it's firmed up enough with how the weather is here that we were able to go ahead and pull out some of the sand I haven't gone and dug the whole thing out but I want to let it start to dry out on the inside and even peel off some of the paper if you want to but that'll all burn out anyway but we're just dug it out about halfway we'll come back in a couple more days to take out more we've removed the sand core from this oven and we've given it a couple weeks to dry so it's almost ready to fire you may not have to wait this long if you build an oven but you if it's not adequately dry before you fire it it'll cause cracking or at least more cracking than normal in the body so even if you wait like we did it's inevitable that some cracking will occur don't be alarmed if the cracks are especially big you can repair them with a little extra sand and clay and let that dry in place we've employed a few warming fires in this oven and it's and it's dried out well we've gotten a few cracks but overall we're really pleased the walls of this oven are extremely durable here's a a brick of the material and it takes a lot to break this material up so if you need to do modifications you'll really have to chop at it however as as sturdy as this is it still needs to be protected from the weather this is water soluble and it'll just wash away with the rain so if we need this to last a while we're gonna have to build a little roof over it make sure to watch part two of this video where we learn how to bake bread in one of these Earthen ovens you know this looks pretty good I think I'm gonna fire it up so in the first video we showed you how to build one of these Earthen ovens we covered that completely this one's finally dried out and ready to use so let's let's make some bread [Music] we're gonna start with a small warming fire this is a small fire with sticks that we're gonna fire up right inside the door of the oven as soon as that is going well I'm gonna push that to the back and then add some more wood to it the drier the wood the better while this oven's heating up let's talk about the tools we're going to need for baking we're going to need a few tools to do the baking in our oven we're going to need a Rooker or something similar almost like a hoe this is a tool we can use to rake the coals out of the oven or push them into the back it needs to be metal so it doesn't doesn't catch on fire after we move our cool our coals we need to use a scuffle or something similar this is a rag mop that you use in the water it'll clean off the floor it'll moisturize the inside of the oven it'll cool off the floor just a little bit so we don't burn the bottom of our bread you're going to need a appeal the peel is what we use to put the dough into the oven with and to take the take the loaves out when we're done and you're going to need some sort of door that we can put on our oven that will trap the heat inside so it's going to take one to two hours for this to warm up to get to temperature now while we could use a a thermometer to figure out whether we're at the at the right temperature it's probably just as easy with a little bit of practice to learn a couple other ways to figure out what temperature it is the first way is smoke Ovens that aren't up to temperature yet will produce a good bit of smoke until the temperature inside reaches a certain point the wood doesn't burn very efficiently so once it's hot enough we'll see less smoke the second indicator is related to the first as the oven's warming up the interior will become covered in black soot but as the oven reaches the proper baking temperature the walls will change from black to gray as the soot is burnt to Ash we've had a fire going for about two hours in the oven here and I've let it burn down to coals the black soot at the back are in fact all over has has burnt down to Ash if I feel the very top here it's almost too hot to hold my hand on that gives me a good idea each oven will be different in how much you're gonna have to judge now what we're going to do is rake the coals out put the door on and let it soak for a little bit soaking the oven gives the oven a chance to even out in temperature over the whole thing so we don't have hot spots we're going to let it set anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes we've let this soak and it's a possibility that this is still too hot so what we're going to do is we're going to take a little handful of a corn meal and toss it on the floor if it turns black or catches on fire then obviously it's still too hot on the inside we can see some smoke coming off of this it's probably still just a little too hot what we're going to do is we're going to take our our scuffle and we're going to wet down the inside and let it soak just a little bit longer we're going to give the oven one quick swabbing with the scuffle it's going to clean out any Ash on the floor it's going to cool the floor down just a little bit and it'll add a little moisture to the inside of the oven [Music] let's recheck the temperature of the oven see if it's ready to go yet a little bit of cornmeal warm warm it's just turning light brown so it looks like perfect temperature for baking just before we started up the oven I worked on some bread dough and this has been rising so it's ready to put in the oven [Music] foreign we're gonna let these bake 10 to 12 minutes but while we're waiting for this to cook there's usually a progression that you'd use these ovens you would want to as soon as it's as it's up to temperature you would want to cook something that you'd need a hot oven for many times they'd cook pies first then they'd cook breads when it cooled down a little bit after the breads were done they'd cook things like cookies and then even after cookies they'd still continue to use the heat they might cook beans after that for a long period of time and even when it's even cooler they can do things like dry herbs in their oven while it's still warm or even firewood for the next time they're going to use it I can smell the bread even out here I'll bet you it's ready to come out and the loaves look really good they look just right let's take them out and there they are [Music] it's important you let your loaves set for a little bit while they're still warm you want to let them cool off they're actually still baking on the inside if you cut them up now they'll be a little doughy on the inside foreign soldiers in the 18th century were given rations of meat either pork or beef salt or fresh something else that they were given sometimes was fish salted fish so here we've got some salted cod we're gonna cook up into a very simple yet delicious meal foreign [Music] we've chosen salted fish today because it's something you can take to an event that doesn't need to be refrigerated or cooled you can make an 18th century dish with it and it's something you can also purchase locally if you go to a a good grocery store you're probably going to find these little wooden boxes in the fish section very similar to what they had in the 18th century The Salted fish right out of the box is much too salty to cook with it needs to be soaked to draw the salt out so the day before you want to use it you want to start soaking this you want to change the water three or four times and then after it's soaked overnight it should be ready to use so we've gone ahead and done some preparation here I've taken about six ounces of the Cod and we've shredded it up into little pieces and I also have some potatoes that I've already boiled up so that they're just soft enough to mash I've got about the same amount of potatoes here in the bowl as I do fish in the in the bowl over there we want about equal amounts and I want this mashed up nicely so it'll mix in with your fish and the fish something you have to remember about the fish is number one it may have bones or skin if if you uh as you're tearing it up if you find that there are any bones in skin you want to discard that also you can soak it too long if you soak it too long it'll it'll remove all the flavor and all the saltiness from the fish do you want to taste it and make sure that it's not tasteless before you use it or else you're going to have to add some spices to bring that flavor back now let's take one egg and put that into our potatoes and then we'll mix it in with our fish [Music] if potatoes weren't available it's likely they would they would have tried to use breadcrumbs or possibly flour as a good substitute for the potatoes you want to make sure that your butter is nice and hot see how we're doing here [Music] well these of course were popular they look like a great breakfast thing and of course they'd be eaten all day long uh see how these turned out I'm gonna cook up the rest of these apples been enjoyed for Centuries by people apples were popular in the 18th century and today the the dish we're call DISH we're making is called a Cheshire pork pie with Pippins Pippins is a common name for apples in the 18th century in our recipe we're going to be using a salt pork this is true 18th century style salt pork not something like you might find in your grocery store bacon shelf but a leaner cut a hard packed in salt like we discussed in a previous video likewise we've sliced our our Pippins here and they're ready to use in our Pie as we make our pie what we're going to do is we're going to put in a layer of pork then we're going to put in a layer of Apple we're boiling our salt pork today for about an hour because we're boiling it we don't need to to rinse it off quite as much as we normally would have before using it we're going to slice it thin and then we're going to season it with a little pepper I've got our pie packed up here now it's time to add some spices to it I'm going to add some salt and some pepper to this to season it well so it's got some flavor to it these things come right out of our spice kit that's a little bit more there there that's good now we're going to put in uh I put some butter on top that will melt down into our our pie here we're gonna add about two tablespoons of water to give it a little bit of moisture the amount of water you use or you need to add to this pie totally depends on the kind of apple you use if you use a Macintosh Apple they'll turn to something like a applesauce so you don't need to add very much water if you have a firmer crisper Apple you might need a little bit more water so for Pineapples uh if you've got any choice and you're not just picking off a local tree if you go to the grocery store you want to look for Jonathan's or wine saps something that's particularly a pie apple a tart yet sweet Apple that that holds its uh that holds together and doesn't turn to applesauce what you don't want is a red delicious apple red delicious apples are very 20th century they've been bred for their size and their color and not for their taste and they don't make a very good pineapple at all we're going to put our second pie crust on here to cover this up we're going to trim and seal the edges now let's cut some vent holes and work on the mock pigeon pie passenger pigeons were one of the most populous birds in the 18th and 19th century there were billions of these birds on the planet they were almost a Scourge there were so many of them they were very popular and yet you would find in a lot of recipes there were so many of these birds that there were reports of flocks that were a mile wide and 300 miles long that would take 14 hours to fly over there would so many of them they'd blot out the sun obviously we can't use passenger pigeon today since since the last one died almost 100 years ago so today we're going to use uh as our substitute Cornish game hen we've simmered two cornish game hens uh with onions and then we've picked the meat off put them in the bowl now let's Brown up a little bit of of flour and some butter I'm gonna add some stock let this simmer a little bit we'll also season it with a little salt pepper and Thyme by the way our pie plates here are thrown by our Master Potter Gary neater right here in Indiana and they have a lead-free food safe glaze we're going to put our pulled meat into a pie crust we're gonna pour our warmed sauce on top of that seal it up with the other pie crust and it's ready to bake [Music] thank you foreign [Music] there we go we're gonna bake this mock pigeon pie in a dutch oven let's talk about these dutch ovens for a minute dutch ovens like this are specifically 18th century and North American Improvement on a 17th century design the lip at the top is specifically designed to keep the coals from falling off so your coals will stay on the top and the legs at the bottom keep keep it so the air can flow underneath and and keep the coals alive underneath we got our Dutch oven preheated I've kind of left it in the fire pit here and it's good and warm but we have to get our our pit ready for this we got a corals underneath it's time to put the pie in we need to keep the pie off the bottom of the Dutch oven so we're going to put a couple of uh S hooks in here to space the pie pan off the bottom so the bottom doesn't burn we got plenty of space around the outside edge so we can reach in there without burning ourselves I'll put the lid on deciding exactly how many coals you want to use is is a bit of a matter of judgment each person is going to have to get used to that you need to practice I Put A Ring of coals around the top of the lid here leaving the open uh the center a little bit open same thing at the bottom there's a little bit of opening at the very center to not get it too hot each one of those is going to be just a little bit different though let's check out our Earthen oven and see if it's uh it's ready for the pork pie okay our oven is uh all baked down into coals our soot is burned off so this is ready to go you can see about how to use the oven better in the baking bread video anyway I'm going to scrape the coals out and get this ready for the pie I'm gonna put s-hooks inside this one also to serve as a trivet I don't want to burn the bottom thank you there we go we're gonna have to watch it so it might be a little bit too hot so we're gonna keep an eye out on it let's put the door on though it's been about 10 or 15 minutes and I think this is probably ready to go we take a quick look whoa it's ready to come out let's uh I'll let it go too long wow look at that looks just about perfect well I'm sure we've let this set long enough let's pull it off the fire and set this aside so it can cool off enough that I can take the pie out of the oven take a quick Commander here set the lid aside there's a lot of steam in there look at that there you go now let that cool off a minute before we uh take it out [Music] I can't wait to cut these open and try them they smell really good [Music] foreign [Music] definitely you should try something like this if this isn't a normal thing for you step out of your normal uh comfortable cooking get into something like this a meat pies or something that's a little bit different everybody will enjoy it [Music] many different 18th century recipes and a lot of writings refer to something called ketchup now ketchup in the 18th century wasn't so much like this as it is more like this the word ketchup finds its roots in 17th century China the Chinese had a a similar sounding name for a concoction that consisted of pickled fish and spices the British Traders found this seasoning to be delightful they brought it home and it quickly became the staple of the English and American diet today we're going to make an 18th century ketchup recipe with mushrooms this would be a seasoning or a flavor that 18th century soldiers would be very familiar with James Townsend and son carries all the equipment we'll be using today and you can find each one of these things in our catalog or on our website we're starting off with two pounds of fresh mushrooms but first a word of warning [Music] we're using common brown mushrooms in our recipe today these mushrooms are native throughout Europe and North America but even common mushrooms can easily be mistaken for poisonous or even deadly varieties so make sure to use something you know is completely safe with our mushrooms we need to gently wipe these mushrooms off we don't want to to rinse them off or wash them because that added liquid would dilute our final flavors [Music] and we're going to add these to our tin cooking pot we need to draw the juices out of our chopped up mushrooms the best way to do that is to add a couple of spoonfuls of salt in addition to that salt we're going to add a couple of bay leaves we're going to mash it up smoosh these mushrooms down here and then we're going to cover it and then let it set for about 10 minutes we've let these set 10 minutes and they've already started reducing the the liquids being drawn out of the mushrooms and it's already reduced in size a little bit I'm going to transfer these into a milk pan here and then we can let this uh let this sit overnight I'm going to put this pie pan on top just to keep the critters out foreign the first recipe for tomato ketchup was in 1801 but tomato ketchup did not become popular until the mid 19th century the tomato plant is a member of the deadly nightshade family and many people considered it a deadly poison in the 18th century [Music] well let's take a look there we have it mushrooms have completely masticated and now it's time for the next step [Music] so now it's time to add in one chopped up onion of the zest of one lemon and some one tablespoon of finely grated horseradish James Townsend's son offers a pocket spice kit that comes with salt and pepper cinnamon cayenne and Thyme it also comes with an empty vial and in that vial I've added cloves in the recipe here we're going to use a quarter teaspoon of cloves we're going to use a pinch of cayenne and some allspice also about a half a teaspoon and the last ingredient we need is a quarter to a half a cup of cider vinegar we're going to stir up all these things together and then we're going to put this over the fire and let it simmer for about 15 minutes Joseph Plum Martin's book sometimes called private Yankee Doodle many times it mentions when he's eating that they're lacking sauce for their meat more than likely this is what he was craving uh this is done simmering now I've let it cool a little bit but now it's time to Pour It Off and I've got our milk pan and I've Got A Squeeze cloth here I'm going to pour this in here and to let it cool [Music] once this is cooled off we're going to take that cloth and bundle it up and squeeze all the liquid out [Music] please [Music] there's an amazing complex flavors in this you can get the salt first then some of the other spices the earthiness of the mushrooms it's very complex a very wonderful flavor we're going to Cork this up we're gonna bottle it cork it and save it for our future recipes so when you're done with the uh squeezing out the mushrooms you don't want to get rid of that you don't want to throw that out that is especially good stuff you dry that and you can either leave it like it is or you can grind it up uh some of this stuff you can sprinkle it almost like salt um is really really good stuff [Music] today we're going to be making wigs not the hairy sword to put on your head but a sweet little biscuit that was very popular in the 17th and 18th century you're going to be baking some on our Earthen oven and some in a dutch oven also foreign comes from an earlier Dutch word meaning wedge the the loaves were cut into wedge shapes for baking [Music] the wigs were probably fairly expensive they have a lot of sugar and milk fat in them and they were usually set aside for special events like funerals or or for Lent but there's even one account of a man using them to pay his servants with them wigs are a yeast bread yeast in the 18th century was much appreciated by Brewers and and Bakers a little bit of yeast and and barley malt turns into ale flour and water and yeast turns into bread it wasn't until the 19th century that anyone really understood what was going on with yeast and how it worked Bakers needed yeast and they knew the best place to get it was from the Brewer 18th century recipes call for liquid yeast something a little different than modern yeast recipes the yeast in the 18th century was either the yeast that was on the foam at the top of the Beer Barrel when they first start brewing it it comes out on the foam which is cruising or there's the yeast that falls to the bottom after it's done brewing and after they pull they bottled the beer off what's left in the bottom of the barrel is the yeast that's left over the brewers yeast that would be reactivated with a little bit of sugar and used in bread recipes unless you're a home Brewer Barm can be a little difficult to come by so we're going to show you how to make an 18th Century Barn we're going to need a few things to make our barn you're going to need a bottle you're going to need some good clean water we've got some ale here and some sugar and yeast I've put about a cup or a quarter of a cup or maybe a half a cup of flour into the bottle and now we're going to add about a half a pint of water and half a pint of our ale and if you don't have access to a good home brew ale you're going to want to buy some good imported ale the ale is going to add a very authentic flavor to your wigs now it's time to add to our mixture about a teaspoon of dry active yeast and a teaspoon of sugar to kick start the mix [Music] now let's mix this up get the uh get the flour mixed up in in our liquids then we're going to let this set and Prime for about 15 minutes while we prepare the rest of our ingredients while our barn is priming let's get together uh our dry ingredients for the wigs we're going to need to start off with about four cups of fine white flour you're also going to need about four ounces or half a cup of sugar I've got some low sugar here and we're also going to need caraway seeds caraway seeds were very popular flavoring in the 18th century for bread type products these are actually Caraway pods Not seeds but foreign [Music] [Music] mix our wet ingredients I've got about six tablespoons of melted butter let's put in a half a cup of milk in with that and now we need our barn this has been priming it's looking like it's good and Alive give us a good shake and then we're going to need about a half a cup okay here's our wet ingredients we're gonna put these into our dry ingredients and then I'm gonna mix this up with my hands you want to make sure to mix it well but don't over mix it [Music] okay that's mixed pretty well let's go turn this out onto the table turn our Dill out onto our lightly floured surface that you've got prepared get all the go out we're going to square this up so that I can cut it out cut it down into about egg sized pieces you want to make sure that you don't need this too much or you'll toughen the dough it won't be nice and light and fluffy [Music] now that we've cut these into a little egg sized shapes we want to roll these into a little ball you want to do this very gently not kneading them or making them tough so we're going to very gently cradle these into very small round bun shapes now it's time to cut these into our little wedge shapes just going to slice them okay now that we've got these cut we're going to put these on a a well greased sheet a cooking sheet and we're going to cover them up with a cloth and let them rest for about 15 or 20 or actually a half hour they're not going to rise because of the milk fat and everything that's in them but they do need to rest well we've let these rest for about a half hour they haven't risen they've just rested they will spring up in the oven when they go in they'll puff up when we cook them but right now they haven't risen next we're going to sprinkle the tops with some searsed sugar which is in the 18th century terms of sifted sugar or as we know it today powdered sugar [Music] your oven temperature is going to need to be a medium hot oven maybe about 400 degrees for extra information about how to use these Earthen ovens make sure to check out the video series where we talk about building and using the Earthen oven [Music] because there's so much sugar in these guys uh you're going to want to make sure that you have a trivet or maybe some S hooks to put your your tray on because they are susceptible to burning on the bottom [Music] there we go we're gonna let these cook for about 15 minutes while these are cooking we're gonna cook some in the Dutch oven so you'll want to watch these cook because depending on the heat of your oven they may only take five minutes to cook I've got the Dutch oven preheated up so that it's not stone cold I'm gonna get the uh the bed of coals here uh prepped for the Dutch oven I want to make sure there's just a ring of nice hot coals around the outside of the bottom [Music] again it can be difficult to judge the temperature the exact temperature in your Dutch oven so you're going to need to check it fairly frequently to make sure they don't burn obviously they're just about right let's go ahead and take this off of the fire and we'll get them out of here [Music] foreign in the past we've done a number of different episodes on cooking 18th century items and how easy that is we thought now would be a good time to step back once again and kind of have a little bit of a reality check but what it was really like for soldiers in the 18th century for a soldier in the 18th century food was was a great concern a great difficulty what would a soldier do with his ration of meat if he didn't have any equipment what would he do if he didn't have any utensils or even any wood for his fire by most accounts the only equipment that was ever issued to soldiers for cooking was the tin cooking pot and that undoubtedly really restricted the kind of foods or the kind of ways that they would be able to cook their meat ration this definitely would have restricted the cooking to mostly boiling you can imagine just how unskilled these soldiers would have been at cooking meat in fact their period accounts where officers are discussing just how unskilled the soldiers are the ones that are put in charge of the cooking another problem was the condition of the meat that they were given as a ration the ration was either given as as fresh meat or salted meat The Salted meat kept for a lot longer but it also made the the meat very hard and inedible until it was first soaked really well the salt was also a problem getting salt the the British forces went after salt specifically trying to restrict the amount of salt that the the colonists were able to get during the war it became so scarce it was more scarce than gunpowder and David Dewitt's book uh founding Foodies he tells us that early in the War the British cut off American trade with the Turk Islands which was the premier supplier assault to the colonies and then in 1776 General Howe uh invaded and took over Long Island further reducing the colonist's assault supplies and their ability to get salt General Washington's armies were completely cut off from their supply of coastal salt and all the reserves were gone profiteers began to hoard the salt and by 1783 the price of salt had raised 16-fold so it's no wonder when we read accounts like Joseph Plum Martin's Journal where he writes I strolled into a large yard where was several Sawmills in a Grist Mill and I went into the ladder thinking it was probable that the dust made there was more palatable than that made in the former but I found nothing there to satisfy my Hunger but there was a barrel standing behind the door which had some salt in it salt was as valuable as gold with the soldiers I filled my pockets with it and went out salt was needed to preserve the meat so if salt wasn't available most likely they would have been issued fresh meat the problem is their fresh meat wouldn't be anything like the Aged beef that we are used to when we go to the grocery store today their their Cuts would have been very top meat to start with and of course the soldiers are given the worst of the cuts available excavations at Valley Forge suggest that the soldiers were giving cow's feet as their meat ration there's a great account from Jacob Walters Napoleonic War diary where he talks about some of the salt ration that the troops were issued the war of the year is 1812. Let's uh let's hear what he says he says however we had to prepare our own food from our rationed meat and bread the meat came from The Salted ice pits there was a rumors that it had been stored from the war of 1807. the condition of the meat made the rumor seem credible since the meat appeared bluish black and was as salty as herrings it was already tender enough to eat and we boiled it a few times only to draw off the muratic acid and then the broth not being useful for soup had to be thrown out so on campaign boiling would have been the technique most likely used and if equipment was lacking well then it would have been roasting and broiling Joseph Plum Martin writes about the 1770 campaign here we procured a day's rations of Southern salt pork three quarters of a pound and a pound of sea bread we marched a little distance and stopped to refresh ourselves we kindled some fires in the road and some broiled their meat as for myself I ate mine Raw so we've taken our salt pork ration today and we're gonna boil it up Josh wanted one piece that was roasted so he's got one piece roasting and uh we'll have this later on [Music] today we're gonna bake beans beans were a common fare in the 18th century both for regular folks and part of the soldiers rations we're gonna bake beans in the oven today and we're gonna bake beans buried in a pit this is common practice in New England for the The Village Baker to heat up his oven bake his bread and other items and then at the end of the day everyone would bring their Bean Pots and they'd put it in the oven and it would stay in overnight to bake the beans especially on Saturday night so on Sunday everyone had beans to eat and they didn't have to work on the Sabbath soldiers didn't have ovens to work with so they'd have to use whatever they had on hand we're going to dig a hole so that we can bake our beans inside of a fire pit down inside the Earth [Music] foreign looking for a hole in the ground that's about twice as big as our the pot we're going to cook in and a little bit deeper than the pot so we can have coals underneath and on top so while our oven's heating up I'm gonna go ahead and start a fire in this pit while our fires are burning down to coals let's talk about beans soaking your beans is a very good idea it helps them cook for a lot less time you also should boil your beans dry beans have a toxin in them that causes issues with digestion if they aren't heated to the right temperature so if if they're baked at a very low temperature that doesn't get rid of the toxins and you need to boil them first foreign boiling these are boiled for quite a while you can boil an hour or whatever it takes you get them nice and soft and ready to bake uh we're gonna do use two different methods of baking and we're going to flavor these two batches in in two different ways let's divide our beans up into our two different cooking vessels we have our new redware bean pot that you can find on our website we also are going to use one of our two quart pots and we have one of these uh new metal lids for them that are available that'll be perfect for this sort of operation anyway let's get these divided out [Music] foreign [Music] first thing we're going to put into these they're both going to get some salt pork you can use authentic style salt pork like we cover in one of our videos you can also use bacon or salt pork that you find in the grocery store but they're both rather greasy fatty so you you would want to cut back on how much you'd use if you use authentic salt pork you want to make sure to soak it for an hour or two to reduce the saltiness foreign [Music] mustard both of these dry mustard is a very common you see it in almost every recipe for baked beans and we're going to need a good a big spoonful in each one of these pots [Music] both are beans recipes use a sweetener and this one we're going to use a molasses and this one some maple syrup both of those very common sweeteners we're going to use about a cup you want to use a Barbados molasses you don't want to use Blackstrap Barbados molasses or or light molasses it's going to have a lot better taste than black strap which is very bitter and for the maple beans you want to make sure to use about a half a cup of authentic maple syrup and in both pots a quarter teaspoon of pepper here not one of these spoons or you'll you do too much so don't go crazy with pepper and we need some onions in here we're going to use about half of these maybe a half a cup or a quarter cup of onions you want to get all the stuff mixed well push down to the bottom mixed well get both of these stirred up now let's top these up with water don't be afraid to put too much water in it's going to boil or it's going to bake off so you want to have both of these topped off with water okay there we go should be enough water our fires look both places look like they're ready to go let's start with our oven baked beans first our oven's good and hot in a previous video we've shown you how to build one of these ovens and how to fire it and bake bread in it we actually suggest you go ahead and bake bread in the oven before you put beans in it you don't want it to be too hot we're going to let these beans bake you can bake them in an oven like this for four or six eight hours even 12 hours the longer the better and they really start to taste good you might want to check them after just a couple of hours to make sure there's still some liquid in there you don't want them baking out too dry you might need to add a little water gotta make some room in our fire pit to put this other pot down inside the coals foreign [Music] on all sides coals on the bottom hot coals on all the way around each side then you want to have a little rock that you can put on top of the lid make sure it doesn't get knocked off now we're going to put coals up on top we're gonna go ahead and build a fire up on top of this so that uh so it's got more heat [Music] he uh beans have been in here about three or four hours so we're gonna go ahead and pull them out now they could probably cook a lot longer but let's get these out of here well let's take a look s whoa they look really good these have cooked uh for about four hours so they're they're ready to eat right now if we want them to be even better we can let them cook longer another four hours or or even another eight hours now really start to darken up but these are ready to eat just like this these Maple beans have been in the Embers for several hours I think they're done let's take them out [Music] there we have uh our molasses baked beans and our Maple maple flavored baked beans both of these uh we let cook for quite a while there's a lot of latitude here in how long we're going to bake our beans they've already been pre-cooked when we put them in we've already been boiled so you know they're only going to get softer and better tasting the longer you cook them we put in the the raw salt pork so you definitely want to make gonna make sure that that gets cooked so you want to bake them at least two hours at the very bare minimum four hours is good and all the way up to 12 hours they're only going to get tasting a little bit better you just need to check on their moisture levels occasionally make sure they don't get too dry another hint on this on these Bean Pots when you're using especially the Molasses they want to boil over and then this molasses stuff gets stuck between the lid of the pot and and the body and they can be really hard to get off you don't want to break break your pot and bring break the lid so you want to either Grease the this this lid here so that it doesn't get stuck or you want to make sure to wipe those down when you check on the moisture level [Music] these beans have a flavor that you cannot get any place else I really recommend you try a couple of these bean recipes they're really good good food is really important uh the public is going to be more interested in food when you've got really good food in your cooking uh recruits if you want people to you know join your group really good food is what's going to bring them in that's a really important part and you want to have fun when you're reenacting and probably the most important part of having fun is having really good food so I encourage everyone to do more period cooking in at events I think you'll really enjoy it

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Keywords: Nutmeg Tavern, townsends, history, historical food, 18th century, colonial, jon townsend, john townsend, historic site, colonial lifestyle, Thanksgiving, Watches, pocket watches, historic time pieces, antique watches

Id: BiQxEFWqiQY

Length: 95min 25sec (5725 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 09 2022