Delicious Cornmeal Pancakes From The 18th Century

the recipe today comes from Amelia Simmons is 1796 cookbook called American cookery this celebrated little cookbook is considered to be the first truly American cookbook the recipe today is for Indian slapjack and just like the cookbook this is a truly American recipe thanks for joining us today on 18th century cooking pancakes in the 18th century were very popular a few years ago we did a series on pancakes I'll put a link down in the description section I invite you to go check those out with pancakes being so popular it's no wonder that people would have adapted this old-world recipe to ingredients that would be more available to them in this case we're wheat flour would be more difficult to come by in the colonies it's been replaced by cornmeal I'll start by beating together one quart of milk with four eggs modern eggs are probably larger than what they would have had in the time period so you might want to use three eggs and one egg yolk instead of four full eggs for our dry ingredients I'll mix together two cups of cornmeal about a cup and a half of wheat flour and maybe a teaspoon of salt in the original recipe Amelia Simmons calls for four spoonfuls of flour so it's not very uncommon for these recipes to be very let's say lackadaisical in their measurements and so we experimented with this and we found that one cup seemed to work just about right for this particular recipe most of these recipes seem more like suggestions than really hard and fast rules now if you notice in this recipe so far there isn't any kind of leavening anything like say baking soda or baking powder and isn't until the mid-nineteenth century say 1850 or so that you start to see leavening come into a recipe like this now Amelia Simmons actually does use some chemical leavening in her 1796 cookbook but not in anything like cornbread or pancakes so let's add the dry ingredients very slowly while I whisk them into the wet ingredients now this is going to turn out very very thin but if we let this rest a little bit then it'll it'll start to thicken up while it's thickening up I'll prepare our pan for cooking these so today I'm cooking with the brazier instead of over a campfire so many people today because you're in drier regions or in different parts of the country you really need to you is a brazier we offer these wonderful double braziers that really if they're the perfect size a full piece of firewood will fit in these and they have a little door that opens on the side here the grill on top is great and there's even accessories so you can put some other like a kettles and stuff off to the side a little bit higher and a heat shield underneath that you can almost use like a like a broiler in your oven so these these double braziers are wonderful and very popular we also are going to be using a frying pan today now if I was over the campfire I'd use one of our Spyder skillets these are like a 10-inch skillet with legs on it so we can cook it right over the fire without any extra equipment but we also offer that same frying pan without legs so we can use it on the brazier like we've got here today and we also have a couple of other smaller frying pans one with a folding handle which is great for trekkers or people who want to pack these in smaller packs and then a standard smaller skillet here great for the stove at home or for your camping trips all these things the brazier its accessories all these frying pans all these are available in our print catalog or you can see them on our website I'll make sure to put a link down below in the description of this video I'm going to put a little butter in our skillet and then wipe it out but 1/4 of a cup of our batter will work well per pancake well here are our Indian slapjacks of course we need to put a little bit more on them how about a little bit of butter and of course I've got some maple syrup very traditional North American you know topping for pancakes there we are let's give them a try whoa we've got a very interesting texture you know we're used to these light and fluffy pancakes usually with white flour and you know they're really thick these are nice and flat and they have a wonderful texture to them that you might not be used to as a pancake but a very nice texture and a great little corn flavor of course butter and maple syrup you can't go wrong with that great for the campsite very simple not very many ingredients at all wonderful breakfast or even later in the day dish really remember the the equipment if you're interested at all make sure to check out our print catalog and definitely our website you can see those links down in the description section of this video and also if you're interested in getting started at all with living history we've got a free getting started course it doesn't cost you anything you just go down to the link down in the description section and we'll send you these kind of sort of lessons I guess of what you would call them there's both the video component and a written component they're fun there's only about eight episodes of it so make sure to go and check that out I want to thank you for coming along as we experiment you know we never know how this is going to turn out especially around the campfire these turn out so wonderful I want to thank you for coming along with me so we savor the flavors in the aromas of the 18th century if you're new to our channel I want to welcome you you can subscribe by clicking the button right up here also check out our related videos thanks so much for watching

Channel: Townsends

Views: 233,471

Rating: 4.9642248 out of 5

Keywords: pancake, corn, cornmeal, 18th century cooking, reenacting, history, 18th century, flintlock, flintlock era, jon townsend, historical reenacting, campfire

Id: FRWYspsyasM

Length: 6min 26sec (386 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 18 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/callmeblew]

lol he sells those twig bundles he stirs with for $22 on his website

[u/HorseyWife]

I made this recipe. Theyre okay but bland without the butter on top and I would recommend less than a quart of milk as I had to thicken the batter significantly