Feeding A Medieval Knight

Video Statistics and Information

Video
Captions Word Cloud
Reddit Comments

Wonderful wonderful video Max!!! Honestly, these videos are what gets me through the workday haha... Thank you!!

👍︎︎ 16 👤︎︎ u/MaverickMan42 📅︎︎ Sep 14 2021 🗫︎ replies

... Those look like empanadas! Medieval Empanadas!? lol

👍︎︎ 7 👤︎︎ u/Alucard-VS-Artorias 📅︎︎ Sep 14 2021 🗫︎ replies

Particularly enjoyed this one, apart from mentioning Shad.

Tried making something like this in 2013, following a similar recipe. Just as with your first attempts, I could not get the oil to cook it, and had to bake it. I had better luck with a similar Mongolian blood pie recipe that is cooked a similar way, but requires deep frying, which makes me wonder if the frying method here requires partial/total submersion?

👍︎︎ 8 👤︎︎ u/Knight_of_the_lion 📅︎︎ Sep 14 2021 🗫︎ replies

Failed to fry... interesting since we have empanadas that are essentially deep fried..... maybe thats the key

I'm guessing your enriched hot water crust was more fragile for frying

👍︎︎ 6 👤︎︎ u/Algester 📅︎︎ Sep 14 2021 🗫︎ replies

Enjoyed this and great timing as I’m doing medieval France with my kids (homeschool) this week! We may have to give this one a try. A teensy suggestion/request if there’s a chance Max sees this: it’s super helpful to have the recipe in the description and this one seems to be missing this. For the few I’ve actually tried cooking myself it’s super helpful to not have to go back through and write everything down 😊Thanks so much for the great content!

👍︎︎ 4 👤︎︎ u/Choose_joy42 📅︎︎ Sep 15 2021 🗫︎ replies

You morphed into a different Max at one point there.

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/Qafqa 📅︎︎ Sep 15 2021 🗫︎ replies

Awesome! I know what I'm watching after work!

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/lyan-cat 📅︎︎ Sep 14 2021 🗫︎ replies

Always love your videos Max, thank you! I’m an Aussie and just thought that the pies would have been baked. I did laugh though when you said the frying didn’t work today. Some days things just don’t work. All the best.

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/becomingthenewme 📅︎︎ Sep 15 2021 🗫︎ replies
Captions
To paraphrase 'The Sound of Music'' how do you solve a problem like a medieval  knight who won't stop killing people? One answer is a tournament, and today we'll cook something that might   have been served to King Pellinore just before  a joust,  chewtes on flesshe day or meat pies. So thank you to Porter Road for sponsoring  this video as we make a Medieval meal to go, this time on Tasting History.   So there are lots of recipes for these little  pies and they're all a little bit different   so I'm actually going to be pulling from  several Medieval ]recipes but the one that   I'm reading is from the "Liber core cocorum"  from 1430 and I'm doing it because it's a poem. "Take liver of pork and carve it  small, for a pie be hewen hit shall,   and hence therewith do all in a pan,  and fry it well as thou well can, make a coffin as for a small pie, and that  therein and yolks thereby of hard eggs boiled   and also thou take powder  of ginger and salt to bake. Carve it and fry it in greaseful good, well  pinched served at last by the rode, here endsour cookery, that I have spake,  of pottage, hasteletes, and meat I bake,   and sauce thereto, without lying.  Christ must our souls to heaven bring." So a meat pie with pork and chicken,   though there are also recipes that  call for veal or other types of beef, some with fish that are meant to be eaten during  Lent and others that are sweet pies with fruit though the fruit would be cooked. For in the  words of 'The Book of Kervynge" from 1500   "Beware of green salads and raw fruits  for they will make your sovereign sick." Well there is one recipe for  salad from The Forme of Cury   so clearly not everyone took that to  heart. Now like I said there are lots   of other recipes and several of them  say that you can use any piece of pork rather than this one which specifies pork  liver, well I don't like pork liver so   I'm going to follow one of  those other period recipes and   use just some other cuts of pork though  even these cuts are a little odd.  They're interesting cuts like pork wings and pork  neck that I got from our sponsor Porter Road. Now I often do recipes here  on the show that call for . shall we say intimidating  cuts of meat and they can   be really hard to find even at most butcher shops,  but Porter Road is an online butcher based in  Tennessee that can supply both traditional cuts   like pork chops or chicken breast, but also those  interesting cuts like merlot steak, or pork wings and I love them because they work with local  farmers who pasture raise their animals   and practice responsible  animal husbandry which actually   affects the quality and the flavor of the meat, and you can order individual cuts online  or you can sign up for a subscription and the meat arrives fresh direct to your door.  In addition to the pork wings and the pork neck I got some pork chops which I  had for dinner just last night.  They were so tender and flavorful that other  than a little bit of salt and some butter they didn't need anything else  to be absolutely the bee's knees, or in this case the pork's chop, and  since you're watching Tasting History   with Max Miller you get 15% off of your first  order by clicking the link in the description and you get free shipping  on any orders over a $100. Now that we know where our meat came from let's figure out exactly how much we  need for these chewtes on flesshe day. One pound or 450 grams of pork. Like I said  I'm using pork wings and pork neck but any   cut will do and that goes the same for the  one half pound or 225 grams of chicken, five hard-boiled egg yolks, one teaspoon ground  ginger, and one and a half teaspoons of salt. So cut up your pork and chicken  and set them in a pan to fry. You want to have it completely cooked through  and that's going to depend on how small you   made your pieces but probably four to five  minutes to make sure that everything is done. Also you want the pieces  to be rather small because   it's going to be easier to put them into your pie. Then put the cooked meat in a bowl and mash  your egg yolks and add them to the meat. Then add the ginger and the salt  and mix everything together. Now when it comes to the pastry it's  really up to you what you want to use.   There was no standard for something  like this in Medieval England. They used everything from very bland just  water and flour. You weren't really supposed   to eat it. It was just a holder to kind of fancier  pastries that would have had egg yolks and butter   or milk in them. Now they didn't have puff  pastry but I'll tell you it actually works   really well for these so you can use that. What I'm going to be using is something   akin to a hot water crust pastry but  frankly it's even easier to make. You need 3 cups or 400 grams of flour,  a half cup or 113 grams of butter,   2/3 cup or about 150 grams of lard, and  1/3 cup or 80 milliliters of boiling water.   So make a well in the center of the  flour and add the lard and the butter,   then pour the boiling water over it. Then  using a fork work the fat and flour together. If it's not forming a dough then just add a  little bit more water. Once it does form a   dough set it out on a lightly floured surface  and use your fingers or the heel of your palm   to kind of smear the fat in through  the dough until well incorporated.  Then let it rest for a while either in  the refrigerator or you can just leave it out for 20 or 30 minutes until  it comes to room temperature.   At this point take small pieces and roll them  into rounds and then set a bit of meat in the   center of the dough and fold it over  to create a pie crimping the edges. Depending on the size of pie that you're making it  should make about 12. Now it comes to cooking them and for this I'm going to have  you join me over at camera 2. So we don't have a- we don't- I guess we don't have a camera 2.  Oh and there's nobody else here so I'm just talking to myself but that's  okay because we need to talk.. It is important to stay humble. Remember Caesar  thou art mortal and today I was reminded that   I art mortal. The recipe that I tried to follow says  to fry these and I tried to fry them. I tried three different doughs, I had different  types of fat at different temperatures. I've   fried things before and it's worked  but today my kitchen was like no no, you are going to fail at every attempt that you  make and you just have to be okay with that. So after some hours of frustration and  despair I decided to bake them and that   is okay because in two other recipes  from the two 15th century cookbooks   it does call for them to be baked but I did  try to fry them so I failed and that's okay. So while I encourage you to try to fry  them if you want to bake them like I did put on a nice egg wash and  then pop them in an oven   at 400 degrees Fahrenheit or 200 degrees Celcius for about 20 minutes. Now while those bake and you leave me  a comment of support or more likely a   comment letting me know what I did wrong let's  escape to Medieval Europe where the nobility   and the church were having just as much trouble  taming their knights as I did taming these pies.   There's an old saying an idle  mind is the devil's workshop, well an idle knight would spend  a lot of time in said workshop. So it was important to keep them busy. See early on in the Medieval period  a knight's job was destruction and in the 10th and 11th century especially in   that part of Europe that had  been the Carolingian Empire they took that job very seriously.  There were constant private wars   being fought between minor lords and  when there was a break in the fighting these knights tended to practice on the  peasantry and the Church. Easy targets I suppose.   So in an attempt to curb the rampant violence  the Church introduced the Pax et Treuga Dei   or Peace and Truce of God. The peace of God was  first proclaimed in 989 and it sought to protect Church property and unarmed clerics. A general agreement that "I will not infringe on   the Church in any way. I will not  hurt a cleric or a monk if unarmed. I will not steal an ox, cow, pig, sheep,  goat, ass or a mare with a colt..." Not much help for the little guy but at least  the Bishop's cows were safe. However it was   expanded when Robert II of France agreed not to  ransom servants or merchants or to root up fines. Nor would he "burn a house down  unless there was a knight inside.... I will not attack noble ladies traveling  without husband nor their maids, nor widows or nuns unless it is their fault. From the beginning of Lent to the end of Easter   I will not attack an unarmed knight." Kind of  implies that he had been doing these things.  Now the Church took that last part,  not attacking a knight during Lent, and expanded it into the Treuga  Dei, or the Truce of God in 1027.  This put a lot more restraints  on the timing of violence.  No violence at all during Lent  or on Sundays or during pentecost and at certain times battling could only take  place Wednesday through Saturday, seems sensible. Now between the Peace of God and the Truce of  God you'd think that a lot of things got better but you'd be wrong because while some people  followed these these edicts most people did not. It tended to be a case of what are  you going to excommunicate all of us, and the answer tended to be no. So the next ploy  to curb violence in Western Europe was just to  move it a few thousand miles to the East. It was called the First Crusade. Now there were a lot of reasons  for the Crusades and it's a far   more complicated topic than than  we're going to talk about here but one reason was to occupy the ever-fighting  knights of Europe and it worked... at least until they got back. But once they  did get back there was a new way to control   their behavior called chivalry coming from  the old French chevalier or horse soldiery. Now what was chivalry exactly? Because it  wasn't always the pious and virtuous ideal   set out by late Medieval and Victorian authors. Sometimes it was, or at least that was the goal,   but not always and one of my favorite Youtubers  Shadowversity does an excellent video on the   intricacies and misconceptions of chivalry so  I'll put a link to that in the description but   essentially it was a code of conduct but it wasn't  always the same code of conduct for everyone.  See everyone had their own idea of  what would make a knight chivalrous under any given circumstance. An extreme  example might be that archbishop Thomas   Beckett's idea of chivalry might be  a knight's devotion to the Church. A true Miles Christi or knight of  Christ but Henry II's ideal was   that a knight should have 100% loyalty  to their lord and so when he orders   a knight to go kill the Archbishop  those two concepts are in conflict. And that kind of conflict actually  probably happened a lot but it was a good way to control your knight. So between the Peace of God, the Truce of God the  Crusades and the ever-evolving code of chivalry there was actually a lot less fighting at  least in comparison with previous centuries but when there is no  fighting what's a knight to do? For "that which ceases from use has  prepared the way for its own retirement. We knights are being kept from  action like unskilled clodhoppers; this long interval of sitting around, which  prevents the practice of knightly exercise, gives one kidney stones."  But the lords of Northern France and  eventually of all Europe had an answer: tournament. "The recreation of a tournament  is healthy and delightful,   and it is held among knights for good  reason, since those who are fit to be   called to a tournament in time of peace will be  all the more able to withstand enemies in war." Though when these tournaments first started around  the end of the 11th century they were brutal. They were a far cry from the archery and  blunt jousting tournaments of later centuries. It was basically a mock battle on horseback called  a melee and the idea was to knock your opponent   off of their horse but instead of  a gentlemanly 'hear hear old chum,   better luck next time' as  you help them to their feet   you would beat them mercilessly and then take  their horse and armor to ransom back to them   later. Though even this was a corruption of the  original intent according to the poet from the   12th century Henri de Laon "Tournaments were not  originally held as a way of capturing horses, but so as to learn who was manly in his  conduct and to do great deeds of arms, and so it would be known that he could wear  a helmet despite the heat and lack of air within as lightly as he would wear his  cloth cap for the man who in such   a situation is soaked in his own blood and sweat. This I call the high bath of honor.   Though honor seems a relative term because  there are stories in those early tournaments of   one knight fleeing and going off to some village  and then being pursued by his fellow knights   and that would usually end in a lot of like  burning, pillaging and and that kind of thing so   you know you don't need to ransom stuff back  when you can just take it from the peasants. But   Max didn't you just say that that was the point  of the tournament, to stop that kind of behavior? Yes, yes I did but it took quite a while to  do that. It took some rules to be put in place that turned the melee into more of a contest  that had prizes that didn't include ransom. Though not everyone liked that change. In a  poem written to the young King Henry III in 1220 the author laments the bygone  era  of late 12th century tournaments. "But nowadays high-ranking men have  put chivalry back in fetters too; errantry and tourneying have  given way to formal contests.   But if God please the young King Henry will  restore fun laughter and joy to the world." But the fun, laughter and joy of unbridled  violence was gone forever from the tournament as they leaned into the sport  and contest aspects of the event.   Though that's not to say that tournaments  weren't still extremely taxing. There's a wonderful letter from an earl to  another earl basically asking for a timeout. "An earl to an earl, greetings. An assembly   for the practice of knightly skills  is refreshed by a modest suspension. One should not cancel it but let  it be interrupted for a brief time   for who can fight without a pause?" And even as late as the 16th century as the   warrior knight was giving way to the  gentleman knight of later centuries   and tournaments added blunted lances  and collision barriers called tilts.   The events could still be incredibly dangerous  even king Henry VIII during a jousting tournament   was horribly wounded. "The Duke's spear broke  and the King's headpiece was full of splinters." So even with the taming of medieval knights  it was still a very brutal lifestyle. I can assure you you wouldn't find me  out there on the tournament grounds. No I'd be over in the corner by the food stalls  waiting for my pork chewtes to finish cooking. So whether you fried or baked your chewtes go ahead and let them cool  and then they're ready to eat. And here we are chewtes on flesshe day. They smell great and I gotta  say they have a wonderful color.   I'm glad I went with baking them... even though I was forced basically  into doing so. I'm still glad I did. Let's get let's give this a shot. So in that first bite I got a little bit of  filling but pretty much all I got was was pastry, and that's actually kind of apropo because   it typically especially in a case like this  the pastry wasn't really meant to be eaten   you would kind of open it up and  then eat the insides from there, so it's kind of appropriate that all I got was  pastry, and now I can indulge on the insides. I mean obviously it looks like a pasty, like a  cornish pasty which I need to do an episode on   and it kind of tastes  like it too in a lot of ways.   What's interesting is kind of what the  filling is. That ginger and some of the other   recipes have even more spices and interesting  things like wine and ver juice added it's not   overpowering ginger but just ginger on pork and  chicken with egg that is weird but it's good. I'm definitely- I don't really- I don't really get the egg. In modern pork pies they often add hard-boiled  egg and I just don't get why. I don't know. I also wouldn't mind a bit of  like gravy or some sort of sauce. It's not dry it's just there is no  there's not a lot holding it together. It's just like pieces of meat.  I don't exactly know what would-   what would do well with that maybe just  dump the meat out into some gravy. Hm! :) So whether you decide to fry or  bake these just remember that   when you're in the kitchen if you mess up it doesn't really matter,  just it's supposed to be fun   and and I had fun making them, and I  had fun doing this episode. So yeah! So thank you again to Porter Road for sponsoring  this video and make sure to follow me on Instagram   @tastinghistorywithmaxmiller and I shall  see thee next time on Tasting History.
Info
Channel: Tasting History with Max Miller
Views: 1,545,722
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: tasting history, food history, max miller, medieval meat pie, medieval recipes, medieval knight, life of a medieval knight, the crusades, medieval tournament, chewtes on flesshe day, chewtes, chivalric code, chivalry, shadiversity, empanadas
Id: jlhkXj4miZI
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 17min 14sec (1034 seconds)
Published: Tue Sep 14 2021
Related Videos
Note
Please note that this website is currently a work in progress! Lots of interesting data and statistics to come.