Potted Beef In The 18th Century

Thanks for joining us today on 18th  century cooking I'm Jon Townsend and   today we'll be preparing potted  meats in the 18th century style in the past we've done a whole series on food  preservation techniques in the 18th century and   we touched on at the time the idea of potting or  potting meats and but we didn't get a chance to   do it today we are going to pot this beef potted  meat recipes can be very complex and they can take   a while to do but I wanted to find something very  simple it took a while but there's a very simple   potted beef recipe in Charlotte Mason's "A Lady's  Assistant" from 1777 and this one's called "to pot   cold beef" and it's actually the recipe starts  after you have a cut of beef that's already been   cooked and you want to pot it maybe like you've  eaten half of it but you want to preserve the   next half over the next several weeks and so to  get started with this one I've actually taken a   chuck roast and you need to cook that well so that  it falls apart the best way to do that really is   either to cook it in a Dutch oven for two or three  or even four hours at a nice low temperature or if   you want to cheat in a modern oven or a modern  kitchen you could use your slow cooker and just   put it on low and and let your chuck roast cook  overnight just cover this over with water or if   you want to add a little bit of flavor in it you  could use an cider or something like that in there   to give it some liquid make sure to cover that  up in the time period these recipes they would   actually say to use a ceramic vessel to bake your  meat in and then cover it over with paper so you   want to trap that moisture and that's the idea  here we want a a very very moist and fall-apart   kind of meat so here's our finished meat and you  can see how amazingly tender it is we I wanted   something that was just fall apart and that's  what we're looking for here what we need to do   with this meat is actually tease it apart tear  it apart and remove all the fat or in any kind   of sinews in it we want just plain straight meat  that's all first we put our meat into the bowl and   now we're gonna put in some more spices let's add  another bit of salt and some pepper and she also   calls for some nutmeg or some mace in there as  well to help season this and then let's add some   butter I don't know she doesn't call for an exact  amount so let's say 1/3 as much in weight as the   amount of meat that you have here now that we've  got all our ingredients we need to pulverize this   pound this into a mix that's just very very smooth  like a pate that's what we're looking for here so   our meat is nice and pulverized is very fine  she even says sometimes referring to it change   in color it will like turn yellow which means you  can tell it's very finely pulverized that's what   we're looking for now it's time to put it into  the pots and she actually in some of the recipes   mentions using a smaller pot like this you want  to have a pot that's not too big because once you   break the seal on this it's gonna start to go bad  so you don't want to have a large pot you want to   have a one or two serving kind of pot that way you  can use it all at once these pots are available on   our website I'll make sure to put a link down in  the description section pack it tightly into the   bottom of the pots we're trying to get rid of any  air pockets and we're gonna fill it up to within   say about an inch or if your pots really shallow  say a half inch to the top but we wanna have our   we want to leave some spot at the top for our  clarified butter when we get done packing these   pots it's hard to find a good safe recipe one  that's easy to do for potted meat the trick is   at this stage that we can't just pour clarified  butter on these because they would go bad but   some of the recipes actually call for taking  these pots before they get the clarified butter   putting them in the oven and warming them back  up to temperature say 200 250 degrees for 10 or   15 minutes we want to make sure that all the meat  is basically pasteurized in these pots so that's   what we're going to do with these we're going  to set these aside and I'm gonna take them and   I'm going to put in in the oven for at about  200 250 degrees for 10 or 15 minutes however   long it takes to get it so that they're heated  all the way through then we can bring them back once your little pots are heated fully up  to temperature you can bring them out of   the oven and while they're still warm  you want to pour clarified butter on   top you want at least a quarter of an  inch probably a half inch or maybe a   whole inch of clarified butter  up on top of these little pots here they are and we they finally cooled off  I did have issues with the clarified butter   it shrinks just like wax does when you're  making wax candles if you've ever done that   the wax will kind of shrink and it'll give you a  cavity in the center so you need to kind of keep   filling this up depending on how much clarified  butter you put in there that's why you want to   put a nice thick layer so even if it shrinks it  doesn't shrink away from the meat completely to   make them last a little bit longer they should  have another covering to put on top to protect   even the clarified butter so you can put  a little cloth on there and tie that off   that's why these have a little ring around them  so you can tie them off and the fabric stays on   you could use something like a hog's bladder  and we have the imitation hog's bladder on   the website that's another even better seal for  these to keep these longer in the 18th century   they would have stored these down in their  cellar where it was nice and cool and even   then they did not expect these to last very long  generally the recipes say that they'll be good   for a month or six weeks maybe two months at  the max so yeah in our modern context you'll   want to store these in the refrigerator until  you're ready use them and they should be good   and isn't this interesting it's very similar  to say what what would happen it's sort of   like canning right you you get all these things  up to temperature and then you try to seal the   air away from them it's exactly what we're doing  with this so I've got some toast here to try this   out so let's crack open one of these and find out  exactly how it tastes and you know there aren't a   lot of directions it doesn't say how they would  actually end up using this potted meat but I'm   gonna guess that they would have it on toasts or  crackers or something like that let's find out wonderful flavor tastes great especially on  something like the toasts all those little spices   come out I might add more nutmeg to it but it's  got wonderful texture and a wonderful taste and   it is one of the ways that they preserved meat  over time instead of having a salted beef they   many times would have a product like this and  it was really nice because you can take these   with you if you're going someplace and you want  to take some food with you it has its pot with   it and it's ready to eat whenever you are you  don't even need toasts or crackers or anything   like that you can just scoop right in there and  eat it if you're hungry oh a really interesting   way of preserving things almost like canning today  very very great this one was really interesting it   was fun to research I hope you give it a chance  especially if you're a reenactor this would be   wonderful to put into your your living history  persona you could take one of these to an event   that would be great and if you're just somebody  out there and who's interested in history it's   a great little experiment to try at home  I want to thank you for coming along as we   experiment as we try these things as we savor  the flavors and the aromas of the 18th century

Channel: Townsends

Views: 1,534,206

Keywords: potted meat, potted beef, jas townsend and son, reenacting, history, jon townsend, 18th century cooking, 18th century, clarified butter, butter, food preservation, #townsendspottedbeef, colonial cooking, historical cooking, colonial, #18thcenturycooking

Id: SdKzWQOVET4

Length: 8min 54sec (534 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 16 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Danger1672]

God that was interesting. I can't believe I just watched nine minutes of a guy potting meats.

[u/[deleted]]

"How the hell are we going to sell all of these god damn imitation hog bladders, Robert!"

"Don't worry Janet. I will find a way."

[u/CantHugEveryCat]

John Townsend seems like the most lovable guy in the whole world. His enthusiasm for the olden times and the cookery of those times seems so genuine that it truly affects me.

[u/banshee_boy]

I've followed Jas Townsend and Son for about 2 years now and I love all of his videos. Incredibly informative and he's such a genuinely sweet dude.

[u/crunchymush]

Good to see Fred Willard is keeping himself busy.

[u/darkkn1te]

Dadgummit. I have to work tomorrow. I definitely do not need to fall into the Jas Townshend hole.

[u/Capt_BrickBeard]

i love this guy. the videos are very interesting and short enough that the length of the video won't put you off....and everytime i look away from him i hear bob odenkirk. i've sat here for a lot longer than i'd care to admit trying to figure that out but damn...try it.

[u/bulgarian_zucchini]

Interesting. Was the only way of preserving meat longer to salt it back in those days? As in literally bury it in barrels of salt?

[u/[deleted]]

Sure, when this guy eats meat & butter on toast it's "educational". But when I eat meat & butter on toast, my girlfriend just starts crying. Stupid history, hogging all the fun.