Recreating Abe Lincoln’s 1861 Inauguration Feast

liberty to understand the food of our present we must first understand the food of our past that's why we're recreating some of the most notable meals throughout history and today we are going back in time to washington dc where hundreds of people gorge themselves at a 250 foot buffet ah yes the time my debate team went to nationals and then we celebrated at the golden corral no we're talking about abraham lincoln's second inauguration dinner oh well i guess it's time for meals of history all right today we're going back to march 6 1865 where there are over 4 000 guests in attendance in the new york times actually wrote that since dinner was served so late and it was so disorganized that people were hoisting trays above the masses and they were slopping jellies and consummates along the way to bring back to their friends and that the floor was so sticky with the spilled residue of foul and game and meat and pastry that you could hear the shoes unsticking from the pavement wow yeah all right so the menu is actually really interesting so you see a lot of it leans french which like most things in the 19th century were leaning french especially as america tried to find its own identity but there are some really interesting things on here and the menu is actually created by a pastry chef who didn't have a lot of savory experience so you even see some like spelling mistakes on some of the savory dishes which i think is hilarious but one of the most interesting things here it is called terrapin on the menu but we think it was actually mock turtle soup there's no real turtle no real turtles were harmed in the making of this it's fake turtle soup we're gonna try and recreate the taste of real turtle i could see the comment section now and then turtle murderers koopa troopa who cares about him all right so another really interesting thing we have smoked tongue on jelly back then like jello molds right we're a super new thing and that was a very common way to serve savory dishes that we don't have a lot of today so i want to get weird with some smoked tongue and jello you just glazed over the tongue part you didn't say what kind of tongue it could be any tongue oh it's gonna be any tongue ah since i'm the chef do you uh do you think you could be the guest of honor oh for score i can force you see what i did there first for scurry dude hello strapping beefcake man god i feel like you're about to dunk on me who are you and why don't you have sleeves have the american people run out of slaves yes i have the great sleep shortage of 19 that's not that's not the point abraham thank you so much for joining me uh right now we're making these smoked tongue on chile which from my understanding you don't care about it all because you like kind of hardly eat why i'm very busy man okay today we are here to celebrate you and what what better way to celebrate than smoking this whole ox tongue and then putting it inside a gelatin mold so this is the attempt to get me to eat food yes it's trying to trick you into putting some nutrients into your body uh we gotta start making this so i'm just gonna take a quart of water and we're going to pour that into our stock pot and then we have to add this is a mixture of madeira and sherry which again from what i understand you don't enjoy liquor you don't enjoy food you eat like an apple in some bacon and you're good what gives you pleasure oh no one's ever asked me that you ever asked mary todd that question oh josh sorry now i'm imagining them and i'm like oh that's weird i don't even know what she looked like listen i've thought about abraham lincoln sexually before i'm not gonna lie at least you're a big enough person to admit it girls just want a guy who's tall he wasn't actually hot he was just like he was a good dude and he was six six yeah i guess so all right so i'm throwing some onions into we got the mid-air we got the cherry we got water we're throwing in onions in there the onions are actually gonna go into the jelly mold as well but they're also gonna like flavor and perfume everything and drop some carrots in there again this is like a super old-timey dish this type of stuff they use the whole animal back thanks they didn't have like commercial farm production yeah so these are the actual taste buds of the ox tongue you know you don't have to tell me oh my god the stain oh i thought you're gonna say the stank because there is something no i don't want to sniff put it that's different there's a tongue yeah that's not too great so this is the frenulum the lingual frenulum because there's two front needles in the body i learned after cursory google search so this is all like yeah connective tissues a little bit of blood and then we got all the taste buds on here so we're gonna do is we're gonna dump that into the pot we're gonna let that boil away get some more aromatics in there we got bay leaves we got some thyme and then we are just going to douse this in salt we gotta let this boil we gotta let it december we gotta let that tongue get nice and tender right because i imagine like the dental care back in your day wasn't great so you kind of just had to gum down this jello meet yeah it's really weird looking at you from up here i don't like this i feel intimidated feels really strong strong women don't intimidate me but tall women apparently tall women yeah so i'm gonna take a lid and we're just gonna pop this on there we're gonna let this cook for about two three hours until it's tender and then we're gonna take it out strip it of its taste buds and then we're gonna pop it in the oven do a little oven smoke on it okay that sounds like the only way this will be good i love that you think it's gonna be good there's no way well i don't know i mean people it sounded like your description that people were like excited to bring it out to their friends and it was gonna be a good thing so i'm going with it they were but people back then were just like gross they were just eating just tongues and like they ate people you know what i'm saying what did i don't know when the when was the donner party was that you i think it was i think mary todd lincoln actually knew the people in the donner party fact check that for me where's annelise someone snopes it you snopes it that's a firm now we're snopes in it it sounds dirty all right so we're gonna let this boil for a couple hours get nice and tender and then we gotta strain everything off and then we're gonna smoke it how do my ears look chafed shape that beard is hanging because otherwise it would be like this the red hair coming through that hat she looked like a giant leprechaun leprechaun like there was like someone who's like yeah you know leprechauns have a height difference then you're like i assume that means they're taller i feel like i just look like fran leibowitz like this is and no one knows who that is but me apparently all right so this giant ox tongue has been cooking for about three hours so now we're gonna take it out why am i using tongs like no come on don't use your hands dude why because you're gonna burn yourself i'm not gonna burn myself i'm tough i'm tough okay that is hot and we're gonna put that directly in the ice bath and it's just gonna kind of stick out like a phallus from a nice bath that's why we're seeing a little bit of shrimp there's like fat what yeah yeah so you're seeing a lot of fat that's a lot of that connective tissue on that lingual frenulum that we're talking about and so we can either trim that out or i mean i feel like since again people were just like super gross eating people back in your time like no offense no offense i have nothing to respect what you did he didn't eat people we were just talking about this yeah lincoln almost joined the donner party what stopped him slash you he had a toddler he was like i can't join your cannibal party because i got a kid he was a hashtag always dad who actually hung out with this kid oh so impressive that's why friends with kids are the worst morgan sorry you suck morgan has a kid this is the cutest thing he's the cutest kid morgan so we're gonna take this tongue out again we have to smoke this so you see it still got just feel that just like rub your hands along it hate this abe abraham feel the tongue yes i will feel the tongue for you it's very presidential i've kissed babies i can feel a tongue god that's hard all right so i'm gonna take it i'm just gonna try and make like a small incision with a knife just to give me a sort of starting point because you gotta then get the skin off good night yep there you go and you're just no no rip the skin off piece by myself i'm gonna get a knife under there yeah it doesn't smell great i'm kind of ripping through the whole tongue that's not great i'm probably gonna use a knife oh yeah that's probably a good idea huh i kind of imagined that like every person back in the 1800s had to be ready to like kill a bear was that like part of your skill set well you know lincoln was actually a really good fighter he had a very large reach i do know one thing he almost had a duel with someone with a sword i think casual violence is bad but i also think that duels are really cool see we got just this kind of mangled ox tongue here there's nothing what to compare this to brutal look at this hang on just kind of grab it hang on i did not die in vain we need to like watch the same movies before we shoot together because i have no idea what you're talking about that's the gettysburg address oh i'm just an idiot then all right so we have our soaked applewood chips we have our skinned tongue that's so the smoke can penetrate it more so i'm just going to tent the tongue with foil and then that is going to trap all the smoke in there and it should perfume the tongue to flavor or meat jello all righty all right so we got the tongue out of the oven and uh we got this pot that won't stop clattering around it's abraham lincoln's ghost i like your pot i like your pot so much why did you pick this pot you're like it's like the least interesting thing for a ghost to possibly inhabit so we got the tongue out of the oven um it smells nice and woody i am all the time abraham lincoln smell my tongue it's kind of nice right it smells a lot better than people probably smelled all right i'm gonna chop up this tongue oh no yeah it's kind of gonna fly around a little bit abe you gotta watch i want you to watch i detest violence we gotta chop up some vegetables as well because we have these onions we have these carrots in here these have been kind of braising alongside with that and we want some nice veggies in there okay and abe i need you to do a very important job for me scoop all that gelatin in there and then whisk it haunted pot hunted pot i need hunted bigger cutting board this is going on the floor be cool about it hang on here's what i'm going to do your hands why are you using utensils yeah there it is that's great it's a butt all right here we go here we go toss it in there and then like really whisk it around that's going to dissolve and while you're doing that i'm going to take the tongue and i'm going to arrange that around our bunt mold so i'm going to kind of alternate with layers of tongue and veggie what was your duel about how did you almost get in a duel i was in a duel with a sword because i got to choose the weapon but i was so tall and long that i intimidated the man i was dueling by swatting at a tree that was real high up you just like proved your reach with a slack and then he was like oh no all right so i'm gonna take yeah it smells like what dog this gelatin smells like and so we're gonna take that and we're just gonna pour it all around our mold probably get some on the floor that's totally cool i want to fill it to the top so wait we're making meat jello like a tongue jelly yeah so it's gonna be a whole jello mold in this nice ornate bundt pan it's got all the tongue in it and then we're gonna slice it and then we gotta eat it okay 1860 whatever you say congrats on being president again here's some tongue jell-o man now we're making the mock turtle soup on the menu it just said terrapin and actual turtle soup was big in like colonial times 1600s but i think by the time why they were a bunch of like starving idiot colonizers who didn't know i haven't never seen enough turtles to think let's make food out of this you had burger king the colonial people didn't have burger king so we're gonna put some butter in there anyways the different parts of the turtle have the textures of different meat products and so mock turtle soup which was getting into fashion around lincoln's time uh actually had calves brains which is what we have here then also sweetbreads which is the thymus gland of the cow and then we have a little bit of uh minced beef cheek and then it'll all come together to taste like turtle y'all were gross back then you're just eating jello tongue and turtle meat i'm so sorry so we're browning some butter and we're gonna add our classic mirepoix again like everything is french influence so we got the onion we got the carrot we got the celery and then i'm also gonna add some peppercorns to toast up in there and then we're just gonna give that a stir let that work and then we're gonna add some flour to create the roux you a big fan of cavs brains you know i like brains you've got brains i've got brains america has brains this isn't a political stump speech you've already been elected for the second term i know but it's hard to just let go of that you know ah but i mean it sounds like you survived a lot like you won all these wrestling matches you know you kind of only lost one wrestling match out of 300. and you keep talking about you survive the duelist or something you shouldn't be afraid of anything well as long as a man's in front of me yeah you're not great if someone like gets behind you right it's like oh if i'm here like you're not i i can't see anything you can't just turn your head i can't well i got a stiff neck i'd have to be like hold on sir back away all right so we have all of our organ meets all of our fake turtle completely hacked up we have our butter going with all of our veggies now i'm gonna toss some flour into there so this is called a roux this is what's used to thicken up the soup so the flour's actually gonna toast and we want to get a kind of dark toast on it because we want this to be a pretty ruddy brown color do you have any questions about the future i have hopes for the future what are your hopes for the future i hope that one day we can find a way to put meat in a tube and then bread around it i thought it'd be something like a like unity so you were in a time of oh right you meant like about my job as a president of the united states but i think you've just invented the corn dog we don't eat dogs in america i wish letters could go faster what do you mean i don't know i just think that i wish there was like a way for me to go hey we should stop doing this thing and then i could just tell somebody and then they could do it immediately but yeah yeah like uh like extent communication but quickly yeah i gotta okay send a sweaty boy with a picture you wanna eliminate sweaty boys from the mail system i hoped that less boys sweat i'm delighted to tell you about axe body spray you're like i love axes all right so we got the broth going i'm just going to take our cheek meat and add the cheek meat i've never heard of cheese beef cheese good and then we're going to add all this slop and then all these organ meats are actually going to release a lot of juices inside the soup it should be lovely i mean what about this doesn't look lovely well i think knowing what it is is tough but like actually it smells really good it really does and i'm kind of into it i don't care all right so we're gonna let that boil down for a couple hours i'm gonna come back to it we're gonna plate it up hit it with a little bit of garnish okay did you fly been down this whole time is it showing yeah a little bit the pants are too tight you gotta heal a little presidential spillage going on listen abraham lincoln for for this purpose is thick i like it like i like my mock turtle soups thick speaking of which look at that thickness so we reduced it down a lot and then a lot of those juices from the organ meats emulsified with all the butter and flour and got this really gorgeous color it looks really good and we're going to finish it with a little bit of raw sherry that's a cooking wine coming from spain and then we're going to give that a nice stir so we're gonna ladle this up and then we're gonna hit it with a couple garnishes that were very popular chopped eggs a little bit of parsley what is with the chopped eggs in our titanic video there was also chopped eggs they like the old people love eating chopped eggs that's the thing that i know my nana she loves chopped eggs you'd love chopped eggs you're old well that's true i am old but i also speaking of old this is a crazy thing my birthday april 14th is the day abraham lincoln was assassinated it's also the day the titanic hit the iceberg what yeah i don't know guys i don't believe in crystals or the universe well i believe the universe exists crystals work though but something about that's weird to me all right so we have all of this mock turtle soup and now we're just to take some nice garnish chopped eggs just float our chopped eggs on top they're going to be so excited when they find out about cheese 1860's they had a lot of just put cheese on the chili y'all you're putting a lemon in there yeah we got a little bit of lemon on there it's going to perfume it we're going to get some parsley and boom there is our mock turtle soup it is pretty i feel like this is similar to my hair color yeah yeah i got it i come in the hairdresser and i go give me chili hair all right so now we have to take this wow wonderful wow give it a pose give it a flick bouncy huh so we're gonna take that and then a way to dislodge a jello mold blow torch oh boy that's a fun thing we're just gonna go ahead and the goal now is right now this is all stuck to the pan but gelatin right when it's warm it'll melt so a way to dislodge it is you can just blow torch pan it should warm it up a little bit and get the gelatin just to unstick enough i really think that abraham lincoln would like this is abraham lincoln want to play with fire press the button keep the game away from my face i'm honored what could go wrong liberty [Music] oh that looks great this is the most beautiful ugly thing i've ever seen this is unreasonable looking you can see the veins in the tongue poking through the jello that's pretty exciting for me this smells like fancy feast this is fancy feast this is just cat food before it's been blended alright so we got our mock turtle soup that looks absolutely gorgeous we got this that is one of the most uh horrifyingly grotesque foods i've ever seen no wow it's just all the same color so this is all the same color but we actually have some more really beautiful stuff because again the caterer for this event was the pastry chef himself so we're gonna head down to the patent office and i got some more feasts waiting for you oh a patent office yeah sexy that's the sexiest building in all a decent place what whitman said to eat gelatin hey welcome to your inauguration feast so we have our smoke tongue on joule and we have our mock turtle soup there but we also got some other things meat was a big part of it so we got a big old giant smoked virginia country ham we got some giant smoked turkey legs we got smoked and pickled oysters we got lobster salads in the shell i hope you're as excited as i am i'm very excited all right let's dig in to this meat jello oh yeah so i'm just going to go in and cut you a nice slice thank you very much absolutely i believe i got it all right there we go oh gosh so you can kind of stand it up and you see a lot of that tongue there's no escaping it but we still got a fair amount of jello as well i'm gonna just try and isolate some of that tongue should we say grace yeah you got this one all right i'm jewish dear heavenly father thank you for this bounty of meat and gelatin may our bellies be full and our hearts be strong thank you very much amen amen all right let's uh woof i feel like you're stalling all right we'll rip through it i'm not having a bad time that's actually kind of good the jedi it's not something that i would like to eat at every celebratory piece that i have but the tongue's really flavorful you got like a little bit of that madeira and cherry in there it's nice and aromatic the jello salty as you want i'm not mad about that i'm not gonna take another bite but i'm not mad about it boy i cannot break down this meat just swallow don't chew anymore no let it slide down okay let the tongue slide down the throat it's like a pill i think like a glass of water that's like swallowing a big old omega-3 wash it down watch it you had those back then huh oh yeah wash it down with some of this mock turtle soup i'm gonna flick this off my fork okay i'm gonna get a nice big chunk i believe that's calves brain and then i'm gonna get some of the egg with it yep [Music] it's like chili it has that fattiness and tomatoness and the meatiness of chili but then with all the organ meats in there you get this kind of deeply weird had to say organ meats huh yeah because it's almost like like think about the bitterness in your mouth right now uh-huh it's almost this kind of bile funk in a way it's as if someone threw up hormel chili back into the can we needed it dumped it out it's my inauguration it's not bad it's really interesting i like the texture of the organ meats in the soup i honestly kind of like the tongue more have some more tongue no i'm a safe room what's digging eat some lobster so this was another big thing almost took the shellfish served right in the shell lobster makes it a little bit of mayonnaise i think it's delicious boy this feels like it would be good on i don't know some kind of bread why is there no bread rations there's a war going on well sir i never got your name girl carl for today carl for today very nice to meet you and thank you for sharing this very important meal with me on my inauguration but i must be going uh my wife bought a sticker to the theater she got me these little glasses are these cute those are certainly cute but i have some that might be a little bit more helpful for you i think dry them on but they look a little dark i don't know if i'll see you'll see oh there's mirrors in these i can see behind me there's nothing there as there usually is nothing there nothing ever behind me i'm not going to use them no i think i'm fine i want to focus on the play you know best of luck to you at your place surely nothing will happen thank you so much for helping me with the day and thank you so much for stopping by the mythical kitchen we got new cooking episodes out every week we got new episodes of our podcast a hot dog is a sandwich every wednesday wherever you got your podcast hit us up on instagram at mythical kitchen with pictures of your mythical dishes and uh don't go see plays they're dangerous who are you talking to there's people in that little dark hole oh poor people wave to the whole people goodbye american whole people my favorite hat can now be your favorite hat so get the mythical trucker hat at mythical.com

Channel: Mythical Kitchen

Views: 827,197

Keywords: mythical kitchen, mythical, chef, josh, scherer, nicole, food, taste test, snack, smash, fears, fancy, fast, recipe, culinary, cooking, cook, bake, baking, mythical chef josh, culinary bro-down, good mythical kitchen, inauguration, abe, abraham, lincoln

Id: IzRY8cuoBOU

Length: 21min 54sec (1314 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 19 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/iknitthings]

Oh my god I’m so excited for this

[u/mdhornet90]

These historical dishes belong on r/ATBGE

[u/MEGAYEL]

This was fucking revolting; I'm still nauseated and can't eat my dinner. You can't blame Lincoln for not eating if that was the shit he was being served.

Also - my son pointed out that with Josh's hair at this length he looks like buff Cupid.