Rich VS Poor Lunch 300 Years Ago | How To Cook That Ann Reardon

This book is more than 270 years old and it's  fascinating. The author spoke with so many   people both the rich and the poor and he included  their recipes and a little bit of their stories.   So let's go back in time and see what meals  were like if you were rich or poor in 1750.   Starting with breakfast ... take some bruised  groats or whole oatmeal and boil it in milk and   water for some time putting a quart of milk to  a pint of water to boil away and supplying the   consumption of several additions of milk so the  milk porridge is almost a jelly. Before we taste   that one let's make the other breakfast. Savory  water gruel made by poor people. Some put water   oatmeal and shred onions or leaks into a pot  at discretion and boil them till enough. The   onion or leak gives the gruel a pleasing relish  and altogether supplies the place of meat broth,   milk or other such liquid. This many poor  laborers families are glad to make shift   with that has not an opportunity to come buy milk  or because they can't afford a better breakfast   or supper than such wholesome onion gruel. I  call it wholesome as having often observed the   children that are fed with with the gruel to show  the whitest of teeth and a ruddy colored face and   plump flesh even those that very seldom eat any  butcher's meat. It kind of looks like at work,   I work as a dishwasher and it looks like  the sink when it's like full of like of   other people's food and stuff which is not good.  I'm poor by the way this is the poor outfit so I   better drink this. I'm just procrastinating  drinking it by rambling but here we go... I mean it's it's not that bad but it's just  like the texture is terrible. I hate like the   wateriness and then just lumps. Do I have a spoon?  No they used to drink it cuz it's quite watery.   Well that is sorrier than soggy fish and chips.  It's like uh onion flavored tea but like it's not   horrible. Wake up on a cold miserable, miserable  English winter morning just down a cup of that,   that's okay. Why would I want onion for breakfast  then I've had got onion breath all day. It's hard   to imagine actually working all day wherever  you were working on gruel. That's just too   watery there's not enough substance in that for  for breakfast lunch and dinner, you'd need some   meat or some bread or I don't know a chocolate  bar. Would you like to try the rich breakfast? I   would love to try the rich breakfast. What have we  got? Well you're rich enough to afford sugar and   you have a porridge. I don't know how much sugar  to do I don't really eat porridge. It's not bad   it's good I like it pretty good I could eat that  for breakfast now. A hearty meal to start the day.   According to the book The late Duke of Bridgewater  after breakfast would go for a ride or a walk   and then return at 10 for a tea breakfast with  his Duchess and daughters consisting of tarts,   hasty pudding, pancakes and other light food.  What a wonderful life I have I say. Oh wow so   how do you get rich you get paid for the walk? So  for breakfast would you prefer to be a rich man   or a poor man. It's closer than I would like it  to be because this I bagged on how bad it looked   but it wasn't terrible. Definitely rich.  I don't know I'd still have to go with the   the porridge the rich man's breakfast but  neither are good I'd prefer my Cheerios.   I would love to say that I'd like to be a  poor man and add your poor man's meal but   nothing is more deceitful than the appearance  of humility so I have to be honest I'm going to   go with a rich man's breakfast. Next let's make  a pie for lunch let's start with the rich pie.   A puff paste. Take a pottle of flour and the  whites of six eggs make it into a paste with cold   water let it not be very stiff and when it is well  wrought roll it forth square like a sheet of paper   as thick as your finger then take 3 lbs of butter  and beat it well with a rolling pin then lay it   on in slices all over your paste about as thick  as your finger and strew on it a little flour.   Then roll up your sheet of paste like a collar  with the butter within. Squeeze and roll it at   both ends broad and long ways then clap up the  ends and make them meet in the middle one over   another and fasten it down again with your rolling  pin. Rolling it forth every way as thin as the   first then flour your board well underneath  and spread it over with butter roll it up   and work it as before thus do three or four times  until your 3 lbs of butter is made use of. Cut the   lean part of a porker with some of its fat and  mix and beat them together this done seasoned   with pepper salt nutmeg and mace and between every  piece of this beaten meat lay a small thin cut of   hard fat as that of the chin or such like. Wait  now I'm confused was I just supposed to beat this   and not chop it finely if I didn't chop it how  was I supposed to mix the fat and the lean parts   together, I don't know well never mind we'll just  add the fat in the middle here and then top it off   with more meat. Back to the recipe: when it is  all put into the pie crust put bits of butter on   top of it and some claret. Wow this is a very  but y fatty pie. Good portion of meat within. It's all right it's meat I definitely eat it, um  but yeah the pastry makes it slightly a little   bit nicer. It doesn't appear to be much else other  than meat in the pie it's very much meat encased   in pastry. There's just no flavoring to it you've  wasted a whole lot of good meat here. Australia   is quite famous for its meat pies we have a  steak and kidney we have a beef and mushroom   we have a lamb and rosemary pie. It's a pie but  it's maybe one of the worst pies I've had. Let's   compare this to the other pie recipe in making pie  or pastry crust for a poor man's family then it is   that they boil skim milk and while it is boiling  hot they mix wheat flour with it by stirring in a   spoonful at a time till it is bought to a stiffish  consistence and cool enough to work into a dough   or a paste. This is a most save all way that some  poor people are glad to make use of to hitch out   the penny when they cannot afford to buy fat. It  seems to me like I'm making Play-Doh here now if   they couldn't afford fat for the pastry what on  Earth are they going to put in to fill it? How a   poor woman makes palatable mince pies of flinking.  Flinking flinking meat yeah the Fs are S's ... oh   stinking meat. Stinking meat! Good Heavens. This  is a poor industrious, industrious woman that   rents a little tenement by me of 20 Shillings a  year who for the sake of her poverty is every week   relieved with many others by the most noble Lord  of Gadistan Manor who is killing a large bullock   almost every week for his very large family he  has the off what? Ossald meat dressed. Offald   meat. Well you said the fs are s's yes sometimes  they're F's. Well why why would they do that? He   has the offald meat dressed and is so good as to  have it given away to the poorest people in the   neighborhood. But it sometimes happens through  the negligence of careless wow it says carelefs.   So they have s's but they use F's sometimes but  not other times. Okay uh through the negligence   of the careless servants that the charitable  meat is apt to stink in the hot weather for   want of its due cleaning boiling and laying it  in a cool place however the poor are very glad of   course they are the poor love stinking meat, the  poor are very glad of this dole as it does their   families considerable service and to recover such  tainted meat this woman after boiling and cleaning   it well chops and minces it very small and when  mixed with some pepper salt and chopped sage,   thyme and onion she bakes it this for a favory  pie, no savory pie, the taint is so lessened   that it is hardly to be perceived. I wonder what  it did to their stomachs this tainted awful meat? It's okay it's got some flavor not bad at  all tastes like a meat pie but the pastry is   much worse like you put this inside in the  pastry of the other one that's all right,   I'd still complain if I got that at a bakery  but you know it's edible. Oh no tastes like   dog food. The boys liked it. Oh I do not like  it. So for pies would you prefer to be a rich   man or a poor man uh I think a rich man but not  by much which is surprising. The pastry is much   much better on the rich one. For me I'm going  to choose a rich man's pie. I'd almost rather   be poor I just really don't like unflavored  mince meat like I'd prefer the onions and   herbs in that one even though it's much worse  meat than a hunk of plain mince meat. Moving   on to dinner ... potatoes are much eaten by  poor people people first boiled then mashed   and the pulp boiled again in milk in which they  stir some flour and eat it like a hasty pudding.   So they've basically watered the potatoes down  using lots of milk and then thickened that up   again using some flour so it goes further it's  pretty clever let's see what the rich people   do. But the richer sort mingle a little wine and  sugar with it to make sometimes a pudding with   potatoes and other ingredients for the belly  of a hare or other beast. And elsewhere in the   book It also says to put more potatoes around  the roast we're going to start with the poor   man's dinner and this is it. Wow okay times are  tough in 1750 this looks like a bowl of potato. Lucky I'm a fan of potato. It's a bowl of mashed  potatoes. When I was a kid that which wasn't 1750   by the way but it was a very comforting food for  me it was a bit of a favorite. That's pretty good.   What if that was all you had for dinner? Well  I might need a little bit of a bigger bowl but   apart from that it would be all right. It would do  perfectly if you just put it here and then dropped   a steak here. Rich dinner. Wow that's uh a  lot of dinner. Okay so the the whole poor   meal is the stuffing for the duck, plus  potatoes on the side. That's very nice   they're pretty good potatoes is this the  stuffing is this the stuffing, all right. Also so good. The potatoes are delicious really  good. Interesting that a meal from 1750 so so long   ago could actually sit in a restaurant right now.  Good dinner. Tastes delicious. So for dinner would   you rather dine as a rich man or a poor man? Rich.  I didn't mind dinner cuz it was kind of evoked   childhood memories but I'm going to be bougie  and I'm going to go over here with the duck and   the potato and the other things because it's just  better. I would rather be rich cuz this was quite   a delicious dinner but this was also not inedible  it was like I would I would not complain if that   was served to me for dinner. I hope in the last  300 years that we've actually got a bit better at   providing a safety net for people so that there  can be dignity no matter what your station in   life no matter how you're going at any particular  time in life you can actually eat a healthy meal   and not have to resort to rotting meat, I hope  that's the case I'm I'm sure in some parts of the   world that still isn't the case. If you want to  see more rich VS poor recipes from this book let   me know by liking sharing and commenting on the  video with thanks to my amazing patrons for your   support of this channel make it a great week by  being kind to others and I'll see you on Friday ❤️

Channel: How To Cook That

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Keywords: howtocookthat, how to cook that, ann reardon, 200 year old, historical cooking, 17th century life, what is gruel, entertaining, school teacher resources, home economics teacher, family and consumer sciences, food technology, food science, food history, high quality, youtuber, youtube, fun, home ec teacher, dietitian, rich v poor, antique cookbook

Id: aLfd2rZ1x4I

Length: 15min 2sec (902 seconds)

Published: Fri May 03 2024