The Poor Lieutenant's Feast

What is a feast to a poor Lieutenant? Is it a  haversack full of rations is it a table piled   so high with delicacies that you don't know  when you could finish it or is it knowing   that your commanding officer cares enough  to make sure that you have what you need?  The life of the lieutenant in the 18th  century was more difficult than you can   imagine getting the right kind of supplies  and food was nearly impossible. Today I want   a victory for this Lieutenant we  are going to make for him a feast.  The position of the Ensign and the lieutenant  wasn't easy. Army officers in the 18th century   had to purchase their commission it wasn't based  on their merit or their ability they weren't given   extra money necessarily to buy their rations they  did get a supply of rations twice the amount that   a standard soldier would get but of course they  were officer material these low-level officers   were not just trying to survive they were not just  trying to perform well in the field but promotion   had partly to do with whether they looked like  officers whether they acted like officers and   whether their table was set like an officer. All those Provisions that they would need they   had to purchase themselves and if they were  in a campaign situation those things came   very dearly and they weren't able to supply them  themselves. The situation Ben Franklin mentions   in his autobiography and he's having dinner with  the Colonel Dunbar and he finds out about what's   going on with these officers "while I was at  Camp something one evening with the officers   of Colonel Dunbar's regiment he represented to me  his concern for the sub-alterns who he said were   generally not in affluence and could ill afford  in this dear country to lay in the stores that   might be necessary in so long a march through a  Wilderness where nothing was to be purchased".   Benjamin Franklin wants to help these low-level  officers out he goes to the local government   and there are some funds available to help  with this military situation he also talks   to his son who has been in a military campaign  situation and asks him to come up with this care   package idea that he could give these officers. "six pounds of low sugar six pounds of muscovado   sugar" which is like brown sugar "a pound of green  tea a pound of black tea six pounds of good coffee   six pounds of chocolate 100 weight of best white  biscuits a pound of pepper a quart of best white   wine vinegar" a pound or no it just says "one  Gloucester cheese" so one large round of cheese   "a keg of 20 pounds of good butter two dozen  old Madeira wine two gallons of Jamaica Spirits"   that's rum "a one bottle of flour of mustard two  well-cured hams a one or two dozen dried tongues   six pounds of rice six pounds of raisins". They  make up these care packages 20 of these all put   together and they give one to each one of these  officers. We've got this great care package and   these soldiers need a win so if we look at this  care package what can we make? The first item   that pops right out for me is rice pudding the  bottom two lines rice and raisins those are the   main components for a rice pudding we also have in  the care package butter and sugar and that's about   all we need for a rice pudding so we're going  to work on one of those. I've got four ounces   of white rice I've got raisins we'll put those in  at the very end we also have butter it doesn't say   in the recipe that we're going to be using which  is Amelia Simmons's recipe from 1796 exactly how   much butter but maybe two or three ounces. After our rice and butter we've got sugar   and sugar was one of those things in that care  package this has already been pounded up the   sugar that would have come would have been in hard  lumps or in cones of sugar and you've got to kind   of grind it up to get into a granulated sugar  that we're used to but we've got three ounces   of sugar here. For our liquid portion we've got  milk we need one quart. This is a fancy pudding   for our officers obviously we need some spice in  here the Amelia Simmons recipe would have and did   have allspice we can of course add allspice into  this and I'm sure that care package even though it   didn't mention it probably had a few nutmegs  in it so we're going to add some nutmeg too. We need a sprinkle of salt for this and the last  that goes in and the raisins I'm just going to   put those kind of in on top I don't want them to  sink to the very bottom I like them to be in the   center of the pudding and really the raisins are  part of the the sweetness of this pudding in some   cases if you don't have any sugar you could leave  that out and the raisins would be the sweetness.  We could bake it in our oven but if we're  on campaign like these soldiers were they   would probably have to bake them in  something like the camp oven or the   Dutch oven that's what we'll do today.  Bakes two hours at about 350 degrees. Nowadays when we think about our military we think  about it being sort of a meritocracy you have to   have certain kinds of skills to move up in the  military not so much in the 18th century. The   sub-alterns that we're talking about here are the  lowest level of officers they're above the common   Soldier they're above sergeants and they're  that layer just above those non-commissions   soldiers. They have a commission something that  they had to purchase they didn't earn their way   to that circumstance normally they bought their  way into that circumstance and they're usually   in charge of men that are older than they  are maybe have more experience than they   do so there's always some friction there. So  the incidents and the lieutenants that we're   talking about here are below the captains, the  majors, the colonels, the generals. And all of   these men had to purchase their way into the  service at that time. They had to have a lot   of influence and of course the higher up they  were the better they had to look the better   they had to dress the better they had to eat. The  army is definitely two different worlds that of   the common soldiers and that of the officers  and they live in different buildings they wear   different clothing they eat different food.  And even within this officer World there are   these divisions and these poor lieutenants  and ensigns they're at the very bottom.   This is certainly different than what's happening  in the navy in the 18th century in the navy in the   18th century you're not going to buy a commission  you might still need to have some influence to   become an officer but it's not nearly like what's  going on in the army. Another great thing about   the list that Benjamin Franklin has is that all  these items are good for long periods of time.   These soldiers were going into the wilderness  there were no stores along the way so if you   are doing a military campaign and you're going  from town to town you don't need these kind of   provisions because you would get provisions as you  went along these soldiers weren't able to do that   so we have things like the dry cure ham we have  cured tongue we have cheese we even the butter is   in kegs and salted so that it will last a long  time. And the other great feature here is that   many of these things we can eat as they are they  don't need to be prepared in any way. A lot of   times on a military campaign you don't have time  to stop to make food or you're not in a situation   where you can do that and if you have provisions  that you can just basically slice off and eat then   that's what you want so ships biscuits whether  you have cheese the ham it's all just ready to go. We talked about ship's biscuit in the past and  you know it's not very appetizing it's hard as a   rock but if you soak it in something like Madeira  for a few minutes well it becomes quite edible.  We also have great combinations on this   list having to do with the ham  the mustard and the vinegar.  So the ham and the mustard go together of  course it's just mustard seed or ground   mustard we have to mix that with the vinegar to  make a mustard sauce again great combination. The care packages that Benjamin Franklin delivered  to these soldiers they were soldiers on campaign   they were moving from a civilized area  to out into the wilderness there was no   resupply they were living in tents with maybe  just a very small bed and a blanket they had   very little food supplies with them so these kind  of condensed food packages were perfect for them   unlike a soldier in a setting like this where  if you're in a fort you probably have quarters   you have bunks or more likely beds you've got as  many blankets as you want you've got a place to   cook your food whenever you need to a place  to stay warm a totally different situation. Another great combination that we've  got in our ingredient list this is the   cheese the butter the mustard and the wine  which will make a wonderful Welsh rabbit   so that's next up on the ingredient list. We only need a certain quantity of cheese   here I've got about a quarter  of a pound of cheese about an   ounce or so of butter a little dollop of mustard  we'll need a little bit of wine now instead of   Madeira we're going to be using a little white  wine and we're going to cook this over the fire.   A Welsh rabbit is a wonderful cheese sauce  that you can use a couple of different ways   you can just spread this on toast if you'd  like or you can put this on bread and then   toast it together and sometimes they might  call that toasted cheese and it is so good. It's very interesting that Colonel Dunbar  is talking to Benjamin Franklin about the   problems with his lieutenants and ensigns. He doesn't really concern himself too much   about the upper officers he knows he has the  right kind of supplies for regular soldiers   and Sergeants but the ensigns and lieutenants  they have to take care of themselves and that's   where Benjamin Franklin really comes along.  He's that go between the person who knows   how to deal with everybody in Philadelphia  and how to get whatever the Army actually   needs and the situation happened slightly  earlier with Braddock. Braddock needed all   these wagons to go into the wilderness  and it was Benjamin Franklin who found   him the wagons and in this case it was Benjamin  Franklin who found the right kind of supplies   to give these poor lieutenants so that they  would be able to have the food they needed. This is the poor Lieutenant's  feast and it is very good.

Channel: Townsends

Views: 912,457

Keywords: townsends, jas townsend and son, reenacting, history, 18th century, 19th century, jon townsend, 18th century cooking

Id: 2UQI-zB7Rwo

Length: 10min 36sec (636 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 13 2023