The Working Man's Supper

What do you think of when I say the word  supper? You're probably thinking something   like pot roast pizza or pork chops maybe a steak  and baked potato Grandma's lasagna or macaroni   and cheese a meal that will fill us up and end  the day. But in the 18th century supper was   nothing like what we think of as a modern meal. In a previous episode we spoke about a working   man's breakfast and how that differed from  breakfasts today a working man's breakfast   wasn't the giant eggs and bacon kind of breakfast  that was a specialty sort of thing no it was just   basically a simple oatmeal fills the belly  and getting you ready to start working waiting   for that wonderful lunch that was coming along. And speaking of lunch we talked about the working   man's dinner which is lunch in the 18th century  and how that was the important meal of the day   that was the full and big meal not just a quick  sandwich to get you by or a simple meal like we   think of as a lunch but dinner was the big meal. Now that leads us to our working man's supper and   we think of a big meal but their supper  was almost exactly the opposite we flip   it on its head we need a very very simple and  light meal for our supper time something that   won't cause problems as we sleep at night. Imagine you're the working man in the 18th   century and you get up in the morning you start  off with just a glass of water and you you get   out and do a little bit of work and then you have  your breakfast probably just plain oatmeal then   you work until that lunchtime that is dinner in  the 18th century and that is the big meal then   you work all day long and you get home it's  time to relax and have your supper and it is   one of the simplest meals of the day. Maybe it's  because everybody's worked all day long and they   don't want to spend time cooking some of the  common meals that they would have for supper   would be peas pudding which probably has already  been prepared and just waiting around for you,   bread and cheese, you might have oatmeal again for  something very very light, there's also something   like seed cake. I think that is funny a cake  or apple pie that's it so why is supper a light   meal maybe it's different things for different  people but this particular reading I think gives   us a super hint for that this is from The Country  Housewife the flesh of pigeons is hard to digest   and therefore not judged proper supper meat it  is said to yield a melancholy juice so there are   many things talking about digestion and sleep in  the 18th century and how those things go together   and it turns out that they thought a heavy meal  was hard to digest and you wouldn't get the kind   of rest you needed so the best thing to have  for supper was something very very light and   simple something that you could eat easily and  quickly digest and then get your proper amount   of sleep. Is supper a light meal for every person  every time? No. If we are entertaining yes then   we will have that bigger meal in the evening  and sometimes if we're traveling or in certain   circumstances where we couldn't have that bigger  meal during the middle of the day it just wasn't   appropriate then of course it's going to move  to the evening. Creswell when he is traveling   in the back country they are traveling and they  can't stop to cook a meal but the time when they   make camp is the perfect time to set up for a big  meal so you'll see him talking about supper time   and we had turkey or we you know cooked a turtle  or whatever they caught along the way when they   stopped to camp. Well their supper time was a big  meal. Now we might think this light supper was   because of budgetary issues there wasn't enough  money for this poor working family to have a   heavy supper but that isn't necessarily true here  we have a story about the Duke of Bridgewater and   we have a writings about his supper he says his  supper was tarts or hasty pudding pancakes maybe   or other light food in refusal of flesh now why  he's doing this for health reasons he wants to   have uh light food on his stomach as he's going to  bed. I went digging for all kinds of suppers and I   found a very interesting supper here in Benjamin  Franklin's autobiography and he was living the   life of a young Bachelor but he had an upstairs  neighbor that he was eating supper with it says   our supper was only a half an anchovy each on a  very little strip of bread and butter and a half a   pint of ale between us a very light supper indeed. I'm caught off guard many times as I go reading in   the 18th century and I love it you'll read into  something particular topic and you'll think the   obvious common thing is true and you'll get there  and wait a minute it's uh it's nothing like what I   was expecting so what's a working man's supper  like something like a seed cake soaked in ale   that's certainly not my idea of a working man's  supper but that's what we're going to make today.  The recipe of wiggs shows up in multiple  18th century cookbooks we're going to be   digging into William Ellis here because he talks  specifically about feeding them at supper time   to workmen. He's got three different recipes in  here here and basically it's the here's how we   make them really cheap for our workers here's how  most people make them in their household and then   here's how they're made in the expensive bake  houses of the 18th century. Now we're going to   be using this sort of middle of the road recipe  we don't want to make the super cheap ones and   these little rolls or cakes are flavored with  caraway seeds. Now some of them are flavored   with something like cinnamon and mace and Nutmeg  but the the common one the flavor that really   most people are expecting is caraway seeds. If you'd like to make this recipe at home I   will read this out to you as it is in the book  It's a wonderful word problem here we go it says   take half a pint of flour no take half a peck  of flour and mix it with an eggshell full of   caraway seeds and a half a pound of sugar then  melt 12 oz of butter into a pint of warm milk   all together into a paste and after it has lain to  ferment and swell make it into wigs and bake them.  So let me help you interpret this recipe half  a pack that's going to be a dry gallon or four   quarts uh mix it with an eggshell full of  caraway seeds well we're going to use an egg   well I'm not going to use an eggshell uh half  a pound of sugar that's easy enough 12 ounces   of butter warm milk uh a pint of ale yeast  and the yeast they have in the time period   comes from the brewer so it's liquid yeast we  can use you know a packet of yeast basically I   don't need a million wigs so I'm going to cut  this recipe down into a quarter size version.  The wigs come together pretty quickly and easily  we're going to take our dry ingredients of the   flour the sugar the carraway seeds and mix them  all up together we're going to melt the butter   into the milk now we'll pour that into a little  hole that we'll make in the middle of our flour   combination mix that together once that's mixed  together I'm going to put in our liquid yeast this   is probably the equivalent of a half a packet of  yeast in a little bit of warm milk mix that gently   this isn't a hard mix we're not trying to knead  this we want it to just get fully Incorporated   and then when that's done we can lay that out and  cut it into these nice buns sized pieces of dough.  These get gently rolled into a little ball I cut  them over the top with the knife we're going to   let them rest for about a half an hour or so in  a warm spot and then they can go in the oven.  They bake for 20 to 25 minutes at  a lowish temperature of 325° or so.  Supper for us might be a time that we all come  together as a family and we have a large meal   a multi-course meal totally fill ourselves up  but supper was the opposite of that it was one   of the lightest meals of the day it was one  of those meals where we just need enough to   fill our stomachs that we won't be hungry in the  night we've made this exactly like the supper that   a Workman would have we're going to have these  supped in ale we can just drop them right in we   don't even have to spend time and have extra  quantities of utensils that get dirty we can   just take them right out and then try them out  and let's see what a wig sued in ale is like.  You know they're not too sweet they're a a  nice little biscuit a nice little caraway   seed the ale is a wonderful fun combination  with the wigg here and it's ready to go in   your stomach keep you from growling hungry in the  night and perfect for A Hard Day's work tomorrow.

Channel: Townsends

Views: 532,982

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

Id: 3jM0nRESm5o

Length: 9min 23sec (563 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 19 2023