Thanks for watching. Every video we do, we try to learn something and get better at what we do. And it is amazing how much you have to research in order to do even a simple video. The learning never stops.
I really don't know why your videos don't get more views. What you are offering is an amazing tribute to recapturing our history. And a big part of that is in the food. My son and I have become avid watchers, and are trying out many of your recipes at home. I can't believe the amazing flavors! We haven't really made any evolutionary culinary strides since this era, in fact, we seem to have slipped. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us!
JLabbie and Poe Thank you for your great comments. If you want to help us out with our views, share our videos with your friends on facebook or ... Thanks for watching!
I see I'm the new kid on the block as this is a several years old video. However the statement made about the crust being hard or tough can somewhat be repaired by putting some kind of cloth or towel over the bread as its cooling. The steam from the still baking bread gets caught and softens the crust slightly. Some bakers even dampened the cloth. This little hint works for even modern baked breads. Thanks for the awesome video. I hope someone sees this! Glorious baking to all.
OK, I do use a modern oven, but some useful tricks, that are old. Brush the bread with water before you put it in the oven and/or put a bowl of hot water in the oven with the bread. It makes that crust more crispy than hard. Brushing with milk or butter would soften the crust. Friends found medieval references. Also brushing with water, milk, or melted butter right after the bread comes out, softens the crust so you can actually eat it. And everyone would ask how my whole wheat bread ended up and smoother than theirs. Kneading, lots and lots of kneading. The dough should be very elastic. Love baking the old recipes, even though I usually use my modern gas oven. We are Creative Anarchists in my house.
absolutely. I made Julia Child's french bread recipe which she worked on for quite a while before publishing it. she said to heat your oven as hot as you could, put the bread in, and throw a cup of water onto the elements and shut the door immediately. steamed the crust shut.
LisaMarli One of the joys of using the dutch oven. It traps the steam coming off the bread, creating a crispier crust. The opposite of the effect I would have expected.
Just thought you'd like to know, this bread receipt won 1st place in the Side Dishes category at ther First Santa Fe Trails Plainsmen Muzzle Loacing Rifle Club's annual October 2017 rendezvous.
an egg wash is also good on some breads and makes it extra shiny. Someone asked my friend how she got her bread so shiny and savory but she said it was a family secret.
I'm loving watching your back log of videos; I'm learning so much and enjoying every second of it. God bless you Jas Townsend. You are a treasure of warmth and knowledge in a dark cold time.
Jon, I have the original sour dough from my 9th ggrandma[Anna Stevenson Chesebrough). Brought from England in 1630. If you would like some I can dehydrate & send to you.
on a family trip to Gettysburg with my family. everyone's asleep and decided to look up some authentic colonial recipes after a very inauthentic (aka touristy) dining experience. I'm in love with your channel! your vids are very well produced and charming. let the binging begin!
Many home brewers do what is called 'Bottle Conditioning', which is a natural method of carbonation involving an unfiltered ale or beer with the live yeast still in it. You can tell it is bottle conditioned by looking at the bottom. If you see 'sediment' it is likely the yeast that has settled to the bottom, called a 'yeast cake'. I imagine you could simply shake, and pour that into your bread mix. Don't shake and drink though or your spouse will kick you out of bed. Live yeast in your lower cut will still produce Co2, and that will escape with the usual loud, odiferous consequences.
If you don't want a hard or crispy crust. Lightly cover with a bit of butter or shortening, or place in a plastic bag. My great-grandmother used an old garbage bag that she re-used for a longtime. She made up several loaves of bread a week and she stored it in the bag until the next baking day.
This is so exciting - we are doing a photoshoot for a Georgian Christmas next week and I am doing the cooking, It would be so fun to try some of your recipes!
In my country it’s almost a sin to eat white bread as it’s considered very unhealthy . Children are not allowed to bring white bread to their school lunches. We sometimes eat white bread or rolls as breakfast or lunch treats on weekends. This recipe is very much alike my normal home made bread that I often make. I love homemade bread. I like it soft, so I wrap them in damp kitchen towels after I take them out of the oven.
I just came across your channel and after watching a few videos I am hooked. You are a wonderful host, very informative and inviting. I am excited to keep watching your content.
This is wonderful, interesting and instructive at the same time, perfect balance. Looking forward to tinkering around with a few of these hearty loaves, I imagine they're marvelous with soup and crowned in butter.
I appreciate everything I'm noticing in in this video series, nay, all your productions. I sincerely think this would be at home on TLC back in the 90s with all the other classic docs. Great show, thank you for this series
I love how his old videos are so good that they are better than most videos nowadays, one of the highest quality you tube channel I have ever watched, keep up the good work!
Very cool recipe! I tried a different variation from the book: Artisan Breads in 5 minutes a day, called European Peasant Bread and it turned out really good! I made slightly smaller loaves and used them to make bread bowls for a thick beef stew, it was very filling, and the family enjoyed it :)
Jon is such fun to watch. His personality is the real foundation of the success of the Townsend and Son 18th Century history and cooking channel ! And I love the music!
Rye and barley flours are in the _speciality_ baking section? Here in Norway we don't really separate flours like that, and everything from white wheat flour to whole grains of barley and rye wholemeal, along with rolled oats, are generally found close together.
Never mind the section; in America you probably have to go to a specialty _store_. Very few regular supermarkets will carry rye or barley flour, in my experience anyway. (Jon seems to be blessed with better stores in his area.) You're lucky if you can find even whole wheat flour in most of them. Oats are a different matter, as they remain a sufficiently popular breakfast food that you can find at least rolled oats everywhere.
I have to say, i just found your channel, and have been watching your vidoes for a good hour now. I have always been fascinated with the past, and with cooking. I think, thanks to you, I just found a new hobby!
#Jas.Townsend and Son, Inc. Do you know that West Africans, have used Wine tapped from the Oil Palm Tree, as leavening for bread for centuries; which tells you how early in history Africans started making bread. The wine is organic not brewed since it is tapped and foams instantly. Just a little yet vital contribution to the bread story.
To get a softer crust, spritz the dough with water as you put it in the oven and slather it with butter when you bring it out. I learned that from a medieval recipe. ;)
I like the comments about adding something to the crust after baking to soften it. Standard old solution would be to wait 24 hours before cutting into it to allow the moisture content to equalize. If you eat that kind of bread very often, no doubt you will find your favorite ways to make it to your liking.
Years ago when I started to bake bread, I made French bread with Julia Child's cookbook. Then I got another cookbook out of the library that had a potato bread recipe in it that became my favorite bread to make and I left a few small pieces of potato in the bread. I love potatoes! When I have the chance I will try this recipe.
Hi Jas Townsend & Son, I really enjoy your videos. Have you done, or are you willing to do a segment on how flour was made in the 18th C. from grinding through to sifting to final product. Also, in your opinion, was typical 18th C. flour gritty to the tooth?
Tsc Tempest Great questions, and yes I will look into the flour vid idea. I don't know about the typical 18th c flour but I do know there was a greater variety of grinds available and poor folk would use much courser grinds then we are used to. Thanks for Watching!
+Tsc Tempest The flour was ground between stone grinding stones. The grittiness came from very small bits of the stone remaining in the flour. I remember seeing an anthropological study where folks that ate a lot of bread, and made it to old age actually had their teeth ground down somewhat from the stone bits in the bread.
Thanks for the feedback, interesting. I have two mills: a steel bladed one, and a stone mill, both are powered. I've heard that flour used to be bolted in bolting mills using various meshed linen, which later changed to silk and then nylon, and that bolting mills had a tendency to explode ;-) I have drum sieves and in spite of putting the stone ground flour through these still get considerable grittiness in bread made from the flour. I thought it might be the husks but when making bread with spent mash from brewing, that grittiness is not comparable. jm2cw. thanks for the response.
Nice show.. there is local farm and out door show locally, couple of folks have ovens like you have.. and do bread 🍞baking at the annual event.. 😋 man is that good stuff.!!! I think I can smell the bread you are baking!!!! Getting hungry lol. Great show !!!!
Bakers also caught wild yeast, which is fairly east to do. The wild yeast produces great bread, but it rises very slowly and therefore is not used in modern bread production.
I use wild yeast to make sourdough bread, griddle cakes, etc. My basic sourdough has 6 different grains in it so the flavors can easily be altered. Or, you can have a separate sourdough starter for each type of grain that you use. Proof your whole grain dough for 24 hours in a warm environment, de-gas, stretch, and mix and proof again for 2 to 4 hours, then put in a covered vessel and bake. You have to experiment with temperature, time, and the amount of time uncovered, when baking, to get the crust that you want. After bread cools to the point that it can be cut, store in a plastic bag to soften the crust a bit.
Normal bread in modern day Germany, we sure love our baked good variety. But i still love me a good selfmade yeast bread, so simple to made and the dough is so versatile. You can make a bread from it, buns, pizza, you name it. :D
I miss German bread too. Just think, subway would be great if they offered better bread. As it is, I never eat there since the bread is lousy, and the bread is what makes the sandwich.
just fyi if you butter the crust liberally with butter as soon as it comes out of the oven , the crust will soften & remain soft till you finish the loaf ...
To be fair, today's "white bread" as sold in the USA has little in common with white bread of the 18th century sort. As a bread enthusiast, I would argue that what is found on US supermarket shelves in 2023 would not even qualify as bread here in Germany. For us, bread is still very important.
I just made the bread and it came out great! The crumb was very dense yet moist and tasty. The bread didn't rise much after 2-3 hours so I let it set for a total of eight hours. The bread rose, at most, by 50%. I also baked mine in a cast iron dutch oven. Thanks again for the great videos you make!
Great video! All the folks back then ate organic! I buy organic winter wheat, grind it, and make whole grain wheat bread. It's fantastic! Just like fresh ground coffee, fresh ground wheat is a whole different animal!
You should add captions -- some of these terms are very interesting, but I can't tell exactly what you're saying, and the subtitles are worse than useless. (Something early in this video was transcribed as "Batcave", which I highly doubt was correct.) Words I wanted to know about were: "barm" and "Massive bread"? How are these spelled? And why "Massive" (or whatever word that was)? I can't thank you enough for these videos! Your research is staggering, and your passion for this has become not only your livelihood, but a treasury of collected lore, and hopefully, an antidote to the agribusiness that is undermining our health in modern times.
he said both of these in the video, but barm is yeast cultivated from the foam skimmed off brewing ale, and mazlin (still not sure of spelling, "a" as in "bad" and "i" as in "bin") bread is just bread made from mixed-grain flours (e.g. mixed rye-wheat-barley flour)
"And don't forget to follow us on Facebook!" Each of your videos are so informative and well made. We love the "rooker" we just got from you. Can hardly do without one for the earthen oven!
I haven't watched all of the bread series here yet (having only just discovered you last night on random chance), but I do so hope you have a recipe for making bread with peas. I do so love peas.
Little known fact is...Roast beef was known as the C.E.O. of life. When life finally went public, it laid off some of its bread that was close to retirement. Of course Roast kept its huge celery
7:15 "If you aren't metal enough to have made an earthen oven you can always reduce yourself to using a regular one" [My paraphrase of course] I love these videos it would be neat to see something like this on FoodTV.
Very interesting. I would love to try this. I need to watch my gluten intake as my body reacts unfavorable to gluten....thanks to modern technology for putting more gluten in foods than we need! But I can tolerate homemade breads much better. This looks very good!
very good video, but we have come to expect the very best from you guys... you are the best on youtube. we have been watching your videos since day one... thank you so very much...
Mr. Townsend do you have any idea how much a normal loaf of bread in the 18th century would have weighed. I ask this peculiar question, because ancient historians have always contented that 1oz of gold should always buy around 300 loaves (plus minus 50 loaves) of bread. It would be very insightful to know if this 'rule of thumb' was also true in the 18th century. Thought I'd ask the expert. Bless you and thank you for your inspiring videos.
***** This is a very good question, but a difficult one to answer. Bread was in so many ways the foundation of society. Survival of the masses depended on it. Because of its importance, the government imposed strict measures to ensure an adequate supply. Wages of the miller and baker were fixed, as was the price of bread. The most common loaf of bread was called the penny loaf -- Similar to the fixing of wages required to make it, its market price was set at one penny. Because the price of wheat remained variable, however, due to fluctuations in supply, the size of the loaf also remained variable. Beginning in the 13th century, the British government established the bread assize system, which was used for hundreds of years throughout Britain and later in at least parts of Colonial America. Local magistrates would use the assize tables to determine the size for penny loaves, based on the local price of wheat flour. One example of this can be found at this link: books.google.com/books?id=XtwKAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA25&dq=bisket&hl=en&sa=X&ei=b_GnT8DOL4fm9ASK__GeAw&ved=0CPQBEOgBMB8#v=onepage&q=bisket&f=false. That example is the assize system used in New Hampshire, published in 1761. The size of a penny loaf of white bread, according to this table, could feasible vary from over 14 oz. to just over 4 oz. But the difficulty in answering your question does not end there! We know from period paintings that there were other styles of breads, ranging from a small bun-like Manchet loaf, to massive cart-wheel sized loafs. This may not be the answer you were looking for, but I hope it's helpful, nonetheless.
I believe the standard loaf in England and America was a one pound loaf. When you bought a dozen bread rolls the baker gave a 13th for free, this was the baker's dozen. There was a good reason for this. There were supposed to be 12 rolls to the pound. If the baker got caught giving short weight he could be fined and punished.
I'd guess ale from a good microbrewery would work just as well for the barm. If you're friendly with the brewer, you might even be able to score some of the real thing, I'd think!
Sounds like they had the same issue as we do today - learned people agree that mixed grain is healthier, but most people prefer the taste and texture of white bread :P
The desire for white bread is mainly a question of culture and habit. Coming from a country almost addicted to its peculiar dense type of rye bread, the main complaint and craving among its expats abroad is due to the impossibility of finding this type of dark sourdough bread anywhere else, leading some of them to take up baking their own to get their fix.
Whole wheat/grains are an acquired taste in modern times. We're conditioned to eat white grains. As I've gotten older I've preferred the taste of wheat breads, and brown rice.
Hey I just bought your hand forged 6" iron skillet, but that's not the only thing I've boughten of Townsend! It's great love it blends in perfect with my 18th century outdooring. Could you start making the 18th cent military boots or the Common man boots
I own 21.5 acres in the Maritimes. I am retiring in 2 years and plan to live on that land. I hope to recreate 18th century life on that land and cook this way.
We've been making white bread and egg bread in our bread machine. I'll try out these flours next time, I'd be willing to bet that it will be a lot harder to cut.
Zach Crawford There is a German saying: If you can't slice bread, you aren't ready to be married. I live in Germany where the brown breads are available at every bakery They are crustier than Wonder Bread, it is true, but much tastier, too. Just use a sharp serated knife and let the knife do the work.
I really like enjoy your show. The reason why English people sought white bread bread was it was the only protection they had against CONTAMINATION. It the flour was White they could see contentions from rodents, insects and above all MOULDS. the UK has a mild wet climate and the grain was very susceptible to going being spoilt by molds. Which does not only cause loss of food when there was little available. But many molds cause toxins that can be very deadly include Afla toxin, and Ergot. which among other things causes hallucinations. (Ergot was was believed to be the root of the which trials)
My mother would not allow brown bread or whole wheat flour in the house. She referred to it as "poor people's food" back in the 50's and 60's. An idea left over from childhood. Her mother believed tomatoes were poisonous. There is no accounting for the ideas many have about all manner of things.
Funny thing is tomatoes ARE actually slightly poisonous. Most people can tolerate it. Look up "night shade" family of plants. Your great gram was not so far off!
Thanks for watching. Every video we do, we try to learn something and get better at what we do. And it is amazing how much you have to research in order to do even a simple video. The learning never stops.
Townsends Thanks John! And friends.🍞
I love these videos. Great history lessons. History is so much more interesting when you look beyond just names and dates. Thanks!
I thank you so much for all you and your team do to learn and produce these videos
I'd love to try this in my grandmother's Los Angeles Bauer size 9 bread bowl. It saw a lot of use
Even 10 years on, these videos are so well produced! Bravo!
I really don't know why your videos don't get more views. What you are offering is an amazing tribute to recapturing our history. And a big part of that is in the food. My son and I have become avid watchers, and are trying out many of your recipes at home. I can't believe the amazing flavors! We haven't really made any evolutionary culinary strides since this era, in fact, we seem to have slipped. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us!
JLabbie and Poe Thank you for your great comments. If you want to help us out with our views, share our videos with your friends on facebook or ... Thanks for watching!
Already done my friend. ;)
Like I said, what you are sharing is valuable. I know how much trouble you go to to put these polished videos together as well. Not an easy task.
yeah just share it , i just found this channel today ,
Just look at'em now.
I see I'm the new kid on the block as this is a several years old video. However the statement made about the crust being hard or tough can somewhat be repaired by putting some kind of cloth or towel over the bread as its cooling. The steam from the still baking bread gets caught and softens the crust slightly. Some bakers even dampened the cloth. This little hint works for even modern baked breads. Thanks for the awesome video. I hope someone sees this! Glorious baking to all.
OK, I do use a modern oven, but some useful tricks, that are old. Brush the bread with water before you put it in the oven and/or put a bowl of hot water in the oven with the bread. It makes that crust more crispy than hard. Brushing with milk or butter would soften the crust. Friends found medieval references. Also brushing with water, milk, or melted butter right after the bread comes out, softens the crust so you can actually eat it.
And everyone would ask how my whole wheat bread ended up and smoother than theirs. Kneading, lots and lots of kneading. The dough should be very elastic.
Love baking the old recipes, even though I usually use my modern gas oven. We are Creative Anarchists in my house.
absolutely. I made Julia Child's french bread recipe which she worked on for quite a while before publishing it. she said to heat your oven as hot as you could, put the bread in, and throw a cup of water onto the elements and shut the door immediately. steamed the crust shut.
LisaMarli my mom always brushed butter on the bread right out of the oven
LisaMarli One of the joys of using the dutch oven. It traps the steam coming off the bread, creating a crispier crust. The opposite of the effect I would have expected.
LisaMarli so do you belong to SCA?☺
LisaMarli 9j 6
Just thought you'd like to know, this bread receipt won 1st place in the Side Dishes category at ther First Santa Fe Trails Plainsmen Muzzle Loacing Rifle Club's annual October 2017 rendezvous.
Ah yes, the SFTPMLRC.
bread "recipe"
@@blender7 🤣🤣🤣
@@chm8721 totally not ... receipt is the word. Ask Jon .. *winks*
That's fantastic, warmest congratulations! (And that sounds like an awesome event!)
My ancestors would put milk on the crust to soften it before it cooled. Made the bread seem more expensive when they had guests. Nobody was the wiser.
an egg wash is also good on some breads and makes it extra shiny. Someone asked my friend how she got her bread so shiny and savory but she said it was a family secret.
*GENIUS!*
I'm loving watching your back log of videos; I'm learning so much and enjoying every second of it. God bless you Jas Townsend. You are a treasure of warmth and knowledge in a dark cold time.
Jon, I have the original sour dough from my 9th ggrandma[Anna Stevenson Chesebrough). Brought from England in 1630. If you would like some I can dehydrate & send to you.
"Bread played an important ROLL." While holding up a roll. Lol I see what you did there.
lmao i love it
It's Brötchen.
Hahaha i missed that
Remember the old adage: A toll is a toll. And a roll is a roll. And if we don't get no tolls, than we don't eat no rolls.*
*I made it up...
That smile at the end. That's a million dollar smile right there. Love your videos sir. Keep up the good work.
This channel is easily one of the best across the entire UA-cam platform, his passion and knowledge are so genuine
History + Bread = AWESOME CHANNEL!!!
The Whitest Channel You Know
A. Lampman no that howtobasic.
It's nice knowing there are people out there dedicated to preserving these old world techniques and recipes. Great content.
on a family trip to Gettysburg with my family. everyone's asleep and decided to look up some authentic colonial recipes after a very inauthentic (aka touristy) dining experience. I'm in love with your channel! your vids are very well produced and charming. let the binging begin!
Many home brewers do what is called 'Bottle Conditioning', which is a natural method of carbonation involving an unfiltered ale or beer with the live yeast still in it. You can tell it is bottle conditioned by looking at the bottom. If you see 'sediment' it is likely the yeast that has settled to the bottom, called a 'yeast cake'. I imagine you could simply shake, and pour that into your bread mix.
Don't shake and drink though or your spouse will kick you out of bed. Live yeast in your lower cut will still produce Co2, and that will escape with the usual loud, odiferous consequences.
Thank you for presenting these fantastic nuggets of history in this unpretentious manner. It is just the type of show I have been hoping for.
Put this together tonight,the smell was incredible!I can’t wait to bake it tomorrow morning 😋
If you don't want a hard or crispy crust. Lightly cover with a bit of butter or shortening, or place in a plastic bag. My great-grandmother used an old garbage bag that she re-used for a longtime. She made up several loaves of bread a week and she stored it in the bag until the next baking day.
This is so exciting - we are doing a photoshoot for a Georgian Christmas next week and I am doing the cooking, It would be so fun to try some of your recipes!
In my country it’s almost a sin to eat white bread as it’s considered very unhealthy . Children are not allowed to bring white bread to their school lunches. We sometimes eat white bread or rolls as breakfast or lunch treats on weekends.
This recipe is very much alike my normal home made bread that I often make. I love homemade bread. I like it soft, so I wrap them in damp kitchen towels after I take them out of the oven.
I just came across your channel and after watching a few videos I am hooked. You are a wonderful host, very informative and inviting. I am excited to keep watching your content.
I just love your videos! I'm so grateful that you make them!!!
This is wonderful, interesting and instructive at the same time, perfect balance. Looking forward to tinkering around with a few of these hearty loaves, I imagine they're marvelous with soup and crowned in butter.
I love your channel! I have Esther Levy’s 1872 Jewish Cookery book and these videos help a lot.
In Germany, as well as Geman bakers in parts of Canada, this is still produced as "Mischbrot" or mixed bread. Good stuff.
pronounced missh brot for the Deutsch illiterate xD
@@grenmoyo3968 actually it's spelled "Dutch". They also invented the wooden shoe.
@@arthas640 No. it isn't. Deutsch comes from the middle ages: teutsch
Dutch: is spoken in the Netherlands.
I am so happy to have found this channel. Food and cooking history is so interesting!
I appreciate everything I'm noticing in in this video series, nay, all your productions. I sincerely think this would be at home on TLC back in the 90s with all the other classic docs. Great show, thank you for this series
Love these videos! I have been a baker for 40+ years. This is fascinating stuff to me! So glad I stumbled on to your videos.
The hard crust is the best part. Perfect with soup or gravy
2:32 Guy on the left: looks like bread for dinner again !! Guy on the right: AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Is it weird that I want a kitchen like that not for reenacting, but just cause I want to?
Having a kitchen like that would be awesome!
I don't think it's weird, but, what matters is that you enjoy it.
Well, it IS an awesome setup, so I guess not!
Its a cozy kitchen. It screams of hearth and home. Nothing weird about enjoying that.
I have wanted a kitchen like that for years.
One of my ancestral homes (built c 1700) still does.
I love how his old videos are so good that they are better than most videos nowadays, one of the highest quality you tube channel I have ever watched, keep up the good work!
I home school my grandchildren. We so enjoy your videos for part of our history lesson. The results are yummy as well
You have the restraint of God to wait an hour. I would slice that gorgeous loaf open and dine on it right away. I love fresh baked multi grain bread!
Very cool recipe! I tried a different variation from the book: Artisan Breads in 5 minutes a day, called European Peasant Bread and it turned out really good! I made slightly smaller loaves and used them to make bread bowls for a thick beef stew, it was very filling, and the family enjoyed it :)
I love this!! What a gift to the world!
this channel is so wholesome
Still mindblowing that this video is 8 years old. The production quality on this channel has always been way ahead of its' time.
Wonderful videos. They are awsome! Thank you for posting them.
Jon is such fun to watch. His personality is the real foundation of the success of the Townsend and Son 18th Century history and cooking channel ! And I love the music!
Rye and barley flours are in the _speciality_ baking section? Here in Norway we don't really separate flours like that, and everything from white wheat flour to whole grains of barley and rye wholemeal, along with rolled oats, are generally found close together.
well thats cool, i think hes referring to american super markets that have things separated into many different regions
pretty much if it isnt wheat flour its an exotic item here lol
Never mind the section; in America you probably have to go to a specialty _store_. Very few regular supermarkets will carry rye or barley flour, in my experience anyway. (Jon seems to be blessed with better stores in his area.) You're lucky if you can find even whole wheat flour in most of them. Oats are a different matter, as they remain a sufficiently popular breakfast food that you can find at least rolled oats everywhere.
I have to say, i just found your channel, and have been watching your vidoes for a good hour now. I have always been fascinated with the past, and with cooking. I think, thanks to you, I just found a new hobby!
I appreciate all your recipes and historical information...thank you!
Just made my first successful loaves of bread with my son in my new 17th century bake oven!! Life is good!
Mister, it is such a pleasure to watch Your wonderful educational content. Thank You for the effort and knowledge You share with us.
#Jas.Townsend and Son, Inc. Do you know that West Africans, have used Wine tapped from the Oil Palm Tree, as leavening for bread for centuries; which tells you how early in history Africans started making bread. The wine is organic not brewed since it is tapped and foams instantly. Just a little yet vital contribution to the bread story.
To get a softer crust, spritz the dough with water as you put it in the oven and slather it with butter when you bring it out. I learned that from a medieval recipe. ;)
I like the comments about adding something to the crust after baking to soften it. Standard old solution would be to wait 24 hours before cutting into it to allow the moisture content to equalize. If you eat that kind of bread very often, no doubt you will find your favorite ways to make it to your liking.
Production quality is fantastic!
Authentic presentation. Interesting history. Practical cooking. The music is also very comfy, I'm looking up that group now.
Years ago when I started to bake bread, I made French bread with Julia Child's cookbook. Then I got another cookbook out of the library that had a potato bread recipe in it that became my favorite bread to make and I left a few small pieces of potato in the bread. I love potatoes! When I have the chance I will try this recipe.
Hi Jas Townsend & Son, I really enjoy your videos. Have you done, or are you willing to do a segment on how flour was made in the 18th C. from grinding through to sifting to final product. Also, in your opinion, was typical 18th C. flour gritty to the tooth?
Tsc Tempest Great questions, and yes I will look into the flour vid idea. I don't know about the typical 18th c flour but I do know there was a greater variety of grinds available and poor folk would use much courser grinds then we are used to. Thanks for Watching!
+Tsc Tempest The flour was ground between stone grinding stones. The grittiness came from very small bits of the stone remaining in the flour. I remember seeing an anthropological study where folks that ate a lot of bread, and made it to old age actually had their teeth ground down somewhat from the stone bits in the bread.
Thanks for the feedback, interesting. I have two mills: a steel bladed one, and a stone mill, both are powered. I've heard that flour used to be bolted in bolting mills using various meshed linen, which later changed to silk and then nylon, and that bolting mills had a tendency to explode ;-) I have drum sieves and in spite of putting the stone ground flour through these still get considerable grittiness in bread made from the flour. I thought it might be the husks but when making bread with spent mash from brewing, that grittiness is not comparable. jm2cw. thanks for the response.
gfodale - If true that might also help explain why bread made from highly sifted flour was preferred.
Nice show.. there is local farm and out door show locally, couple of folks have ovens like you have.. and do bread 🍞baking at the annual event.. 😋 man is that good stuff.!!! I think I can smell the bread you are baking!!!! Getting hungry lol. Great show !!!!
Looks amazing!
GREAT!!! Thank-you for all the wonderful videos!
Bakers also caught wild yeast, which is fairly east to do. The wild yeast produces great bread, but it rises very slowly and therefore is not used in modern bread production.
I use wild yeast to make sourdough bread, griddle cakes, etc. My basic sourdough has 6 different grains in it so the flavors can easily be altered. Or, you can have a separate sourdough starter for each type of grain that you use. Proof your whole grain dough for 24 hours in a warm environment, de-gas, stretch, and mix and proof again for 2 to 4 hours, then put in a covered vessel and bake. You have to experiment with temperature, time, and the amount of time uncovered, when baking, to get the crust that you want. After bread cools to the point that it can be cut, store in a plastic bag to soften the crust a bit.
Mixed grain bread is delicious and much better for you than white bread. You should try adding nuts, seeds and berries/fruit as well :)
Wow... Even back then, they knew that whole-grain bread was healthier than white bread!
we try your very good ideas it is wonderful!
When you add the yeast you should uncork that bottle once in a while to relieve the pressure
I have no idea why I watched this, but I'm glad I did.
Normal bread in modern day Germany, we sure love our baked good variety. But i still love me a good selfmade yeast bread, so simple to made and the dough is so versatile. You can make a bread from it, buns, pizza, you name it. :D
I miss German bread too.
Just think, subway would be great if they offered better bread. As it is, I never eat there since the bread is lousy, and the bread is what makes the sandwich.
Just tried the bread recipe. Awesome.
just fyi if you butter the crust liberally with butter as soon as it comes out of the oven , the crust will soften & remain soft till you finish the loaf ...
My favorite UA-cam channel
I bet this tastes really good!
5 years late haha but make sure that ale is room temp, not chilled, for best results.
for best result, drink the rest of the bottle. it wont improve the bread, but it makes cooking more fun.
@L H they were just giving a tip to viewers
Bread played such an important role while holding a roll. Funny🤣
How things have changed. Pure, white bread is now the cheapest and mixed grain breads are expensive.
Exactly! 😂. We spend $50 on lobster meals now. Prison food then.
To be fair, today's "white bread" as sold in the USA has little in common with white bread of the 18th century sort. As a bread enthusiast, I would argue that what is found on US supermarket shelves in 2023 would not even qualify as bread here in Germany. For us, bread is still very important.
I feel bread that lasts more than a week without getting moldy, is unnatural and scary. @@Supersonic_Sloth
@@Willy_Tepesupgrade yo bread bruh
@@andy6201 I have switched to healthier foods.
I love this! I'll be making this bread soon.
I just made the bread and it came out great! The crumb was very dense yet moist and tasty. The bread didn't rise much after 2-3 hours so I let it set for a total of eight hours. The bread rose, at most, by 50%. I also baked mine in a cast iron dutch oven. Thanks again for the great videos you make!
Great video! All the folks back then ate organic! I buy organic winter wheat, grind it, and make whole grain wheat bread. It's fantastic! Just like fresh ground coffee, fresh ground wheat is a whole different animal!
And healthy because of the extra fiber
You should add captions -- some of these terms are very interesting, but I can't tell exactly what you're saying, and the subtitles are worse than useless. (Something early in this video was transcribed as "Batcave", which I highly doubt was correct.) Words I wanted to know about were: "barm" and "Massive bread"? How are these spelled? And why "Massive" (or whatever word that was)?
I can't thank you enough for these videos! Your research is staggering, and your passion for this has become not only your livelihood, but a treasury of collected lore, and hopefully, an antidote to the agribusiness that is undermining our health in modern times.
+Evie Hammond (truefeather77) We are working on more transcriptions. Thanks for the comment.
he said both of these in the video, but barm is yeast cultivated from the foam skimmed off brewing ale, and mazlin (still not sure of spelling, "a" as in "bad" and "i" as in "bin") bread is just bread made from mixed-grain flours (e.g. mixed rye-wheat-barley flour)
Thanks!
"And don't forget to follow us on Facebook!"
Each of your videos are so informative and well made.
We love the "rooker" we just got from you. Can hardly do without one for the earthen oven!
I haven't watched all of the bread series here yet (having only just discovered you last night on random chance), but I do so hope you have a recipe for making bread with peas. I do so love peas.
They would grind dried peas into flour and mix it with wheat or other types of flour. You might be able to grind peas fine in a food processor.
I don't know what I like more:
The food.
The kitchen.
Or this man's collection of headwear.
Little known fact is...Roast beef was known as the C.E.O. of life. When life finally went public, it laid off some of its bread that was close to retirement. Of course Roast kept its huge celery
7:15 "If you aren't metal enough to have made an earthen oven you can always reduce yourself to using a regular one" [My paraphrase of course]
I love these videos it would be neat to see something like this on FoodTV.
in germany, where i live it´s common to eat greybread wich is also called mischbrot or mixed bread
Interesant
Excellent
Very interesting. I would love to try this. I need to watch my gluten intake as my body reacts unfavorable to gluten....thanks to modern technology for putting more gluten in foods than we need! But I can tolerate homemade breads much better. This looks very good!
Another great vid guys keep up the great work!
very good video, but we have come to expect the very best from you guys... you are the best on youtube. we have been watching your videos since day one... thank you so very much...
"If you haven't got your wood fired oven yet you may use a standard oven" ah yes, my wood fired oven is in the mail currently so this tip works well
Mr. Townsend do you have any idea how much a normal loaf of bread in the 18th century would have weighed. I ask this peculiar question, because ancient historians have always contented that 1oz of gold should always buy around 300 loaves (plus minus 50 loaves) of bread. It would be very insightful to know if this 'rule of thumb' was also true in the 18th century. Thought I'd ask the expert. Bless you and thank you for your inspiring videos.
***** This is a very good question, but a difficult one to answer. Bread was in so many ways the foundation of society. Survival of the masses depended on it. Because of its importance, the government imposed strict measures to ensure an adequate supply. Wages of the miller and baker were fixed, as was the price of bread. The most common loaf of bread was called the penny loaf -- Similar to the fixing of wages required to make it, its market price was set at one penny. Because the price of wheat remained variable, however, due to fluctuations in supply, the size of the loaf also remained variable. Beginning in the 13th century, the British government established the bread assize system, which was used for hundreds of years throughout Britain and later in at least parts of Colonial America. Local magistrates would use the assize tables to determine the size for penny loaves, based on the local price of wheat flour. One example of this can be found at this link: books.google.com/books?id=XtwKAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA25&dq=bisket&hl=en&sa=X&ei=b_GnT8DOL4fm9ASK__GeAw&ved=0CPQBEOgBMB8#v=onepage&q=bisket&f=false. That example is the assize system used in New Hampshire, published in 1761. The size of a penny loaf of white bread, according to this table, could feasible vary from over 14 oz. to just over 4 oz.
But the difficulty in answering your question does not end there! We know from period paintings that there were other styles of breads, ranging from a small bun-like Manchet loaf, to massive cart-wheel sized loafs.
This may not be the answer you were looking for, but I hope it's helpful, nonetheless.
I believe the standard loaf in England and America was a one pound loaf. When you bought a dozen bread rolls the baker gave a 13th for free, this was the baker's dozen. There was a good reason for this. There were supposed to be 12 rolls to the pound. If the baker got caught giving short weight he could be fined and punished.
I love making bread..going to try using the recipe for barm...
I'd guess ale from a good microbrewery would work just as well for the barm. If you're friendly with the brewer, you might even be able to score some of the real thing, I'd think!
Or your local brewing club, perhaps?
In the video he still adds a packet of dry active yeast.
funny that the mixed grain would be the sought after bread today!
Sounds like they had the same issue as we do today - learned people agree that mixed grain is healthier, but most people prefer the taste and texture of white bread :P
The desire for white bread is mainly a question of culture and habit. Coming from a country almost addicted to its peculiar dense type of rye bread, the main complaint and craving among its expats abroad is due to the impossibility of finding this type of dark sourdough bread anywhere else, leading some of them to take up baking their own to get their fix.
Whole wheat/grains are an acquired taste in modern times. We're conditioned to eat white grains. As I've gotten older I've preferred the taste of wheat breads, and brown rice.
Hey I just bought your hand forged 6" iron skillet, but that's not the only thing I've boughten of Townsend! It's great love it blends in perfect with my 18th century outdooring. Could you start making the 18th cent military boots or the Common man boots
You should make a video with recipes for cooking fish. Fresh or salt water.
I own 21.5 acres in the Maritimes. I am retiring in 2 years and plan to live on that land. I hope to recreate 18th century life on that land and cook this way.
What are you doing now, 6 years later?
Ricky Spanish I’m curious too
Ricky Spanish although he may not have internet to respond
We've been making white bread and egg bread in our bread machine. I'll try out these flours next time, I'd be willing to bet that it will be a lot harder to cut.
Zach Crawford There is a German saying: If you can't slice bread, you aren't ready to be married. I live in Germany where the brown breads are available at every bakery They are crustier than Wonder Bread, it is true, but much tastier, too. Just use a sharp serated knife and let the knife do the work.
Love the videos have made many of your recipes! Keep up the good work. You should have your own T.V. Show!
The standard bread in settler New England was Rye and Injun -(Cornmeal) They did not grow wheat on settler farms.
Outstanding video!
that intro is a nice little lesson on economics
For me i love any kind of bread 🥖
I really like enjoy your show. The reason why English people sought white bread bread was it was the only protection they had against CONTAMINATION. It the flour was White they could see contentions from rodents, insects and above all MOULDS. the UK has a mild wet climate and the grain was very susceptible to going being spoilt by molds. Which does not only cause loss of food when there was little available. But many molds cause toxins that can be very deadly include Afla toxin, and Ergot. which among other things causes hallucinations. (Ergot was was believed to be the root of the which trials)
Just out of curiosity, could you use hard cider instead of beer? I wonder how it would taste?
My mother would not allow brown bread or whole wheat flour in the house. She referred to it as "poor people's food" back in the 50's and 60's. An idea left over from childhood. Her mother believed tomatoes were poisonous. There is no accounting for the ideas many have about all manner of things.
Funny thing is tomatoes ARE actually slightly poisonous. Most people can tolerate it. Look up "night shade" family of plants. Your great gram was not so far off!