Simple Soldier Cooking Without Utensils
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- Опубліковано 7 вер 2015
- Jon and Josh are on the march today! Jon draws excerpts from Joseph Plumb Martin's campaign memoirs to put together another simple soldier's meal straight from the 18th century.
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I love Josh's constant look of "how the hell did I get drafted into this?" Absolutely authentic for a soldier.
IKR.
I never thought Townsend looked out of place in his attire until I saw him in the woods with that soldier and the white shirt.
Josh was press ganged. Jon is a volunteer.
I need more of Josh's realistic reactions to the meagre cooking. Townsend is unbelievably enthusiastic about what really is pretty poor food.
Townsend: Almost makes you wish you were back there
Josh: Thousand yard stare, internal screaming
Josh is a pure delight. Hands down scene stealer. More Josh. Josh standing silently in the background of every video looking slightly uncomfortable would be brilliant.
Love the series BTW.
I think a lot of cows went missing in those times. Nobody saw nothing! The theft was slight and wide spread. Perhaps a farmer didn't notice for a day or two?
I think that would be fun :D
Amber Gaucher yes yes yes
#morejosh
@@jkoeberlein1 Terrible the way dogs stole peoples chickens.
"What do you think of that rock cake?"
"It's rock cake"
Lol he's way more honest than Jon
Not even a pinch of salt, but the fat from the meat helped.
Should have heated up the beef and rubbed the rock with the grease/tallow.
You can't take field cooking for granite, but at least afterward you can clean up with soapstone.
@@rcnelson brilliant!
Josh's facial reaction to Jon saying "you almost wish you were back there" is of the most "wtf hell no" kind.
I think you guys stole that meat ration from the officers mess.
Bill23799 We started the March with 10 men and no food... 2 men went out to hunt. 1 came back with 150 lbs of meat. And a extra gun. I asked him where he get all that meat from. He said "dont ask no questions"
...
..
.
For dinner I ate rock bread and water.
Hahahaha
Moira
Bill23799 I think that happened very often back in the day
🤣🤣🤙🏼🤙🏼
Bill23799 they actually would raid local farmers and if they posed any opposition they would be silenced or killed even
This man has alot of passion for teaching people history in an interesting way. Glad I found these videos
He's very knowledgeableu and pretty cool in his own way.
Dillon Hoffman. Ditto!
This is such a great show
I recently listened to the unabridged audiobook of Joseph Plumb Martin's Narrative (available free from Librivox), and even after having served for nearly a decade in the US Army myself, I find it hard to imagine the extreme hardships endured by Revolutionary soldiers, particularly the lack of rations and uniforms. I really appreciate John and Josh giving us a glimpse of the endurance, tenacity, and fortitude that those troops exhibited in respect to their meager rations and ability to prepare them, and I cannot recommend strongly enough that folks who are interested in the history of our nation at its birth acquaint themselves with Martin's account of the time. It is a fascinating series of anecdotes and tales that really helps one appreciate the sacrifices that went into securing the independence of our nation.
+lisarenee3505 I didn't know about the JP Martin audiobook on libravox, I will have to look that one up. Here is the link for those interested - bit.ly/1RUxqaN ... Ivy loves to listen to audiobooks. The JPMartin books is an amazing glimpse into a Rev War soldiers life. Thanks for the great comment!
Different hardships for different times.The average soldier of the 18th century did not see too much combat and the combat he did see would've been relatively quick. There is a reason PTSD, while certainly existing before the 19th and 20th century, only started to become widespread problems amongst soldiers and the like as war became more and more all-encompassing.
WW2 soldiers saw something like 24 days of conflict per year. Vietnam saw around 240 days per year. I forget the exact numbers, but this is close.
tho I guess that depends on which country we are talking about.
I'll have to read it for myself. Washington touched on the difficulties of those long marches and the really nasty winters, as well as his frustration with both his men and his superiors, in his own memoirs. It'd be nice to hear it from the ground rather than an officer. I just ordered the paperback from ebay. 4 dollars is more than worth it. Thanks for the recommendation!
I really like when you're talking and Josh is just in the background working.
Well, that is happening all the time around here... me talking, Josh working in the background. Somebody had to do it.
This could have been the last meal for a lot of men.
Croiseeman aMay they Rest In Peace.
Too sad to think about...
If you think about it, every meal could be the last meal for a lot of men
Men, giving their lives for the protection of society. That ought to command respect and gratefulness from everyone, including women.
@@bluegent7 Oh boy, incel alert.
i'll never complain about MRE's again!!!
I will only complain about them if I don't have water
What about the Vomellete though....?
I'd take a pound of meat over the dysentery simulation they call a veggy omelette
I've had the deboned chicken MRE from a few years ago, and it was probably the worst chicken I've ever had. Slimy and putrid. Maybe it would've been better warm but it didn't come with a heater pack
MRE's wernt to bad the chili mac was pretty decent and you got some candy.
Man that's rough. No shoes for a lot of guys either. You did with what you had. These men had to deal with so much, but they cared more about freedom and liberty to not give up, no matter how bad it got.
More like they did it or they'd be shot
For freedom
@@siyacer Many of them had no home to go back to, and if they did they'd be shot alright. By the British and their Allies. Or worse, left on a prison ship to die. So, it was literally win or die.
Made me appreciate how good I had it in the Army National Guard in the mid 1980's!
Josh's facial expressions made this video. You gotta bring him around again!
You know you could combine the two. Cook the meat most of the way then wrap the paste around it and make a rustic Beef Wellington.
Maybe thats how beef wellington was invented.
I would roll the dough into a longer snake shape and wrap it around a stick and cook it like the meat
I think you might be better off cooking all the way and THEN wrapping. Getting the inside cooked completely without burning the outside might be difficult and time consuming, with direct flames - the dough would probably insulate the inside considerably.
... if I had anywhere to start a fire safely, I'd be tempted to try it.
I would try frying a fatty meat piece on the rock to get some grease on the rock on which to cook the flour patties. prhaps they won't sticl quite as much.
That's what we did in boy scouts when on extended camp outs. We'd grease our aluminum mess kit pans with the fat, then cook. Then use small plastic bottles to contain a small amount of pancake mix with powdered milk so we just had to shake it with water. This was before the store-bought ones. Or cook our meat ration in the fat with some ramps we'd gather fresh. Or use some water in our small mess kit pots with bits of meat, ramps, wild parsnips, fiddlehead fern tops & the like hanging from a forked branch over the fire. That was our version of this sort of thing in the mid-1960's. I thought it rather amusing that our scoutmaster, Mr. Lee, looked just like J. Jonah Jameson in Spiderman!
Yeah, it was def fun & di8fferent. 50M hikes, Klondike Derby, etc...
That's exactly what I was thinking--fry up that meat on the rock a little to grease it up, but Jon did say the meat was often described as too lean. Still, you could roll up dough balls on a stick and roast the bread. The big question is why didn't the common soldiers carry that nifty spice container Jas. Townsend & Sons sells on their website? >^;^
Thing is, yes, if the ration has no fatty meat in it...
;-)
When I'm baking on a rock, I usually just keep the cake there long enough to dry and partially bake the surface of it, then lay it in the ashes to finish baking the inner dough. When you lay it in ashes aready semi-baked like this, you don't get coals stuck into the dough, just dust them a little before eating.
Also, hardwood ash is kind of salty, so in lack of salt, you can use it to flavour the meat a little. Not much, but it helps.
Anyway, nice video again, thanks for posting. From the soldier rations series, I think there are two episodes I like most. One is the pumpkin episode, which brings interesting ways of preparing pumpkin on campfire; the other one is the thanksgiving rice cooking. I think that one is really good, brings a good look at the poverty and tough conditions the soldiers had to go through. It's a thing that's often overlooked in military reenactment.
+Petr L. (CustomHistory) That Thanksgiving episode (posted Dec 2, 2011 for anyone interested) is one of my favorites, too. It's downright moving in presenting the hunger and cold that the soldiers faced back then.
Good tips, thank you
Josh is a good Silent Bob to Jon's Jay.
Snoochie Boochies
A tip: if you are cooking meat over the fire, do not put it inside the flames - it will be black, taste like ash and lose most of nutrients. Sear it quickly over the hot coals to seal the juices inside, then finish the cooking a bit farther away from the fire - it will take longer, but final product will be better in any way :)
@Joe Second yes.
Cook the meat until its coal and then eat the coal
This is my second or third time watching this video. I would take heavy on the meat. Maybe try the rock biscuits.
In the Marine Corps, if we didn't have another knife to use, bayonets were it. I never heard anyone ever having issues with us using our bayonets for cutting or digging or whatever. The only thing was MAKE SURE TO BRING THE BAYONET BACK! DO NOT LOSE IT!
YAY! Josh is back! Wish we saw him in more videos, you guys have a great dynamic together.
+otakop67 Thanks for the great comment!
+Jas. Townsend and Son, Inc. These day we reconcile that some peoples gallbladders simply don't work even in young men. With this type of diet how would the men with these types of digestion problems survived as the beef would of made them sick? Also would a gallbladder problem even be heard of in the 18th century
+THE GUY
To my knowledge cholecystitis is caused a lot more from lots of grease rather than a lack of fiber. Now acute appendicitis is a lot more likely eating mostly red meat. Both were probably 99% fatal in the 1700s
I miss seeing these lifestyles of the Continental soldier videos. I love all the civilian centered ones too, but I'm partial to the 18th century military episodes.
2:31 buddy guy absolutely suffocates that fire
Was looking for this comment
true, but he plays some mean drums!
There was enough coals to get it going again and he knew that
My 2019 Memoir for the future: Today I made coffee, then I watched UA-cam, then I opened a beer, then I watched UA-cam, then I got pizza, then I watched Netflix, then I dipped into the whiskey and then I found myself at the police station, that's all I remember.
What's a good wine pairing? I have a date coming up.
Probably whatever Google spits out when you search up "wine pairing beef".
General Washington was fond of Madeira
JustOneAsbesto you are the definition of hipster
Continental Army soldiers probably washed it down with bad creek water more often then not. It was different for officers, of course.
Gary Cooper, however that creek water was far cleaner than creek water these days.
As a veteran watching this, I am truly humbled and in awe of what our great Nation's first soldiers were able to do and with what (meager tools and rations) they were able to accomplish. Amazing.
Recce Sam I have a buddy in the army that complains about field chow. I’ll have to show him these kinds of videos. An American soldier in 1779 would’ve absolutely loved to have a 2019 MRE. 1 of them would keep him going for days.
@@coltm4a186 seriously, compared to the 18th century, our current soldiers eat like kings.
Thank you for keeping history alive.
John M Gould 1877 - "You cannot keep meats and fish fresh for many hours on a summer day; but you may preserve either over night, if you will sprinkle a little salt upon it, an dplace it in a wet bag of thin cloth which flies cannot go through; hang the bag in a current of air, and out of the reach of animals. "
John M Gould 1877 "You had better carry butter in a tight tin or wooden box. In permanent camp you can sink it in strong brine, and it will keep some weeks. Ordinary butter will not keep sweet a long time in hot weather unless in a cool place or in brine."
"In permanent camp it is well to sink a barrel in the earth in some dry, shaded place; it will answer for a cellar in which to keep your food cool. Look out that your cellar is not flooded in a heavy shower, and that ants and other insects do not get into your food. "
@@kan-zee i'd be more worried about other soldiers than rain.
So good to see Josh in a vid again!
dude he is mad creepy
and he eats like a child.
He does not look like the brightest of the light bulbs out there...
It's so long ago now but I have to say, Josh is awesome!!
Josh is adorable! I wish I'd known about this channel earlier.
Hi Jon. I'm a very picky eater, but I watched this and couldn't help but think "I can make and eat that!" Cooking meat on a stick over an open fire and making those stone cakes would be a great thing to do with my dad during a woodland hike. I'll be sure to try this out!
Love this one. As a chef I’d still enjoy this meal especially on a camping trip. I think we try to bring the city with us when camping when really this is more than enough and probably very satisfying with a little tweaking, like salt.
We used to cook damper which is flour and water and whatever else you have, wrapped around the end of a sturdy peeled stick, and cooked on a fire. We luckily had jam and treacle to pour into the hole that was left by the stick.
I remember cooking like this when I was 6 with friends. No internet, no adults around.
1812 War Stories told by my Great Uncles, told stories of cooking techniques The old timer Indians whom went to war, taught the troops how to prepare food...they rock boiled slivers of meat in water holes , and then charred it on a rock and spiced it with Coltsfoot salt. Today we still use Coltsfoot salt in our daily cooking, instead of Table salt. The meat on a stick was not a native traditional means of fast cooking..smoked meat/ sun dried meat / pemmican / stone boil boiling / was the ole time Indians way of Fast food preparation and grab and go meals, A lot of the ole timer firstnations elders spoke about taking a small squirrel and charring it on the coals, cause the meat was taster and not worth the time to skin it..My grandmother told stories of doing bundle ball cooking, that her grandmother did during war times.. Wet Meat was covered in Bush spice, wrapped in leaves, and dropped in a bed of coals and rolled around..alot of Non native soldiers came from war with battle brain and they were given these bundles and shown how to cook them up on the return to there forts..Cheers ;-)
The main reason for cooking small game unskinned, was they were aware that they carried fleas and disease.
I discovered Martin’s incredible book while visiting Williamsburg for a two week seminar about ten years ago! What an insight into the life of our common revolutionary soldiers! Love your channel!
You know, people give Reddit a lot of shit (and sometimes rightfully so), but I am so thankful for it at times, because it introduced me to your wonderful channel. Seriously, guys, this is so good.
Same here!
Which subreddit were you on?
dont be rude to reddit
Reddit has introduced me to all kinds of great stuff! Its like any other site, you have to sift the good content out from all the bad.
Your partner is great. Keep him. Do more with him. You both remind me of Stan and Laurel.
I so do love this show.
Keep it up lads.
Love from one of your fans in Denmark 🇩🇰
This is such a great channel. My mother and I have became closer watching these videos. Great work .
I don’t know why but I love these vids, and all the effort they put into re making the experience, gold
Lol the other guy put this one over the top! More of him!
lol, yea sweating up a storm in one shot, warming his hands by the fire in the next.
This is nothing uncommon during a trek in the woods. If you are carrying backpack and have your jacket on, you will get warm quick and start sweating. Stop for a rest, take off the jacket and you will feel chills at the first gust of breeze. It's nothing serious if you are close to home, but if you are deep in the forest, sometimes a day or two from shelter\help it might turn bad for you quickly.
Frik Na luzie tl:dr but i assume you were going on and on about bad acting.
lol
Nope, legit experience from my days as a forest ranger :)
dammit with that tl:dr thing, lazy people
Thank you. I t is also good seeing our buddy Josh with you John. I just re- watched Crimson Bond just Yesterday. I still like it.
these videos are great. Interesting, entertaining, and smoothly edited. Keep up the good work!
Thank you very much for the visual history lesson. I love this cooking series. Your an excellent teacher and I love the passion you have. Hope you have a great day.
I want to join the Josh fan club!
Aww Josh is so sweet, I love you two together xx
EXCELLENT! Love these videos - Thank you
Super video, Guys. Thanks for keeping our history alive! 🤠
LOL, Josh choked that fire something fierce :)
He knew what he was doing. All good.
I have to watch the first part of the video twice because I noticed Josh putting so much sticks in the fire and drowned it. Good video as always!
I love your channel. I just bought a book about the Oregon trail because you have sparked my interest in the time period! Thanks!
Keep putting these videos up, guys. These are well-produced and a great break for me during the day. Lots of fun to watch! Any more you can do on the clothing and equipment, campsites, etc. would be really helpful, too!
I am sooo excited! Josh is in this video and this video has some great information! i miss seeing videos like this one, can't wait to see more!
+Conner Tipton We are going to try to do more outdoor episodes while the weather is good. Stay tuned!
"You almost" NO "wish you" NO "were back there" NO.
I absolutely love watching these guys dress up! Such a true joy!
WaHOO!!! Good to see Josh again in a video!
Really good info and insights on past cooking
I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to constantly supply soldiers with fresh beef. Even before the modern farm practices that make raw beef more dangerous, that stuff had a pretty short shelf life on its own. So you'd just have these massive meat deliveries happening, I imagine, at least a few times per week.
I'm fairly certain they either travelled with living cattle, and/or 'requistioned' it from the farms they passed.
Yeah, that seems to make sense.
Also don't forget WW1 was the first bigger scale war where more people died in fighting than due attrition.
Then you know little of war. the ancient war machine was predicated on large supply Trains or camp followers. it also wasnt unusual for women from nearby towns and villages to harlot themselves to soldiers for gold. Anyway, I think from the romans up until ww1 or ww2 soldiers or fighting men largely went without proper rations. the nobles/Commanders would probably eat well. like most People who lived in europe until Our age.
modern practices kinda overuse antibiotics and can end in beef that harbors anti-biotic resistant bacteria.
Love your work mate, ben watching many of your interesting vids lately. A fellow history buff from Australia
Man i love the absolute pure enthusiasm. It makes these videos so pleasant to watch.
Best channel on UA-cam. No joke.
Also these soldiers were city boys or small town farmers. most backwoods men would not fight without salt period.
especially coltsfoot salt! which i guess if from colt's feet, probably they got it without even hurting the colt. their hooves are like fingernails basically.
Y'alls videos are great
Great episode John! One idea for cooking on rocks is to lay a flat rock across two supporting rocks and create a space under it. You can load that area up with coals and then cook on the rock like it was a flat top. I worked as an interpreter here in Virginia at the Monacan Indian Nations's Living History Village and that is one of the methods we used. I was going to include a picture of the setup we used but I can't see any way to attach a picture to these comments. If you are interested John get in touch and I will send it to you so you can show it in one of your Q&A segments.
Great episode. Keep up the great work!
I bet mushroom ketchup would have gone well with that. I am almost out of the first bottle I got from you guys.
You can actually use your bayonet as a stand staked into the ground holding your ramrod (through the lug grove and over the rim of the socket) at an angle over the fire to roast anything you can slide on it. and there is a fair amount of adjustment capable with this rig.
not a bad idea, but dont you think the officers might get a little bit grumpy upon seeing the trops jab their bayonette into the groud? i mean short of trying to stab a sheet of steel with it, theres not much worse that you can do to a blade of any sort then to stick it into the ground.
Modern firearms and bayonets quite commonly have integrated bottle openers, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was an actual camping routine back then to use your gun as a cooking stake. After all, a soldier spends 99% of campaign not fighting the enemies, 100% in some cases. Better make your equipment useful for something at least.
This is great. One of my favorite videos so far.
I am really enjoying all your videos. This is a great series.
I'd love to see more campfire foods! Backpacking/bushcraft-friendly recipes would be great!
Sounds like gourmet compared to civil war hardtack
Coffee made hardtack okay I guess.
As a civil war living historian, if you know what your doing, hardtack isn't as bad as what everyone thinks it is. You just have to know how to handle it.
Brandon Erickson What else did civil war soldiers have for field chow?
@@coltm4a186 Salt beef or pork, or fresh beef if they could drive a herd of cattle and sometimes a chunk of bacon, not like in stores, bit like a slab of meat. You got hard bread or hardtack, soft bread sometimes if possible and if not, cornmeal or raw flour. Then you got coffee, both green and roasted with sugar. Then you sometimes got onions and potatoes from home. Then dessicated vegetables, and vinegar, rice and the such. Hope this answers your question. Look at the UA-cam channel, Civil War Digital Digest, then go to U.S. Ration video.
Well done James and Josh ! This is a GREAT vid guys , thanks for making this !
Fantastic episode! Fellow collecting wood during the reading added great atmosphere. Clever living history technique. and never in my life had I heard nor seen anyone cooking on a flat rock near a fire. Did amazing things in my mind. Very healing. Will always carry salt with me from now on. Thank you.
JOSH!!! 😊
thank you guys! I love these outdoor episode!!!
+dimpleza Thanks, we are pushing for as many outdoor episodes as we can before it gets too cold.
Ha ha, they still use the terms "sick, lame or lazy" in the Marines today. Also, I think it might have been hard to sharpen a stick with the bayonets of the day. I believe they were "pike bayonets", not "sword bayonets". They were a triangular spike as opposed to a knife like blade.Good episode!
I think they meant they would skewer the meat and have the bayonet itself over the fire... which would ruin the temper and eventually cause the bayonet to break.
Pretty much everybody would have had a sheath knife in those days.
Love this channel!
Really cool, keep making these!
Is it just me, or does Josh's tricorn hat appear to be too small for his head...
It's hard to find a hat that can contain his enormous brain.
It's more historically accurate that way lol
Haha josh is great it is almost comical to see him doing stuff in the background (in a positive way) btw: In "old days" there were tons of plants usable for cooking next to the road, I can imagine that they would use that as some Xtra flavor and vitamins 😊
There still are, just many people don't know where to look. Dandelions, asparagus, garlic, sassafras, mints, clover, persimmon, blackberry, sumac, wild grapes, birch, crab apples, elderberries, cattails, milk thistle, acorns were all available for scavenging by the Revolutionary army (and still available in many areas of the USA). The Natives who lived in the colonial area found 1,000 different plant species to be edible.
Golly, you have passion for our history, down to the minute detail. Great
What a great video and the two of you look just so right. Thanks for sharing. Stay safe and fed on the march. ATB. Nigel
"Hunger is the best sauce"...Some Hungry guy
And I though MRE's were bad. No complaints!
I find it a bit ironic that the soldiers of today complain that MRE's are awful...I'd like to see them do a week long march with this kind of food, they would probably think MRE's are the best thing ever after eating this for that long!
Another great video. thank you for putting them out.
So love this channel
did you cook that rock in the fire to break it
Yes, it broke in the heat of the fire.
And we cry when the power goes out LoL 😂 blessings 😇 🇺🇸
Outstanding gentlemen thank you !!!!
My favourite description of JPMartin's was when he took some "broken" cartridges, left camp, hammered the musket balls flat and cut them into square shot. He then hunted small game for himself or possibly his messmates as well. He was from the Connecticut area, if I remember correctly. Cut shot was very common in New England.
I like it because it shows good old Yankee ingenuity making cut shot, there is historical provinence, and it shows the versatility of a military musket over a rifle.
I love this channel!
Imagine tryin 2 cook and eat during Valley forge!!!! Yikes!!!!
1812 reenactor here. Not too far off from 1776... This video makes me hungry. Mmm mmm.
Hope you don't mind me asking, how did you start reenacting?
great video, I find all your videos very interesting but the ones you make talking about the life of troops in those times are excellent. It isn't something a lot of people consider, or they make it out to be a lot easier than it was.
i love this channel so much
I am a vegetarian and looking at these 18th century cooking, my chances of survival back then would be slim!
They didn't have the luxury of veganism and vegetarianism.
HA! Josh's face at 5:10 ! It might have made it taste even more doughy, but would a little flour sprinkled on the hot rock have kept it from sticking?
Thanks for the video. What a good watch!
these are great videos and well done
Your cuts of beef are far superior quality than that of the soldiers
He says as much in the video.
He already said that, guy.
He stole it from the officer's share 😂
Are there any catfish recipes from that time period?
I've seen every one of the videos on this channel and the old ones with Josh were my favorites. I'm so glad he's back. He's the best part of this show.
wonderful work fellas