It seems I've fallen for one of those medieval myths that has found its way into even reputable sources. The idea of breakfast being associated with gluttony is not a medieval one but a far more modern interpretation and simply not correct. Thank you to Tim O'Neill on Twitter for the correction.
12:54. Having breakfast after Mass was not a custom, but a codified canon. You couldn't eat anything since the previous midnight - only water. That was the rule until 20th century, it's called Eucharistic fast. Nowadays it's one hour before taking communion. The old rule led to all manner of social customs, like rising up very early on Sundays and festive days that included Mass - or every day if you were devout, the huge party breakfasts after First Communion, and even official time vs. actual time. When in Chile an official time was adopted (early 20th century), which was slightly different from the solar/local time used until then, there were people writing to Catholic magazines asking what time they should take into account for the fast, the official one, or the "real" one. The Chilean Church decided the official one was OK 😁
There is a great series on the streaming platform FORMED about the Seven Deadly Sins, and in the video on gluttony, the idea, especially for those living in monastic life, is that breaking fast is taking away time spent sharing a meal with others in fellowship and letting the desires of the body rule over you rather than the will, which can lead to giving into temptation more and more. It's not that eating a breakfast is inherently sinful (unless you break Eucharistic fast of course), but it, like anything else, can be if it is leading you to sin.
@@TastingHistory I have a theory that only wealthy hobbits eat all the meals Pippin listed. Otherwise, hobbits would never have any time for their farm work or craft. Frodo, Pippin, and Merry were all from well-to-do families, and Pippin especially was spoiled and ignorant.
My maternal grandmother would bake bread in old 1-pound coffee cans, slice them into roughly 1-inch thick rounds, toast the rounds on hot griddle, and serve them with cream soups as "sops".
I'm a huge fan of the ploughman's lunch - bread, cheese, a piece of fruit & maybe some pickles or olives. Sounds a lot like the peasant's breakfast you talked about.
@@Sam-lm8giMedieval people when asked to pay 2% tax on salt to prevent foreign invasions: 😠🤮🤬 Medieval people when asked to pay all their income for saffron:🥳🤪🤩
Milk toast was common breakfast fare when i was a kid. My dad was a college student working part-time for the aerospace industry. Wonder bread at 10¢ a loaf could be toasted, buttered and sprinkled with cinnomon and sugar, excellent for eating while watching cartoons before school. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made of this same bread sufficed for lunch. Dinner: toasted Wonder bread with bacon grease gravy and chipped beef. Those were the days, and we survived and thrived
My maternal grandma, who grew up in a Catholic Convent, often served us Cinnamon/Sugar Toast (torn into spoonable pieces) dropped into a shallow bowl of milk. "Warmed-Milk Toast" was her go-to whenever we were sick. PB&J, Tuna, or Egg-salad for lunch. We more often had ground beef or tuna gravy over toast at dinner. My conservative [Naval] Father called it S.O.S. but my brassier Mother prefered "Shit on a Shingle", lol.
@@alexfarkas3881 Yes, regarding WWII and the original dried/chipped beef version. My mother changed it up a bit, and I'm glad because the texture combinations of the original would make my autistic self gag, lol.
I agree that "baconned herrings" are most likely kippers (smoked herrings). My mother (from the north of England) would often cook kippers, served with bread and butter, for breakfast - delicious!
Yum, do like a pair of buttered kippers, or even better an Arbroath smokie for breakfast. Just an occasional Sunday thing for me now though. If entertaining I'll make up a platter of kedgeree from the fish. Those are the best days.
I’ve never had kippers, but I first read about it in a book as a kid and was very intrigued. It was before the internet so i couldn’t really look it up. Still pretty intrigued and curious, but I never tried to make it for myself. Maybe I should change that!
@@jackdaw99 Kippers are smoked split herring. Some people find the profusion of bones in herring a bit off putting. But if prepared properly you can lift most of the bones out before serving. It's one of the reasons I go for Finnan haddie or Arbroath smokies more. They are smoked haddock which have less & larger bones, so easier to deal with. They are all really tasty though.
Makes me think of the meals my mom described eating out of poverty. Sometimes all they had was bread, soaked in milk and sugar. This is the 1950's in Midwest America.
My dad used to eat the same thing growing up. I tried it once, bland but not bad. Just stale bread torn up and tossed in a bowl of milk. He was born in the early 60s.
@@Sanguifier I was born in the 70s and learned it from my mother. I still have it fairly often - it's an old comfort food, though I prefer to use wheat bread to white bread these days.
I was born in the 90's and I would toast bread and warm up some evaporated milk and sugar with cinnamon 😂 mix it all together and it kinda tasted like oatmeal
Not to be dismissive, but why would you associate this with "poverty"? What's poor about bread, milk and sugar (the sugar in particular, though honey would be nicer)? It's basically the same as a breakfast cereal.
Never ceases to amaze me how every "medieval" dish he tries, he enjoys cooking it and it tastes fantastic. Really breaks this myth that medieval people lived in squalor and filth with terrible food.
I will say though that most of these recipes would be coming from the kitchen of someone relatively wealthy; peasants weren't really writing recipes, and they certainly weren't going to be using saffron or mace in their cooking (they would have access to plenty of roots and herbs for flavour, but not so much most spices). But yeah, the popular image of history in general tends to be a bit too harsh; no matter how bad things are people are still going to try to make their food taste as good as they can, and will try to keep clean and have fun with music and games and whatnot. It shouldn't be mindblowing that people found ways to make life less miserable just because they existed before anyone you know was alive.
Medieval era suffered a Lot of nas reputation, however It did last 1000 years. It was much more varied and complex than we usually learn. Also British isles medieval era differs a lot from continental Europe, etc.
Well said. I think the enjoyment of good food, and the development of regional food cultures, is as old as meat and roots on a fire. Of course they didn't live in squalor. How could modernity have happened if that were true?
It's a complicated topic and much from that era is up to speculation. Peasants probably ate more varied than poor people in the city but I doubt this was the quality of meal available to the poorest in society. In years with poor havests even bread could be a relative "luxury" to some; porridge/gruel being a cheaper source of calories. Labourers in the cities could earn less than 2 pence per day (2£ per year). It definitely wasn't all terrible but a lot also came down to circumstances. Actually, The Black Plague probably improved the lives of the survivors as there was more food to go around and less people packed into tenements in the city.
I would love an episode about marshmallows. Talking about all the health benefits of the marsh mallow plant and (if it exists still) the process that ancient egyptians/french/Greeks used to make marshmallows with it
@@emmaplover I've made home made marshmallows but never with marsh mallow extract. Idk why I never looked it up to see if it was a thing lol, thank you 💚💚
Along the coast in parts of England fishermen's wives would make confectionary from marsh mallow root. When boiled, it produces its own gelatine-like substance. Then it was sweetened. The plant is why we still call that type of sweet marshmallow, although the modern variety doesn't contain any.
Max, I just want to say I am really appreciative of your quality of work. You are by far my favorite creator to watch with my partner. Keep up the good work!
Not to be pedantic but a knight (Sir/ Dame) and Lord are mutually exclusive titles, with Lord outranking a knight. The only exception to that rule is a military rank. I suggest the following as a more accurate to the English nobility title: Captain the Lord Maximus of Miller, Captain of the Tasting History, keeper of the Garum.
In Mexico there is a dish called "Sope" that stems from this "Sop" - It's a thick cup-like tortilla (kind of looks like Yorkshire pudding) with toppings and it's eaten by dipping it in a sauce. "Sopa" is the Spanish word for soup - related to "Sope" but not the same thing.
i was very confused when i was first in mexico - i'd never heard of sopes and thought i'd ordered sopa. didn't understand why they'd given me something completely different, but didn't have the spanish to question it at that point!
@@trishna_6815growing up eating it, I was used to having it fried, and served with refried beans, sour cream, crumbly cheese and lettuce. Recently I’ve been served sope’s with meat and soaked in the juice and I hate it. It has been an adjustment but because they are made by my mother I eat them without much grumbling.
Weird enough, while in Spain "sopa" refers mostly to a broth with some solid (like noodles or vegetables), it can also refer to this "sop" he's making (slices of bread soaked in a liquid). An example of the second one (a sop) is a dish called "sopa borracha", which are slices of bread (or biscuits, or cake) soaked in wine with sugar and cinnamon.
Reminds me of a breakfast my German Grandfather would feed me as a wee tike. Bread chunks in whole milk with sugar sprinkled on top. I would eat it regularly until sometime in my teens.
My grandparents called this "Söppkes", stale bread in a bowl, then hot milk or hot coffee poured over it, some sugar or even honey added. It was mostly eaten by old people with bad teeth or by little children (with milk of course),as in the old days (19./beginning of 20. century) there was no dentist in the village. And it is a cheap and simple dish
Baconed herrings ? Almost certainly what we now call Kippers . Kippers are large , or fat herrings , split open , gutted and salted then cold smoked to preserve them , as fat , or oily fish very quickly go ' off ' . Kippers are traditionally made in smoke houses on the East Coast of Scotland and England . Grilled , fried or poached , Kippers were a cheap meal for Victorian labourers , and with the advent of the railway could easily be purchased anywhere in Great Britain . They are still a breakfast treat in many homes
Ooh, my mom would buy tins of kippers and sardines for us as kids. They were the Norwegian Crown Prince brand. I really enjoyed them but grew out of buying and eating them myself. I loved the key you had to pry off the back of the can and then wind the metal band around to open them. Good times.
Or "Bloaters" as they are smoked whole and do have a "gamey" flavour (delicious), less salt, less smoking time. Kippers/bloaters have always had the reputation of being cheap though, hence the expression "all kippers and lace curtains". The saying has an extra layer of meaning as well, nobody can cook kippers without the whole street knowing.
I love kippers. They used to be reasonably easy to get in Canada, but now all our grocery stores are filled with Indian food and all our traditional foods are disappearing.
@@TastingHistory You absolutely should! We're goofy but a lot of fun! Im sure if you reached out to your local group they would happily put you in contact with your local cooks guild. also Im the newcomer's guide/recruitment officer for vermont so Im also happy to help!
Not sure if its a collquialism where im from (leeds, England) but my family and I, as well as friends say 'sopping wet' to define something as really wet - probably comes from the word soppe and never thought about it until now!
Easily one of the best channels on youtube. Structured well to stay engaging in between two different types of information (history/cooking) while tying them together just as well and genuinely interesting. You're a gift
This dish, Soppes Dorre (Golden Sops), is similar in many ways to the 15th century Italian "French toast" (previously covered on Tasting History) which also used saffron and had basically the same name: Suppa Dorata (Golden Soup/Sippets).
Warm medieval style fruit soup - apple sauce (roast whole apples & puree if you want to), honey and poudre douce, thin with milk or cream to the consistency you prefer.
The first two seem like an ideal Christmas breakfast or dinner dishes. Before the heavy load of turkey and gravy and stuffing, a light breakfast that smells divine and is warm and crispy.
I just absolutely love how far you've come!! I started watching you two years ago or so before you was a UA-camr full time, laid off from covid, and unsure of how this channel would progress. Needless to say me along with a WHOLE lot of others are sp happy and blessed that you chose to continue your online career as opposed tp returning to your old normal after restrictions lifted. ❤
In honor of Kris Kristofferson who died just a couple of days ago: "I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt. And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad so I had one more for dessert."
I was raised Catholic, so on Sunday we had to go to church without having breakfast. Then everyone went to my grandparents house for donuts! The adults had coffee, but the kids got tea.
NJ Catholic. We went to a diner as a kid after church but it’s the same deal. Me and my sisters getting all the sugar we could fill our mouths with as our parents nursed a coffee. Good memories.
Growing up as a French-Canadian, we had our own version called: pain au lait. We used thick pieces of homemade bread that we imbibed with milk and a dash of vanilla. Then we would sprinkle some brown sugar. Sometimes, we would then stick the soaked, sugared bread in the oven until the brown sugar caramelized. Simple, yet delicious!
The Internet said “Mock” Bacon or Meat Recipes: Although not specific to herring, medieval and Renaissance cookbooks did include "mock" recipes that substituted fish or other ingredients for meat. For instance, almonds, spices, and sauces were used to create the illusion of meat dishes during fasting periods. These approaches could have been adapted to fish like herring..
This reminds me of the simple recipe for milk toast from when I was a child! Toast covered with a mixture of warm milk, cinnamon, and sugar! It was very good tasting as a breakfast treat!
I'm interested in altering that recipe a bit to include egg yolks beaten into the sauce (to make it a proper custard), and include some oven-baked apple (and also maybe some warm brie).
Almond milk is really good when made at home. Really easy and handy whenever you need it, if you have almonds. Edited to add: I would leave it to saok after the first blend, then blend again a couple of times to get as much almond chewed up.
I had to study a little bit of Thomas Acquinas for school but I did not know that he believed breakfast was equal with gluttony. I feel so thankful to live in modern times, where breakfast is a way to get ready for the day.
14:07 That "Chyne" that Max pronounced as "shin" is, I believe, pronounced "chine" to rhyme with shine. It is a section of backbone and its adjoining parts, although in some contexts it can refer to a bone-in forerib.
My dad was a butcher , and I thought I'd never hear these words again ! Thank you for reminding me . On occasion, when I say forerib of beef or chine, most people don't know what I'm talking about . The best word in butchery, though, has to be paddywack !!
In Danish, we call that "Rich Knights". The simple version with eggs, milk, sugar, and cinnamon is called "Poor Knights". Soak the bread lightly in egg-milk-cinnamon-sugar mix, put in a hot pan and fry on both sides.
That part about Medieval people using Almond Milk at 3:21 sounds like yet another example of what writers of historical fiction and high fantasy call, "The Tiffany Problem." This is when a historical fact seems anachronistic or unrealistic to modern readers of historical fiction, despite being completely accurate. Just as we may think that "Tiffany" is a modern name; there were Medieval women named "Tiffany" (or some variation thereof.) Now, thanks to Max, I now know that these Medieval women named Tiffany probably liked to drink Almond Milk. Thanks for sharing this history (and recipe) with us! My Like is in the 23Ks.
@@beejls No, but I'd heard about "The Tiffany Problem" or "The Tiffany Effect" fairly recently. I'll have to check out that Jack Rackham video you mentioned. Thanks!
17:40 I love how the "Medieval Lord" is Max's bare minimum standard for quality in his own life here. Almost as if he is better than that Medieval Lord, but is humble so will lower himself to that high standard. 😂 (And you are Max, Lordly and humble! As always, love the videos. ❤)
Quite a bit has been written and said about the total workload of a peasants in a year was actually far less than modern people by hours worked per year. It was more seasonal but also you were closer to your labor as well or the means of production. Not to say it was a utopia, or the peasants had it great. the concept of serfdom itself puts it into a different context too but it's interesting to think about. The concept of "Noblesse Oblige" where you could have good apple land masters who had a sense of moral obligation those lessers, I think is basically bunk in my opinion but its the mentality of modern philantropy arguably where billionaires rake it in then spend some on charity with a sense of modern noblige oblige
@@bunsolami Medieval peasants had frequent, mandatory non-working holidays year round. This was to keep up morale and prevent revolts. Most of them were also farmers, which meant they worked only during summer months. Their overall work hours per year were far, far, far less than what we have today. Even if they did work from 5.30 am to sundown (which in most cases they were not) - if you factor in a) 1 hour for breakfast, 2) 1 hour for lunch, 3) 1 hour for post-lunch nap (commonplace in hotter areas) you'd still end up with more or less 8 to 12 hours work per day - depending on season. That's exactly what we have going on now as well, depending on your job(s). No one's saying that serf and peasants had it better then than the working class has it now. Not at all. But the improvements are due to QoL "updates", not a lessening of exploitation. Quite the contrary, exploitation of the workforce has only been increasing and increasing.
My mom was an Italian peasant. She ate a piece of bread with vinegar and olive oil and maybe a slice of fruit. The kids ate stale bread with milk. That is where we get the term milk sop.
As a matter of fact, this dish, Soppes Dorre (Golden Sops), is similar in many ways to the 15th century Italian "French toast" (previously covered on Tasting History) which also used saffron and had basically the same name: Suppa Dorata (Golden Soup/Sippets).
Let's appreciate that this dish is used to be breakfast of the wealthiest, and today in modern countries almost everyone can afford it. It still not the cheapest choice for breakfast, but if even you're working poor (like I am), you still can try this recipe and even use it monthly or weekly or daily, it depends
Unfortunately, even in some rich countries many children go without a healthy of safe breakfast. I know in the UK there is the National School Breakfast Club Programme, sponsored by the government. It allows disadvantaged or at risk children to have a healthy breakfast before first class & a safe environment. This means that afterwards they can concentrate on their lessons, fuelled for the morning & not feeling hungry.
@@AnniCarlsson I checked local store's page - the cheapest bread is white, yes, but the cheapest dark bread is only 0.10 euro more expensive. And the most expensive one is some really fancy white bread, too (except for gluten-free, of course). I'm from Eastern Europe and what about bread prices in your country?
@@AnniCarlsson wow, never heard about such a thing! Eastern Europe is pretty good at bread, rye flour is common here, even the cheap dark bread has the rye flour at first place in ingredients' list. So I'm really interested what it looks like in another countries.
Hey @Max Miller, I am an Orthodox Christian and we still fast (food and water) on mornings we receive communion starting midnight the night before. Thanks for the videos!
This might be my favorite episode so far. I am a huge fan of breakfast food; history; cinnamon flavored things; no dairy breakfast foods; and soup facts in no particular order. This video has it all.
2:10 Love how you kept the old grammar and spoke the modern English! I´m not a native English speaker but to me at least the "old" spelling makes much more sense when speaking! In case it matters, I´m a native Portuguese speaker. Great video!
Max, you should play Pentiment. It's a medieval themed video game. It's pretty short so it's not a huge commitment. I think you might find the historical aspects very interesting!
When I spent a summer in France doing archaeology we used to have hot chocolate with baguette dipped in it for breakfast, so not too different. We also used the rebuilt castle stables as our kitchen/dining room with the original medieval cobbles on the ground, so very appropriate. 🙂
When I was little, my Mom would make Milk Toast for breakfast. It was buttered toast on a plate with hot milk poured over it and sprinkled with sugar. You have to eat it before the milk gets cold, and it gets icky 😊 Love your channel and watch every day Max.
Finally, I've cleared my backlog. Due to how good most of these foods seem, I only watch these videos on the night between saturday & sunday, as that is the night I do most of the cooking. Always a good time.
One of my great grandmothers wrote down what people ate in her day. They were from the Ruthenian (Ukrainian) serf class. The diet remained mostly unchanged for centuries. Breakfast, if they ate it, was usually millet porridge. Пшоняна каша. Basically, millet baked in milk. Butter could be added. Millet has been used in that region for thousands of years. Meat was rare, so luxuries like salo and chicken were saved for holidays.
@@jcortese3300 I'd question the medieval-ness of the coffee part, but I assume we're talking about the "latte" that involves a splash of coffee for colour and no more.
I remember breakfasting on what might be called sops in Catalonia in 1959 - yesterday's bread dipped in cafe au lait, hot milk flavoured with a little coffee. Today's bread was delicious; but yesterday's had gone so hard it was otherwise inedible.
I've actually never had Cap'n Crunch with milk. Dry out of the box, it was a traditional snack for the tech crew during show week. We also shared a bottle of Dr. Pepper, which in hindsight probably explained why we'd all pass colds to each other.
I love your use of the old style spellings! ❤ And your pronunciations are so precise" ....if you have a blender, now is the time to use it..." Thank you, Max!
I love cinnamon toast crunch 😋 I'm glad my ancestors also got to enjoy it in their own way! Awesome video as always thanks Max love you and your channel! I really want to try this!
Question, Mr. Miller. Have the foods you have made and tried altered your diet outside of the show? Do you make some of these dishes just for your enjoyment?
So what I'm learning here is that my dad's strategy of getting our sorry carcasses to church by tempting us with Sunday buffet afterwards has mediaeval precedent?
I mean really the answer is just yes. They did. It's just breakfast in many cultures and time periods through Medieval and Classical history didn't always look like what WE think of as breakfast, where it's technically considered a major meal of the day. It was just the bread and cheese you crammed down your face before you had to go start getting work done.
14:07, where it talks about 'Chyne of Muton' and 'Chyne of Beif' - this could be a chine rather than a shin. Which is a cut of meat from the neck just above the shoulders, rather than the leg. It's still eaten where I'm originally from and it's packed with herbs - it's called 'Stuffed Chine'.
Reminds me of what my mom used to make for me when i was sick as a little kid. A loaf of bread, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon and then poured warm milk over it
My understanding is that “bacon” (both the belly kind enjoyed in the US and the back kind that was more common historically and the norm in Britain and Canada today) refers to BRINED pork (ie soaked in saltwater to cure it) so “baconed” herring would probably be herring likewise soaked in brine/saltwater?
So is fairly close to milk toast we had as children's back in the 50s but we had no wine and more warm milk with a of sugar. Good whether I'll or healthy.
Hey, Max! I don't know if you'll see this, and it's okay if you don't, I know there's lots of comments :) But I was wondering: is there any way you could drop your sources for some of the medieval art that you depict during the history portion of this video? I adore medieval art and illuminated manuscripts, and I'd love to take another look at these pieces, and others like them! And if you do see this, I want to say thank you for your friendly presence and high quality work over the years! I'm a long-time viewer, and every Tuesday I get excited thinking about what Tasting History will cover that week. :D Much love to you and yours!
Until Vatican II in the 1960s, Roman Catholics were not supposed to eat after midnight the day before taking the holy sacrament at morning mass. Since, in the middle ages, a lot of Catholics went to mass daily, at Lauds (0 dark early) or Prime (first hour of daylight), they broke their fast with Holy Communion, if it was offered, and then went on with their day. Those who were making meals then went on to start preparing the big meal of the day. It might get difficult if one had to wait and fast until after Terce, the third hour of the day to take communion and then eat. Not everyone universally had the opportunity to go morning mass, so it varied by location, say, if one was in a town or city, or if one was out in the rural areas doing remote farm work. Almonds were a lot easier to store and transport than was fresh milk. If it was the time of year when the cows had gone dry, then stored almonds could be used to make almond milk. Much easier for traveling as well. A bag of almonds was a lot easier to take on a journey than was trying to buy fresh milk in a strange place, or to bring along a cow, a goat, or a sheep for milking.
Yep, was going to post this - growing up in a Catholic country in the early 70s, it had been amended to 'fast an hour before Mass - before receiving the holy sacrament'. Really devout people wouldn't even have a cup of tea (we live in the Mediterranean country which was a British colony so we take our tea with milk) because it contained milk which was seen as a food. Nowadays things are calmer, heh.
@@gwenivercallwhen I was a child in the late 50’s you had to fast from midnight on if you were planning on receiving Communion at morning Mass. Some years later it was changed to 3 hours before Mass. I was a student at a Catholic grade school & vividly remember my mother packing both breakfast & lunch in my lunch box. We had no cafeteria so we ate our meals at our desks. I would eat buttered toast with milk brought in,in cartons. Then a few years later, with Vatican II it was changed to one hour before Communion. Memories♥️
This channel consistently produces gold; it's no question why you have nearly 3 million subs. You are very thorough in your research as well as the culinary side, but your oration is the best part: the way you get excited about each subject makes me want to hear more :)
"Poudre douce" from French, litterally translate as " Soft powder" the same way that sweet drinks are refered to as "Soft drinks". It still shows up in modern English and French here and there, in English you may say sweety or honey to your girlfriend, in french she would be "ta douce" meaning, "your sweety".
Almond milk makes so much sense in a medieval setting. It's not like they can just pop to the store and pick up a gallon of fresh cows milk all year around. Almonds would store so much better (even though fresher is better there as well, of course).
@@RoseStoller-xq7sh A regular cow (not a specially bred modern "milk monster" kept in comfortably heated conditions during winter) does not normaly produce milk all year round. Almonds could be bought during harvest times and then stored for the dry period.
Dried bread in a bowl of milk used to me a home remedy for any gastrointential issues in Germany when I was a kid (: Some would also add spices or sugars, but I preferred it without. Used be kinda crazy about it and also ate it when not sick.
It seems I've fallen for one of those medieval myths that has found its way into even reputable sources. The idea of breakfast being associated with gluttony is not a medieval one but a far more modern interpretation and simply not correct. Thank you to Tim O'Neill on Twitter for the correction.
You’re a good man Max. This is why this is an excellent history channel. 👍
12:54. Having breakfast after Mass was not a custom, but a codified canon. You couldn't eat anything since the previous midnight - only water. That was the rule until 20th century, it's called Eucharistic fast. Nowadays it's one hour before taking communion.
The old rule led to all manner of social customs, like rising up very early on Sundays and festive days that included Mass - or every day if you were devout, the huge party breakfasts after First Communion, and even official time vs. actual time. When in Chile an official time was adopted (early 20th century), which was slightly different from the solar/local time used until then, there were people writing to Catholic magazines asking what time they should take into account for the fast, the official one, or the "real" one. The Chilean Church decided the official one was OK 😁
There is a great series on the streaming platform FORMED about the Seven Deadly Sins, and in the video on gluttony, the idea, especially for those living in monastic life, is that breaking fast is taking away time spent sharing a meal with others in fellowship and letting the desires of the body rule over you rather than the will, which can lead to giving into temptation more and more. It's not that eating a breakfast is inherently sinful (unless you break Eucharistic fast of course), but it, like anything else, can be if it is leading you to sin.
Oh the sad, cursed loss of Saturday Cartoons. I’m with you there…. Life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
Hobbit meals!
But what about second breakfast?
I don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip.
Only for hobbits
Best part is second breakfast wasn't even a normal meal for hobbits, they just ate even more then normal haha
@@Steampunk_KakTBF, they probably also burned a lot more calories than normal, with that amount of walking
@@TastingHistory I have a theory that only wealthy hobbits eat all the meals Pippin listed. Otherwise, hobbits would never have any time for their farm work or craft. Frodo, Pippin, and Merry were all from well-to-do families, and Pippin especially was spoiled and ignorant.
"I have offended in matters of food and drink and much else" is what I'm going to start telling my wife when food makes me gassy
Beano. It's a lifesaver.
@@CricketsBay you shouldn't hide art
That makes much more sense than wallowing in shame because you got the rumblies during Mass.
Ah, but will you beg for absolution thereafter?
Gotta save this line for thanksgiving?
"What'll ye have, m'lud?"
"French Toast, Rare.."
Or, soup sandwich, hold the bread!
Yes. I was surprised he kept saying Cinnamon Toast Crunch when it sounds much more like soggy French toast.
Seems like what some call “milk toast”
And an ale.
Also bread pudding
Also you've been such a major spokesman for Hello Fresh they should have a line of Max Miller historical-inspired dishes!
I love that idea!
I would love this
I dig it
My maternal grandmother would bake bread in old 1-pound coffee cans, slice them into roughly 1-inch thick rounds, toast the rounds on hot griddle, and serve them with cream soups as "sops".
yum, the best part of a soup meal
Nice
Yes, sop toast. My favorite was thick sliced cinnamon raisin bread. Teachers said that was not the name...milk toast.
I think Max did a recipe for bread in a can a while back!
Wondering where she was from?
I'm a huge fan of the ploughman's lunch - bread, cheese, a piece of fruit & maybe some pickles or olives. Sounds a lot like the peasant's breakfast you talked about.
Gouda is a sin upon humanity
@@MangoTroubles-007 But it's so good-a! Lol
@@MangoTroubles-007not the real stuff.
This is how I like my lunch too!
@@MangoTroubles-007 nah the aged stuff is amazing
has to be old enough it's got crystals in it, then it's one of the best cheeses
>Medieval recipe
>saffron
Obviously.
A medieval person when they spill saffron juice on their saffron shirt: "Oh no!... Anyway."
@@Sam-lm8giMedieval people when asked to pay 2% tax on salt to prevent foreign invasions: 😠🤮🤬
Medieval people when asked to pay all their income for saffron:🥳🤪🤩
@@BirdieRumiaSometimes those foreigners were Scots trying to overthrow your 5'3 King, they weren't always bad.
That just makes me mad somehow.
@@vane909090 😂
Milk toast was common breakfast fare when i was a kid. My dad was a college student working part-time for the aerospace industry. Wonder bread at 10¢ a loaf could be toasted, buttered and sprinkled with cinnomon and sugar, excellent for eating while watching cartoons before school. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made of this same bread sufficed for lunch. Dinner: toasted Wonder bread with bacon grease gravy and chipped beef. Those were the days, and we survived and thrived
My maternal grandma, who grew up in a Catholic Convent, often served us Cinnamon/Sugar Toast (torn into spoonable pieces) dropped into a shallow bowl of milk. "Warmed-Milk Toast" was her go-to whenever we were sick. PB&J, Tuna, or Egg-salad for lunch. We more often had ground beef or tuna gravy over toast at dinner. My conservative [Naval] Father called it S.O.S. but my brassier Mother prefered "Shit on a Shingle", lol.
Akron ?
@@larrettamullen4023I'm sure you know but maybe someone else reading this doesn't: Max also has a video on Shit On A Shingle!
@@alexfarkas3881 Yes, regarding WWII and the original dried/chipped beef version. My mother changed it up a bit, and I'm glad because the texture combinations of the original would make my autistic self gag, lol.
Microplastic diet
My parents are both from England, they use the word sop to describe what you do with the bread on any liquid food. We say “sop up the gravy”
Same here. We used "sop" up the gravy with a piece of bread in the Southern US going back many many years and decades.
The last time I was this early, Sir Gawain was still a squire.
I was thinking about Brave Sir Robin from Monty Python....
@@mikeremski2102they were forced to eat his minstrel.
How, pray thee tell, was said minstrel prepared?
knowing Gawain was cool before the newer kids like Lancelot or Galahad were born.
@@Justanotherconsumer The grammatically correct phrase would have been "Pray tell thee" actually, I am not sure why, but I am sure.
🤣
I agree that "baconned herrings" are most likely kippers (smoked herrings). My mother (from the north of England) would often cook kippers, served with bread and butter, for breakfast - delicious!
Yum, do like a pair of buttered kippers, or even better an Arbroath smokie for breakfast. Just an occasional Sunday thing for me now though. If entertaining I'll make up a platter of kedgeree from the fish. Those are the best days.
Kippers for breakfast aunt Helga?
I’ve never had kippers, but I first read about it in a book as a kid and was very intrigued. It was before the internet so i couldn’t really look it up. Still pretty intrigued and curious, but I never tried to make it for myself. Maybe I should change that!
@@jackdaw99 Kippers are smoked split herring. Some people find the profusion of bones in herring a bit off putting. But if prepared properly you can lift most of the bones out before serving. It's one of the reasons I go for Finnan haddie or Arbroath smokies more. They are smoked haddock which have less & larger bones, so easier to deal with. They are all really tasty though.
@@praetorfenix69 "Is it St. Swithin's Day already?” 😁
Makes me think of the meals my mom described eating out of poverty. Sometimes all they had was bread, soaked in milk and sugar. This is the 1950's in Midwest America.
My dad used to eat the same thing growing up. I tried it once, bland but not bad. Just stale bread torn up and tossed in a bowl of milk. He was born in the early 60s.
@@Sanguifier I was born in the 70s and learned it from my mother. I still have it fairly often - it's an old comfort food, though I prefer to use wheat bread to white bread these days.
I was born in the 90's and I would toast bread and warm up some evaporated milk and sugar with cinnamon 😂 mix it all together and it kinda tasted like oatmeal
Not to be dismissive, but why would you associate this with "poverty"?
What's poor about bread, milk and sugar (the sugar in particular, though honey would be nicer)? It's basically the same as a breakfast cereal.
@@Sanguifiermy Dad in Australia also spoke of this as a child
Never ceases to amaze me how every "medieval" dish he tries, he enjoys cooking it and it tastes fantastic. Really breaks this myth that medieval people lived in squalor and filth with terrible food.
I will say though that most of these recipes would be coming from the kitchen of someone relatively wealthy; peasants weren't really writing recipes, and they certainly weren't going to be using saffron or mace in their cooking (they would have access to plenty of roots and herbs for flavour, but not so much most spices). But yeah, the popular image of history in general tends to be a bit too harsh; no matter how bad things are people are still going to try to make their food taste as good as they can, and will try to keep clean and have fun with music and games and whatnot. It shouldn't be mindblowing that people found ways to make life less miserable just because they existed before anyone you know was alive.
Medieval era suffered a Lot of nas reputation, however It did last 1000 years. It was much more varied and complex than we usually learn. Also British isles medieval era differs a lot from continental Europe, etc.
Well said. I think the enjoyment of good food, and the development of regional food cultures, is as old as meat and roots on a fire. Of course they didn't live in squalor. How could modernity have happened if that were true?
mind you even poor people ate okay/edible food in the victorian era.
It's a complicated topic and much from that era is up to speculation. Peasants probably ate more varied than poor people in the city but I doubt this was the quality of meal available to the poorest in society. In years with poor havests even bread could be a relative "luxury" to some; porridge/gruel being a cheaper source of calories. Labourers in the cities could earn less than 2 pence per day (2£ per year). It definitely wasn't all terrible but a lot also came down to circumstances. Actually, The Black Plague probably improved the lives of the survivors as there was more food to go around and less people packed into tenements in the city.
I would love an episode about marshmallows. Talking about all the health benefits of the marsh mallow plant and (if it exists still) the process that ancient egyptians/french/Greeks used to make marshmallows with it
It does. My mom takes it in pill form.
Ooo nice! I make my own marshmallows with marsh mallow extract and gelatine and they’re delicious 😋
@@emmaplover I've made home made marshmallows but never with marsh mallow extract. Idk why I never looked it up to see if it was a thing lol, thank you 💚💚
The marsh mallow still exists!
Along the coast in parts of England fishermen's wives would make confectionary from marsh mallow root. When boiled, it produces its own gelatine-like substance. Then it was sweetened. The plant is why we still call that type of sweet marshmallow, although the modern variety doesn't contain any.
Max, I just want to say I am really appreciative of your quality of work. You are by far my favorite creator to watch with my partner. Keep up the good work!
Thank you 😊
Sir Lord Maximillian Miller the First, Grand Duke of Tasting History, holder of the Sacred Garum of Rome.
I need that on a bumper sticker
@@TastingHistoryand an apron.
Jamie, Chief Mouser of the Household? Jose, Passenger Princess and Closer of Captions? and yeah im high af 😂😂😂😂
Not to be pedantic but a knight (Sir/ Dame) and Lord are mutually exclusive titles, with Lord outranking a knight. The only exception to that rule is a military rank. I suggest the following as a more accurate to the English nobility title:
Captain the Lord Maximus of Miller, Captain of the Tasting History, keeper of the Garum.
The way this is structured... are you perhaps playing Rogue Trader?
In Mexico there is a dish called "Sope" that stems from this "Sop" - It's a thick cup-like tortilla (kind of looks like Yorkshire pudding) with toppings and it's eaten by dipping it in a sauce. "Sopa" is the Spanish word for soup - related to "Sope" but not the same thing.
i was very confused when i was first in mexico - i'd never heard of sopes and thought i'd ordered sopa. didn't understand why they'd given me something completely different, but didn't have the spanish to question it at that point!
@@trishna_6815growing up eating it, I was used to having it fried, and served with refried beans, sour cream, crumbly cheese and lettuce. Recently I’ve been served sope’s with meat and soaked in the juice and I hate it. It has been an adjustment but because they are made by my mother I eat them without much grumbling.
Weird enough, while in Spain "sopa" refers mostly to a broth with some solid (like noodles or vegetables), it can also refer to this "sop" he's making (slices of bread soaked in a liquid).
An example of the second one (a sop) is a dish called "sopa borracha", which are slices of bread (or biscuits, or cake) soaked in wine with sugar and cinnamon.
"I prefer to think of it as first class vs economy class"
Reminds me of a breakfast my German Grandfather would feed me as a wee tike. Bread chunks in whole milk with sugar sprinkled on top. I would eat it regularly until sometime in my teens.
My grandparents called this "Söppkes", stale bread in a bowl, then hot milk or hot coffee poured over it, some sugar or even honey added. It was mostly eaten by old people with bad teeth or by little children (with milk of course),as in the old days (19./beginning of 20. century) there was no dentist in the village. And it is a cheap and simple dish
2:36 "Now let's discuss the Great Vowel Shift... Wait, no, this is a cooking show."
Baconed herrings ? Almost certainly what we now call Kippers .
Kippers are large , or fat herrings , split open , gutted and salted then cold smoked to preserve them , as fat , or oily fish very quickly go ' off ' . Kippers are traditionally made in smoke houses on the East Coast of Scotland and England .
Grilled , fried or poached , Kippers were a cheap meal for Victorian labourers , and with the advent of the railway could easily be purchased anywhere in Great Britain .
They are still a breakfast treat in many homes
Ooh, my mom would buy tins of kippers and sardines for us as kids. They were the Norwegian Crown Prince brand. I really enjoyed them but grew out of buying and eating them myself. I loved the key you had to pry off the back of the can and then wind the metal band around to open them. Good times.
Or "Bloaters" as they are smoked whole and do have a "gamey" flavour (delicious), less salt, less smoking time.
Kippers/bloaters have always had the reputation of being cheap though, hence the expression "all kippers and lace curtains".
The saying has an extra layer of meaning as well, nobody can cook kippers without the whole street knowing.
I love kippers. They used to be reasonably easy to get in Canada, but now all our grocery stores are filled with Indian food and all our traditional foods are disappearing.
The Isle of Man is also famous for producing Kippers.
I've always eaten them out of the can, as is, with crackers. I think my wife would violently defenestrate me if I tried cooking them in the house...
I love soppes dore! I first encountered it at an SCA event that was focused around food. I've been making it for myself for years now.
I need to hit up an SCA event.
What is an SCA event? 🤨 s3xual child abuse event?
@@TastingHistory You would love it. I'd recommend the Known World Cooks and Bards Collegium, personally. It would be right up your alley.
@@TastingHistory You absolutely should! We're goofy but a lot of fun! Im sure if you reached out to your local group they would happily put you in contact with your local cooks guild. also Im the newcomer's guide/recruitment officer for vermont so Im also happy to help!
@@adiuntesserande6893WUT????? 😂😂😂 OMG YESSSSS
Not sure if its a collquialism where im from (leeds, England) but my family and I, as well as friends say 'sopping wet' to define something as really wet - probably comes from the word soppe and never thought about it until now!
I'm a Virginian with a Utahn mother. I grew up using this phrase too
Native Virginian, born an hour from Jamestown, Colonial America... And, yes, sopping wet is a thing
maybe calling someone a sour sop or "ya look soppy today" comes from the same place xD
There is a similar expression in Spanish too.
It's common down in the south west of England. We get lots of rain
I loved two things growing up, and that was the History Channel and Food Network. Max is both of those things, in one place. I couldn't be happier.
Agreed
Easily one of the best channels on youtube.
Structured well to stay engaging in between two different types of information (history/cooking) while tying them together just as well and genuinely interesting.
You're a gift
Arguably they did all the time as at some point one has to break their fast or die of malnutrition.
True
Obviously breakfast the meal. But I wonder about the divisions of meals.
🙄 ok Vaush
Technically correct, which we all know is the best kind of correct.
well akshually 🤓☝️
An episode on the history of the “Ploughman’s lunch” would be fun, especially preparing appropriate pickle (and maybe even the cheese)!
"Ploughman's Lunch" is a modern invention. Before that it was called "bread and cheese".
This dish, Soppes Dorre (Golden Sops), is similar in many ways to the 15th century Italian "French toast" (previously covered on Tasting History) which also used saffron and had basically the same name: Suppa Dorata (Golden Soup/Sippets).
Warm medieval style fruit soup - apple sauce (roast whole apples & puree if you want to), honey and poudre douce, thin with milk or cream to the consistency you prefer.
The first two seem like an ideal Christmas breakfast or dinner dishes.
Before the heavy load of turkey and gravy and stuffing, a light breakfast that smells divine and is warm and crispy.
Worked in barns like 20 years ago. We worked a few hours before we had breakfast break and then work again before lunch.
I just absolutely love how far you've come!! I started watching you two years ago or so before you was a UA-camr full time, laid off from covid, and unsure of how this channel would progress. Needless to say me along with a WHOLE lot of others are sp happy and blessed that you chose to continue your online career as opposed tp returning to your old normal after restrictions lifted. ❤
In honor of Kris Kristofferson who died just a couple of days ago:
"I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt. And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad so I had one more for dessert."
Still healthier than my mom's daily breakfast of coffee and cigarette
oh what the hell i didnt know he died
The guy could write a lyric, for sure
Oh, I didn’t know about Kris Kristofferson. That makes me sad, but thanks for the quote.
That was Johnny Cash.
"Pour the mixture through a nutmilk bag, squeezing out as much liquid as possible."
😂😂😂
Had a Beavis and Butt-Head moment with that.
Just asked my husband if he needed help squeezing his nut milk bag.... Not sure if he's scared or excited.....
As you already said it, I am comforted by the fact that I am not the only lowest common denominator. Long live the heathens!
We were all thinking it 😂
Uh-huh uh-huh you said nutmilk.
😂😂
My Tuesday this far has sucked. Max, you’ve cheered me up. Thank you.
Hope the day gets better from here on out.
I enjoyed the Winchester college reference. I worked there for 7 years. The College house kitchen was always excellent.
(Not so) fun fact: Tuesday is considered a lousy day by a majority of people. Isn't it lovely that Max chose this day for his videos ? 😊
I was raised Catholic, so on Sunday we had to go to church without having breakfast. Then everyone went to my grandparents house for donuts! The adults had coffee, but the kids got tea.
Sounds like my family, raised Catholic as well but we would actually go to a restaurant that wasn't too far from the church
NJ Catholic. We went to a diner as a kid after church but it’s the same deal. Me and my sisters getting all the sugar we could fill our mouths with as our parents nursed a coffee. Good memories.
@DavidJohnRedwood We love our deadly sins (and our excuses to get bigger portions shhhhhhh....)
@DavidJohnRedwood I was raised Catholic, and as per rules, we got our breakfast over an hour before mass started.
As a poor person I goto work everyday without breakfast. So I can atleast afford to have a healthy dinner
Growing up as a French-Canadian, we had our own version called: pain au lait.
We used thick pieces of homemade bread that we imbibed with milk and a dash of vanilla.
Then we would sprinkle some brown sugar.
Sometimes, we would then stick the soaked, sugared bread in the oven until the brown sugar caramelized.
Simple, yet delicious!
We call that French Toast in English
@@nessuno1984
The French term is pain dore or pain perdu
@@nessuno1984You’re forgetting the egg milk mixture the bread was soaked in. Without the egg it is NOT French Toast.
@@stellakowalski1 exactly!
Mmm baked French toast.i make French toast with an egg in that same mixture.my family was Pennsylvania Dutch
The Internet said “Mock” Bacon or Meat Recipes: Although not specific to herring, medieval and Renaissance cookbooks did include "mock" recipes that substituted fish or other ingredients for meat. For instance, almonds, spices, and sauces were used to create the illusion of meat dishes during fasting periods. These approaches could have been adapted to fish like herring..
This reminds me of the simple recipe for milk toast from when I was a child! Toast covered with a mixture of warm milk, cinnamon, and sugar! It was very good tasting as a breakfast treat!
Medieval videos are always my favorites! Max always makes tuesdays better! Keep up the good work 😊😊😊😊
I'm interested in altering that recipe a bit to include egg yolks beaten into the sauce (to make it a proper custard), and include some oven-baked apple (and also maybe some warm brie).
just give me toasted bread with some olive oil, vinegar and salt.
Add some roasted walnuts and maybe a drizzle of honey. And I think I would prefer pan fried apple instead of oven baked.
Almond milk is really good when made at home. Really easy and handy whenever you need it, if you have almonds. Edited to add: I would leave it to saok after the first blend, then blend again a couple of times to get as much almond chewed up.
It reminds me of French Toast before you fry it in the pan.
I had to study a little bit of Thomas Acquinas for school but I did not know that he believed breakfast was equal with gluttony. I feel so thankful to live in modern times, where breakfast is a way to get ready for the day.
14:07 That "Chyne" that Max pronounced as "shin" is, I believe, pronounced "chine" to rhyme with shine. It is a section of backbone and its adjoining parts, although in some contexts it can refer to a bone-in forerib.
My dad was a butcher , and I thought I'd never hear these words again ! Thank you for reminding me . On occasion, when I say forerib of beef or chine, most people don't know what I'm talking about . The best word in butchery, though, has to be paddywack !!
@JW-yt7lr so is a knickknack paddywhack a bone you keep on a shelf?
In Danish, we call that "Rich Knights".
The simple version with eggs, milk, sugar, and cinnamon is called "Poor Knights". Soak the bread lightly in egg-milk-cinnamon-sugar mix, put in a hot pan and fry on both sides.
Those are called wentelteefjes in dutch, and I love them, but it is rather different, as they aren't soggy anymore after baking.
That "Poor Knights" is pretty similar to US "French toast", though I don't know if we'd add sugar to the batter (vs. pouring syrup on afterwards)
@@theaxer3751 Yes, they are like toasted bread only like cake too
Posted just as I sat down for my trainride home. Lucky me!
I love a good peasants lunch! Some bread, some cheese, and maybe some fruit. A juice if im feeling fancy!
Best lunch and it feeds me for a few days
That part about Medieval people using Almond Milk at 3:21 sounds like yet another example of what writers of historical fiction and high fantasy call, "The Tiffany Problem." This is when a historical fact seems anachronistic or unrealistic to modern readers of historical fiction, despite being completely accurate. Just as we may think that "Tiffany" is a modern name; there were Medieval women named "Tiffany" (or some variation thereof.) Now, thanks to Max, I now know that these Medieval women named Tiffany probably liked to drink Almond Milk.
Thanks for sharing this history (and recipe) with us!
My Like is in the 23Ks.
Did you watch the Tiffany video on Jack Rackham?
@@beejls No, but I'd heard about "The Tiffany Problem" or "The Tiffany Effect" fairly recently. I'll have to check out that Jack Rackham video you mentioned. Thanks!
@@modelermark172 black swans are a good example of this also. Nobody believed black swans existed until Westerners went to Australia.
17:40 I love how the "Medieval Lord" is Max's bare minimum standard for quality in his own life here. Almost as if he is better than that Medieval Lord, but is humble so will lower himself to that high standard. 😂 (And you are Max, Lordly and humble! As always, love the videos. ❤)
Dang peasants got an hour breakfast covered by the employer whereas some employers in my area have people work OT with only 3 15min breaks LOL
Keep in mind that they were likely working from sun-up to sun-down
We don’t even get breaks
We have to work six hours before we get half an hour for a meal, IF we have enough people, which we rarely do.
Quite a bit has been written and said about the total workload of a peasants in a year was actually far less than modern people by hours worked per year. It was more seasonal but also you were closer to your labor as well or the means of production. Not to say it was a utopia, or the peasants had it great. the concept of serfdom itself puts it into a different context too but it's interesting to think about. The concept of "Noblesse Oblige" where you could have good apple land masters who had a sense of moral obligation those lessers, I think is basically bunk in my opinion but its the mentality of modern philantropy arguably where billionaires rake it in then spend some on charity with a sense of modern noblige oblige
@@bunsolami Medieval peasants had frequent, mandatory non-working holidays year round. This was to keep up morale and prevent revolts. Most of them were also farmers, which meant they worked only during summer months.
Their overall work hours per year were far, far, far less than what we have today.
Even if they did work from 5.30 am to sundown (which in most cases they were not) - if you factor in a) 1 hour for breakfast, 2) 1 hour for lunch, 3) 1 hour for post-lunch nap (commonplace in hotter areas) you'd still end up with more or less 8 to 12 hours work per day - depending on season.
That's exactly what we have going on now as well, depending on your job(s).
No one's saying that serf and peasants had it better then than the working class has it now. Not at all. But the improvements are due to QoL "updates", not a lessening of exploitation. Quite the contrary, exploitation of the workforce has only been increasing and increasing.
Ah my favorite answer “it depends”
It depends is pretty much life 😅
in history the answer is always “¯\_(ツ)_/¯”
AKA the refrain of Devin Stone, the Legal Eagle.
@@Heliogabalos THIS.
Context!
My mom was an Italian peasant. She ate a piece of bread with vinegar and olive oil and maybe a slice of fruit. The kids ate stale bread with milk. That is where we get the term milk sop.
It’s fascinating how people eat. My background is Italian. I will try this tomorrow morning.
I grew up eating what my family called soppers. It was runny yolk eggs that you sop your toast in. 😋
Maybe the real medieval breakfast was the friends we made along the way
I just nipped back in time and told that joke to a starving peasant. We had a good laugh (just before he croaked)
this comment section got me on the floor 😭
You eat your friends?!?!
Stop it. Get some help. 😒🤦🏻
😂
Looks to me that bread pudding and/or French toast is the modern incarnation of soppes
Indeed. My thought was that this recipe would make a good French toast.
I believe what we call French toast goes back to at least ancient Rome. Max did a video on it a while ago.
As a matter of fact, this dish, Soppes Dorre (Golden Sops), is similar in many ways to the 15th century Italian "French toast" (previously covered on Tasting History) which also used saffron and had basically the same name: Suppa Dorata (Golden Soup/Sippets).
Seems to me Sh+the on a shingle or even biscuits and gravy or sloppy joes are on that list too.
French toast is closer to Poor knights of Windsor.
Let's appreciate that this dish is used to be breakfast of the wealthiest, and today in modern countries almost everyone can afford it. It still not the cheapest choice for breakfast, but if even you're working poor (like I am), you still can try this recipe and even use it monthly or weekly or daily, it depends
And today the bread to poor eat back then is now the expensiv stuff and the rich mans bread is the cheap ones today
Unfortunately, even in some rich countries many children go without a healthy of safe breakfast. I know in the UK there is the National School Breakfast Club Programme, sponsored by the government. It allows disadvantaged or at risk children to have a healthy breakfast before first class & a safe environment. This means that afterwards they can concentrate on their lessons, fuelled for the morning & not feeling hungry.
@@AnniCarlsson I checked local store's page - the cheapest bread is white, yes, but the cheapest dark bread is only 0.10 euro more expensive. And the most expensive one is some really fancy white bread, too (except for gluten-free, of course). I'm from Eastern Europe and what about bread prices in your country?
@@alisaknizhnik2952 remeber to check whats in it becouse just colored dark with molasses is not a dark bread
@@AnniCarlsson wow, never heard about such a thing! Eastern Europe is pretty good at bread, rye flour is common here, even the cheap dark bread has the rye flour at first place in ingredients' list.
So I'm really interested what it looks like in another countries.
Hey @Max Miller, I am an Orthodox Christian and we still fast (food and water) on mornings we receive communion starting midnight the night before. Thanks for the videos!
Sorry for your brainwashed life friend. 😂
This might be my favorite episode so far. I am a huge fan of breakfast food; history; cinnamon flavored things; no dairy breakfast foods; and soup facts in no particular order. This video has it all.
Jantaculum is where we get the word "jentacular" which means "pertaining to breakfast."
Cool!! I have never heard that word before. I'll have to find a way to work it into a conversation today.
Now I live in fear of this word showing up in my crossword puzzles. Cool word though, thanks!
First time seeing that word.
2:10 Love how you kept the old grammar and spoke the modern English! I´m not a native English speaker but to me at least the "old" spelling makes much more sense when speaking! In case it matters, I´m a native Portuguese speaker. Great video!
Max, you should play Pentiment. It's a medieval themed video game. It's pretty short so it's not a huge commitment. I think you might find the historical aspects very interesting!
I’ll look it up!
I’ll second the recommendation of Pentiment. The style is similar to the art in your video. And it is an interesting look into medieval life.
Best historical game I've seen
Pentiment is great! Josh Sawyer is a fantastic game designer
When I spent a summer in France doing archaeology we used to have hot chocolate with baguette dipped in it for breakfast, so not too different. We also used the rebuilt castle stables as our kitchen/dining room with the original medieval cobbles on the ground, so very appropriate. 🙂
When I was little, my Mom would make Milk Toast for breakfast. It was buttered toast on a plate with hot milk poured over it and sprinkled with sugar. You have to eat it before the milk gets cold, and it gets icky 😊 Love your channel and watch every day Max.
It looks delicious... I may opt for one of those new fork things as I hate getting my hands sticky 😉
As I watch eating breakfast: leftover pizza from last night lol
Breakfast sandwich over here, leftover lamb meat and buttered bread roll and cup of tea.
Cold leftover breakfast pizza is almost the best part of ordering pizza.
“Did medieval people eat breakfast?”
My initial thought: If they were lucky.
Exactly
People had food and had appetites, of course they ate food in the morning lmao
@@JenIsHungryno everything before modern America sucked ass and people ate dirt sandwiches
Finally, I've cleared my backlog. Due to how good most of these foods seem, I only watch these videos on the night between saturday & sunday, as that is the night I do most of the cooking. Always a good time.
One of my great grandmothers wrote down what people ate in her day. They were from the Ruthenian (Ukrainian) serf class. The diet remained mostly unchanged for centuries.
Breakfast, if they ate it, was usually millet porridge. Пшоняна каша. Basically, millet baked in milk. Butter could be added. Millet has been used in that region for thousands of years. Meat was rare, so luxuries like salo and chicken were saved for holidays.
I grew up eating oatmeal porridge most days. Same thing, just a different grain. We usually topped it with molasses or jam.
Almond milk appears to be another example of of the Tiffany problem.
I had to look that up, and I'm glad I did! Cool!
THAT IS SO COOL!
The medieval undercurrent to the Tiffanies and their almond milk lattes. 🙂
@@jcortese3300 I'd question the medieval-ness of the coffee part, but I assume we're talking about the "latte" that involves a splash of coffee for colour and no more.
@@1One2Three5Eight13 Maybe an almond milk chai latte. 🙂
I remember breakfasting on what might be called sops in Catalonia in 1959 - yesterday's bread dipped in cafe au lait, hot milk flavoured with a little coffee. Today's bread was delicious; but yesterday's had gone so hard it was otherwise inedible.
How old are you sir?
I used to eat Cap'n Crunch cereal without milk, like popcorn, while watching Saturday cartoons. Ahh, the days of mine ill-spent youth . . .
I've actually never had Cap'n Crunch with milk. Dry out of the box, it was a traditional snack for the tech crew during show week. We also shared a bottle of Dr. Pepper, which in hindsight probably explained why we'd all pass colds to each other.
I love your use of the old style spellings! ❤ And your pronunciations are so precise" ....if you have a blender, now is the time to use it..."
Thank you, Max!
I grew up with a super-Catholic mom and we never ate anything before communion on Sunday morning. Mass, then the donut shop on the way home.
I think this is where brunch came from. I remember everyone going out to breakfast after church.
I love cinnamon toast crunch 😋 I'm glad my ancestors also got to enjoy it in their own way! Awesome video as always thanks Max love you and your channel! I really want to try this!
Reminds me in appearance of Welsh Rarebit. One of my favorite things in the world. Have you covered it? I'd love to see an old early recipe for it.
I feel he has but it might be someone else . I adore welsh rarebit
Question, Mr. Miller. Have the foods you have made and tried altered your diet outside of the show? Do you make some of these dishes just for your enjoyment?
It reminds me of Amish coffee soup. It is fine white bread, poured with warm coffee with lots of milk and sugar and it tastes delicious!
So what I'm learning here is that my dad's strategy of getting our sorry carcasses to church by tempting us with Sunday buffet afterwards has mediaeval precedent?
let's be honest, there are a lot of people who will happily be persuaded by food
whoop whoop....its Tuesday....gotta love Tuesday's....
I just ordered your cookbook. It will be used in homeschooling my daughter. She loves to cook and we look forward to making many of these dishes.
You can see how this would morph into pudding with custard sauce, French toast, biscuits and gravy, and creamed whatever on toast.
I mean really the answer is just yes. They did. It's just breakfast in many cultures and time periods through Medieval and Classical history didn't always look like what WE think of as breakfast, where it's technically considered a major meal of the day. It was just the bread and cheese you crammed down your face before you had to go start getting work done.
14:07, where it talks about 'Chyne of Muton' and 'Chyne of Beif' - this could be a chine rather than a shin. Which is a cut of meat from the neck just above the shoulders, rather than the leg. It's still eaten where I'm originally from and it's packed with herbs - it's called 'Stuffed Chine'.
Awesome! I want a cooking crossover with Townsend's :D
3:47 They definitely have wine at the store where I live
He meant wine in the almond milk
😂I feel a little called out by the timing of this video. A protein shake and 2 strips of bacon is an acceptable breakfast right?
Sounds good to me
Protein shakes are over rated
Not enough bacon.
dw brother I don’t even eat breakfast 🥲
drop the shakes and get some eggs, that a better mate to the bacon make
Reminds me of what my mom used to make for me when i was sick as a little kid. A loaf of bread, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon and then poured warm milk over it
My understanding is that “bacon” (both the belly kind enjoyed in the US and the back kind that was more common historically and the norm in Britain and Canada today) refers to BRINED pork (ie soaked in saltwater to cure it) so “baconed” herring would probably be herring likewise soaked in brine/saltwater?
So is fairly close to milk toast we had as children's back in the 50s but we had no wine and more warm milk with a of sugar. Good whether I'll or healthy.
Hey, Max! I don't know if you'll see this, and it's okay if you don't, I know there's lots of comments :) But I was wondering: is there any way you could drop your sources for some of the medieval art that you depict during the history portion of this video? I adore medieval art and illuminated manuscripts, and I'd love to take another look at these pieces, and others like them!
And if you do see this, I want to say thank you for your friendly presence and high quality work over the years! I'm a long-time viewer, and every Tuesday I get excited thinking about what Tasting History will cover that week. :D Much love to you and yours!
I wouldn’t mind a copy of the fat man from the intro in my kitchen or dining area
@@mrs2691Georg Emanuel Opiz is the painter
@@mrs2691 its The Glutton by Georg Emanuel Opiz
@@paracelsian Thanks. Will have to look into getting a print
Until Vatican II in the 1960s, Roman Catholics were not supposed to eat after midnight the day before taking the holy sacrament at morning mass. Since, in the middle ages, a lot of Catholics went to mass daily, at Lauds (0 dark early) or Prime (first hour of daylight), they broke their fast with Holy Communion, if it was offered, and then went on with their day. Those who were making meals then went on to start preparing the big meal of the day. It might get difficult if one had to wait and fast until after Terce, the third hour of the day to take communion and then eat. Not everyone universally had the opportunity to go morning mass, so it varied by location, say, if one was in a town or city, or if one was out in the rural areas doing remote farm work.
Almonds were a lot easier to store and transport than was fresh milk. If it was the time of year when the cows had gone dry, then stored almonds could be used to make almond milk. Much easier for traveling as well. A bag of almonds was a lot easier to take on a journey than was trying to buy fresh milk in a strange place, or to bring along a cow, a goat, or a sheep for milking.
Yep, was going to post this - growing up in a Catholic country in the early 70s, it had been amended to 'fast an hour before Mass - before receiving the holy sacrament'. Really devout people wouldn't even have a cup of tea (we live in the Mediterranean country which was a British colony so we take our tea with milk) because it contained milk which was seen as a food. Nowadays things are calmer, heh.
@@gwenivercallwhen I was a child in the late 50’s you had to fast from midnight on if you were planning on receiving Communion at morning Mass. Some years later it was changed to 3 hours before Mass. I was a student at a Catholic grade school & vividly remember my mother packing both breakfast & lunch in my lunch box. We had no cafeteria so we ate our meals at our desks. I would eat buttered toast with milk brought in,in cartons. Then a few years later, with Vatican II it was changed to one hour before Communion. Memories♥️
If there was a Tasting History cafe I'd definitely get this for brunch
This channel consistently produces gold; it's no question why you have nearly 3 million subs. You are very thorough in your research as well as the culinary side, but your oration is the best part: the way you get excited about each subject makes me want to hear more :)
"Poudre douce" from French, litterally translate as " Soft powder" the same way that sweet drinks are refered to as "Soft drinks". It still shows up in modern English and French here and there, in English you may say sweety or honey to your girlfriend, in french she would be "ta douce" meaning, "your sweety".
12:05 Disturbed mentioned
I had to scroll forever to find this when it popped up below the video but was buried in the actual comments I hate UA-cam.
Almond milk makes so much sense in a medieval setting. It's not like they can just pop to the store and pick up a gallon of fresh cows milk all year around. Almonds would store so much better (even though fresher is better there as well, of course).
Not at all. Its related to christian fasting days where no animal products where allowed (fish exempted)
But for those that had a milk cow it was there. On the other hand what if you didn't have access to almonds then????
@@RoseStoller-xq7sh A regular cow (not a specially bred modern "milk monster" kept in comfortably heated conditions during winter) does not normaly produce milk all year round.
Almonds could be bought during harvest times and then stored for the dry period.
@@anathema2325 There can be more than one reason to do something.
Almond were common in medieval california, but less in britain
Gotta be the coolest channel I've found yet. Combines two of my favorite things: food and history.
Dried bread in a bowl of milk used to me a home remedy for any gastrointential issues in Germany when I was a kid (: Some would also add spices or sugars, but I preferred it without. Used be kinda crazy about it and also ate it when not sick.
Slakoth is an interesting choice. Escavalier is the first Pokémon that comes to mind when I think of Medieval.
I think Max might be throwing us slow risers a bone with this one. I certainly feel a lot more like Slakoth than Escavalier in the morning.