In Finland and Sweden we basically eat that exact soup or stew to this day without the biscuits. It is a military tradition from Sweden. This stew is usually only eaten on a Thursday and it is served with a large pancake as dessert that is baked in an oven and cut in to squares. Strawberry jam and whipped are served with the pancakes.
My Granddad didn't have refrigeration until the early 1950s. He butchered after frost in the fall. Hams and bacon were kept in the smokehouse and a barrel of salt pork in his unheated bedroom. Desired piece of pork, smoked or salted, was soaked overnight, freshened before cooking by bringing it to just below boiling from cold water, drain, proceed with cooking
Granddad came to Montana in the 1870s. Wound up in the Mission Mountains of western MT. Into his 80s raised and grew most of his food, some for the family and extra to sell or trade for expenses and taxes. And he made yummy pea soup with ham bone.
Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold. Pease porridge in the pot nine days old. That old nursery rhyme makes sense now… thanks for the view into history. 🥰👍👍
My wife is from Russia. She has a traditional curing technique for salmon. Consists of a mixture of salt and sugar. Leaves in frig for 24 hrs. Somehow it pulls moisture and kills bacteria. We eat with cracker or bread and butter.
@@chpet1655 Maybe. But, she learned from her grandmother during the Soviet Union era. Which, at that time was closed off to the outside world. So, surely, the Russians had been doing it this way for many decades or even hundred or more yrs.
I, as a former Soviet citizen, thought this recipe was quite universal. At least here it's regularly posted in culinary magazines as 'Norwegian' or something like that... Because not all Russians have easy access to the fresh salmon, at least those to the left of Ural mountains...
I did a brief backpacking trip a few years ago where I went a bit more rustic and used tarp shelters and slept mostly under the stars. I brought along dried split peas, barley, salted beef (rather than pork), and cubes of dehydrated soup and made something similar on the trail. It was honestly quite good considering how simple and easy it was. I snacked on some bread, cheese, nuts, and dried fruit and for breakfast I had some coffee and boiled oats with a bit of salt. Those would have certainly been a luxury but the experience definitely made me reflect on the past and how people had to brave the wilderness without our modern technology and food preservation. I was only out for a few days and I commend these individuals who did this for weeks on end. They were certainly very tough people.
Very good selection. When I go out a week or more I do a 3 day fast with some zero calorie electrolyte power and the occasional drink of maple sap. Then make a good broth on the 4th day. The energy flow is incredible. I preach biscuits and honey.
When I was a kid, we hit some poor times. My mom would volunteer to cook ham for church gatherings and save the ham bone for bean stew. Or sometimes we could get ham cheap with the bone in. I never liked how salty the ham bone was, so she would soak it for a little bit before cooking it with beans. We ate it for days afterwards. It was stick to your ribs good.
We still make this, family tradition. The bone is better than just ham. Serve it along with some cornbread baked in a preheated, well-oiled cast iron skillet. I would continue to eat this even if I was a billionaire.
Snert does have a bit more vegetables (onion, carrot, celeriac root) in it and instead of the salted pork it used to be made with pig's feet/hamhocks. But I wouldn't be surprised if most of these pea soups and porridges all came from the same need to have a nutritious meal made out of food that kept even in the dead of winter.
I’ve made the salted pork, pickled pork, from your show. I made a Cajun red beans and rice using that salt pork that was over a year old. When I took it out and rinsed it under cold water, it was still red and fresh as the day I packed it in the salt and salt brine.
I'm in awe at their courage, tenacity and sheer grit. They had no Gore-Tex rain gear, Patagonia high-tech boots, down sleeping bags, or lightweight and nutritious freeze-dried food. Their shoes/boots were crude and probably painful when wet. Imagine their pack frames compared to our computer-designed packs of today. Also imagine a portage with a heavy solid wood boat vs our lightweight weight canoes. These dudes were hardy beyond what most of us could ever imagine.
@@Your-Least-Favorite-StrangerGore-Tex and Patagonia are brands. Down is a type of material made from the soft feathers of fowl, usually goose or swan. And a portage is how you transport a boat, usually quite small over a land mass between two bodies of water. Hope this helps.
@@Noahkam_13 First recorded use of down filled sleeping bags was 1892 so def within the realm of possibility a voyageur would use one though still probably not. They would have NEVER dried when wetted.
Those portages would have been BRUTAL. You would have to unload, carry everything over to where you were gonna put back in, then go get the heavy boat, walk it over, and then load it all back up. Really makes you think about how easy we have it now.
Canadian kids learn about the Voyageurs in school. We never learn much about what the life was like. Thanks for shedding light on these men and the lifestyle they commanded.
In Canada the yellow split pea soup with salted/smoked ham is still a common dish! Especially in sugar shacks and in french Canada. Definitely a favorite of mine.
My mother was from Canada. We would have this kind of “soup” as a kid growing up. She always called it “split pea soup”…. Tho she didn’t use that kind of salted pork. But she did use salt. And she used “day old” bread. Today I do something similar, But add onion and shaved carrots.
My mom used to make a split pea soup using ham, and salt pork (Hormel from the stores or whatever the local butcher sold if his price wasn't too bad) . . .brown the salt pork with onions, add water and the ham bone went in for a broth, then later the split peas. I make a Lentil version (not a fan of peas cooked)
One of my ancestors who lived in Montcalm county lived on Bacon Creek. He made his living raising hogs and selling salt pork to the lumber jacks. He also caught large fish in barrel traps which he also salted or smoked and sold them as well. He was a Houghton. Owned land which would be off m-66 today.
I'm so happy that you are covering a little bit of french canadian history! We have so many folks tales about them and they truely lived a life of freedom and adventure! I hope you will cover more of our history and thanks for this video!
I don't know about "freedom." Voyageurs were expected to go for 10-14 hours a day, at 40-60 paddle-strokes per minute, for up to 5 months at a time and along very specific trade routes. It wasn't uncommon to sign a service contract for 2-7 years, and (if they survived) there wasn't particularly good pay waiting at the end. I adore canoeing in the backwoods - but, if I were given a choice between modern jobs and working as a voyageur, I think I'd pick working drive-thru at Tim Horton's.
but that wasn't the choice. farmers can work all year, and have their crops destroyed by storms or insects and have nothing to show for it. owing money for the seed,for the equipment ,the land itself. left destitute hopefully still owning a horse and cart to move the family and what few worldly goods they have left somewhere else to start again. maybe in a factory,or a mine where the chance if injury or death is real and there is no such thing as insurance or worker's comp or welfare. At best you have workhouses. Its a hard life but if you work hard enough and are productive enough you get food and a place to sleep. No luxuries no comfort or variety but your other options are begging or crime. Instead of walled off boxes or holes in the ground you get fresh air,Sunshine, exercise and no manager hanging over your shoulder. You get to travel as well.
Wow. Imagine eating this gloop every day for months. Even if it's tastiest and most nutritious thing in the world, it would get old really fast. Bet those guys foraged, hunted and fished at every opportunity.
Many people have pointed it out, but it's still a very common and emblematic soup that is eaten here in Québec! The salt pork has been replaced with salted lard, and it runs a bit thinner nowadays! With some herbes salées or thyme and some more vegetable, it makes a staple that can be enjoyed every year at sugar shacks across the nation!
Fascinating story about the Voyageurs. First heard about them years ago when I started watching old episodes of shows that the British survivalist Ray Mears did, and he had an episode talking about them. The journeys, the singing they did, what they ate. Amazing.
That looks to me like a hearty meal 😋 Living in Texas with a family whose ancestors were native Texans and Spanish colonists, I learned to boil salt pork with pinto beans as the basis for refried beans. Bacon is an alternative wherever salt pork is difficult to obtain these days.
That looks very close to the modern day Soupe au Pois et Jambon, where the salt pork is replaced with ham and ship biscuits are usually replaced with stale bread or crackers, very good with a bit of maple syrup!
catching up with episodes i missed. my favorite episodes are the ones where you and the big fella are in teh old german kitchen, recreating meals of the era. im a german immigrant to the usa, and grew up relatively poor, so many of the olde recipes are some i grew up with due to their low cost, how much you could stretch your grocery money, and simplicity. i grew up to be a tall and strong man, so the old stuff still works today :)
In the Netherlands we make a very similar soup called 'snert'. It's basically split pea soup with a salty meat bouillon, pork meat, and some winter veg. A smoked sausage is served on the side, along with dense rye bread. Really neat to see how universal the basic staples are!
Looks like ham and pea soup, which is my favourite soup. I make it every couple weeks during the winter. I absolutely love it. I ate a 5 litre crockpot of it in four days. I know oink oink, but man is it good.
In Australia we call it pea and ham soup. Generally made with split peas and boiled bacon hocks. A bit of cracked pepper and some bay leaves for a bit of seasoning.
@@geradkavanagh8240 I live in Australia. I’m American been here nearly 20 years now. First time I came here was 1998 to meet the wife’s family. (Wife’s an Aussie) Habit of doing that to annoy my darling wife. 😉🤷🏼♂️
Basically pea soup, i still make my russian grandfathers recipe every yearv with the leftover hambone from easter, its so good. It also has a few potatoes,carrots and onions plus a lot of pepper.
There is a Canadian company named Habitant (now owned by Campbells) that makes 3 versions of Pea Soup that all look like this. I have so many memories of my mom opening a big yellow can of pea soup with smoked ham for lunch in the winter.
You often say on this channel “could we survive this time period?” and personally I would feel the same as these guys! I would get so bored just farming (or being a farmer’s wife more realistically) my entire life, and despite the challenges I’d really enjoy the exploration and challenge Thanks as always for providing us with a window to the past!
Yesterday I manage to make my first ever batch of Ships Biscuit and they turned out okay. I watched all your videos about them and decided to finally try the easiest thing from this channel. I used wheat flour, sadly it wasn't whole grain flour but average white flour but I followed you to the best of my abilities. A little bit of salt, water and flour, worked that dough good I really pumped my arms and I baked them for 3 hours in about 200C and then left them in heated oven for about extra 30-40 minutes. They have very unique aroma like real biscuits or a cookie but they are very hard (I can't crack mine with wooden bat as easily as you do it in various videos, as a matter of fact I didn't do it even once haha) and taste really good soaked in milk.
This reminds me strongly on "Erbsensuppe" (literally Pea-Soup) in Germany. It was also one of the first standarized military instant rations called "Erbswurst" (literally Pea-Sausage). It is kind of a dried soup which you recook in water. I doubt this is made from Ships-Bisquits today, but a lot of recipes still use salty pork.
@3:10 "Dish they make once a day and then eat off of..." More that no one wanted to start a fire and cook lunch during the heat of the day. Plus you'd have to stop. So in the cool of the morning they would cook this pot of stew with morning breakfast before breaking camp, and have it for lunch, maybe dinner. I still love split-pea soup, or what the Brits call "mushy peas". Great video. Makes me want to go canoe camping !!!
Ärtsoppa/Hernekeitto in Sweden and Finland. Tradition in Finland at least is to eat it every Thursday and that's when they also serve it in schools all around the country. Leftover Christmas ham is very often used to make it. It's fantastic with fresh onion, black pepper and mustard.
Jon, would you ever consider covering the role of the church on the frontier? What would have had been like for the settling clergyman? Thanks for the great content!
Honestly sometimes you just have that itch, to listen to James Townsends soothing voice as he teaches you about the history of the north american frontier!
I cook split peas with ham hocks in my slow cooker every few months. It looks nasty, but it is filling and lasts several meals. I cook enough to freeze so I just have to put it in the microwave for a quick meal. I like to top it with chopped raw onion and/or hot sauce, but I know some people who add a splash of vinegar to theirs.
If memory serves the rations would be salt pork and dried peas as far as Thunder Bay in current day Ontario. This was the western most settlement on the Great Lakes where the larger freight canoes and even sailing ships could still be used. West of Thunder Bay, when they had to switch to smaller (a relative thing is this case as they'd still have 12 men crews) river canoes, they'd rely on pemmican and corn meal from trading with the local tribes. Not all recipes were this simple either. You can Google sagamite soup for more complex recipes.
I grew up with my mom making a very similar dish, without the biscuits (we'd have bread with it) and usually with garlic in it too. I still make it periodically, and yes, I generally make enough that there are lots of leftovers and I'll often eat it cold as a quick something when I don't feel like heating things up. It's tasty, easy, and filling.
In England we still have “ pea and ham soup “ , very similar look and texture .. probably similar taste as well , it’s something I ( and many others ) still love
My mum still makes salt pork, although we don't have the need to do it out of necessity, we do it for flavouring and tenderising the meat, and we only leave it in the salt for 1--5 days, we then wash off the salt, and then soak it for a day and then use it in stews usually with beans and cabbage not peas, but sometimes just boiled with cabbage, carrots and potatoes and smoked meats. The flavour and texture is incredible and makes hearty and tasty food with not much effort. We make these dishes a lot in winter.
I'm in Canada, and I naturally just make stews like this for my own personal enjoyment and stockpiling for later. I'll buy turkey, pork, beef, chicken, etc on sale, cook it up and enjoy it as a roast or etc; and then turn it into a stew having separated all the meat into chewable sizes. Makes it so that what might be a 2 or maybe 3 days worth of food, into instead like a months worth of food. For instance, if I make turkey dinner; the leftovers of all of turkey dinner become turkey stew. All of them. There is no waste. This saves me a lot of money each year, and keeps my fridge and freezer full enough with emergency/convenience meals that I can go without buying groceries for months sometimes. Well, aside from the necessities like coffee. Also as a side note for those who have bad teeth and need dental work done, but can't get it done yet and need to be able to eat without hurting yourself. Stew. Make, stew. It's incredibly nutrient dense if you do it right, and is easy to eat since everything is soft enough for an elderly person without dentures to consume. Soup is also good, but stew is better. Stew is just much more nutrient dense. Which is what you need the most. Never made a stew before? Time to get creative and have fun doing it then. Find some ingredients you like, and see if you can find a recipe for a stew that uses them. If not, time to experiment.
In the Netherlands we eat a similar soup without the biscuits and with some added vegetables. We call it snert (or erwtensoep) and it is absolutely delicious hearty winterfood.
I'd enjoy this, I make medieval pottage on a regular basis during the winter, adding herbs. Perhaps they would find some on the riverbank, if they knew what to look for. It looks delicious as it is though.
There's a cool little commercial from my youth I recall - "Canada Vignettes - Voyageurs". Worth watching. That song they hum can get stuck in your head.
@@BlackMasterRoshi My dad was from Quebec and he always said it's not real pea soup unless a spoon will stand up in it so I always make mine really thick too.
I have eaten this style of soup where I make soup at work. Thank you for your video. I wish humanity felt that during discovering new lands they built not only roads and ways to travel, but also way to travel and live from the land at the same time, for the rest of us. Seems like these workers learned to live off the land from always taking, but never giving back to the land for more workers to do the same. Planting fruits and vegetables after foraging seems like one way we could have saved nature during all this time spent exploring.
My family was very very poor in early 2000s. We live in Russia, and we were receiving a humanitarian aid from USA back then. Usually it was a bag of lentil and a can of oil. So lentil porrige is kind of a taste of childhood for me. And it is very tasty without any spices. Pees are the same, they don't need any spices to be good. So I can imagine the taste of that stew :)
@@northernerfromfaraway мы получили помощь от президента Буша в обмен на вступление в Международный денежный фонд и Всемирный банк. Как вы прекрасно знаете, ВВП на душу населения после падения упал.
@@northernerfromfaraway Thats because there wasn't any 'russian aid from the USA in the 2000s' nor has any US aid anywhere in the world ever consisted of oil and lentils
I remember Campbell's soups from my childhood. Both the bean and split-pea soups were highly ham flavored. It's interesting to see a possible historic context for those flavor choices & why they were popular enough to produce.
Awesome, Voyageurs are an important part of the history of my area of Canada. We even have a festival here every February. Before we had a Loon on our one dollar coin, we had a picture of two Voyagers in a canoe.
This is the kind of channel that is filmed in the summer, and watched in the winter. Nevertheless, I thank you for putting out videos for every season!
The voyageurs were tough. From what I have read, most were of small stature, but wiry. They had to portage 90lb packs of freight and seem to have done it with ease. When I was a teenager, I paddled a 14' Army barge of WWII vintage around a portion of a lake, just about every day in the summer. That thing was heavy! I never did get strong from all that paddling.
As a truck driver I can dig how those men felt yeah we don’t get paid much and yeah we’re under appreciated and yeah it’s a hard lonesome job but I’d rather be doing this then any boring office job because of the sites and the people you meet and the “adventure” if you wanna call it that I’ve seen more in my 8 years of driving then most Americans will see in a life time from purple flower cover mountains of the Rocky’s to sand swept deserts to sunsets over a Montana pasture you’d swear it was a water color painting and much much more
This seems like the predecessor of many pea soup recipes, enjoyed across multiple cultures to this day. This is a great way to make a kind of "Erbsensuppe", when in the backcountry and lacking the luxury of a meaty ham bone.
Pea soup is still a very popular French-Canadian dish to this day. We ate it frequently when I was a child, with or without bacon/ham cubes, and I buy a can once in a while even now. It's delicious ❤
The salt pork reminds me of bacon in apearance. Which makes sense since, bacon is first salted and then smoked. Sometimes it is also boiled before smoking. Pemican reminds me of sasauge, but even dryer and with different flavours (sweet vs. savoury)
Pepper of all kind are more or less universally loved; check out Max Miller from Tasting History's coverage of "Long Pepper" and Grains of Paradise. Love of peppercorns dates back at least as far back as Roman rule
Fantastic video! As always you’ve done a great job painting a vivid picture of life in the wilderness in the 18th century and what life on the rivers and lakes were like. I agree that after a day of hard paddling and navigating this stew would surely taste like the final course of the king’s banquet!
I suspect after paddling all day and burning off 8 - 10,000 calories no one cared what it looked like...they just wanted to fill their bellies! Great job John! Cheers Mike 🇨🇦
@@Toxicpoolofreekingmascul-lj4yd, don't forget to include if they had to portage. If a tree fell across a route from a storm or if there was drought and the depth of the water changed enough so that they'd have to portage. Bateaux were heavy to carry.
@@Toxicpoolofreekingmascul-lj4yd Your response made me laugh...you could be correct as I was just spitballing, but somehow comparing recreational hiking or kayaking, with a crew of 8 - 10 guys in a large canoe loaded down with a few thousand pounds of gear or supplies, "paddling" up stream for 10 - 12 hours a day. Your comparison is a bit laughable...these guys expended maximum energy pretty much all day in some pretty miserable conditions. Cheers
Why not add the brandy too? This reminds me of when my parents used to make split pea soup (almost the same, minus ships biscuit and replacing salt pork with ham) as well as times when my dad would get "country ham" on trips down to Virginia (where he grew up). One time he brought a country ham, which is like a regular ham coated in salt, to a grocery store up here to have it sliced. The manager of the deli wouldn't allow it to go on the machines because "It's got mold" to which my dad replied "That's not mold. It's salt!"
Split pea soup is a traditional winter dish in the Netherlands. You cook it with carrots, pork and root celery, and it is served with dark rye bread and bacon.
In Finland and Sweden we basically eat that exact soup or stew to this day without the biscuits. It is a military tradition from Sweden. This stew is usually only eaten on a Thursday and it is served with a large pancake as dessert that is baked in an oven and cut in to squares. Strawberry jam and whipped are served with the pancakes.
I'm in Östersund right now visiting and had this meal with the pancakes :)
Did not know that & thats interesting, im swedish but not in the military of course.
Interesting fact I had never heard of thanks for sharing, Canadian here…
In the Netherlands, we eat a somewhat similar dish with Frisian rye bread and bacon. Especially in winter.
We do the same in Iceland around mid February, except we use yellow split peas instead of green. There's no biscuit either.
My Granddad didn't have refrigeration until the early 1950s. He butchered after frost in the fall. Hams and bacon were kept in the smokehouse and a barrel of salt pork in his unheated bedroom. Desired piece of pork, smoked or salted, was soaked overnight, freshened before cooking by bringing it to just below boiling from cold water, drain, proceed with cooking
I wish we all still lived like this. "Electricity" has made humanity extinct in real time.
Thats pretty cool to hear about i like stories like yours . Its very interesting
Cool. My grandfather was a sharecropper in Alabama. They couldn't afford ham
Granddad came to Montana in the 1870s. Wound up in the Mission Mountains of western MT. Into his 80s raised and grew most of his food, some for the family and extra to sell or trade for expenses and taxes. And he made yummy pea soup with ham bone.
You know the German word for November was literally "slaughter month".
Peas porridge might look like a humble dish, and it is, but you can eat it hot, eat it cold, heck, eat it from the pot nine days old.
Now off to sleep with you! 😋
Heheh 🖒
😄
My mother told me of that old adage. I always thought it was stupid.
Beat me to the idea
Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold. Pease porridge in the pot nine days old. That old nursery rhyme makes sense now… thanks for the view into history. 🥰👍👍
It didn't make sense to you before this video?
@@justicedemocrat9357 yea, i cook it for days.... always have....
@@justicedemocrat9357not the sharpest shed he is
@@justicedemocrat9357America isn't some 3rd world eurotrash country. We aren't conditioned to eat the same slop 9 days in a row. 9:05
@@orrinsproxton2857 I feel like the concept of perpetual stew isn't really THAT exotic though even if its not de rigeur these days
Smart that they included peas. They are rich in vitamin C and calorie dense.
Did they knew this or from trial and error
This dish is similar to Mexican refried beans but without the biscuits and pork meat. But instead it’s lard and pinto beans
My wife is from Russia. She has a traditional curing technique for salmon. Consists of a mixture of salt and sugar. Leaves in frig for 24 hrs. Somehow it pulls moisture and kills bacteria. We eat with cracker or bread and butter.
I have made 'gravd lax' which is a similar cure but with dill leaves added.
@@jamesellsworth9673 Yep, my wife is from Khabarovsk and does this as well. I absolutely love it.
It’s a common way to do that kind of fish through most of Europe
@@chpet1655 Maybe. But, she learned from her grandmother during the Soviet Union era. Which, at that time was closed off to the outside world. So, surely, the Russians had been doing it this way for many decades or even hundred or more yrs.
I, as a former Soviet citizen, thought this recipe was quite universal. At least here it's regularly posted in culinary magazines as 'Norwegian' or something like that... Because not all Russians have easy access to the fresh salmon, at least those to the left of Ural mountains...
Here in Finland we have every thursday dedicated to peasoup.
Same here in Sweden, perfect with mustard and some dried thyme.
@@syndac7140 had to make immediately some ärtsoppa yesterday after the vid:D
I did a brief backpacking trip a few years ago where I went a bit more rustic and used tarp shelters and slept mostly under the stars. I brought along dried split peas, barley, salted beef (rather than pork), and cubes of dehydrated soup and made something similar on the trail. It was honestly quite good considering how simple and easy it was. I snacked on some bread, cheese, nuts, and dried fruit and for breakfast I had some coffee and boiled oats with a bit of salt. Those would have certainly been a luxury but the experience definitely made me reflect on the past and how people had to brave the wilderness without our modern technology and food preservation. I was only out for a few days and I commend these individuals who did this for weeks on end. They were certainly very tough people.
Very good selection. When I go out a week or more I do a 3 day fast with some zero calorie electrolyte power and the occasional drink of maple sap. Then make a good broth on the 4th day. The energy flow is incredible. I preach biscuits and honey.
When I was a kid, we hit some poor times. My mom would volunteer to cook ham for church gatherings and save the ham bone for bean stew. Or sometimes we could get ham cheap with the bone in. I never liked how salty the ham bone was, so she would soak it for a little bit before cooking it with beans. We ate it for days afterwards. It was stick to your ribs good.
☺️
That was good eats man! ❤
Why were you poor? Was your dad an alcoholic or was your mom too lazy to get a job?
We still make this, family tradition. The bone is better than just ham. Serve it along with some cornbread baked in a preheated, well-oiled cast iron skillet. I would continue to eat this even if I was a billionaire.
Yum! A splash of vinegar does not alter the taste and helps make calcium from the bone more available nutritionally
The Voyageurs called a life saving provision food.
In the Netherlands, we call in "Snert" and I think it's awesome.
Snert does have a bit more vegetables (onion, carrot, celeriac root) in it and instead of the salted pork it used to be made with pig's feet/hamhocks. But I wouldn't be surprised if most of these pea soups and porridges all came from the same need to have a nutritious meal made out of food that kept even in the dead of winter.
I’ve made the salted pork, pickled pork, from your show. I made a Cajun red beans and rice using that salt pork that was over a year old. When I took it out and rinsed it under cold water, it was still red and fresh as the day I packed it in the salt and salt brine.
I'm in awe at their courage, tenacity and sheer grit. They had no Gore-Tex rain gear, Patagonia high-tech boots, down sleeping bags, or lightweight and nutritious freeze-dried food. Their shoes/boots were crude and probably painful when wet. Imagine their pack frames compared to our computer-designed packs of today. Also imagine a portage with a heavy solid wood boat vs our lightweight weight canoes. These dudes were hardy beyond what most of us could ever imagine.
im trying to figure out what half of those things you listed are.
@@Your-Least-Favorite-StrangerGore-Tex and Patagonia are brands. Down is a type of material made from the soft feathers of fowl, usually goose or swan. And a portage is how you transport a boat, usually quite small over a land mass between two bodies of water. Hope this helps.
@@Noahkam_13 First recorded use of down filled sleeping bags was 1892 so def within the realm of possibility a voyageur would use one though still probably not. They would have NEVER dried when wetted.
Those portages would have been BRUTAL. You would have to unload, carry everything over to where you were gonna put back in, then go get the heavy boat, walk it over, and then load it all back up. Really makes you think about how easy we have it now.
I've been conditioned by Max Miller. I was waiting for the clacking scene when you were talking about the ships biscuits
Canadian kids learn about the Voyageurs in school. We never learn much about what the life was like. Thanks for shedding light on these men and the lifestyle they commanded.
In Canada the yellow split pea soup with salted/smoked ham is still a common dish! Especially in sugar shacks and in french Canada. Definitely a favorite of mine.
My mother was from Canada.
We would have this kind of “soup” as a kid growing up.
She always called it “split pea soup”….
Tho she didn’t use that kind of salted pork.
But she did use salt.
And she used “day old” bread.
Today I do something similar,
But add onion and shaved carrots.
My mom used to make a split pea soup using ham, and salt pork (Hormel from the stores or whatever the local butcher sold if his price wasn't too bad) . . .brown the salt pork with onions, add water and the ham bone went in for a broth, then later the split peas. I make a Lentil version (not a fan of peas cooked)
@@jpkalishek4586 Yea "country ham" used to be super cheap and would make a huge amount of beans taste like meat
One of my ancestors who lived in Montcalm county lived on Bacon Creek. He made his living raising hogs and selling salt pork to the lumber jacks. He also caught large fish in barrel traps which he also salted or smoked and sold them as well. He was a Houghton. Owned land which would be off m-66 today.
I'm so happy that you are covering a little bit of french canadian history! We have so many folks tales about them and they truely lived a life of freedom and adventure! I hope you will cover more of our history and thanks for this video!
I don't know about "freedom." Voyageurs were expected to go for 10-14 hours a day, at 40-60 paddle-strokes per minute, for up to 5 months at a time and along very specific trade routes. It wasn't uncommon to sign a service contract for 2-7 years, and (if they survived) there wasn't particularly good pay waiting at the end. I adore canoeing in the backwoods - but, if I were given a choice between modern jobs and working as a voyageur, I think I'd pick working drive-thru at Tim Horton's.
but that wasn't the choice. farmers can work all year, and have their crops destroyed by storms or insects and have nothing to show for it. owing money for the seed,for the equipment ,the land itself. left destitute hopefully still owning a horse and cart to move the family and what few worldly goods they have left somewhere else to start again. maybe in a factory,or a mine where the chance if injury or death is real and there is no such thing as insurance or worker's comp or welfare. At best you have workhouses. Its a hard life but if you work hard enough and are productive enough you get food and a place to sleep. No luxuries no comfort or variety but your other options are begging or crime.
Instead of walled off boxes or holes in the ground you get fresh air,Sunshine, exercise and no manager hanging over your shoulder. You get to travel as well.
Wow. Imagine eating this gloop every day for months. Even if it's tastiest and most nutritious thing in the world, it would get old really fast. Bet those guys foraged, hunted and fished at every opportunity.
They would be forced to do that at every opportunity just to extend their supplies, not even taking boredom into account.
I wonder how much time was spent off-course though. Time spent hunting could be time spent traveling
Pea soup is really good. If you have to eat only 1 thing every day it's not the worst.
@@iunnox666 especially if the alternative is nothing
@@ForestGrampswouldn't be surprised if some opportunism came in, "hey look a deer, let's shoot it from the boat and take it with us"
I could listen to Mr. Townsend all day! What an amazing, informative channel!
Many people have pointed it out, but it's still a very common and emblematic soup that is eaten here in Québec! The salt pork has been replaced with salted lard, and it runs a bit thinner nowadays!
With some herbes salées or thyme and some more vegetable, it makes a staple that can be enjoyed every year at sugar shacks across the nation!
Yes, sir! One of my favorites.
Fascinating story about the Voyageurs. First heard about them years ago when I started watching old episodes of shows that the British survivalist Ray Mears did, and he had an episode talking about them. The journeys, the singing they did, what they ate. Amazing.
Yes just in time for a new video. Thanks again for making our history so interesting to learn about!
That looks to me like a hearty meal 😋
Living in Texas with a family whose ancestors were native Texans and Spanish colonists, I learned to boil salt pork with pinto beans as the basis for refried beans. Bacon is an alternative wherever salt pork is difficult to obtain these days.
That looks very close to the modern day Soupe au Pois et Jambon, where the salt pork is replaced with ham and ship biscuits are usually replaced with stale bread or crackers, very good with a bit of maple syrup!
Pea soup with ham is still a classic French Canadian dish - minus ships biscuits!
catching up with episodes i missed. my favorite episodes are the ones where you and the big fella are in teh old german kitchen, recreating meals of the era. im a german immigrant to the usa, and grew up relatively poor, so many of the olde recipes are some i grew up with due to their low cost, how much you could stretch your grocery money, and simplicity. i grew up to be a tall and strong man, so the old stuff still works today :)
Our house is a few blocks away from the location of the French fort “Le Boeuf “ along one of the trade routes between Canada and Pittsburgh.
In the Netherlands we make a very similar soup called 'snert'. It's basically split pea soup with a salty meat bouillon, pork meat, and some winter veg. A smoked sausage is served on the side, along with dense rye bread. Really neat to see how universal the basic staples are!
Looks like ham and pea soup, which is my favourite soup. I make it every couple weeks during the winter. I absolutely love it. I ate a 5 litre crockpot of it in four days. I know oink oink, but man is it good.
In Australia we call it pea and ham soup. Generally made with split peas and boiled bacon hocks. A bit of cracked pepper and some bay leaves for a bit of seasoning.
@@geradkavanagh8240 I live in Australia. I’m American been here nearly 20 years now. First time I came here was 1998 to meet the wife’s family. (Wife’s an Aussie) Habit of doing that to annoy my darling wife. 😉🤷🏼♂️
Basically pea soup, i still make my russian grandfathers recipe every yearv with the leftover hambone from easter, its so good. It also has a few potatoes,carrots and onions plus a lot of pepper.
Salt Pork Stew sounds really good especially when you are out camping
Thank You.🇺🇲👋🇺🇲
Heres a tip: Put a little bit of mustard in when served. Gives it a really nice kick.
Can I vote for Jon to record a "Hardtack **clack clack**" clip for Tasting History to use? All this talk of hard tack haha
Would like to see him and Townsend do a collab
There is a Canadian company named Habitant (now owned by Campbells) that makes 3 versions of Pea Soup that all look like this. I have so many memories of my mom opening a big yellow can of pea soup with smoked ham for lunch in the winter.
You often say on this channel “could we survive this time period?” and personally I would feel the same as these guys!
I would get so bored just farming (or being a farmer’s wife more realistically) my entire life, and despite the challenges I’d really enjoy the exploration and challenge
Thanks as always for providing us with a window to the past!
Stick to being a famer's wife you would definitely get graped out in the wild.
Ship's biscuits! TAK TAK!
Max approves!
I recall reading Thoreau's account of his travels in Maine, raw salt pork was definitely on the menu!
CSB: In my hometown we have an annual Festival Du Voyageur. It takes place in the St.Boniface part of Winnipeg.
Always good to see videos like yours to clear out the gunk in my brain from watching politics. Good old Potage.
Without the biscuits, that just seems like a really good split pea soup. Would eat any day.
Exactly what I was thinking... yum!
Gluten intolerant people take note.
That's what I was thinking
Your work is so well researched and the videos well executed. You give a glimpse into another era that is startlingly clear.
Well done!
Yesterday I manage to make my first ever batch of Ships Biscuit and they turned out okay. I watched all your videos about them and decided to finally try the easiest thing from this channel. I used wheat flour, sadly it wasn't whole grain flour but average white flour but I followed you to the best of my abilities. A little bit of salt, water and flour, worked that dough good I really pumped my arms and I baked them for 3 hours in about 200C and then left them in heated oven for about extra 30-40 minutes. They have very unique aroma like real biscuits or a cookie but they are very hard (I can't crack mine with wooden bat as easily as you do it in various videos, as a matter of fact I didn't do it even once haha) and taste really good soaked in milk.
This reminds me strongly on "Erbsensuppe" (literally Pea-Soup) in Germany. It was also one of the first standarized military instant rations called "Erbswurst" (literally Pea-Sausage). It is kind of a dried soup which you recook in water.
I doubt this is made from Ships-Bisquits today, but a lot of recipes still use salty pork.
Exploring new places is what really grabbed them. Trading, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but you always saw new places.
@3:10 "Dish they make once a day and then eat off of..."
More that no one wanted to start a fire and cook lunch during the heat of the day. Plus you'd have to stop. So in the cool of the morning they would cook this pot of stew with morning breakfast before breaking camp, and have it for lunch, maybe dinner.
I still love split-pea soup, or what the Brits call "mushy peas".
Great video. Makes me want to go canoe camping !!!
Uhh...split pea soup is completely different to mushy peas wtf are you babbling about?
@@justicedemocrat9357 Take your pills.
Ärtsoppa/Hernekeitto in Sweden and Finland. Tradition in Finland at least is to eat it every Thursday and that's when they also serve it in schools all around the country. Leftover Christmas ham is very often used to make it. It's fantastic with fresh onion, black pepper and mustard.
Jon, would you ever consider covering the role of the church on the frontier? What would have had been like for the settling clergyman? Thanks for the great content!
Honestly sometimes you just have that itch, to listen to James Townsends soothing voice as he teaches you about the history of the north american frontier!
His name is Jon, James was his dad
I like that a lot of travel food from this period is the “4 food groups” from the Atlantis movie: Beans, bacon, whiskey, and lard
Thank you for covering some of our Quebec history. The Voyageurs and the first men were so tenacious. Truly incredible.
0:46 jacked boatman
Wow, that’s the ancestor to Québec’s “soupe aux pois”! It’s literally made of split peas and salted lard!
I cook split peas with ham hocks in my slow cooker every few months. It looks nasty, but it is filling and lasts several meals. I cook enough to freeze so I just have to put it in the microwave for a quick meal. I like to top it with chopped raw onion and/or hot sauce, but I know some people who add a splash of vinegar to theirs.
If memory serves the rations would be salt pork and dried peas as far as Thunder Bay in current day Ontario. This was the western most settlement on the Great Lakes where the larger freight canoes and even sailing ships could still be used. West of Thunder Bay, when they had to switch to smaller (a relative thing is this case as they'd still have 12 men crews) river canoes, they'd rely on pemmican and corn meal from trading with the local tribes. Not all recipes were this simple either. You can Google sagamite soup for more complex recipes.
I grew up with my mom making a very similar dish, without the biscuits (we'd have bread with it) and usually with garlic in it too. I still make it periodically, and yes, I generally make enough that there are lots of leftovers and I'll often eat it cold as a quick something when I don't feel like heating things up. It's tasty, easy, and filling.
I have been eating something similar to this for the past 4 years, mainly due to budget, but even after 4 years i still look forward to it.
In England we still have “ pea and ham soup “ , very similar look and texture .. probably similar taste as well , it’s something I ( and many others ) still love
That looks like a good thick split pea soup. When my mother made split pea soup, you could stand a spoon in it after it cooled. So good!
Watching from Quebec!
Kind of looks like the origins of pea soup! Or would explain why many love it here.
My mum still makes salt pork, although we don't have the need to do it out of necessity, we do it for flavouring and tenderising the meat, and we only leave it in the salt for 1--5 days, we then wash off the salt, and then soak it for a day and then use it in stews usually with beans and cabbage not peas, but sometimes just boiled with cabbage, carrots and potatoes and smoked meats. The flavour and texture is incredible and makes hearty and tasty food with not much effort. We make these dishes a lot in winter.
I'm in Canada, and I naturally just make stews like this for my own personal enjoyment and stockpiling for later. I'll buy turkey, pork, beef, chicken, etc on sale, cook it up and enjoy it as a roast or etc; and then turn it into a stew having separated all the meat into chewable sizes.
Makes it so that what might be a 2 or maybe 3 days worth of food, into instead like a months worth of food.
For instance, if I make turkey dinner; the leftovers of all of turkey dinner become turkey stew. All of them. There is no waste.
This saves me a lot of money each year, and keeps my fridge and freezer full enough with emergency/convenience meals that I can go without buying groceries for months sometimes. Well, aside from the necessities like coffee.
Also as a side note for those who have bad teeth and need dental work done, but can't get it done yet and need to be able to eat without hurting yourself.
Stew. Make, stew. It's incredibly nutrient dense if you do it right, and is easy to eat since everything is soft enough for an elderly person without dentures to consume. Soup is also good, but stew is better. Stew is just much more nutrient dense. Which is what you need the most.
Never made a stew before? Time to get creative and have fun doing it then. Find some ingredients you like, and see if you can find a recipe for a stew that uses them. If not, time to experiment.
In the Netherlands we eat a similar soup without the biscuits and with some added vegetables. We call it snert (or erwtensoep) and it is absolutely delicious hearty winterfood.
I love how I can almost always read Dutch despite being Danish. "Ertwensoep" is "pea soup" in English or "ærte suppe" in Danish.
Good morning. Happy Sunday morning everyone. ☕️
To you as well friend!
Mornin, nice day for fishin.
☕️. Good morning 🌞
Now I have to go and make some split pea and ham for myself! Had it regularly as a kid and it was one of my favorites.
I'd enjoy this, I make medieval pottage on a regular basis during the winter, adding herbs. Perhaps they would find some on the riverbank, if they knew what to look for. It looks delicious as it is though.
The voyagers were known to make the runs all the way from Montreal to the Alberta foothills so well past 1000 miles.
Thank you for honoring our heritage
How interesting that exactly this dish has become one of the signature winter dishes in the Netherlands
There's a cool little commercial from my youth I recall - "Canada Vignettes - Voyageurs". Worth watching. That song they hum can get stuck in your head.
Isn't this along the lines of a very thick split pea and ham soup? People still eat that today but it's usually a bit runnier/thinner.
yea I was thinking mmm pea soup. I make mine really thick, my dad complains lol 😂
@@BlackMasterRoshi My dad was from Quebec and he always said it's not real pea soup unless a spoon will stand up in it so I always make mine really thick too.
A bit thinner is exactly right. People who like a thin pea soup need a good keelhauling.
Split pea soup totally agree first thing went through my head
@@Komatik_Dang 😅😅😅
I have eaten this style of soup where I make soup at work. Thank you for your video. I wish humanity felt that during discovering new lands they built not only roads and ways to travel, but also way to travel and live from the land at the same time, for the rest of us. Seems like these workers learned to live off the land from always taking, but never giving back to the land for more workers to do the same. Planting fruits and vegetables after foraging seems like one way we could have saved nature during all this time spent exploring.
Would be nice if humanity didn't see the land and inhabitants as something to be conquered and exploited. Gotta love humans!
Ah, snert! Or, pea-soup, as we call it in the Netherlands. Lovely thick soup for a cold winterday.
My family was very very poor in early 2000s. We live in Russia, and we were receiving a humanitarian aid from USA back then. Usually it was a bag of lentil and a can of oil. So lentil porrige is kind of a taste of childhood for me. And it is very tasty without any spices. Pees are the same, they don't need any spices to be good. So I can imagine the taste of that stew :)
yes! to have this kind of meal, clean water, guaranteed every day is quite the luxury
Live in Russia all my life from 1986 and never heard about any aid from USA. Where did you live?
@@northernerfromfaraway Omsk. Consider yourself lucky if you never heard about that :) My family was at the bottom.
You can find it in Google.
@@northernerfromfaraway мы получили помощь от президента Буша в обмен на вступление в Международный денежный фонд и Всемирный банк. Как вы прекрасно знаете, ВВП на душу населения после падения упал.
@@northernerfromfaraway Thats because there wasn't any 'russian aid from the USA in the 2000s' nor has any US aid anywhere in the world ever consisted of oil and lentils
I remember Campbell's soups from my childhood. Both the bean and split-pea soups were highly ham flavored. It's interesting to see a possible historic context for those flavor choices & why they were popular enough to produce.
Great video Jon, really enjoyed all the filming of the camp settings and river boating and the food coverage as well. Awesome job. Fred.
I made some salt pork using his recipe a few years ago. Looks like I need to make up another batch this fall.
Awesome, Voyageurs are an important part of the history of my area of Canada. We even have a festival here every February. Before we had a Loon on our one dollar coin, we had a picture of two Voyagers in a canoe.
Merci beaucoup for pronouncing Québec the right way! Amazing video!
Funny kid
This is the kind of channel that is filmed in the summer, and watched in the winter. Nevertheless, I thank you for putting out videos for every season!
Pea soup is absolutely a family favourite. Love it
The voyageurs were tough. From what I have read, most were of small stature, but wiry. They had to portage 90lb packs of freight and seem to have done it with ease.
When I was a teenager, I paddled a 14' Army barge of WWII vintage around a portion of a lake, just about every day in the summer. That thing was heavy! I never did get strong from all that paddling.
As a truck driver I can dig how those men felt yeah we don’t get paid much and yeah we’re under appreciated and yeah it’s a hard lonesome job but I’d rather be doing this then any boring office job because of the sites and the people you meet and the “adventure” if you wanna call it that I’ve seen more in my 8 years of driving then most Americans will see in a life time from purple flower cover mountains of the Rocky’s to sand swept deserts to sunsets over a Montana pasture you’d swear it was a water color painting and much much more
This seems like the predecessor of many pea soup recipes, enjoyed across multiple cultures to this day. This is a great way to make a kind of "Erbsensuppe", when in the backcountry and lacking the luxury of a meaty ham bone.
Pea soup is something I haven't had in decades, but cherish from my childhood.
awesome description - i imagine they were also fishing for supplemental food
John's clothing, especially his hat, is giving Pasquinel from Centennial vibes.
Amazing film
It's a great movie, john really does look like him!
Video delivered, as promised 🙌 thanks!
These are my ancestors. They also traded with the native peoples and got lots of help from them.
Pea soup is still a very popular French-Canadian dish to this day. We ate it frequently when I was a child, with or without bacon/ham cubes, and I buy a can once in a while even now. It's delicious ❤
Hello Jon and Co! Good morning everyone😊
it looks pretty much exactly like the nordic pea soup wich we still eat every thursday with some pancakes for dessert.
The salt pork reminds me of bacon in apearance. Which makes sense since, bacon is first salted and then smoked. Sometimes it is also boiled before smoking.
Pemican reminds me of sasauge, but even dryer and with different flavours (sweet vs. savoury)
I eat split pea and ham soup that looks similar, a bit more liquid and no biscuits, but basically the same thing.
Makes me want to find a chippy and get myself some mushy peas! I wonder if any Canadians also used to pepper their peas like we do today in the UK.
Pepper of all kind are more or less universally loved; check out Max Miller from Tasting History's coverage of "Long Pepper" and Grains of Paradise. Love of peppercorns dates back at least as far back as Roman rule
Another great video, by one of my favorite yt channels, thanks again.
Fantastic video! As always you’ve done a great job painting a vivid picture of life in the wilderness in the 18th century and what life on the rivers and lakes were like. I agree that after a day of hard paddling and navigating this stew would surely taste like the final course of the king’s banquet!
I suspect after paddling all day and burning off 8 - 10,000 calories no one cared what it looked like...they just wanted to fill their bellies!
Great job John!
Cheers
Mike 🇨🇦
@@Toxicpoolofreekingmascul-lj4yd, don't forget to include if they had to portage. If a tree fell across a route from a storm or if there was drought and the depth of the water changed enough so that they'd have to portage. Bateaux were heavy to carry.
@@Toxicpoolofreekingmascul-lj4yd Your response made me laugh...you could be correct as I was just spitballing, but somehow comparing recreational hiking or kayaking, with a crew of 8 - 10 guys in a large canoe loaded down with a few thousand pounds of gear or supplies, "paddling" up stream for 10 - 12 hours a day. Your comparison is a bit laughable...these guys expended maximum energy pretty much all day in some pretty miserable conditions.
Cheers
Why not add the brandy too?
This reminds me of when my parents used to make split pea soup (almost the same, minus ships biscuit and replacing salt pork with ham) as well as times when my dad would get "country ham" on trips down to Virginia (where he grew up). One time he brought a country ham, which is like a regular ham coated in salt, to a grocery store up here to have it sliced. The manager of the deli wouldn't allow it to go on the machines because "It's got mold" to which my dad replied "That's not mold. It's salt!"
In our family there was a saying "Pea soup and Johnny Cake will make a Frenchman's belly ache"
Meme was from Magog, Quebec
Love this guys channel 👍👍👍
Split pea soup is a traditional winter dish in the Netherlands. You cook it with carrots, pork and root celery, and it is served with dark rye bread and bacon.