My guess is that "rolling the butter into the dough" is lamination like you do to make puff pastry. When you boil them before you bake them it keeps them from puffing up but still gives them a flaky texture. Boiling them also probably keeps them being more like flat crackers than Pita Chips. Since hot chocolate back then was a very sweet rich beverage, it might be nice to nibble a dry salty cracker for contrast rather than a richer sweet cookie that balances the astringency of tea. This is an instance when the benefit of a 20th century pasta roller makes life much easier. put that ravioli cutter on there and you are ready to go.
it's funny he says by being similar to pita chips they have a modern spin.. like yeah those are trendy now bit I think people were regularly eating pita chips and other unleavened crackers for dozens of centuries before this XD
@@miketype1each It's interesting to see how they cooked at that time, what recipes were used and the equipment that was available, but as long as I can get saltines for less than a buck per box I'd rather buy them than bake them.
This brings me back, when I was young our village had an old retired baker, in the summer he would get up early in the weekends and bake in his big earthenoven. Somehow he always had a lot of leftover dought that he made into snacks of all kinds for the kids who came to help him. And oh boy did we go, got up with my buddies early and went to bake. may he keep the ovens hot whereever he is.
Isn't it odd how grandmothers and retired bakers somehow lose the ability to figure out much dough they need and always have so much left over that they need to use up by turning it into snacks for the kids? Amazing.
@@StandTallTx Good point. Probably some merit to that. When you get to be 67 you WILL experiance your answer. In past decades growing up (1960's - 70's) it was not at all uncommon to show kindness, thoughtfulness, appreciation and gratitude w baked goods. It simply doesn't happen anymore and there's the risk of liability. I took baked goods to a neighbor man about 4 years ago. From my standpoint it was nothing more than heart felt gratitude for snow blowing my sidewalk multiple times. I have 2 lung diseases. He was removing snow down the entire sidewalk. I thought to myself "Wonderful Random Acts of Kindness. Wonder if any other neighbors have said thanks." I TOLD him it was an old fashion thankyou. He NEVER removed snow again. Some young guy laughed when I told him the story "Man, he probably thought you were some old cougar hitting on him or he was married." It was such a disheartening experiance for me both ways- first the neighbor man then the young guys commentary.
My mother (born 1932, Australia) used to tell me about how her grandmother would make cracknells...boiled then baked. The shape was a boat shape created by pinching. Then her grandmother would keep them in a large jar, layered between sheets of kitchen paper. They would be served with soup, or as a snack with a bit of butter put into the cavity of the boat shape.
If you ever encounter skim milk without added milk solids you will discover that it is, indeed, rather blue and slightly transparent, especially when it's in very small amounts, such as just one swallow left in the bottom of a glass tumbler. Commercial dairies now add those aforementioned "milk solids" to their skim milk to make it look more appetising and feel "richer" in your mouth. That practice also makes it higher in protein, so the dairy can claim it's more nutritious. Most people now have never drunk real skimmed or separated milk. The nickname I've always heard for it is "blue john," and that term is often used in a derogatory way.
@@bunnyslippers191 As Ron Swanson from Parks & Recreation says, "There's only one thing I hate more than lying: skim milk, which is water that's lying about being milk."
Mom used to take scrap pie crust dough and cut into strips, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and butter, and bake them as a treat for my siblings and me. Very much like cinnamon crackers.
.my grandmother would do the same. As kids, we would wait anxiously for there to be extra dough for us after she finished filling the pie tins with dough😇😄
Dad was as excited about the cinnamon/sugar/butter baked pie dough scraps as we kids. Wonder if there are any kids out there who never experienced the joy of baked pie dough scraps? I also wonder if they have a formal name?
@@Nexy9 Mr toothpaste may not understand the concept of the amount of work that goes into that coat. Its not a knock off halloween costume. It's a legit coat of the era with all the stitching and buttons and what not. I'd say try sewing one and then see if you think the same.
@@Nexy9 1st of I have no idea what this comment does underneath a nutmeg joke. 2nd: If almost 500,- $ is too much for you, why not get the costume version for 185,- $ ? Looks pretty much the same but is not as much of the real thing as the expensive version. I’m really disappointed by how shallow your look at the catalogue is, before you post this kind of public crizicism … what is wrong with you?
Here's some good news, if a recipe calls for a glass of wine, or a bottle of beer, you will get the best results if you double the booze in the recipe. One for the dish, one for the cook. Its an old trick, but it does wonders for ones cooking.
@@alisaurus4224 I have no idea! Even though I was an English major and taught high school English for over 25 years, I never read the Anne of Green Gables books.
Re “blue milk”… I remember as a kid when we brought in the milk from having milked our ‘one’ cow… that in the spring/summer the milk/cream was much richer in quality + colour (more yellow) as the cow would be eating fresh green pasture grass. But in the winter time… when the cow would be eating mostly ‘hay’ there was an obvious difference in it’s richness, thus colour. I find these sometimes subtle changes between seasons are quite fascinating. Winter milk… more blue. The same was true of the colour of the butter. Paler in winter. Rich yellow in summer. I used to churn it. 😌
Crackers and chocolate definitely work - I have a relative who, for the winter holidays, melts chocolate over crackers, adding some bits of peppermints on top, and lets them cool down. She refers to this combo as "disappearing crunch bars", because they keep on disappearing quickly.
It's funny that the recipe calls it blue milk, that's what my family always called skim milk. My grandma's parents owned a dairy back in the depression, and they sold skim milk under the name blue milk. They would drain the skim milk from the bottom of the separation tank till only an inch or two was left. Then they would skim off the cream, also leaving about an inch or two. What was left they sold as half & half.
I guess it makes sense to call it blue milk since it's basically raw milk. People who cook steaks to basically Raw call them Blue Steaks, so I guess that checks out.
@@pennyforyourthots funny, that's the way I eat MY steak, but I've never heard it CALLED that before. I've just always called it extra rare. But maybe they DO have a similar origin, who knows.🤷
I mean, if you consume enough at once, it's psychoactive. It just happens to also be quite toxic at that level of dosage so I wouldn't recommend it (second hand info vs first hand, I know people who have done it intentionally but I was never dumb enough to replicate).
Rolling butter into the dough will achieve a different texture. If the recipe requires you to roll in, and fold, then you end up with a palmier, or croissant like layers. (That's like expert level baking). You have be working in a cooler environment, or with ice, and work on a cold marble slab to get a palmier, otherwise the butter and flour creates a different structure. You would be really amazed at the combinations of results that are achieved from using a different kinds of flour, and yeast in cooler or warmer temperatures, or the kind of water that was used... (IE Stream, well, pond...) In Germany, the beer is made with 4 basic ingredients, and thousands of German breweries manage to produce beers that are all different in taste from each other. It's sort of the same way with baking. (IE; Why San Fransisco has the best sourdough). The flour that was used in the 18th century was also unbleached and filled with other-than-wheat flours, much like today where you find a percentage of rye, milo, barley, oats... Whole wheat was sometimes a premium commodity, since the planting and harvesting of wheat was performed by hand. Sugar was also a commodity. It's what fueled slavery in the early Americas. Anyway, thought I would post this for FYI. Most of my comments fall on dead ears here, but it's once in a blue moon that I post...
@@lyra2112 Of course! You might discover you need to add something to your grocery list because you get inspired to cook whatever is featured in the video!
I think you're right about the"blue milk" my dad always called fully slimed milk "Blue John". He was 93 when he died in 2016. He had a lot of old sayings like this. Your shows are so appreciated.
@@beth12svist I'm so glad someone else has noticed that store bought garlic is getting less and less garlicky. It's like that "Elephant garlic" that was so popular a few years ago. The cloves, and the entire bulb, for that matter, were huge, but had practically no garlic taste in them! I mean, why bother with it if it's not going to put any garlic flavor into what you are cooking? I want my garlic to taste like garlic!
lol Mark Hamill has said that the blue milk tasted gross because it was a shelf-stable dry milk but that he actually liked the green milk because it was basically coconut milk.
That recipe is exactly the sort of recipe I'm looking for! My doctor told me I have to cut back on industrialised things and try to make everything I can at home because of my gastritis, so this is a perfect recipe to bake a bunch at once and have enough for breakfast and snacks for weeks!
The timing of this video was perfect for me. Watching this while snacking on cheese & crackers. Had to get dental work, so this is my first crunchy food in 3 1/2 weeks.
I use my sourdough starter, when I feed it without making bread, to make an awesome cracker. Take the extra starter, add salt & herbs, add flour to make a nice rollable dough, roll out SUPER thin on a sheet of parchment, use a pizza roller to cut into crackers (the dough will be too thin to to transfer), put the sheet of parchment on a pan and bake until toasted. These rarely make it to the totally-cooled state before they're all eaten.....
I appreciate that this channel still goes through the full history of things. Some other channels have sold out and stopped doing the history and publish UA-cam shorts just for clicks. Thanks for keeping it real Townsends.
If it hasn't already been stated, cooking the dough in boil liquid would be called "water crackers". They can be purchased as a specialty product in most big box stores.
Another informative and entertaining video - If my schedule offers some spare time, I’ll definitely take a dip into this recipe. Many thanks to Jon and his superb, hard-working team!
Blue milk could be a reference to UK milk, as milk in england is either green, red or blue. Red being skimmed, green being semi skimmed and blue being full fat
I watched a documentary about milk in Victorian England, and they used to put all sorts of extra additves in it to keep the milk from smelling sour and extend the shelf life, or to appear whiter. Copper, chalk, mercury, lead, strychnine...
And the Czech "přiměřeně" - "adequate(ly)". (Or "proportionally", but that's a bit too precise in English when compared to the Czech word in practice. :D )
I love this channel. As a person starting out with cooking food and baking, I find the recipes from this century to be simple and accessible to me. Most modern recipes need many steps and equipment, which sometimes drives me nuts. It's good to see simplicity that allows me to start my food-making adventure as I grow my skills. Thank you, good sir!
I really love this format, conversational approach to these recipes. Thank you so much for exploring history this way. It makes envisioning these times of focus extremely palatable and relatable. I really enjoy your work. Please keep it up!
I’ve been a subscriber since 2012 and look forward to every one of your videos. They are a perfect break from my daily grind and transport me to a simpler time, just what I need sometimes. Thank you so much and keep them coming!
The Oxford English Dictionary has "blue milk" as " milk that is low in butter fat, and hence has a bluish tinge; skimmed milk." First quote from 1765, but the second from 1839 defines it: T. De Quincey Sketches Life & Manners in Tait's Edinb. Mag. Sept. 574/1 Skimmed or ‘blue’ milk being only one half-penny a quart..in Grasmere. So, a very well-educated guess.
@Rideable Sun Gotta vent some of that moisture to keep the collectors from getting too gritty. That leads the average atmospheric water content to rise slightly in the afternoons and mornings once the systems start up and shut down. My uncle works at Tosche Station.
@Rideable Sun so you are saying that you cant read a label on the salted butter package, then reduce your added salt requirements by that amount? You can still have complete control over the finished product, with the precise quantities, and quite easily too. So why do they say "0% BF", "1% BF", "2%BF" and "3.25% BF" on milk containers? Wasnt cream once mixed in with the milk? And isnt butter simply a mechanical separation and concentration of the butterfat from this milk+cream? That is the way I always perceived it. So yeah, butterfat is butter, and butter is butterfat. One is just a more concentrated version of butterfat.
@Rideable Sun Ad Hominin attacks? Is that how you think you "win"? I was just stating something I saw that does not make sense to me. Your comment did nothing to change that, in fact made it make even less sense. And now you are doing insults. Insulting my intelligence---that must be projection, right?
Thank you so much for your videos. All of my kids are in love with you. Please stay true to what you love. My kids and myself tip my hat to you sir. Thank you.
Candles at the the beginning of the episode versus the candles at the end, gives us an idea of just how long they spent just recording this, not to mention the editing and uploading. Thanks guys.
This looks remarkably similar to croccantini, a really nice cracker I used to sell at a cheese shop. I should try to bake some! They made them with lots of delicious flavors, rosemary was probably my favorite.
Pretty cool! Fairly sure that literally means "crackly little guys" in Italian. Also the dipping into chocolate for this video's crackers reminds me of the sanguinaccio Italians dip their chiacchiere into (bubbly biscuits which are barely sweet and infused with limoncello, yum).
I suspect that "roll with butter" means: Roll out the dough and cold butter, separately, into flat rectangles. Place the butter on top and fold the dough over the butter. Roll out thin again. Maybe fold and roll a couple of more times. That's how you would make croissants, but the croissants have a lot of leavening, and, of course, are rolled into a crescent shape before baking. The flavor comes from the Maillard reaction, nutmeg notwithstanding. :)
Blue milk is just milk mixed with water, it comes from mixing the milk with water in a transparent vessel that has a beam of light going through it, if the milk is unaltered it won't make that blue hue, if it is mixed with water it will make that blue hue. It's a light phenomenon, same happens on why we see the sky blue. Blue light waves are longer than the rest and filters out of colloidal mixes. It's not exactly skimmed milk but it's a good guess tho.
In the 18th and 19th centuries blue milk was skimmed milk. The Oxford English dictionary has it from 1765 but this quote from 1839 defines it: T. De Quincey Sketches Life & Manners in Tait's Edinb. Mag. Sept. 574/1 Skimmed or ‘blue’ milk being only one half-penny a quart..in Grasmere. Of course, some would have been watered down by bad merchants.
Thank goodness this show is out there. I watch Townsends more than I do any other program, including TV. If it wasn't for football and baseball, I'd probably quit watching regular TV at all. And now there's Townsends plus, so my life got even better.
There is a biscuit making method where the butter is rolled into the dough. It's on BA (from before). Cook's Country also uses this method for their best biscuits (they're square, and super flaky!) I genuinely think I'm going to try that first recipe that you read, Jon, with the nutmeg and rosewater.
“Roll in the butter,” besides sounding like a fun Saturday night, probably means to cut butter into flour, as for pie crust or biscuits, or to roll out dough, spread butter over it, and fold it over and flatten it several more times, as for croissants. Ether method would result in a flakier cracker.
"Rolling in the butter" could very well mean something like when making puff pastry: roll out the dough, then spread it with butter, fold the dough into thirds, re roll, re spread with butter, re fold, and repeat until all of the butter is used up. This would make a *VERY* flaky and delicately crispy cracker.
Thanks always enjoy you cooking ..learning historical cooking puts me a few steps ahead in modern cooking .understanding where our cooking comes from explains a lot about today's foods .
Great episode and show, again, thank you 💚 Our 17th and 18th century cookery methods are similar. "Roll in the butter" it means you keep flour on table, put in the butter and literally roll the butter into flour, by pressing the roller and mixing ite. This was traditional technique in our cookery too. While boiling in water makes them a bit puffy, hence more crispy, more like crackers, less like hardtacks.
One of the things that I’m very fascinated with is there seems to be two camps in cooking you have the people that have to follow a strict recipe and then you have people like myself they can go to the cupboard and just figure things out it seems to be intuitive. Mind you there’s always that one or two disasters that you have that don’t hit the pallet quite the way you wanted them to. But I think if you want to be a well rounded cook basic concepts as you describe with your crackers will carry you a long way. Honestly to make bread is a good way to start. Start with a little bit of flour and some yeast and see what you come up with. Pretty soon things just become very matter-of-fact in the way that you put things together. Thank you for your channel I know there’s a lot of people behind the scenes that work very hard but I do very much appreciate it!
My Mom (99) who grew up on multiple family farms in Idaho and Minnesota, called skim milk "blue milk". Phraseology from my Grandma, and from her's before, no doubt! Good to know and well appreciated!🙏
I was sooooooo into the recipe that, when I realized, I was chewing nothing while you were eating the cracker. I will do this for sure! Thanks for the video.
Adding flour to breads has to be by feel. The moisture in the air, the age of your flour, the difference in the day makes a difference in how things come together. I approve. Once again, nice job.
If you put cinnamon and sugar on top you have tasty "elephant ears" they called them at the fair when I was young. One huge chip. Great show btw. Cheers
I make these with sourdough starter. You want to knead those as little as possible, or they become chewy. Also, they'll be very yeasty/sour, which some don't like. For a sweeter and lighter result you can mix in some baking soda and let the crackers work a bit after they're ready on the baking sheet before baking them; then they'll rise a little and the soda will reduce the acidity. Thanks for another great video!
When I was learning to make bagels, I was told "Boil, broil, then bake". That's all well and good, but I had more of an issue getting the holes to come out even! Thanks for this recipe. :)
I've had these before at colonial Williamsburg but they used sea salt and rosemary for the topping. They were surprisingly good by themselves and as you put it... not too unlike a modern cracker just more dense and less flaky.
Can I just point out ye olde font that was used on the recipe print-outs? Even when the print-out sneaks into shot, the vibe is maintained. John, it's attention to details like that that makes you guys internet heroes.
My guess is that "rolling the butter into the dough" is lamination like you do to make puff pastry. When you boil them before you bake them it keeps them from puffing up but still gives them a flaky texture. Boiling them also probably keeps them being more like flat crackers than Pita Chips. Since hot chocolate back then was a very sweet rich beverage, it might be nice to nibble a dry salty cracker for contrast rather than a richer sweet cookie that balances the astringency of tea. This is an instance when the benefit of a 20th century pasta roller makes life much easier. put that ravioli cutter on there and you are ready to go.
Yes, i was coming here to say this. Well explained!
Many bread recipes call for adding the butter while you're kneading the dough instead of melting the butter.
I cut potpie noodles like that!
I was thinking the same thing 👍
it's funny he says by being similar to pita chips they have a modern spin.. like yeah those are trendy now bit I think people were regularly eating pita chips and other unleavened crackers for dozens of centuries before this XD
"They each have their own, sort-of, you know, purpose in life."
-Jon Townsend, _On Crackers, A Retrospective_
Coming Soon, Check your local bookstore!
@@townsends No kidding, I had recently thought that there must be a cracker recipe out there worth considering... and here it is. Thank you!
One of the greatest philosophical writers of the 18th century.
Perfect.
@@miketype1each It's interesting to see how they cooked at that time, what recipes were used and the equipment that was available, but as long as I can get saltines for less than a buck per box I'd rather buy them than bake them.
This brings me back, when I was young our village had an old retired baker, in the summer he would get up early in the weekends and bake in his big earthenoven. Somehow he always had a lot of leftover dought that he made into snacks of all kinds for the kids who came to help him. And oh boy did we go, got up with my buddies early and went to bake. may he keep the ovens hot whereever he is.
Isn't it odd how grandmothers and retired bakers somehow lose the ability to figure out much dough they need and always have so much left over that they need to use up by turning it into snacks for the kids? Amazing.
What a wonderful memory!
Not sure he would appreciate that crack about keeping the ovens hot wherever he is,
Old people tend to get lonely, so it might be subtle ways of keeping company around.
@@StandTallTx Good point. Probably some merit to that. When you get to be 67 you WILL experiance your answer.
In past decades growing up (1960's - 70's) it was not at all uncommon to show kindness, thoughtfulness, appreciation and gratitude w baked goods.
It simply doesn't happen anymore and there's the risk of liability.
I took baked goods to a neighbor man about 4 years ago. From my standpoint it was nothing more than heart felt gratitude for snow blowing my sidewalk multiple times. I have 2 lung diseases.
He was removing snow down the entire sidewalk. I thought to myself "Wonderful Random Acts of Kindness. Wonder if any other neighbors have said thanks."
I TOLD him it was an old fashion thankyou. He NEVER removed snow again.
Some young guy laughed when I told him the story "Man, he probably thought you were some old cougar hitting on him or he was married."
It was such a disheartening experiance for me both ways- first the neighbor man then the young guys commentary.
My mother (born 1932, Australia) used to tell me about how her grandmother would make cracknells...boiled then baked. The shape was a boat shape created by pinching. Then her grandmother would keep them in a large jar, layered between sheets of kitchen paper. They would be served with soup, or as a snack with a bit of butter put into the cavity of the boat shape.
Interesting! Thanks
Blue milk? I think your recipe is from a galaxy far far away Jon.
If you ever encounter skim milk without added milk solids you will discover that it is, indeed, rather blue and slightly transparent, especially when it's in very small amounts, such as just one swallow left in the bottom of a glass tumbler. Commercial dairies now add those aforementioned "milk solids" to their skim milk to make it look more appetising and feel "richer" in your mouth. That practice also makes it higher in protein, so the dairy can claim it's more nutritious. Most people now have never drunk real skimmed or separated milk. The nickname I've always heard for it is "blue john," and that term is often used in a derogatory way.
@@bunnyslippers191 As Ron Swanson from Parks & Recreation says, "There's only one thing I hate more than lying: skim milk, which is water that's lying about being milk."
@@r.l.royalljr.3905 Yep, that's pretty much what it's doing!
Blue milk is far superior to that green milk that Luke switched to later. Don't use that!
Came down here looking for this comment. Looks like not everyone got the joke.
Mom used to take scrap pie crust dough and cut into strips, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and butter, and bake them as a treat for my siblings and me. Very much like cinnamon crackers.
.my grandmother would do the same. As kids, we would wait anxiously for there to be extra dough for us after she finished filling the pie tins with dough😇😄
my mom did the same when she made something with a crust
My mom did that too. Sometimes I liked that better than the pie 😅
Dad was as excited about the cinnamon/sugar/butter baked pie dough scraps as we kids. Wonder if there are any kids out there who never experienced the joy of baked pie dough scraps? I also wonder if they have a formal name?
My mom did this too, she called them crusties. I always preferred them to the pie. She only made them barely sweet.
Recipe: Half a Nutmeg
Jon: Let's round up to a whole Nutmeg!
Recipe: No mentioning nutmeg
Jon: Half a nutmeg won't hurt
@@Nexy9 Mr toothpaste may not understand the concept of the amount of work that goes into that coat. Its not a knock off halloween costume. It's a legit coat of the era with all the stitching and buttons and what not. I'd say try sewing one and then see if you think the same.
@@Nexy9 1st of I have no idea what this comment does underneath a nutmeg joke.
2nd: If almost 500,- $ is too much for you, why not get the costume version for 185,- $ ? Looks pretty much the same but is not as much of the real thing as the expensive version.
I’m really disappointed by how shallow your look at the catalogue is, before you post this kind of public crizicism … what is wrong with you?
The question is "Nutmeg?"
Jon: The answer is "Yes"
Here's some good news, if a recipe calls for a glass of wine, or a bottle of beer, you will get the best results if you double the booze in the recipe. One for the dish, one for the cook. Its an old trick, but it does wonders for ones cooking.
"How much flour did you use Jon?"
"Yes."
Wow! I haven’t heard the term “blue milk” since I was a kid! My grandparents used that term for raw milk that had the cream skimmed off.
Same here! I knew exactly what he meant when he said "blue milk".
@@TexasBlueBonnet61 LOL! One Texas Country Girl to another.
I’ve read it before, i want to say in one of the Anne of Green Gables books?
@@alisaurus4224 I have no idea! Even though I was an English major and taught high school English for over 25 years, I never read the Anne of Green Gables books.
Tragic, read them Ms. Vickii!
"Roll in the butter, David"
"What do you mean?"
"You roll it in."
That was a great scene. 😆
You just have to _roll_ it in!
You expect me to roll in two ounces of butter??
Re “blue milk”… I remember as a kid when we brought in the milk from having milked our ‘one’ cow… that in the spring/summer the milk/cream was much richer in quality + colour (more yellow) as the cow would be eating fresh green pasture grass. But in the winter time… when the cow would be eating mostly ‘hay’ there was an obvious difference in it’s richness, thus colour. I find these sometimes subtle changes between seasons are quite fascinating. Winter milk… more blue.
The same was true of the colour of the butter. Paler in winter. Rich yellow in summer. I used to churn it. 😌
Crackers and chocolate definitely work - I have a relative who, for the winter holidays, melts chocolate over crackers, adding some bits of peppermints on top, and lets them cool down. She refers to this combo as "disappearing crunch bars", because they keep on disappearing quickly.
That's Christmas Crack everywhere else! It's so good.
It's funny that the recipe calls it blue milk, that's what my family always called skim milk. My grandma's parents owned a dairy back in the depression, and they sold skim milk under the name blue milk. They would drain the skim milk from the bottom of the separation tank till only an inch or two was left. Then they would skim off the cream, also leaving about an inch or two. What was left they sold as half & half.
I guess it makes sense to call it blue milk since it's basically raw milk. People who cook steaks to basically Raw call them Blue Steaks, so I guess that checks out.
@@pennyforyourthots funny, that's the way I eat MY steak, but I've never heard it CALLED that before. I've just always called it extra rare. But maybe they DO have a similar origin, who knows.🤷
Oh my gosh… you just reminded me of the ‘milk separator’ that my neighbours used to use. 👍🏽
@@pennyforyourthots | Good thinking Smarty! 😌
OMG! That makes so much sense to call it half n half!
“Half a nutmeg grated”…I think Jon is just looking for recipes with this one important ingredient in it.
Jon might be a major shareholder in major nutmeg companies
Are you saying he has unseemly ties to Big Nutmeg???
I mean, if you consume enough at once, it's psychoactive. It just happens to also be quite toxic at that level of dosage so I wouldn't recommend it (second hand info vs first hand, I know people who have done it intentionally but I was never dumb enough to replicate).
Nutmeg must flow!
what tells you that ?
Rolling butter into the dough will achieve a different texture. If the recipe requires you to roll in, and fold, then you end up with a palmier, or croissant like layers. (That's like expert level baking). You have be working in a cooler environment, or with ice, and work on a cold marble slab to get a palmier, otherwise the butter and flour creates a different structure.
You would be really amazed at the combinations of results that are achieved from using a different kinds of flour, and yeast in cooler or warmer temperatures, or the kind of water that was used... (IE Stream, well, pond...) In Germany, the beer is made with 4 basic ingredients, and thousands of German breweries manage to produce beers that are all different in taste from each other. It's sort of the same way with baking. (IE; Why San Fransisco has the best sourdough).
The flour that was used in the 18th century was also unbleached and filled with other-than-wheat flours, much like today where you find a percentage of rye, milo, barley, oats... Whole wheat was sometimes a premium commodity, since the planting and harvesting of wheat was performed by hand. Sugar was also a commodity. It's what fueled slavery in the early Americas.
Anyway, thought I would post this for FYI.
Most of my comments fall on dead ears here, but it's once in a blue moon that I post...
Great comment regardless of how many read it
Thank you for that insightful educational observation. Fascinating to me
I greatly enjoyed your thoughtful and informative comment! Thank you!
@@kittiwhieldon4329 Thank you!
@@thewerepyreking Thank you!
I'm missing an important appointment... and that's fine, because this can't wait.
Delayed my grocery shopping to watch! 🤣
@@lyra2112 Of course! You might discover you need to add something to your grocery list because you get inspired to cook whatever is featured in the video!
@@lyra2112 You’ll need to buy more nutmeg!
I think you're right about the"blue milk" my dad always called fully slimed milk "Blue John". He was 93 when he died in 2016. He had a lot of old sayings like this. Your shows are so appreciated.
i noticed non fat milk looked kind of blue back in the day
I've watched so much Tasting History that I expected a clip of Max Miller clacking two hardtacks together at the mention of hardtack.
(clack clack)
I'm disappointed Max not commented;)
Came here for this comment! Lol @tastinghistory
"half a nutmeg" >Jon adds entire nutmeg
Wait, a clove ISN'T a whole garlic? MAMMA MIA!! 😳🤌
@@coffeeguyd I know right?! I've even seen some recipes that call for a "small" garlic clove, WTH is that
@@APV878 No recipe should only have just one clove of garlic. Unless it's a recipe for one clove of garlic, in which case, add two.
Czechs, faced with storebought weak garlic: Fine, I'll just use the whole thing.
Czechs eating the resulting meal: Ugh, needs more garlic.
@@beth12svist I'm so glad someone else has noticed that store bought garlic is getting less and less garlicky. It's like that "Elephant garlic" that was so popular a few years ago. The cloves, and the entire bulb, for that matter, were huge, but had practically no garlic taste in them! I mean, why bother with it if it's not going to put any garlic flavor into what you are cooking? I want my garlic to taste like garlic!
When he mentioned hard tack the first time I was expecting a snippet of Max Miller knocking hard tack biscuits together. 😄🖖💕
I did too!
@@cdey8512 😂🤣😂
"To a pint of blue milk, put about two ounces of butter..."
**Luke Skywalker wants to know your location**
lol
Mark Hamill has said that the blue milk tasted gross because it was a shelf-stable dry milk but that he actually liked the green milk because it was basically coconut milk.
"Welcome to cooking from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away"
Never click a video faster than when Townsends posts.
Townsends and Tasting History for me. Definitely recommend the Townsends shop as well, they have great customer service and lots of cool stuff!
That recipe is exactly the sort of recipe I'm looking for! My doctor told me I have to cut back on industrialised things and try to make everything I can at home because of my gastritis, so this is a perfect recipe to bake a bunch at once and have enough for breakfast and snacks for weeks!
“The question is, nutmeg.”
And the answer is yes.
Nutmeg is not a question. It's a statement.
@@VoodooMcVee indeed
I bet these would be amazing with a little caraway seed, black pepper, or other seed/spice, maybe just toasted and barely crushed.
That is an excellent idea!
The timing of this video was perfect for me. Watching this while snacking on cheese & crackers. Had to get dental work, so this is my first crunchy food in 3 1/2 weeks.
I ate crackers too whilst watching this vid 😊
whoever took and picked the image for the thumbnail did wisely, that's a very powerful cracker break
Oh yeah.
I forgot how entertaining this channel is.
I use my sourdough starter, when I feed it without making bread, to make an awesome cracker. Take the extra starter, add salt & herbs, add flour to make a nice rollable dough, roll out SUPER thin on a sheet of parchment, use a pizza roller to cut into crackers (the dough will be too thin to to transfer), put the sheet of parchment on a pan and bake until toasted. These rarely make it to the totally-cooled state before they're all eaten.....
I appreciate that this channel still goes through the full history of things. Some other channels have sold out and stopped doing the history and publish UA-cam shorts just for clicks. Thanks for keeping it real Townsends.
Boiling before baking sounds like the traditional method of making bagels, so perhaps would make for a different texture?
If it hasn't already been stated, cooking the dough in boil liquid would be called "water crackers". They can be purchased as a specialty product in most big box stores.
I wondered why they were called that. Thanks for the explanation.
Cross that off my Bucket List… 😌
Another informative and entertaining video - If my schedule offers some spare time, I’ll definitely take a dip into this recipe. Many thanks to Jon and his superb, hard-working team!
Blue milk could be a reference to UK milk, as milk in england is either green, red or blue. Red being skimmed, green being semi skimmed and blue being full fat
Interesting. Thank you.
I doubt that that system was in place in the 18th century.
I think it's more likely that 'blue' meant 'raw' in the sense of 'blue meat' as opposed to boiled milk.
I watched a documentary about milk in Victorian England, and they used to put all sorts of extra additves in it to keep the milk from smelling sour and extend the shelf life, or to appear whiter. Copper, chalk, mercury, lead, strychnine...
That refers to the color of the label and/or cap on the bottle and started in the 20th century, not the 18th.
"Add flour til you get there." That's like my "enough" when someone asks me how much of whatever to put into a dish.
18th century recipies: just cook it until its ready okay
And the Czech "přiměřeně" - "adequate(ly)". (Or "proportionally", but that's a bit too precise in English when compared to the Czech word in practice. :D )
So many old recipes are like that: “…and take thee flour enuffe..”
My kind of cooking [read: recipes are meant to customize]! I love “enough”! I’m going to say that when someone gives me the opportunity. 😉
@@ablanccanvas "Til it looks right," and "Til it feels right," are also acceptable.
Jon seems like a legit heartfelt person, we need more people like Jon.
I love this channel. As a person starting out with cooking food and baking, I find the recipes from this century to be simple and accessible to me. Most modern recipes need many steps and equipment, which sometimes drives me nuts. It's good to see simplicity that allows me to start my food-making adventure as I grow my skills. Thank you, good sir!
Enjoyed the video; however, I would have LOVED to see the first, more complicated one done!
“Add flour till you get there?” I may or may not have used that teaching my kids how to make biscuits.
I really love this format, conversational approach to these recipes. Thank you so much for exploring history this way. It makes envisioning these times of focus extremely palatable and relatable. I really enjoy your work. Please keep it up!
Adding flour until you get there is probably skill that was developed from childhood by helping mom make bread in the kitchen.
I’ve been a subscriber since 2012 and look forward to every one of your videos. They are a perfect break from my daily grind and transport me to a simpler time, just what I need sometimes.
Thank you so much and keep them coming!
Jon, you don't have to justify your nutmeg usage to us. We understand.
Not only do we understand it, we kind of expect it.
🤣🤣
The Oxford English Dictionary has "blue milk" as " milk that is low in butter fat, and hence has a bluish tinge; skimmed milk." First quote from 1765, but the second from 1839 defines it:
T. De Quincey Sketches Life & Manners in Tait's Edinb. Mag. Sept. 574/1 Skimmed or ‘blue’ milk being only one half-penny a quart..in Grasmere.
So, a very well-educated guess.
Or what Aunt Beru serves on a steamy afternoon on Tatooine
...yeah...use low butterfat milk, then add butter. Makes PERFECT sense. That is like a recipe that calls for unsalted butter, then says add salt.
@Rideable Sun Gotta vent some of that moisture to keep the collectors from getting too gritty. That leads the average atmospheric water content to rise slightly in the afternoons and mornings once the systems start up and shut down. My uncle works at Tosche Station.
@Rideable Sun so you are saying that you cant read a label on the salted butter package, then reduce your added salt requirements by that amount? You can still have complete control over the finished product, with the precise quantities, and quite easily too.
So why do they say "0% BF", "1% BF", "2%BF" and "3.25% BF" on milk containers? Wasnt cream once mixed in with the milk? And isnt butter simply a mechanical separation and concentration of the butterfat from this milk+cream? That is the way I always perceived it. So yeah, butterfat is butter, and butter is butterfat. One is just a more concentrated version of butterfat.
@Rideable Sun Ad Hominin attacks? Is that how you think you "win"? I was just stating something I saw that does not make sense to me. Your comment did nothing to change that, in fact made it make even less sense. And now you are doing insults. Insulting my intelligence---that must be projection, right?
Tasting History has me so trained that I still heard the clunking sound when you mentioned hard tack.
Going to an SCA camping event next week--might have to make a batch of these to take!
Hello there👋👋,how are you doing today?hope you’re having a good day?GOD BLESS YOU!!!❤️❤️
Thank you for still making these videos!
thanks for sharing this one my grandmother made those for the holidays sprinkled with sugar they were so good.
Just found this channel a little over couple weeks ago and really enjoying it, keep up the great work.
8:08 what a madman! places his roller right on the edge and doesn't bat an eye.
Thanks for another interesting episode!
My father, born and raised in rural Florida, referred to skim milk as "ol' blue John".
My grandfather did too - he was from Oklahoma.
My mom's family from rural Illinois and my dad's family from rural Missouri/Oklahoma all called it blue John as well.
I appreciate your team’s passion for what you do.
John Townsend's top 5 favourite words:
1: Century
2: Nutmeg
3: Flavours
4: Eighteenth
5: Aromas
Honorable Mention: Savor
😊
This channel keeps getting better and better. Another great recipe. Cheers!
Thanks Jon for another great video.
I initially misread the title as "creepiest crackers" and I was wondering to myself how a cracker could possibly be creepy.
John Townsend…. I freaking love your videos, you keep me going!!!! Love love love and much respect to you and yours!!!
Thank you so much for your videos. All of my kids are in love with you. Please stay true to what you love. My kids and myself tip my hat to you sir. Thank you.
5:32 "We don't wanna go crazy....." LOL Mr. Townsend my good sir... when it comes down to nutmeg, you are TRULY crazy!!!
Candles at the the beginning of the episode versus the candles at the end, gives us an idea of just how long they spent just recording this, not to mention the editing and uploading. Thanks guys.
And now you got me to go back and forth between the beginning to the end of the video several times to look at each candle, lol
This looks remarkably similar to croccantini, a really nice cracker I used to sell at a cheese shop. I should try to bake some! They made them with lots of delicious flavors, rosemary was probably my favorite.
Pretty cool! Fairly sure that literally means "crackly little guys" in Italian.
Also the dipping into chocolate for this video's crackers reminds me of the sanguinaccio Italians dip their chiacchiere into (bubbly biscuits which are barely sweet and infused with limoncello, yum).
I suspect that "roll with butter" means: Roll out the dough and cold butter, separately, into flat rectangles. Place the butter on top and fold the dough over the butter. Roll out thin again. Maybe fold and roll a couple of more times. That's how you would make croissants, but the croissants have a lot of leavening, and, of course, are rolled into a crescent shape before baking. The flavor comes from the Maillard reaction, nutmeg notwithstanding. :)
It's called lamination- think croissant.
@@jpclam3358 or puff pastry.
Or…spread out butter on table or any hard flat surface and lay down on top of it and “roll” around until flattened just like a dog would 🤣
Sweet! I will have to test these with some of my homemade cheese or soup!
Yummy
Blue milk is just milk mixed with water, it comes from mixing the milk with water in a transparent vessel that has a beam of light going through it, if the milk is unaltered it won't make that blue hue, if it is mixed with water it will make that blue hue. It's a light phenomenon, same happens on why we see the sky blue. Blue light waves are longer than the rest and filters out of colloidal mixes. It's not exactly skimmed milk but it's a good guess tho.
In the 18th and 19th centuries blue milk was skimmed milk. The Oxford English dictionary has it from 1765 but this quote from 1839 defines it:
T. De Quincey Sketches Life & Manners in Tait's Edinb. Mag. Sept. 574/1 Skimmed or ‘blue’ milk being only one half-penny a quart..in Grasmere.
Of course, some would have been watered down by bad merchants.
I love ALL these differant viable definitions of BLUE MILK. There is a 'basis' for each and every one.
Thank goodness this show is out there. I watch Townsends more than I do any other program, including TV. If it wasn't for football and baseball, I'd probably quit watching regular TV at all. And now there's Townsends plus, so my life got even better.
There is a biscuit making method where the butter is rolled into the dough. It's on BA (from before). Cook's Country also uses this method for their best biscuits (they're square, and super flaky!)
I genuinely think I'm going to try that first recipe that you read, Jon, with the nutmeg and rosewater.
Oh please let us know how it went!
Thank you for preserving this history. Love your vids
“Roll in the butter,” besides sounding like a fun Saturday night, probably means to cut butter into flour, as for pie crust or biscuits, or to roll out dough, spread butter over it, and fold it over and flatten it several more times, as for croissants. Ether method would result in a flakier cracker.
Even the Saturday night roll in the butter?
"Here's what you do .. you... roll it in .. " -Mira
I really do enjoy your videos quite a bit John. You and your team produce wonderful things.
I know it's Max's thing, but when you said hard tack, I was expecting the "tack tack". 😀
Not just me then!
You can never have too much “tack tack”!
Poor guy! 100K followers, making a video every week, and every time somebody says "Max Miller" everybody goes, "Oh, yeah! Hard tack! Clack! Clack! !"
I was wondering if I was the only one that was confused for a split second when the 'tack tack' didn't flash. XD
SAME
Thanks for sharing with us Jon, they look great. Good job. Fred. 🙏🏻🙏🏻👍👍👏🏻👏🏻👋👋
I love the word "cookery", it sounds so wrong.
"Rolling in the butter" could very well mean something like when making puff pastry:
roll out the dough, then spread it with butter, fold the dough into thirds, re roll, re spread with butter, re fold, and repeat until all of the butter is used up.
This would make a *VERY* flaky and delicately crispy cracker.
Thats what i thought too!
Especially the cooking before baking part. Maybe similar to a choux pastry
🤤 [drooling]
Thanks always enjoy you cooking ..learning historical cooking puts me a few steps ahead in modern cooking .understanding where our cooking comes from explains a lot about today's foods .
To nutmeg, or to not nutmeg: that is the question. Great content Jon and crew!!!!!
Great episode and show, again, thank you 💚 Our 17th and 18th century cookery methods are similar. "Roll in the butter" it means you keep flour on table, put in the butter and literally roll the butter into flour, by pressing the roller and mixing ite. This was traditional technique in our cookery too. While boiling in water makes them a bit puffy, hence more crispy, more like crackers, less like hardtacks.
RELEASE THE CRACKNELS!
One of the things that I’m very fascinated with is there seems to be two camps in cooking you have the people that have to follow a strict recipe and then you have people like myself they can go to the cupboard and just figure things out it seems to be intuitive. Mind you there’s always that one or two disasters that you have that don’t hit the pallet quite the way you wanted them to. But I think if you want to be a well rounded cook basic concepts as you describe with your crackers will carry you a long way. Honestly to make bread is a good way to start. Start with a little bit of flour and some yeast and see what you come up with. Pretty soon things just become very matter-of-fact in the way that you put things together. Thank you for your channel I know there’s a lot of people behind the scenes that work very hard but I do very much appreciate it!
My Mom (99) who grew up on multiple family farms in Idaho and Minnesota, called skim milk "blue milk". Phraseology from my Grandma, and from her's before, no doubt! Good to know and well appreciated!🙏
As usual, great job. Is something to make for a winter's night and Christmas
You know I’ve been watching a lot of Tasting History because when you said “hard tack”, I expected the clip of Max knocking two pieces together. 😂
I was sooooooo into the recipe that, when I realized, I was chewing nothing while you were eating the cracker. I will do this for sure! Thanks for the video.
Adding flour to breads has to be by feel. The moisture in the air, the age of your flour, the difference in the day makes a difference in how things come together. I approve. Once again, nice job.
RELEASE THE CRACKNOL!!!
Someone had to say it.
If you put cinnamon and sugar on top you have tasty "elephant ears" they called them at the fair when I was young. One huge chip. Great show btw. Cheers
Love your channel!
Wow I've never heard anyone else but my Dad call it blue milk. He grew up in rural Kentucky in the 50s.
Love your videos. Than you for making these!
😋 yum! Easy and all ingredients in my kitchen. Thank you once again.
I make these with sourdough starter. You want to knead those as little as possible, or they become chewy. Also, they'll be very yeasty/sour, which some don't like. For a sweeter and lighter result you can mix in some baking soda and let the crackers work a bit after they're ready on the baking sheet before baking them; then they'll rise a little and the soda will reduce the acidity.
Thanks for another great video!
When I was learning to make bagels, I was told "Boil, broil, then bake". That's all well and good, but I had more of an issue getting the holes to come out even!
Thanks for this recipe. :)
Yum! Going to try this. Watching from Ontario Canada 🎊
Great recipe! So boiling and then baking is the proper way to make NY bagels. It ensures a crispy crust and a soft inside.
I've had these before at colonial Williamsburg but they used sea salt and rosemary for the topping. They were surprisingly good by themselves and as you put it... not too unlike a modern cracker just more dense and less flaky.
I used to make similar things without yeast and on a griddle or directly on the top of a woodstove.
Can I just point out ye olde font that was used on the recipe print-outs? Even when the print-out sneaks into shot, the vibe is maintained. John, it's attention to details like that that makes you guys internet heroes.
Blue milk? Luke Skywalker specialty!!
I love these types of recipes! Staple foods and nutmeg!
Yes skim milk definitely has a blue/green hue..
Amen!!!!! Nutmeg!!!