Lots of people have been curious about the term "Vegetable Oil" as what we today call vegetable oil is a relatively new ingredient. Historically though (and technically still today) the term refers to anything made from vegetation; olives, poppy seed, grape seed, linseed, etc. All of these have been used for a very long time and in China, some variant was used as far back as the Song dynasty (960-1279).
Wikipedia Soybean Oil claims "Chinese records dating prior to 2000 BCE mention use of cultivated soybeans to produce edible soy oil.[3] Ancient Chinese literature reveals that soybeans were extensively cultivated and highly valued as a use for the soybean oil production process before written records were kept.[4] "
All vegetable oils are toxic including all seeds and olives etc only ok 1 is coconut animal fat is king for cooking raw and nutrients not even a debate
I suspect tonal languages are easier to pronounce for people who are musical, as Max is. I can’t hear, and therefore can’t reproduce, most of the tonal differences and I’m fairly tone-deaf.
They look identical to Kofta, Eastern European/Balkan/Turkish/Caucasian/North African/Central Asia metaballs. in Romania we call them Chiftele. The ingredients are very similar: can be any kind of grounded meat usually pork or beef or mix, black pepper, thyme instead of coriander then egg, flour, onion, garlic formed into small cakes then deep fried in lard/oil. They last a long time days to weeks if refrigerated and are sometimes re-used in other dishes for example chiftele marinate is made by re-cooking the leftover chiftele with tomato sauce or re-using tomato soup or can be made fresh in which case they are first fried then boiled.
Hail to the Great Warrior Vlad Tepes! In fact I wonder if you know the food he ate. Damn, I must look to see if Max has made a vid of this. Instead of sitting comfortably, Vlad rode, fought and died bravely in battle with his troops
This is where kofte comes from. It was Turkic Mongols that invented the mince meat meat balls. But when Turks learnt about the Islamic faith from Persians, they accepted it and began talking in Persian to be able to communicate with these Persians who they have jist became very close to.
@@Aquarian55 I read that Kofta was invented by mongolians as war rations and since he occupied such huge land the concept spread and probably spread into Africa and Europe via Ottoman Empire.
I will always appreciate Max’s ability to find the best possible Pokémon to accompany any given recipe or historical subject. It’s almost like a game to guess which it’ll be based on the title of the video.
I know Genghis Khan was terrifying and seemingly remorseless conqueror, but props to his mom for giving 120% for him and his brother after their people ditched them.
Temujin actually killed one of his brothers in vengeance over taking his hunting spoils. Other than that, he was known for taking great care and having great respect for his mother, her being often a consultant for him and his wives, when he was Khan. Plus her helping take care of his kids, when he was out conquering.
Any mother would be proud of their little man for making it that far in life after all that Even if untold droves of people may have maybe died horribly in the process
He was way less awful than other conquerers. It must be remembered that before Ghengis conquered an area, he'd send emissaries to tell them that if they joined willingly, they could keep everything they had and need only pay a pretty reasonable tax as well as offer up a certain number of soldiers each year. All things considered so long as you did what you were told, you had it pretty good, because Genghis was incredibly protective of his people.
I think it was much simpler reason. Like, Uzbekistanians and such were wiping their greasy hands straight off their robes, which is made of cotton. Drinking burning hot black Indian tea to cool off by profuse sweating, so imagine their regular smell in hot dry weather, including all the dairy drinks as well. And they had that "cultural behavior" pretty much until very recent decades generations, like their literal grandparents. My mom's father was from Kazakhstan, and she loves that mare milk thing that is constantly in our fridge. It is super disgusting, smells like warm sweetened spoiled milk or something like that. They also make pickled watermelons, loved salted tea with milk and lard, eating a lot of dried salted river fish as a snack(smells super strong), and all sorts of bizarre stuff. How did they were converted to islam with such hygiene, is a real mystery.
There's a really good book about the Mongols called "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" by Jack Weatherford. If anyone's even a little interested in learning more about the Mongols, their culture, religion or conquests I'd highly recommend it. That line about eating their victims seem extremely suspect to me...the Mongols during Genghis Khan's time believed that a person's spirit was held in the blood, if you were to get any on you that meant that you were essentially cursed by the person you killed, forever doomed to be haunted by your victim. Even a person's smell or breath was said to house a small part of their spirit, that's why the Khan's servants would cover their mouths in the Khan's presence. This superstition is also one of the reasons they favored ranged combat from horseback, even when executing a person they would first wrap the person in heavy blankets then beat them with blunt rods or hammers, all to avoid spilling any blood. To willingly eat a person and suck out there blood would have seemed horrifying to a Mongol.
I agree. That sort of accusation was commonly made against enemies, and almost never true. Probably never true at all. The only documented cannibalism I am aware of other than emergency disaster cannibalism (like the Donner party and similar situations) was the ritual consumption of beloved family members' brains after death among the Fore people in New Guinea. People were not killed for the purpose. (The practice unfortunately spread a severe, slow brain disease, kuru, and is now no longer done.)
Yep, never heard about Mongol cannibalism. Not that their culture could be made much scarier than it really was, no matter what you made up about them! The destruction of Babylon springs to mind, where even the cats and dogs were executed.
@@jonesnori well, I can say with certainty that it's not "never true". I'm scarred by the image of watching a Hatian man eating the burned flesh of a theif (from a video recorded on a phone in the very recent past). It certainly happens even in the modern world so I would not doubt some cultures in the past did as well. Perhaps infrequently.
Several years ago, around 2008, the community college I taught at had students attending from Mongolia, most of whom lived in Ulaanbaatar. When I pronounced Genghis Khan with the Ch rather than how most of us grew up saying it their eyes lit up and one of my students said, "You said it right!" It meant so much to these students so far from home to hear a teacher try to honor their culture and their lived experience. They gifted me with a leather portrait of Genghis Khan that I have treasured. I hang it as close to the center of my home wherever I live so the Great Khan can watch over my hearth.
When speaking to foreigners, I was used to inroducing myself using the English equivalent of my name to make it easier to pronounce. One of my US-born teachers insisted I use my native language name because she would prefer to try it and maybe fail than deliberately use the one that is foreign to me. That actually felt pretty nice too.
That meat under the saddle thing might actually be for eating. Because in Turkey there is a type of dried meat called "Pastirma" which literally translates as "the pressed one". It is said that cavalry men put meat with lots of spices under the saddle until the spices cook the meat. You should definitely give it a go, it is delicious. And when you are eating eat you can see that it almost feels like raw meat. Btw, funny story. That pope's messenger was so fat that he had to be carried by two mules while travelling to mongolia. Mongols were shocked at the border when they saw him and forced that poor dude on a extreme diet of one bowl of grain per day for two months until they reached to Qaraqurum. He complains about it in his writings, it's pretty funny.
Same thing here in Brazil. There's a traditional beef jerky called "carne de sol" (Sun's meat) that is done in the same way. By laying the steaks on the horses it would get salted by the animal sweat.
@@TastingHistory Putting that Kangaskhan there was a perfect touch and I’m looking forward to seeing that Australian dish soon! (Also, I can’t believe I got a like and reply from the Master Chef Max himself 😆)
I imagine you were thinking of an american-style spaghetti and meatballs, but now I’m also thinking of serving it with pasta the same way you might a beef stroganoff, with a cream-based (or maybe oil-based) sauce. Completely different flavors though.
Some Mongolian friends used to make a dumpling they called būz (booze), beef, onion, water wrapped in a shell with a tiny hole on top. You would drink the juice first before you bit into the dumpling.
@@bobgilbert1953 incorrect! Genghis khan was super nice for his troops and left all his conquered land alone to their own things. He also offered people to surrender and if they didnt he would conquer them. He isnt that bad compared to the shit that the british empire did.
@@Teaspike Sure, he was extremely generous as a ruler for his time. He was also a warlord who regularly ordered mass executions. Let's not act like he was all puppies and sunshine.
I don't know what's funnier, that the Mongols had an affectionate diminutive term for small things, or that Genghis Khan probably would have loved Pizza Rolls.
this is the 4th video im watching on this channel and for somebody who never cooked or baked anything in his life,i find them absolutely fascinating! also - and i cant emphasis this enough - im extremely impressed with your effort to pronounce everything in the correct manner! this is a rarity and especially with native english speakers. kudos from hungary!
The bit about the meat under the saddle is actually true, as it happens. The constant thumping and bouncing of the saddle broke down the muscle fibers of the meat and rendered it edible raw, in addition to providing some degree of cushion for the horse. Two birds, one steak.
@@clothar23 Eating a diet of mainly meat the stomach acid remains quite strong. Comparatively humans have a very very acidic stomach acid. More in line with that of a vulture than not, so not that surprising. The problem in modern times is that a lot of the foods we eat dilute the acidity, making us more susceptible. We're also not exposed to as many pathogens so our immune systems don't get as exposed. There's also the fact that all the weak kids died pretty early on, that's where all the old life expectancy was like 30 comes from. It's not that people didn't live to be old, its just so few survived childhood it skewed the numbers.
The salt from the horses sweat also helped to sorta preserve the meat as a tartare. Also, the soldiers were foraging for their own provisions so made sense that they'd have easy preparation for meats and maintain mobility. No real extra storage space required, you'd have food preparing while you rode and still be able to eat what you had previously stored. Much later on, but voyageurs would make pemmican as a sort of survival food based off of techniques gleaned from Native Americans, which could be prepped enmasse and basically stored in a leather pouch. A highly mobile solution to rations.
It's a sign of real respect for your viewers the amount of effort and research you put into these videos, particularly when you deliver it in such a laid-back style that doesn't reference the amount of work and effort involved 👏
"As you can see, Genghis very much enjoys Twinkies, because of the excellent sugar rush." Also, The wiping of greasy hands on the boots makes sense, speaking as the owner of leather shoes. They were low-key maintaining their shoes.
That is what I thought. It conditions the leather. That to me was a smart move. Those people that cursed them for that seems to me they just wanted something to bi#ch about.
As a Crimean Tatar, you never cease to amaze me with your pronunciations. Some of our cuisine comes from East Asia too and it feels fascinating to see them getting more exposure. Love your vids!
@@ronmka8931 We are completely different from the Slavs. People in Crimea consisted of Circassians, Greeks, Ostrogoths, even Italians and Armenians. We can be divided into three groups among each other. Noğays, people of the steppes that are mostly Turkic, Tats that are mountaineers and Yaliboylu, people of the coastline. Tats and Yaliboylu have profound Greek and Ostrogoth ancestries among Circassian. We are a mixed nation, but Slavs aren't one of those. You can rarely find people of Tatar+Slav ancestry near the borders but more than 95% of us aren't.
@@ronmka8931 Linguistically they have nothing to do with slavs. But they are classic nomads. Mix of Turkic men and local women. A Tatar or Bolgar from Kazan is 40% Medieval Turkic + 60% Slavic. A Crimean Tatar is way more mixed but mostly with locals instead of slavs. If you count Bashkurts as Tatar they are 80% Medieval Turkic by dna. Shortly from Crimea to Astrakhan to Kazan they are Turkic.
@@hansolo2439 Kazans and Bashkurts are much more Turkic than us. DNA tests from Tats and Yaliboylus result in max. %20 Turkic or so, which makes us probably the least Turkic of all Turkic nations...
I've had mare's milk (when I had to wean my mare's foal). It is delicious, lighter than cow's milk, sort of like skim milk if only skim milk tasted good. It is rather sweet so I can easily see how it could be made into an alcoholic beverage. It also had what I would call a nutty flavor. Very nice. Since she is a black mare, I guess I could have made qara kumiss!
@Mouth Raper He looked asiatic in his portraits, his sons looked asiatic. The logical conclusion is, they're actually white but just wanted to be seen as asians. Jesus had semetic features but posed as a blonde blue eyed caucasian for his portraits, Jesus wanted the world to know that it's ok to be white. No body wanted to be white in the ancient times.
As a self proclaimed fat kid history lover, I gotta say, I absolutely LOVE your format of content making! I love getting info on the recipe and the dish and then a nice smattering of history sauce to top it all off.
Genghis Khan: "Our kids are going to forget everything I did for them." 1/3 of the human population: "YO! I just found out I'm related to Genghis Khan!"
Another great video Max, thank you so much. As a Turkish, I’d like to add: 1- You can definitely find this exact dish everywhere in Turkey. It is called köfte. 2-When it comes to asafoetida, it is called çemen otu in Turkish and it is quite popular in Turkish cuisine. It even has its own sauce called çemen, which traditionally includes asafoetida, garlic, cumin, coriander etc. and it uses A LOT OF asafoetida. Turkish delicacy called Pastırma (cured meat / Turkish bacon) uses çemen as seasoning and tastes delicious, but as someone who loves and ate pastırma growing up, you will smell like asafoetida for a week. In order to get rid of the persistent smell of asafoetida, in case you used it a lot like in çemen sauce, take a shower twice a day and not leave the house for a week. 3- Kurut is still made in Turkey and "kurut-" is a Turkish verb meaning drying out. 4-The butter William of Rubruck speaks of sounds like Tulum peyniri, sheep or cow milk cheese kept inside the skin of a sheep or a goat, but I've never heard it is kept in sheep's stomach before. Although I know a very rare version of tulum tereyağı, in which butter instead of cheese is stored inside the skin of a sheep. 5-In the case of Jean de Joinville, what you said could be true but in Turkey, it is told that the pastırma, cured meat, would be carried in as Jean de Joinville said but the meat would not be "raw" but cured salted meat. 6-About the cleaning part, there is a mountain called soap mountain in my father's village and people in the past used a piece of stone from there, ash and animal fat, especially sheep tallow, to make soap to clean pretty much everything. Unlike in the West, where water means purification, in the East, fire is purifying as well, so maybe they used the ashes and animal fat like my ancestors did in the past. 7-Lastly, traditionally we do not put breadcrumbs into köfte. If you visit Turkey, ask about this because a proper restaurant that serves köfte should not put breadcrumbs in it. The secret to making them good lies in the fat content of the meat and how long you knead the mixture with your hands. With higher fat content and more kneading, it would not be so dense. Also, as you have suggested, here in Turkey, nowadays we make it with beef, which tastes far better, in my opinion. 8-About Genghis Khan, or Cengiz Han in Turkish, he is definitely not forgotten. In Turkey, both Cengiz, Cengiz Han and Timuçin (Temüjin) are names still given to children to honour him and I even had a friend whose surname was Cengiz, this is especially remarkable because Turkish people chose their own surnames in 1934-35 and my friend's ancestor wished to carryout Cengiz Han's name for generations. I know this was long and I know I am not Mongolian but perhaps, there are some similarities between us, especially back in the day, so I wished to write about what I perceived could be the case as a Turkish person.
@@efesimsek550 Ben hala koymuyorum. Anneannem ve annem de koymuyor. O zannederim yokluk zamanlarında eti çoğaltmak için yapılmış bir şey. Hala bu sözümün arkasındayım. Tarifinin geleneksel olduğunu iddia eden kimse de koymamalı bence. Özellikle de restoranlar.
I would be really interested in seeing you do a Native American history of the 3 sister's stew, maybe a history of the 7 prophecies and Wild Rice. I know Native History month is over but it should still be relevant.
Our family does a Thanksgiving meal with only Native American foods, North, South, and Mesoamerican. Three sisters stew, baked beans, succotash, quinoa, wild rice, masa dumplings and tortillas, three bean chili with potatoes, chocolate, tomato salad, and roasted wild turkey.
@@CunnyMuncher Tortillas are a flatbread made from nixtal. It came from Mesoamerica and spread quite far. Maize was a staple crop throughout North America and they nixtalmalized it with ash. The dumplings are my own idea and they are just spoonfuls of tortilla dough dropped into a boiling broth or simmering soup. You can find the recipe for tortillas on a bag of Maseca or any other masa. Just make the dough a little wetter for dumplings. I like to add minced onion and garlic, plus salt to mine. They could be fried like hush puppies or made into johnny cakes. Anything but frybread made from wheat and lard, which is not traditional. That was a commodities food given in place of land to grow real food.
Dude your channel kicks ass. I'm a bit of a history nerd and love cooking myself. Watching you grow from a smaller channel with a cool niche into quitting your job and taking this cool concept, running with it and really making something out of it was really neat to see. I recently started my own channel, and you are certainly one of my inspirations for doing so. Thanks brother!
I know that Ghengis Kahn and his armies spread a lot of cooking styles that we still use today (like hot pot) and I appreciate that, but the dude's warfare style is/was terrifying.
How did a nomadic horseback riding culture develop cooking food in flavorful broth served inside a large metal pot and brought to a boil and left simmering for the duration of the meal??? 😮😮😮
@@excessiveone9952 So a nomadic people on horseback constantly having to move their sheep herds to new pastures carried big heavy metal pots from site to site?? 😯😯😯
@@John77Doe Yes. You just tie the things you don't want to carry yourself to an appropriately strong animal - preferably a horse - but others work well enough if you don't have one or don't want to overload it
Turkish people and Mongolian people kind of shared the same spaces in the Asian steppes and they have their origins more or less intertwined, when there was the expansion of the Mongols there were Turkish tribes that joined them and others that were kicked out of their settlements and migrated closer and closer to Europe precisely on the Anatolian peninsula where most of the territory of Turkey is located. As there was this relationship between the two peoples, there were shared usages and customs such as that of making meat dumplings, they say that the meatball itself very made by the Italians is a Turkish heritage (Arabs also consumed it) brought by merchants.
The Arab/Mediterranean consumption of meatballs made its way to Spain, and from Spain, it made it's way to Mexico. Hence, albongidas (Mexican meatballs) is a classic Mexican dish. Even the origin of the word "albondiga" is Arabic.
ua-cam.com/video/VJn1pPmY_Dg/v-deo.html To add to the Turkish meat-based foods, one of my Turkish friends showed me this video, as a recipe for something that's equivalent to Iskender kebab but doable in a typical American kitchen. It's one of my favorite meatball recipes.
There's just something about Italy inheriting and improving on East Asian stuff. Probably thanks to the silk road. They did the same for noodles, fireworks, and ice cream.
Also, in Sweden. Apparently King Karl XII brought it back after a time spent in exile in the Ottoman Empire. Obviously, the recipe has been adapted, especially with respect to the accompaniments like lingonberries and the creamy gravy, but the origin is Turkish/Ottoman kofte. We use a fair amount of allspice in ours, and I suspect that the other spices usually found in kofte fell out of the recipe simply because they didn't have as frequent access to them.
There's a Mongolian rock band, The Hu (definitely a play on The Who) who does cooking videos "Hu's in the Kitchen" and they show how to make traditional and modern Mongolian foods. Their music is *awesome* (I"m a big fan).
I've been to Mongolia what they translate as lamb is actually mutton. When I talked to them about it they were surprised people ate baby animals they thought that was disgusting. So while still delicious their "lamb" dishes are much tougher than you would expect. They also swap mutton and goat interchangably for many dishes so there is always a mutton or goat varient. Personally I usually prefer the goat version.
Here in Aotearoa we eat a lot of sheep meat. It's usually classed as lamb, hogget or mutton. Lamb is under 12 months old and is nice but very mild flavour, is considered the most prestigious and is therefore the most expensive. Hogget is 15 -16 months old and in my opinion far and away the best flavour but, rare as hen's teeth as l think most goes to export. Mutton more than 24 months old, is quite tough and needs long slow cooking some people prefer it but l really dislike the "gamey" flavour.
"He was supposed to cut the number of cups he drank every day by half, and so he did... by making half of his cups twice as big." Dude literally got killed by his own genius. 😂
Hilariously, he was only Genghis's successor because his elder brothers couldn't stop fighting with each other over succession. Ghengis hated the idea of his kids killing eachother and so just removed them both from the running. (Mildly hypocritical, seeing as he killed his own elder brother- although admittedly, the guy was a lazy, pompous ass who thought it OK to steal food from his own starving family because he was the eldest male. His younger brother actually helped him do it.) Ogedei was known for being well mannered, charismatic, and a total drunk. One thing to keep in mind- the title of supreme Khan is an elected position. Ogedei had an advantage in the form of his dads backing, but he wasn't the only person in the running for the job and everyone knew he wasn't half the general or warrior his dad was.
When we were 22 years old, my twin brothers new wife insisted that he drank too much, and if he loved her, he would cut back. "My Dearheart" he said to her, in front of me " I will restrict myself to one glass per night " He went to the shops after work the next day, and brought a beautiful, delicate glass vase, held about two ltrs of the rum'n'coke we used to drink then. :P
I knew this guy that drank too much and his wifey said cut your drinking in half. So he drank only half caff machiattos. Everyone laughed but it wasn't funny.
I really like the respect you show to different cultures, not only by bringing their history here, but also by adressing the correct pronunciation of the words and names. Congratulations!
To make something like this more tender mix/knead the mixture vigorously for a bit longer before shaping. It works on anything made with ground/minced meat.
Add a little water, with a claw shaped hand, stir the meat mix in one direction, until becomes sorta gooey, "strandy." Better descriptions in Chinese recipes
The meat under the saddles thing is still done to this day by gauchos, mainly of the argentinian patagonia. It's left on the horse's back to be salted by the sweat for a few days. It would start to rot but the salt would stop it on the first stages of rotting, then, it was cooked and eaten. I have tried it and it is delicious
@@jonbenson6109 ...if you eat dairy you should know you literally eat bacteria. Trust me fermentation is a more yuck process than what op mentions about. Wierdly, some food is only for the brave because they arent "normalised" or majority dont view it as bad practice because they saw someone else view it so. Culture influenced opinion I suppose.
I love hearing about agriculture and livestock management from around the world. Growing up I only knew about modern western/American farming. Hearing about the different milks and meats that other cultures live on is so fascinating. What animals are valued for what purposes seems to vary all over the world and throughout history. It really motivates me to try new foods and question all my pre-conceptions
There's very good archeological evidence that "modern" pigs (as in "not wild boars") were an (extremely?) highly valued commodity during Roman times. They found remains of domesticated, probably imported pigs in (what is now) Germany. And they're not sure if those were traded or raided. So, imagine a scenario like in the Wild West, I guess, with pig-rustling Germans. It seems to have set the course for a deep and abiding love for all things pork.
@@p.s.shnabel3409 wow that’s cool! I bet Romans would be into pork. They sure liked their decadent meats and pork belly sure is tasty. I can definitely see livestock being a target for raids. Super valuable before you could just grocery store for all your food lol. I think I remember reading somewhere that early Britons kept chickens and rabbits as pets and the Romans were shocked by that when they “discovered” them. Couldn’t figure out why the savages would keep them if not to eat them
@@p.s.shnabel3409 Weren't pigs (and other animals) domesticated to make their meat taste less gamey? I have sadly never tasted gamey meat before, but I'm starting to think maybe modern society is majorly missing out on flavor.
Thé Romans Aldo imported charcuterie from Gaul (France) which was already famous for its cured ham, sausages, etc. Some cooking traditions go a long way indeed.
Yesterday, I took a lb of ground lamb out of freezer. Pondered what to make with it and immediately thought of checking my Tasting History cookbook. Of course, Max will have exactly the right recipe. These are delicious! No asafetida, but page 12 describes it as having a leek/garlic flavor. Minced garlic will do! No long pepper but a friend just brought me some unknown spices directly from Turkey along with some grains of paradise. Ok, use them both. What a great recipe to use for grilled burgers of anykind of meat. The Khans ate very well!
I really have to admit Max, not once but three times now I have thought about what certain armies/cultures ate and have found the answer through your channel. I've just watched every other one because I found them fascinating and this is a very binge able channel. You are wonderful and I am very happy to see your channel grow so fast. Much love!
The fermented mare's milk reminds me of my dad who grew up in Kasachstan and often would drink fermented mare's milk too. I haven't been able to try it myself but my dad said it's slightly sour but it's very nourishing and great when you are sick
It is great. Here, in the Bashkortostan region of Russia, Kumıs (as Bashkir people call their version of fermented mare's milk) is available from many regular grocery stores, and it's good. And your dad's description of the taste and properties sounds about right.
@@heliveruscalion9124 You actually have to ferment mare's milk because the lactose content is so high. If you drink it straight, you get diarrhea. Cheese is also fermented milk, so it certainly has its culinary merits.
My favorite Mongolian food is aaruul. It’s made by boiling cheese curds in milk, mixing the resulting goo with sugar and dried fruit, then drying and cutting it into different shapes. I had it at an international dinner I went to back in college. They called it Mongolian cheesecake, though, not aaruul.
That sounds somewhat similar to rasmalai, a south asian dessert! You basically form milk curds into a disk and cover the disks in cream that's been sweetened and flavored with some spices. Rosewater is a common ingredient. Then you add some dried fruits and nuts
I read somewhere Ghengis Khan liked to eat sea buckthorn, a small, bitter orange berry. It's excellent for skin, hair, and nails, even reversing baldness (my personal experience), but he felt it brought virility and strength
Btw, I made the pumpkin cheesecake. Seeing how the original recipe came out very soft, I roasted the pumpkin ahead if time instead of boiling it. I wrapped it for a day or so in a couple of dishtowels. The end product wasn't soggy at all. Yum!!
I’m sure the main reason Scappi called for boiled pumpkin instead of roasted was that he didn’t have a modern oven so he couldn’t roast it without introducing a smoky flavour.
These are surprisingly similar to the present-day Hungarian "fasírt"! Slightly different seasoning and additional breadcrumbs and egg go into the meat mixture.
My Mom used to make "hamburgers" like this. Very similar procedure - paprika, salt, and white pepper kneaded into ground beef, formed into something like double thick slider patties, then they're deep fried in a wok. This is where it goes in a completely different direction. Excess oil is set aside and filtered, the oil and "fond" (more like burned meat) left on the pan gets garlic (maybe also crushed dried anchovies or fermented shrimp). When toasted, cooked rice goes in. Toss, soy sauce and oyster sauce, toss. Serve with the meat and some pickled or fermented plant matter on the side.
@@machematix My friends and I would have it at home when we get back from games and move on to gaming with control pads. Ah...the 16bit 2D era. Good memories.
I am living in Turkey atm and agree with you on this sounding like it would taste like something I'd get here! I used asafeotida when I was vegetarian following a Hindu style 'meditation' diet. Because onions and garlic are not used (as something in them agitates the mind), I learned to use asafeotida (or hing) as a substitute. I found that the powder only stinks when it gets wet. So I used dry cooking utensils and put it straight into the oil that I was cooking with. And true, you don't want to use much! The aroma was indeed like a kind of garlic/onion and when it was mixed with all of the other ingredients, it was not a bad substitute. I'm a meat eater now hahaha and even though I meditate occasionally, I have returned to using onions and garlic. But if I could find asafoetida, I would still probably use it every now and then. :D PS I love your videos.
Ah, so that's what the exclusion of garlic and onions are about. My grandmother's a staunch Buddhist, and we never quite know why that was a thing. But hey, more for me then hahaha.
Thank you for covering little something from the great past of our little country. In Mongolia, Genghis Khan would be called Чингис Хаан (pronounced like Chinggis Khaan). Traditionally we do not really eat meat pies as is. However, meat pies are a very common ingredient used in buuz and khuushuur, two of few stable daily diet of ours. But I can see the value of easy to make meat pies when you are constantly moving from place to place in conquest. Addition of coriander in this meal, on the other hand, feels like this was mostly enjoyed by the nobility as commoners probably never heard of or seen such spice. There are still many people who has never heard of coriander in my country today, and is used rarely in our food. Баярлалаа! Ажлын өндөр амжилт хүсэе!
I really appreciate your style, your proper pronunciation of foreign language words and most honestly, your calm but energized voice as you talk about your food items. I say this because my wife, who suffers migraines, loves listening to your videos in the darkness and will often make the food you make, for me and the family later on! Thanks for all you do, you made the right choice doing this than going back to your old job. Bravo!
This recipe doesn't use anything to really keep the ground meat together during the cooking. An egg, or breadcrumbs, like you've mentioned, mixed into that - but then again, I don't usually cook lamb, maybe it just works without)
It's a beautiful unique blessed name like the name Saffron is. I can tell u from the experience in being named Saffron it's a blessed name. Many call the spice a Ritch name. Because it coast so much. But as a Girls name it's a bless name my parent's got my name Saffron from the Bible. God bless!.
The possibility of you doing something Mongolian never crossed my mind. And as always, thank you for your effort in the pronunciation and not violating the language (and my ears) :)
I think Mongolian is being more popular nowadays, I've always loved the Mongol empire as a kid and listen to Mongolian folk and other music and I'm from faaaaar away 😊
One of the best channel talking about Mongolian cuisine is Artger. It is very interesting to see how Mongolians prepare their meals and the variety of dishes they have. The Nomad culture and the impact that the Khans have towards their cuisine is very apparent even in the modern day setting.
i love Artger and the influence of the Khan's orders to "eat every part of the animal" is so visible in their love of meat + offal today (especially in soups!)
2:26 Max! A quarter teaspoon of Asafoetida is enough for 3 days of cooking, you would put half a pinch in per meal for 2 :D. And as I mentioned , in reply to you on the Townsends's video, you don't mix it as a raw ingredient, it has to be lightly fried to remove its rancidity, like they do in Indian Tadka/ tempering. But I guess you followed the recipe and the process has been refined over many centuries :). Thank goodness, I could not take that much asafoetida in 500 grams of lamb meat after using it for a lifetime, so you were good keeping a straight face tasting it. p.s. maybe the older version was a bit less intense, like the wine of olden times, and better, more intense crop varieties took over over 500 years , humph food for thought, with little less asafoetida ;P.
It's quite probable that the writer assumed that anyone who was reading the book would already know to temper the asafoetida and the recipes inside were more of a reminder of what goes in which plus the health reasons to be eating the dish. A lot of old cookbooks assume things like that since they were intended for educated experiences cooks in reasonably wealthy households
If it makes you feel any better... I was today years old when I learned what they were. I'd never heard of them and am quite the Geography and History fan. Oh, I'm 45, so, yeah. Don't feel so bad! I just recently discovered your channel. I absolutely love the idea and the content you create!
The mongols have an afficionado for herbs. The most important one to the khans was a rare herb we call cistanche which is endemic to Mongolia. It was taken each and every day to make sure there would be more mini khans. Yes, it is said to be an afrodisiac as well as it tones the damn thing residing in men's crotches if taken regularly, and this is why Ron Teeguarden always tend to have cistanche in stock. You might say that desert cistanche was their own "Spice Melange". One could never have a good day without it.
@@Octopetala You might be right or you could be jesting. I don't know for sure. Let us pretend for a moment that you are an English teacher. I am a Norwegian writing English without checking the dictionary. Daft of me, I know, but let me try once more: "The mongols utilized diverse herbs in their kitchen, and the khans had a penchant for a rare, endemic herb called cistanche". Is this OK or do I misuse the word "penchant"? I know for sure that the khans demanded to get desert cistanche served every day and I firmly believe it was used in their food, if only because lack of options. This herb was requested from the khans because of how it works a man's manly [CENSORED] to go from a "grower" to a "shower". If they stopped taking cistanche the thing would go back to normality quite fast, and I think that could mess with anybodys head. A day without cistanche wouldn't be a good day for conquering just because of that, and I tried hard to not be long-winded This is stil a stab in the dark though. If I was English I wager I would do a do-over of the whole thing, since I really don't know for sure which order I should place each word (object!) in and so on. I do believe American English is more forgiving.
@@jrnandreassen3338 Your use of penchant is correct. Aficionado wasn't because an aficionado is some *one* who takes great pleasure in something. The adjective form would probably be "affinity" which doesn't quite have the same connotation.
Max, you missed the opportunity to tell partly how Genghis Khan became such a strong ruler. He did it through marrying his sisters and daughters to leaders and insisting they act as co-rulers. That's how he kept control of his empire.
His ability as a leader is seriously overlooked over his military career. His was just as strong as making allies as he was destroying his enemies which allowed him to unite all the mongol tribes, something that hadn't been done for hundreds of years
Well really similar to some Turkish "köfte" recipes except for the spices. Also since Turks and Mongols lived together for a time we have same words for stuff. Kımız = Fermented horse milk Yasa = Law Kara = Black Ulus = Nation Etc. Khan or Khagan is also in Turkish as Han and Kağan/Hakan. The raw meat under horse saddle thing is possibly where Turkish raw meat "Pastırma" comes from. Bastırmak is a Turkish word that means applying pressure and they say Turks did put steaks under their saddles to create pastırma.
Yeah I have turkic and turkish freinds and we get along well we all always come together and say we are one and the same. Turkic, Turkish and Hunnic etc we are part of a larger group of people who had great rulers and good people.
@@jacobxiongnu2931 but every single time their mongol brother takes on all the negatives while their so called ''brothers'' bask in his glory: sad life
Turkish =|= Turkic. Turkic were mongoloid nomadic tribes from eastern Asia that later moved west. Turkish today are turkified Greeks. Turkish seems to forget that way before Turkic people's invasion, there were cultures derived from Ancient Greek cultures.
It is indeed a nice touch to put in the extra effort to research and pronounce those names correctly in their native tongues. Shows some due scholarly respect to those other cultures and languages.
I've been watching all your videos with my boyfriend lately, and he tells me he's honestly learning more from your channel than he remembers ever learning in school. As a history buff myself, I wholeheartedly appreciate your dedication to research, presentation, and humor. Great video as always, Max!
You're a true thespian, Max. I absolutely love your very melodramatic readings and monologues. They always have me in stitches of laughter. Good food, good drink, and good laughter are great for the soul and your channel has the winning combination of these. Thank you for all of it.
Useful tip for anybody using asafetida that I learned the hard way: if you don't want your cupboard or wherever you keep it to smell like the apocalypse, get a stash bag. It tastes so good, but the scent of rotting garlic is not one I care to have pervading my home.
I keep mine in a plastic bag inside a larger glass jar and the faint smell of burning gunpowder and onions still leaks out into my cabinet. After a while you start to mind it less and less.
Genghis Khan is a man who's fascinated me ever since I was a kid, a fascination I inherited from my dad. He was a man who was both mighty and humble in equal measure, who believed himself to be eventually forgotten (and even had his tomb hidden so that it's never been discovered), yet is one of the most well-known men in the entire world. So many would-be despots and kings who strive to have their names be remembered through all of history and have fallen into unknown obscurity could have taken a lesson from him.
Well my dad forced me and my brother to watch a gruesome film on Genghis when we were in primary school, y'know, with the whole boiling people alive thing n'all. Then I got scolded for crying. So weird that for some it's a good thing. Sorry I don't mean to be a downer, I just don't think notoriety is a goal in itself..
@@peggysue1725 Pretty common stuff at the time. This is still an age when "war" in much of central Asia often meant murdering every man in a city and enslaving the women and children - if they weren't outright put to death. It's important to note that the peoples that Genghis treated harshly were ones that "struck the first blow" as it were. Typically by executing his emissaries. A good example of that were the Kwarezm, whom Genghis Khan sent trade envoys to. The Kwarezm emperor had them executed and their heads sent back to the khan in lieu of a written reply. The khan of khans was not one to waste a resource, hence the rapid incorporation of submissive and subdued peoples into the empire, both on a civil level as well as a militaristic one. But woe betide those who earned his wrath.
I think it must have something to do with living under a great sky. He is a fascinating character. But one cannot easily forgive the damage done to the cultures he steamrollered. Of course, I'm British so that judgement reflects on my ancestors also. Ah well.
On a more positive note, Mongolia right now seems to be a kind and good place, as much as I understand, what with their Buddhist beliefs and all. Yup my heritage is mostly enslaved folks from Eastern Europe, so I'm kinda allergic to 'great men' but that's my own personal issue I think XD Funny, but we had a British guy living here (a loooooooooong way from England) and what I gathered was we're not actually so different.. well the 'peasant culture' is pretty much 1-1, don't know anything about high class tho xd
@@peggysue1725 Pretty much everyone's history is "enslaved folks" in most of the world. Feudalism was essentially the regimented slavery of the lowest, most populous class of people, with laws treating them as property to be used and abused by the landowners, even traded like cattle. In fact, it was the Black Death that swept through Europe in the 12th through 14th centuries that changed that. By the time the plagues had passed, so many people were dead that it actually put power back into the hands of the lowest classes, as now instead of there being more than enough peasants to do the job, there we so few that their manpower was in critical need simply to produce food, putting a premium on them. This, in turn, allowed them to start demanding better work conditions, the relaxing of the feudal system, and eventually led to the creation and growth of a middle class in Europe from the 15th century onward. But for a period of about 600 years, peasants in most of Europe were essentially slaves. To the point where leaving the land that they "belonged" to could be met with death.
Genghis Khan is one of my favorite subjects in history. He was born because his father kidnapped his mother from another tribe and Genghis's wife suffered a similar fate. Of course Genghis did rescue her and even raised the child that most likely wasn't his and wanted to put a stop to such practices. The greatest positive was that he understood that uniting all of Mongolia was way better than tribalism. But on the other hand his desire for conquest outside his homeland lead to a lot of unnecessary conflict, death and destruction. It wasn't necessarily all bad when you consider his tolerance when it came to religion, but only the Mongolians mostly benefited from the conquest.
Genghis Khan may not have always been a good man, but he was unquestioningly a great man, maybe even the greatest man. Only Alexander can really claim to match him.
Isnt it the same with Alexander, Rome and Napoleon ? Their conquests mostly bring benefit to their homeland while leaving a lot of unnecessary death and destruction to others.
Lots of people have been curious about the term "Vegetable Oil" as what we today call vegetable oil is a relatively new ingredient. Historically though (and technically still today) the term refers to anything made from vegetation; olives, poppy seed, grape seed, linseed, etc. All of these have been used for a very long time and in China, some variant was used as far back as the Song dynasty (960-1279).
Wikipedia Soybean Oil claims
"Chinese records dating prior to 2000 BCE mention use of cultivated soybeans to produce edible soy oil.[3] Ancient Chinese literature reveals that soybeans were extensively cultivated and highly valued as a use for the soybean oil production process before written records were kept.[4] "
I learn so much from your videos and comments like these 😃🖒🖒
Wait does that mean the olive oil is technically vegetable oil?
@@snoozegrunthypna that it is
All vegetable oils are toxic including all seeds and olives etc only ok 1 is coconut animal fat is king for cooking raw and nutrients not even a debate
As someone who speaks Chinese I can say that your pronunciation is really really good for someone that didn’t grow up speaking the language.
Thank you 🙏
I second this, max really puts work into his videos and it really shows
Really impressive
Yeah, he seems to put significant effort into correct pronunciation, and it shows.
I suspect tonal languages are easier to pronounce for people who are musical, as Max is. I can’t hear, and therefore can’t reproduce, most of the tonal differences and I’m fairly tone-deaf.
How many boards would the Mongols hoard if the Mongols horde got bored?
at least 5
One of them being a board of directors.
That one was a good giggle!
Every school board in Eurasia!!!
Enough to cover a multitude of Rus nobles with, and proceed to crush them to death by dancing on top
They look identical to Kofta, Eastern European/Balkan/Turkish/Caucasian/North African/Central Asia metaballs. in Romania we call them Chiftele. The ingredients are very similar: can be any kind of grounded meat usually pork or beef or mix, black pepper, thyme instead of coriander then egg, flour, onion, garlic formed into small cakes then deep fried in lard/oil. They last a long time days to weeks if refrigerated and are sometimes re-used in other dishes for example chiftele marinate is made by re-cooking the leftover chiftele with tomato sauce or re-using tomato soup or can be made fresh in which case they are first fried then boiled.
Hail to the Great Warrior Vlad Tepes! In fact I wonder if you know the food he ate. Damn, I must look to see if Max has made a vid of this. Instead of sitting comfortably, Vlad rode, fought and died bravely in battle with his troops
This is where kofte comes from. It was Turkic Mongols that invented the mince meat meat balls. But when Turks learnt about the Islamic faith from Persians, they accepted it and began talking in Persian to be able to communicate with these Persians who they have jist became very close to.
We have the same thing in Bengal. We call it Kopta. 😁
We have kofta in Pakistan and Afghanistan as well
@@Aquarian55 I read that Kofta was invented by mongolians as war rations and since he occupied such huge land the concept spread and probably spread into Africa and Europe via Ottoman Empire.
I will always appreciate Max’s ability to find the best possible Pokémon to accompany any given recipe or historical subject. It’s almost like a game to guess which it’ll be based on the title of the video.
I feel like I definitely should have guessed this one
what? Pokemon? I don't get it..
I think it's Jose that picks the Pokémon, though I might be wrong about that.
@@XenosInfinity you would be right. We were debating on holding it back for an Australian recipe but here we are 🤭
At first, I was thinking "What is that Australia Pokémon doing here?" I squinted my eyes to get a better look. "That is Kanga... Oh."
I know Genghis Khan was terrifying and seemingly remorseless conqueror, but props to his mom for giving 120% for him and his brother after their people ditched them.
Temujin actually killed one of his brothers in vengeance over taking his hunting spoils.
Other than that, he was known for taking great care and having great respect for his mother, her being often a consultant for him and his wives, when he was Khan. Plus her helping take care of his kids, when he was out conquering.
Get yourself a mom. Get yourself a mom that inspires you to conquer the open steppe and the Asian continent.
Any mother would be proud of their little man for making it that far in life after all that
Even if untold droves of people may have maybe died horribly in the process
He was way less awful than other conquerers. It must be remembered that before Ghengis conquered an area, he'd send emissaries to tell them that if they joined willingly, they could keep everything they had and need only pay a pretty reasonable tax as well as offer up a certain number of soldiers each year. All things considered so long as you did what you were told, you had it pretty good, because Genghis was incredibly protective of his people.
@@RaptorJesus Im no History expert but ive always felt his atrocities were over exaggerated
Just guessing but maybe they wiped the grease on their boots not only to get it off their hands but also as a way to weatherproof them.
I think it was much simpler reason.
Like, Uzbekistanians and such were wiping their greasy hands straight off their robes, which is made of cotton. Drinking burning hot black Indian tea to cool off by profuse sweating, so imagine their regular smell in hot dry weather, including all the dairy drinks as well. And they had that "cultural behavior" pretty much until very recent decades generations, like their literal grandparents.
My mom's father was from Kazakhstan, and she loves that mare milk thing that is constantly in our fridge. It is super disgusting, smells like warm sweetened spoiled milk or something like that. They also make pickled watermelons, loved salted tea with milk and lard, eating a lot of dried salted river fish as a snack(smells super strong), and all sorts of bizarre stuff. How did they were converted to islam with such hygiene, is a real mystery.
The ancient warlords of that region had a saying you might enjoy, Max. "The only way to conquer Asia is one steppe at a time".
My favorite comment of the day : )
Ba-dum TISS!
Major groan
Gahhhjj
@@sandralouth3103 *salutes*
There's a really good book about the Mongols called
"Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" by Jack Weatherford. If anyone's even a little interested in learning more about the Mongols, their culture, religion or conquests I'd highly recommend it.
That line about eating their victims seem extremely suspect to me...the Mongols during Genghis Khan's time believed that a person's spirit was held in the blood, if you were to get any on you that meant that you were essentially cursed by the person you killed, forever doomed to be haunted by your victim. Even a person's smell or breath was said to house a small part of their spirit, that's why the Khan's servants would cover their mouths in the Khan's presence. This superstition is also one of the reasons they favored ranged combat from horseback, even when executing a person they would first wrap the person in heavy blankets then beat them with blunt rods or hammers, all to avoid spilling any blood. To willingly eat a person and suck out there blood would have seemed horrifying to a Mongol.
I agree. That sort of accusation was commonly made against enemies, and almost never true. Probably never true at all. The only documented cannibalism I am aware of other than emergency disaster cannibalism (like the Donner party and similar situations) was the ritual consumption of beloved family members' brains after death among the Fore people in New Guinea. People were not killed for the purpose. (The practice unfortunately spread a severe, slow brain disease, kuru, and is now no longer done.)
I met Professor Weatherford when I was in Mongolia when he was living there for a while back in 2010. His book is excellent and I highly recommend it.
Yep, never heard about Mongol cannibalism. Not that their culture could be made much scarier than it really was, no matter what you made up about them! The destruction of Babylon springs to mind, where even the cats and dogs were executed.
@@jonesnori well, I can say with certainty that it's not "never true". I'm scarred by the image of watching a Hatian man eating the burned flesh of a theif (from a video recorded on a phone in the very recent past). It certainly happens even in the modern world so I would not doubt some cultures in the past did as well. Perhaps infrequently.
@@stickychocolate8155 Are you sure about what you saw, though? Videos are easily edited.
Several years ago, around 2008, the community college I taught at had students attending from Mongolia, most of whom lived in Ulaanbaatar. When I pronounced Genghis Khan with the Ch rather than how most of us grew up saying it their eyes lit up and one of my students said, "You said it right!" It meant so much to these students so far from home to hear a teacher try to honor their culture and their lived experience. They gifted me with a leather portrait of Genghis Khan that I have treasured. I hang it as close to the center of my home wherever I live so the Great Khan can watch over my hearth.
When speaking to foreigners, I was used to inroducing myself using the English equivalent of my name to make it easier to pronounce. One of my US-born teachers insisted I use my native language name because she would prefer to try it and maybe fail than deliberately use the one that is foreign to me. That actually felt pretty nice too.
I don't particularly feel like going to sleep with Hitler looking at me, Mongol Hitler or German one.
his actual nameis is Temucin, Cenghiz Han is the name given by Turks to him. Cenk is war Cenkhiz, Han- Lord of War, King of War/battle.
Changez khan
That is AWESOME!
That meat under the saddle thing might actually be for eating. Because in Turkey there is a type of dried meat called "Pastirma" which literally translates as "the pressed one". It is said that cavalry men put meat with lots of spices under the saddle until the spices cook the meat. You should definitely give it a go, it is delicious. And when you are eating eat you can see that it almost feels like raw meat.
Btw, funny story. That pope's messenger was so fat that he had to be carried by two mules while travelling to mongolia. Mongols were shocked at the border when they saw him and forced that poor dude on a extreme diet of one bowl of grain per day for two months until they reached to Qaraqurum. He complains about it in his writings, it's pretty funny.
Same thing here in Brazil. There's a traditional beef jerky called "carne de sol" (Sun's meat) that is done in the same way. By laying the steaks on the horses it would get salted by the animal sweat.
This probably explains a lot, he claims the Mongols were eating human meat he was literally being eaten by his stomach 🤣
So... pastrami, you mean? "Pastirma," lol.
@@tundra5171 Pastirma is the original term, it’s been eaten in Anatolia for several centuries. “Pastrami” is the Eastern European copy of it.
@@ModernEphemera 😂 it’s a Greek dish the Turks got from the Byzantines it’s not Turkish it’s originally European
I never get tired of seeing which Pokémon will pop up on Max’s shelf/sideboard.
I’ve been waiting to see when Kangaskhan would appear!!
I was saving it for an Australian dish, but this was just too perfect.
@@TastingHistory Putting that Kangaskhan there was a perfect touch and I’m looking forward to seeing that Australian dish soon!
(Also, I can’t believe I got a like and reply from the Master Chef Max himself 😆)
Kind of curious what a plush Garbodor will eventually accompany. But yes, Kangaskhan was perfect here.
by the way, mongols considered fish to be ritually unclean, so eating it was a sure sign of desperation
I know they aren’t *technically* meatballs, but I’d still order a big plate of l’il meatcakes with pasta if it was an option in a restaurant.
I imagine you were thinking of an american-style spaghetti and meatballs, but now I’m also thinking of serving it with pasta the same way you might a beef stroganoff, with a cream-based (or maybe oil-based) sauce. Completely different flavors though.
@@pallasproserpina4118 But both would be delicious
@@pallasproserpina4118 both versions would probably work with these meat cakes
Genghis Khan would probably be down for that too
@@jasmine-------------1235 these aren't the kind of meat cakes I was looking for
Some Mongolian friends used to make a dumpling they called būz (booze), beef, onion, water wrapped in a shell with a tiny hole on top. You would drink the juice first before you bit into the dumpling.
"You would not like Genghis Khan when he is upset" is the understatement of the last thousand years.
The kind that involves wiping out entire civilisations from history
@@googane7755 He is the Mongol equivalent of a rapper trying to beef with Eminem.
You probably wouldn't like the guy when he was in a good mood. Guy was a conqueror. They don't tend to be nice dudes.
@@bobgilbert1953 incorrect! Genghis khan was super nice for his troops and left all his conquered land alone to their own things. He also offered people to surrender and if they didnt he would conquer them. He isnt that bad compared to the shit that the british empire did.
@@Teaspike Sure, he was extremely generous as a ruler for his time. He was also a warlord who regularly ordered mass executions. Let's not act like he was all puppies and sunshine.
I don't know what's funnier, that the Mongols had an affectionate diminutive term for small things, or that Genghis Khan probably would have loved Pizza Rolls.
Well who doesn’t love pizza rolls 😁
I think Genghis Khan would accept Pizza Rolls as a form of tribute.
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 Same.
I think Genghis would have appreciated primal all meat pizza rolls. The Mongolian warriors were not big on eating bread because lack of nutrients.
@@lottie1144 genghis khan the original carnivore/keto diet enthusiast
this is the 4th video im watching on this channel and for somebody who never cooked or baked anything in his life,i find them absolutely fascinating! also - and i cant emphasis this enough - im extremely impressed with your effort to pronounce everything in the correct manner! this is a rarity and especially with native english speakers. kudos from hungary!
He does a wonderful job with the pronunciations in any language!
The bit about the meat under the saddle is actually true, as it happens. The constant thumping and bouncing of the saddle broke down the muscle fibers of the meat and rendered it edible raw, in addition to providing some degree of cushion for the horse.
Two birds, one steak.
I am surprised none of them died of food poisoning doing that. Guess their stomachs must have been pretty tough.
i thought it was mares milk they kept under the saddle, and the shaking and heat curdled it
@@clothar23 Eating a diet of mainly meat the stomach acid remains quite strong. Comparatively humans have a very very acidic stomach acid. More in line with that of a vulture than not, so not that surprising. The problem in modern times is that a lot of the foods we eat dilute the acidity, making us more susceptible. We're also not exposed to as many pathogens so our immune systems don't get as exposed.
There's also the fact that all the weak kids died pretty early on, that's where all the old life expectancy was like 30 comes from. It's not that people didn't live to be old, its just so few survived childhood it skewed the numbers.
AFAIK it was dried cheese curds they carried that way. The saddle broke down the hard cheese and made it softer to eat.
The salt from the horses sweat also helped to sorta preserve the meat as a tartare. Also, the soldiers were foraging for their own provisions so made sense that they'd have easy preparation for meats and maintain mobility. No real extra storage space required, you'd have food preparing while you rode and still be able to eat what you had previously stored.
Much later on, but voyageurs would make pemmican as a sort of survival food based off of techniques gleaned from Native Americans, which could be prepped enmasse and basically stored in a leather pouch. A highly mobile solution to rations.
It's a sign of real respect for your viewers the amount of effort and research you put into these videos, particularly when you deliver it in such a laid-back style that doesn't reference the amount of work and effort involved 👏
"As you can see, Genghis very much enjoys Twinkies, because of the excellent sugar rush."
Also, The wiping of greasy hands on the boots makes sense, speaking as the owner of leather shoes. They were low-key maintaining their shoes.
That was my immediate thought - to keep the leather supple!
That is what I thought. It conditions the leather. That to me was a smart move. Those people that cursed them for that seems to me they just wanted something to bi#ch about.
Was waiting for this comment. Wyld Stallyns! 🎸
Excellent!
That's what I was thinking, too. Two birds, one stone, no waste.
As a Crimean Tatar, you never cease to amaze me with your pronunciations. Some of our cuisine comes from East Asia too and it feels fascinating to see them getting more exposure. Love your vids!
@Erqĭn Məmbetjanuli 🇰🇿 Q̆iyat Қырымдансын мы қадам?
@Erqĭn Məmbetjanuli 🇰🇿 Q̆iyat Əticen de Kazaq ya ayse?
@@ronmka8931 We are completely different from the Slavs. People in Crimea consisted of Circassians, Greeks, Ostrogoths, even Italians and Armenians. We can be divided into three groups among each other. Noğays, people of the steppes that are mostly Turkic, Tats that are mountaineers and Yaliboylu, people of the coastline. Tats and Yaliboylu have profound Greek and Ostrogoth ancestries among Circassian. We are a mixed nation, but Slavs aren't one of those. You can rarely find people of Tatar+Slav ancestry near the borders but more than 95% of us aren't.
@@ronmka8931 Linguistically they have nothing to do with slavs. But they are classic nomads. Mix of Turkic men and local women. A Tatar or Bolgar from Kazan is 40% Medieval Turkic + 60% Slavic. A Crimean Tatar is way more mixed but mostly with locals instead of slavs. If you count Bashkurts as Tatar they are 80% Medieval Turkic by dna. Shortly from Crimea to Astrakhan to Kazan they are Turkic.
@@hansolo2439 Kazans and Bashkurts are much more Turkic than us. DNA tests from Tats and Yaliboylus result in max. %20 Turkic or so, which makes us probably the least Turkic of all Turkic nations...
I've had mare's milk (when I had to wean my mare's foal). It is delicious, lighter than cow's milk, sort of like skim milk if only skim milk tasted good. It is rather sweet so I can easily see how it could be made into an alcoholic beverage. It also had what I would call a nutty flavor. Very nice. Since she is a black mare, I guess I could have made qara kumiss!
Love the guy who was like "If you drink this liquid it will turn into piss!". Thank you man, your input is as vivid as it is neccesary!
@@ccriztoff it is possible. I saw some people with Mongolic feature but have fair hair and eyes.
@@ccriztoff That seems like an implausible conclusion
@Mouth Raper He looked asiatic in his portraits, his sons looked asiatic. The logical conclusion is, they're actually white but just wanted to be seen as asians. Jesus had semetic features but posed as a blonde blue eyed caucasian for his portraits, Jesus wanted the world to know that it's ok to be white. No body wanted to be white in the ancient times.
@Mouth Raper Of course they do, the Prophet Muhammad was described to have fair white skin and red hair.
OK, so it's a diuretic...
Max: "Pretty darn easy to make"
Ghengis Khan: "Fine, I'll conquer most of Asia so you can make your meat cakes, lil man."
🤣
gotta create and install an silk road to get them sweet sweet ingredients.
As a self proclaimed fat kid history lover, I gotta say, I absolutely LOVE your format of content making! I love getting info on the recipe and the dish and then a nice smattering of history sauce to top it all off.
Genghis Khan: "Our kids are going to forget everything I did for them."
1/3 of the human population: "YO! I just found out I'm related to Genghis Khan!"
Sorry to spoil it but threre can be a high chance of debauchery by Gengis Kahn's troops when they visited your ancestral village
Most "Khans" I know of are South Asian.
everyone is related to everyone
@@ILoveCheese68 I mean, if you go back far enough and regardless in what you believe: Yes.
Technically we are all related. Whether you believe in evolution or biblical creation, all of us came from very similar ancestors.
Another great video Max, thank you so much. As a Turkish, I’d like to add:
1- You can definitely find this exact dish everywhere in Turkey. It is called köfte.
2-When it comes to asafoetida, it is called çemen otu in Turkish and it is quite popular in Turkish cuisine. It even has its own sauce called çemen, which traditionally includes asafoetida, garlic, cumin, coriander etc. and it uses A LOT OF asafoetida. Turkish delicacy called Pastırma (cured meat / Turkish bacon) uses çemen as seasoning and tastes delicious, but as someone who loves and ate pastırma growing up, you will smell like asafoetida for a week. In order to get rid of the persistent smell of asafoetida, in case you used it a lot like in çemen sauce, take a shower twice a day and not leave the house for a week.
3- Kurut is still made in Turkey and "kurut-" is a Turkish verb meaning drying out.
4-The butter William of Rubruck speaks of sounds like Tulum peyniri, sheep or cow milk cheese kept inside the skin of a sheep or a goat, but I've never heard it is kept in sheep's stomach before. Although I know a very rare version of tulum tereyağı, in which butter instead of cheese is stored inside the skin of a sheep.
5-In the case of Jean de Joinville, what you said could be true but in Turkey, it is told that the pastırma, cured meat, would be carried in as Jean de Joinville said but the meat would not be "raw" but cured salted meat.
6-About the cleaning part, there is a mountain called soap mountain in my father's village and people in the past used a piece of stone from there, ash and animal fat, especially sheep tallow, to make soap to clean pretty much everything. Unlike in the West, where water means purification, in the East, fire is purifying as well, so maybe they used the ashes and animal fat like my ancestors did in the past.
7-Lastly, traditionally we do not put breadcrumbs into köfte. If you visit Turkey, ask about this because a proper restaurant that serves köfte should not put breadcrumbs in it. The secret to making them good lies in the fat content of the meat and how long you knead the mixture with your hands. With higher fat content and more kneading, it would not be so dense. Also, as you have suggested, here in Turkey, nowadays we make it with beef, which tastes far better, in my opinion.
8-About Genghis Khan, or Cengiz Han in Turkish, he is definitely not forgotten. In Turkey, both Cengiz, Cengiz Han and Timuçin (Temüjin) are names still given to children to honour him and I even had a friend whose surname was Cengiz, this is especially remarkable because Turkish people chose their own surnames in 1934-35 and my friend's ancestor wished to carryout Cengiz Han's name for generations.
I know this was long and I know I am not Mongolian but perhaps, there are some similarities between us, especially back in the day, so I wished to write about what I perceived could be the case as a Turkish person.
Cengiz/Genghis is "Deniz" in Turkish. In Turkish "deniz" means sea. In Mongolian "genghis" means sea, infinite, grandiose.
@@efesimsek550 Ben hala koymuyorum. Anneannem ve annem de koymuyor. O zannederim yokluk zamanlarında eti çoğaltmak için yapılmış bir şey. Hala bu sözümün arkasındayım. Tarifinin geleneksel olduğunu iddia eden kimse de koymamalı bence. Özellikle de restoranlar.
genghis is just temujins title and it means ocean and seas king
Also interesting that they basically had a version of ayran. Yogurt is fermented milk, so not that far off from what they had.
damn bro
Very nice sneaky Harry Potter reference thrown in there with the “Terrible, yes, but great” line. Well done.
Yeah, I wonder why nobody says this about famous Austrian painter 🙄
I would be really interested in seeing you do a Native American history of the 3 sister's stew, maybe a history of the 7 prophecies and Wild Rice. I know Native History month is over but it should still be relevant.
Our family does a Thanksgiving meal with only Native American foods, North, South, and Mesoamerican. Three sisters stew, baked beans, succotash, quinoa, wild rice, masa dumplings and tortillas, three bean chili with potatoes, chocolate, tomato salad, and roasted wild turkey.
@@GeckoHiker Wow!! That sounds phenomenal!!!
@@GeckoHiker Indians had tortillas and dumplings? Must have been a post-colonial thing, because that sounds delicious!
@@CunnyMuncher Tortillas are a flatbread made from nixtal. It came from Mesoamerica and spread quite far. Maize was a staple crop throughout North America and they nixtalmalized it with ash.
The dumplings are my own idea and they are just spoonfuls of tortilla dough dropped into a boiling broth or simmering soup. You can find the recipe for tortillas on a bag of Maseca or any other masa. Just make the dough a little wetter for dumplings. I like to add minced onion and garlic, plus salt to mine. They could be fried like hush puppies or made into johnny cakes. Anything but frybread made from wheat and lard, which is not traditional. That was a commodities food given in place of land to grow real food.
@@ccriztoff That's what I read from some early Italian traveler. (Not Marco Polo! 😂)
Dude your channel kicks ass. I'm a bit of a history nerd and love cooking myself. Watching you grow from a smaller channel with a cool niche into quitting your job and taking this cool concept, running with it and really making something out of it was really neat to see. I recently started my own channel, and you are certainly one of my inspirations for doing so. Thanks brother!
Agreed! I remember when Max was making his decision to quit his job. And here we are still rooting for him. :-)
Absolutely brilliant video showing off a traditional pressing method that still works very well today!
I thought this was an honest channel, but it turns out Max is a Khan-man
Yes officer this comment right here
;)
Khannnnnnn!!!!!
Cute!
*ba dum tss*
I know that Ghengis Kahn and his armies spread a lot of cooking styles that we still use today (like hot pot) and I appreciate that, but the dude's warfare style is/was terrifying.
Indeed. You get one chance tu surrender, and then you’re fair game… Also, don’t kill the messenger. Genghis does NOT appreciate that.
How did a nomadic horseback riding culture develop cooking food in flavorful broth served inside a large metal pot and brought to a boil and left simmering for the duration of the meal??? 😮😮😮
@@John77Doe They did sit in place for certain amounts of time, they even had blacksmiths
@@excessiveone9952 So a nomadic people on horseback constantly having to move their sheep herds to new pastures carried big heavy metal pots from site to site?? 😯😯😯
@@John77Doe Yes. You just tie the things you don't want to carry yourself to an appropriately strong animal - preferably a horse - but others work well enough if you don't have one or don't want to overload it
Havinga a Kangaskhan stuffy in the background--that's one of the many reasons why this channel is in my top ten favourites.
Thank you Mew.
This man’s Chinese pronunciation is way better than many channels literally dedicated to language
as a mongolian ITS SO RUDE because we have a language and he is saying it in chinese (our sworn enemy)
@Nireonband he's reading a Chinese text though?
I love how you always put such emphasis on the pronunciation.
Thank you 😊
I would totally listen to a podcast of you talking about food history
Turkish people and Mongolian people kind of shared the same spaces in the Asian steppes and they have their origins more or less intertwined, when there was the expansion of the Mongols there were Turkish tribes that joined them and others that were kicked out of their settlements and migrated closer and closer to Europe precisely on the Anatolian peninsula where most of the territory of Turkey is located. As there was this relationship between the two peoples, there were shared usages and customs such as that of making meat dumplings, they say that the meatball itself very made by the Italians is a Turkish heritage (Arabs also consumed it) brought by merchants.
The Arab/Mediterranean consumption of meatballs made its way to Spain, and from Spain, it made it's way to Mexico. Hence, albongidas (Mexican meatballs) is a classic Mexican dish. Even the origin of the word "albondiga" is Arabic.
ua-cam.com/video/VJn1pPmY_Dg/v-deo.html
To add to the Turkish meat-based foods, one of my Turkish friends showed me this video, as a recipe for something that's equivalent to Iskender kebab but doable in a typical American kitchen. It's one of my favorite meatball recipes.
There's just something about Italy inheriting and improving on East Asian stuff. Probably thanks to the silk road. They did the same for noodles, fireworks, and ice cream.
Also, in Sweden. Apparently King Karl XII brought it back after a time spent in exile in the Ottoman Empire. Obviously, the recipe has been adapted, especially with respect to the accompaniments like lingonberries and the creamy gravy, but the origin is Turkish/Ottoman kofte. We use a fair amount of allspice in ours, and I suspect that the other spices usually found in kofte fell out of the recipe simply because they didn't have as frequent access to them.
There's a Mongolian rock band, The Hu (definitely a play on The Who) who does cooking videos "Hu's in the Kitchen" and they show how to make traditional and modern Mongolian foods. Their music is *awesome* (I"m a big fan).
fun fact Hu bands full name is Hunnu(Xiongnu) the ancestors of the Mongols
Mongolian here and i guarantee that its not a play on word The Who
That's so cool! Didn't know they did cooking stuff too, love those guys! 🤘😋🤘
It is kinda wholesome to know that no one forgot his name, even though he thought they would.
I've been to Mongolia what they translate as lamb is actually mutton. When I talked to them about it they were surprised people ate baby animals they thought that was disgusting. So while still delicious their "lamb" dishes are much tougher than you would expect. They also swap mutton and goat interchangably for many dishes so there is always a mutton or goat varient. Personally I usually prefer the goat version.
I mean the lamb we eat is fully grown, it's just only just BARELY fully grown. hasnt developed much flavor yet.
@@KairuHakubi -- it's a
@@feastmode7931 sensible carnivores wait for an animal to grow up. it becomes less cute and provides way more meat.
@@KairuHakubi -- i also happen to think that older animals taste better, too!
Here in Aotearoa we eat a lot of sheep meat. It's usually classed as lamb, hogget or mutton. Lamb is under 12 months old and is nice but very mild flavour, is considered the most prestigious and is therefore the most expensive. Hogget is 15 -16 months old and in my opinion far and away the best flavour but, rare as hen's teeth as l think most goes to export. Mutton more than 24 months old, is quite tough and needs long slow cooking some people prefer it but l really dislike the "gamey" flavour.
"He was supposed to cut the number of cups he drank every day by half, and so he did... by making half of his cups twice as big."
Dude literally got killed by his own genius. 😂
the 'only one spoon' incident, early 2000s
Hilariously, he was only Genghis's successor because his elder brothers couldn't stop fighting with each other over succession. Ghengis hated the idea of his kids killing eachother and so just removed them both from the running. (Mildly hypocritical, seeing as he killed his own elder brother- although admittedly, the guy was a lazy, pompous ass who thought it OK to steal food from his own starving family because he was the eldest male. His younger brother actually helped him do it.)
Ogedei was known for being well mannered, charismatic, and a total drunk.
One thing to keep in mind- the title of supreme Khan is an elected position. Ogedei had an advantage in the form of his dads backing, but he wasn't the only person in the running for the job and everyone knew he wasn't half the general or warrior his dad was.
I laughed at the same thought and was wondering if anyone thought the same 😂
When we were 22 years old, my twin brothers new wife insisted that he drank too much, and if he loved her, he would cut back.
"My Dearheart" he said to her, in front of me " I will restrict myself to one glass per night "
He went to the shops after work the next day, and brought a beautiful, delicate glass vase, held about two ltrs of the rum'n'coke we used to drink then.
:P
I knew this guy that drank too much and his wifey said cut your drinking in half. So he drank only half caff machiattos. Everyone laughed but it wasn't funny.
having fun working through your cookbook. makes it even better i can go back and watch the video on any questions i have about the dish.
I really like the respect you show to different cultures, not only by bringing their history here, but also by adressing the correct pronunciation of the words and names. Congratulations!
Thank you ☺️
To make something like this more tender mix/knead the mixture vigorously for a bit longer before shaping. It works on anything made with ground/minced meat.
make it gooey is what I've heard, seems to work
Add a little water, with a claw shaped hand, stir the meat mix in one direction, until becomes sorta gooey, "strandy." Better descriptions in Chinese recipes
i love the kangaskhan in the bg. i always kinda loved that it was a plains-dwelling, familial, very strong pokemon.... like genghis khan.
The meat under the saddles thing is still done to this day by gauchos, mainly of the argentinian patagonia. It's left on the horse's back to be salted by the sweat for a few days. It would start to rot but the salt would stop it on the first stages of rotting, then, it was cooked and eaten. I have tried it and it is delicious
Precisely - heard it and immediately went to write the same thing. Reportedly a good seasoning, haven't had the courage to try it yet tho
Yuck
Interesting! It must be well softened and the salt must been going straight in too. Must be good!
@@jonbenson6109 ...if you eat dairy you should know you literally eat bacteria. Trust me fermentation is a more yuck process than what op mentions about. Wierdly, some food is only for the brave because they arent "normalised" or majority dont view it as bad practice because they saw someone else view it so. Culture influenced opinion I suppose.
@@shashankbj3804 no thanks
I love hearing about agriculture and livestock management from around the world. Growing up I only knew about modern western/American farming. Hearing about the different milks and meats that other cultures live on is so fascinating. What animals are valued for what purposes seems to vary all over the world and throughout history. It really motivates me to try new foods and question all my pre-conceptions
There's very good archeological evidence that "modern" pigs (as in "not wild boars") were an (extremely?) highly valued commodity during Roman times.
They found remains of domesticated, probably imported pigs in (what is now) Germany. And they're not sure if those were traded or raided.
So, imagine a scenario like in the Wild West, I guess, with pig-rustling Germans.
It seems to have set the course for a deep and abiding love for all things pork.
@@p.s.shnabel3409 wow that’s cool! I bet Romans would be into pork. They sure liked their decadent meats and pork belly sure is tasty. I can definitely see livestock being a target for raids. Super valuable before you could just grocery store for all your food lol. I think I remember reading somewhere that early Britons kept chickens and rabbits as pets and the Romans were shocked by that when they “discovered” them. Couldn’t figure out why the savages would keep them if not to eat them
@@p.s.shnabel3409 Weren't pigs (and other animals) domesticated to make their meat taste less gamey? I have sadly never tasted gamey meat before, but I'm starting to think maybe modern society is majorly missing out on flavor.
Thé Romans Aldo imported charcuterie from Gaul (France) which was already famous for its cured ham, sausages, etc. Some cooking traditions go a long way indeed.
The Romans also I mean. Stupide phone correcting everything its own way ☹️
Yesterday, I took a lb of ground lamb out of freezer. Pondered what to make with it and immediately thought of checking my Tasting History cookbook. Of course, Max will have exactly the right recipe. These are delicious! No asafetida, but page 12 describes it as having a leek/garlic flavor. Minced garlic will do! No long pepper but a friend just brought me some unknown spices directly from Turkey along with some grains of paradise. Ok, use them both. What a great recipe to use for grilled burgers of anykind of meat. The Khans ate very well!
I really have to admit Max, not once but three times now I have thought about what certain armies/cultures ate and have found the answer through your channel. I've just watched every other one because I found them fascinating and this is a very binge able channel. You are wonderful and I am very happy to see your channel grow so fast. Much love!
YOURE SO CLOSE TO A MILLION!!!! Im so happy for your channel growth!!! Honestly its one of my fav!!!
Hoping to get a million for Christmas 🎄
I instantly subscribed just off the intro because I love the idea of history and cooking being mixed together. 10/10
The fermented mare's milk reminds me of my dad who grew up in Kasachstan and often would drink fermented mare's milk too. I haven't been able to try it myself but my dad said it's slightly sour but it's very nourishing and great when you are sick
It is great. Here, in the Bashkortostan region of Russia, Kumıs (as Bashkir people call their version of fermented mare's milk) is available from many regular grocery stores, and it's good. And your dad's description of the taste and properties sounds about right.
might just be me being american but thinking about fermented milk makes me 🤢
@@heliveruscalion9124 You actually have to ferment mare's milk because the lactose content is so high. If you drink it straight, you get diarrhea. Cheese is also fermented milk, so it certainly has its culinary merits.
@@heliveruscalion9124 So you've never eaten cheese or yogurt before?
@@shuriksvoboda6883 is it anything like kefir? Please forgive my ignorance, I am American, but I'm trying to get better
Really enjoyed doing the subtitles on this episode. One of the most informative ones me thinks. Also code of Yaaaaaaassa 😜
Hi, Jose!
@@christinawolf5657 hi hi!
I love the extremely high quality of production on these videos, wow! And so interesting.
So glad you did something on Genghis Khan. Your videos are always awesome. Thank you for sticking with it.
My favorite Mongolian food is aaruul. It’s made by boiling cheese curds in milk, mixing the resulting goo with sugar and dried fruit, then drying and cutting it into different shapes. I had it at an international dinner I went to back in college. They called it Mongolian cheesecake, though, not aaruul.
That sounds somewhat similar to rasmalai, a south asian dessert! You basically form milk curds into a disk and cover the disks in cream that's been sweetened and flavored with some spices. Rosewater is a common ingredient. Then you add some dried fruits and nuts
I read somewhere Ghengis Khan liked to eat sea buckthorn, a small, bitter orange berry. It's excellent for skin, hair, and nails, even reversing baldness (my personal experience), but he felt it brought virility and strength
"If you take your bit of cake and cut it in half, that's half the calories! That means you can have twice as much cake!"
-Ogedai Khan
yeah, 1=1/2x2
@Prasanth Thomas source????
@Prasanth Thomas “when will people stop quoting me on the internet for things I’ve never said?” - Ogedai Khan
Btw, I made the pumpkin cheesecake. Seeing how the original recipe came out very soft, I roasted the pumpkin ahead if time instead of boiling it. I wrapped it for a day or so in a couple of dishtowels.
The end product wasn't soggy at all.
Yum!!
I’m sure the main reason Scappi called for boiled pumpkin instead of roasted was that he didn’t have a modern oven so he couldn’t roast it without introducing a smoky flavour.
What's up with the Hakari reply below? I reported something similar last week (or so). Is this a price of your success?
@@ragnkja Thanks
@@debrathornley2974 They are all over youtube sadly.
I made the pumpkin cheesecake, too. I used canned solid-pack pumpkin and reduced the cream to 3/4 cup. It was amazing, and got rave reviews.
These are surprisingly similar to the present-day Hungarian "fasírt"! Slightly different seasoning and additional breadcrumbs and egg go into the meat mixture.
My Mom used to make "hamburgers" like this. Very similar procedure - paprika, salt, and white pepper kneaded into ground beef, formed into something like double thick slider patties, then they're deep fried in a wok.
This is where it goes in a completely different direction. Excess oil is set aside and filtered, the oil and "fond" (more like burned meat) left on the pan gets garlic (maybe also crushed dried anchovies or fermented shrimp). When toasted, cooked rice goes in. Toss, soy sauce and oyster sauce, toss. Serve with the meat and some pickled or fermented plant matter on the side.
That is an excellent meal! Thanks. I've never really seen anything quite like it.
@@machematix My friends and I would have it at home when we get back from games and move on to gaming with control pads. Ah...the 16bit 2D era. Good memories.
I am living in Turkey atm and agree with you on this sounding like it would taste like something I'd get here! I used asafeotida when I was vegetarian following a Hindu style 'meditation' diet. Because onions and garlic are not used (as something in them agitates the mind), I learned to use asafeotida (or hing) as a substitute. I found that the powder only stinks when it gets wet. So I used dry cooking utensils and put it straight into the oil that I was cooking with. And true, you don't want to use much!
The aroma was indeed like a kind of garlic/onion and when it was mixed with all of the other ingredients, it was not a bad substitute. I'm a meat eater now hahaha and even though I meditate occasionally, I have returned to using onions and garlic. But if I could find asafoetida, I would still probably use it every now and then. :D PS I love your videos.
I'm a half Turkish vegetarian and can't imagine my diet without garlic and onions lol
Where do you find asafoetida in turkey? Asking for a friend.
Ah, so that's what the exclusion of garlic and onions are about. My grandmother's a staunch Buddhist, and we never quite know why that was a thing. But hey, more for me then hahaha.
@@fighttheevilrobots3417 well I never thought I'd see another half Turkish vegetarian in my life but I'm glad you exist
This basically just köfte. A very common everyday dish still eaten all around Turkey.
Thank you Max for your in-depth study of cuisine, some easy some challenging but always interesting recipes!
Thank you for covering little something from the great past of our little country. In Mongolia, Genghis Khan would be called Чингис Хаан (pronounced like Chinggis Khaan).
Traditionally we do not really eat meat pies as is. However, meat pies are a very common ingredient used in buuz and khuushuur, two of few stable daily diet of ours. But I can see the value of easy to make meat pies when you are constantly moving from place to place in conquest.
Addition of coriander in this meal, on the other hand, feels like this was mostly enjoyed by the nobility as commoners probably never heard of or seen such spice. There are still many people who has never heard of coriander in my country today, and is used rarely in our food.
Баярлалаа! Ажлын өндөр амжилт хүсэе!
I really appreciate your style, your proper pronunciation of foreign language words and most honestly, your calm but energized voice as you talk about your food items. I say this because my wife, who suffers migraines, loves listening to your videos in the darkness and will often make the food you make, for me and the family later on!
Thanks for all you do, you made the right choice doing this than going back to your old job. Bravo!
This recipe doesn't use anything to really keep the ground meat together during the cooking. An egg, or breadcrumbs, like you've mentioned, mixed into that - but then again, I don't usually cook lamb, maybe it just works without)
I can’t get over how sweet, pretty & gentle the name “Temüjin” sounds
It's a beautiful unique blessed name like the name Saffron is.
I can tell u from the experience in being named Saffron it's a blessed name.
Many call the spice a Ritch name. Because it coast so much.
But as a Girls name it's a bless name my parent's got my name Saffron from the
Bible. God bless!.
The possibility of you doing something Mongolian never crossed my mind. And as always, thank you for your effort in the pronunciation and not violating the language (and my ears) :)
I think Mongolian is being more popular nowadays, I've always loved the Mongol empire as a kid and listen to Mongolian folk and other music and I'm from faaaaar away 😊
probably the most important question in history. congrats for conceptualizing it
One of the best channel talking about Mongolian cuisine is Artger. It is very interesting to see how Mongolians prepare their meals and the variety of dishes they have. The Nomad culture and the impact that the Khans have towards their cuisine is very apparent even in the modern day setting.
i love Artger and the influence of the Khan's orders to "eat every part of the animal" is so visible in their love of meat + offal today (especially in soups!)
I remember that channel
2:26 Max!
A quarter teaspoon of Asafoetida is enough for 3 days of cooking, you would put half a pinch in per meal for 2 :D.
And as I mentioned , in reply to you on the Townsends's video, you don't mix it as a raw ingredient, it has to be lightly fried to remove its rancidity, like they do in Indian Tadka/ tempering.
But I guess you followed the recipe and the process has been refined over many centuries :). Thank goodness, I could not take that much asafoetida in 500 grams of lamb meat after using it for a lifetime, so you were good keeping a straight face tasting it.
p.s. maybe the older version was a bit less intense, like the wine of olden times, and better, more intense crop varieties took over over 500 years , humph food for thought, with little less asafoetida ;P.
Maybe frying the meatballs helped to soften it a bit.
What does it taste like?
I mean he was following the recipe 🤷♂️
@@Sue_Me_Too It smells so bad they literally put it in things so that it will scare away dogs.
It's quite probable that the writer assumed that anyone who was reading the book would already know to temper the asafoetida and the recipes inside were more of a reminder of what goes in which plus the health reasons to be eating the dish. A lot of old cookbooks assume things like that since they were intended for educated experiences cooks in reasonably wealthy households
If it makes you feel any better... I was today years old when I learned what they were. I'd never heard of them and am quite the Geography and History fan. Oh, I'm 45, so, yeah. Don't feel so bad!
I just recently discovered your channel. I absolutely love the idea and the content you create!
Shakes fists to the sky…”KHAAAAAAAAAAAN!
…THESE LIL MEAT CAKES ARE AMAZING!”
Thank you for referencing Star Trek so I didn't have to ^_^
@@GiselleMF I was looking for this too...it tasks me.
The mongols have an afficionado for herbs. The most important one to the khans was a rare herb we call cistanche which is endemic to Mongolia. It was taken each and every day to make sure there would be more mini khans.
Yes, it is said to be an afrodisiac as well as it tones the damn thing residing in men's crotches if taken regularly, and this is why Ron Teeguarden always tend to have cistanche in stock.
You might say that desert cistanche was their own "Spice Melange". One could never have a good day without it.
Did not expect to find a Dune reference here tbh but nice
i don’t think that’s correct use of afficionado
@@Octopetala You might be right or you could be jesting. I don't know for sure. Let us pretend for a moment that you are an English teacher. I am a Norwegian writing English without checking the dictionary. Daft of me, I know, but let me try once more: "The mongols utilized diverse herbs in their kitchen, and the khans had a penchant for a rare, endemic herb called cistanche". Is this OK or do I misuse the word "penchant"?
I know for sure that the khans demanded to get desert cistanche served every day and I firmly believe it was used in their food, if only because lack of options. This herb was requested from the khans because of how it works a man's manly [CENSORED] to go from a "grower" to a "shower". If they stopped taking cistanche the thing would go back to normality quite fast, and I think that could mess with anybodys head. A day without cistanche wouldn't be a good day for conquering just because of that, and I tried hard to not be long-winded
This is stil a stab in the dark though. If I was English I wager I would do a do-over of the whole thing, since I really don't know for sure which order I should place each word (object!) in and so on. I do believe American English is more forgiving.
@@jrnandreassen3338 Your use of penchant is correct. Aficionado wasn't because an aficionado is some *one* who takes great pleasure in something. The adjective form would probably be "affinity" which doesn't quite have the same connotation.
@@FortWhenTeaThyme Thank you! I stand corrected. Nice to get something I can use rather than just saying "You are wrong". :)
if only all history class are like this...
"What did Genghis Khan eat?" sounds like a rhetorical question, because the answer was clearly "Whatever he damn well wanted!"
*whomever
@@figjam9530 idk why I'm surprised but he was a cannibal?
@@sygyzy0933 It's a Simpsons reference
@@sygyzy0933 no
Throwback to crash course "Unless you're the Mongols" line. I love history through food, and I love how thorough Max is.
MONGOLTAGE INTENSIFIES!!!
I had the privilege of spending 18 years with one of the finest animals I have ever known, my Bengal, Genghis Khat.
Great Video! Nice Ollivander´s impression at 8:31 , Loved the Harry Potter quote xD
Max, you missed the opportunity to tell partly how Genghis Khan became such a strong ruler. He did it through marrying his sisters and daughters to leaders and insisting they act as co-rulers. That's how he kept control of his empire.
Nice piece of knowledge! Sounds a bit like Austrian/von Habsburg politics
His ability as a leader is seriously overlooked over his military career. His was just as strong as making allies as he was destroying his enemies which allowed him to unite all the mongol tribes, something that hadn't been done for hundreds of years
You are brutally good...really nice show...a culinary travel to the past.
Well really similar to some Turkish "köfte" recipes except for the spices. Also since Turks and Mongols lived together for a time we have same words for stuff.
Kımız = Fermented horse milk
Yasa = Law
Kara = Black
Ulus = Nation
Etc.
Khan or Khagan is also in Turkish as Han and Kağan/Hakan.
The raw meat under horse saddle thing is possibly where Turkish raw meat "Pastırma" comes from. Bastırmak is a Turkish word that means applying pressure and they say Turks did put steaks under their saddles to create pastırma.
Yeah I have turkic and turkish freinds and we get along well we all always come together and say we are one and the same. Turkic, Turkish and Hunnic etc we are part of a larger group of people who had great rulers and good people.
@@jacobxiongnu2931 but every single time their mongol brother takes on all the negatives while their so called ''brothers'' bask in his glory: sad life
That word is greek in origin refering to the spice used to make the beef meat mixed with blood into pastirma or pasturma depending on the region.
@@somekindofdude1130 suree🤨
Turkish =|= Turkic. Turkic were mongoloid nomadic tribes from eastern Asia that later moved west. Turkish today are turkified Greeks. Turkish seems to forget that way before Turkic people's invasion, there were cultures derived from Ancient Greek cultures.
Great recipe! And yeah, it is similar to Turkish kebabs, but we also have these here in India!
I love listening to your pronunciation of other dialects. The effort you put into it comes through 🤌
Thank you 😁
@@TastingHistory You went to the right source for assistance. Wooo, U of O, go Ducks!
It is indeed a nice touch to put in the extra effort to research and pronounce those names correctly in their native tongues. Shows some due scholarly respect to those other cultures and languages.
can we appreciate he put Kangaskhan in the background of the genghis khan episode
Groot: I am Groot!
Mongolian: You're coagulated cow's milk in a sheep's stomach? You look like a talking tree to me.
🤣
I've been watching all your videos with my boyfriend lately, and he tells me he's honestly learning more from your channel than he remembers ever learning in school. As a history buff myself, I wholeheartedly appreciate your dedication to research, presentation, and humor. Great video as always, Max!
3:20 Asafetida, although used extensively in India, does not grow in India. It is from Afghanistan.
Gotta love how fast he says it 😅
You're a true thespian, Max. I absolutely love your very melodramatic readings and monologues. They always have me in stitches of laughter. Good food, good drink, and good laughter are great for the soul and your channel has the winning combination of these. Thank you for all of it.
How many boards could the Mongols hoard if the Mongol hordes got bored?
-Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes
6:59 Please never change
Useful tip for anybody using asafetida that I learned the hard way: if you don't want your cupboard or wherever you keep it to smell like the apocalypse, get a stash bag. It tastes so good, but the scent of rotting garlic is not one I care to have pervading my home.
I keep mine in a plastic bag inside a larger glass jar and the faint smell of burning gunpowder and onions still leaks out into my cabinet. After a while you start to mind it less and less.
Officially hooked on this channel. Spent the last couple of weeks binge watching! Thanks for the good content!
Huge shoutout to you practicing and sourcing pronunciations from an expert. Also props to the translator.
Genghis Khan is a man who's fascinated me ever since I was a kid, a fascination I inherited from my dad. He was a man who was both mighty and humble in equal measure, who believed himself to be eventually forgotten (and even had his tomb hidden so that it's never been discovered), yet is one of the most well-known men in the entire world. So many would-be despots and kings who strive to have their names be remembered through all of history and have fallen into unknown obscurity could have taken a lesson from him.
Well my dad forced me and my brother to watch a gruesome film on Genghis when we were in primary school, y'know, with the whole boiling people alive thing n'all. Then I got scolded for crying. So weird that for some it's a good thing. Sorry I don't mean to be a downer, I just don't think notoriety is a goal in itself..
@@peggysue1725 Pretty common stuff at the time. This is still an age when "war" in much of central Asia often meant murdering every man in a city and enslaving the women and children - if they weren't outright put to death. It's important to note that the peoples that Genghis treated harshly were ones that "struck the first blow" as it were. Typically by executing his emissaries. A good example of that were the Kwarezm, whom Genghis Khan sent trade envoys to. The Kwarezm emperor had them executed and their heads sent back to the khan in lieu of a written reply.
The khan of khans was not one to waste a resource, hence the rapid incorporation of submissive and subdued peoples into the empire, both on a civil level as well as a militaristic one. But woe betide those who earned his wrath.
I think it must have something to do with living under a great sky. He is a fascinating character. But one cannot easily forgive the damage done to the cultures he steamrollered. Of course, I'm British so that judgement reflects on my ancestors also. Ah well.
On a more positive note, Mongolia right now seems to be a kind and good place, as much as I understand, what with their Buddhist beliefs and all.
Yup my heritage is mostly enslaved folks from Eastern Europe, so I'm kinda allergic to 'great men' but that's my own personal issue I think XD Funny, but we had a British guy living here (a loooooooooong way from England) and what I gathered was we're not actually so different.. well the 'peasant culture' is pretty much 1-1, don't know anything about high class tho xd
@@peggysue1725 Pretty much everyone's history is "enslaved folks" in most of the world. Feudalism was essentially the regimented slavery of the lowest, most populous class of people, with laws treating them as property to be used and abused by the landowners, even traded like cattle.
In fact, it was the Black Death that swept through Europe in the 12th through 14th centuries that changed that. By the time the plagues had passed, so many people were dead that it actually put power back into the hands of the lowest classes, as now instead of there being more than enough peasants to do the job, there we so few that their manpower was in critical need simply to produce food, putting a premium on them. This, in turn, allowed them to start demanding better work conditions, the relaxing of the feudal system, and eventually led to the creation and growth of a middle class in Europe from the 15th century onward.
But for a period of about 600 years, peasants in most of Europe were essentially slaves. To the point where leaving the land that they "belonged" to could be met with death.
Genghis Khan is one of my favorite subjects in history. He was born because his father kidnapped his mother from another tribe and Genghis's wife suffered a similar fate. Of course Genghis did rescue her and even raised the child that most likely wasn't his and wanted to put a stop to such practices. The greatest positive was that he understood that uniting all of Mongolia was way better than tribalism. But on the other hand his desire for conquest outside his homeland lead to a lot of unnecessary conflict, death and destruction. It wasn't necessarily all bad when you consider his tolerance when it came to religion, but only the Mongolians mostly benefited from the conquest.
Such is the way of all empires. The ruling class benefits the most. Still, his conquest contributed so much to what all of Asia is today.
Genghis Khan may not have always been a good man, but he was unquestioningly a great man, maybe even the greatest man. Only Alexander can really claim to match him.
Isnt it the same with Alexander, Rome and Napoleon ? Their conquests mostly bring benefit to their homeland while leaving a lot of unnecessary death and destruction to others.
same just like the trans atlantic slave trade.
Unless you count the mongol invasion of Tsushima. The khan lost nearly 100,000 troops and his favorite cousin. Not a success
I suspect the Mongols didn't normally eat rice because the arid Mongolian steppes is not conducive to rice farming.
The Kangaskhan plushie really adds to the whole episode