Many of those techniques are still used in rural Poland. Every fall, when it gets cool enough we pack sauerkraut into a barrel with salt and shredded carrots for color and health benefits. We dry forest mushrooms to add them to soups and sauces during winter. We pickle cucumbers in jars. And many houses still have small smoke houses in the backyard, to smoke homemade sausages and cured hams or slabs of bacon.
I'm in Canada, and I have a mixed Slavic ancestry, which includes Polish and Ukrainan. My grandmothers made pickled items. Even my dad made homemade sauerkraut with cabbages he grew on his farm, pickling salt, put in a ceramic crock, with a board put on top with a weight. It was really good. Cheers!
@@dwaynewladyka577 Sounds like my dad making homemade kraut, some years get together with the neighbours and process what seemed to be hundreds of pounds of cabbage with the old cabbage mandoline slicer, ceramic crock as well, weighted down with a large dinner plate and a nice 5 # round stone on top. Also pickled herring from time to time. I never really cared for gutting the fish myself as a kid , but if you were going to eat it, you had to help out. I just pickled some cukes a couple of days ago along with some jalapeno peppers. Now I wait.
Of course it's expensive. It's a time and labor intensive process that starts with the most expensive kind of food (beef) and then removes the cheapest part of its weight (water).
@@AlRoderickDifferent parts of North America are suffering from a severe drought. This is affecting farmers and ranchers, and this is why beef prices are going up.
Get a jerky gun and a dehydrator. First batch is about 200 bucks, but after that it's about $12 a pound if you get ground beef from sams club or costco
My great grandparents had a farm in southern Michigan SW of Battle Creek, the area is now subdivisions sadly. Anyway they had a dedicated smoke house for smoking meat that was built in the mid 1800's, it took 4 cows worth of meat to fill that thing but every fall gramps would do 2-3 batches and give/sell/trade much of it. The dried meat was smoked with apple wood that was trimmings from their apple orchard that made up the majority of their farm land. I have not tasted any dried beef that has tasted so good or had that smooth texture since.
Many people don't realize that they had to endure the spring as well. The harvests of summer and fall are a long way off. Gardens do not produce food immediately. Spring can be bleak. But hope is there.
Indeed. We tend to think of winter as the time of scarcity. But really, it's spring were you would be most likely not get sufficient calories anymore, although some edible plants would be available again. But you can't exactly live on greens.
i wonder if that's why the catholics put 'lent' in spring. I know that 'fish on fridays' thing was in response to a meat shortage, and was only meant to be temporary.
🌄🏞 Traditionally springtime was a time of food scarcity, as most provisions put away for winter were low and sometimes all gone, and dandilion greens were the first fresh vegetable at hand early in the warm season.
However spring also means far more hunting opportunities with birds returning from migration and animals leaving hibernation. Fruits and veggies are still sparse, but wild game is booming!
It's kind of crazy that preserving food is the backbone of history and yet it's rarely given the credit it is due. Excellent video and wonderful information.
I view it this way. Why would people give food preservation a secons thought as it was a way of life for a long vast period of time? No we can reflect on that period.
I'm convinced that surviving the literal ice age with absolutely nothing but wood, stone, and animal products is the most powerful example of human ingenuity than anything humans have done since. Excluding AI of course I welcome the AI overlords 😂
My mother's family lived on a farm at the start of the Depression. They salted their pork every fall after slaughtering. According to my mom and aunts, the saying: "Scraping the bottom of the barrel" exists for a reason. By the time you got to that last bit of meat, you had to be hungry to eat it. It might not be bad, per se, but it sure wasn't good.
My parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents were around in the 1920s, 1930s, and the 1940s. They had to do different things to preserve food on the farm.
One of my grandmother's was a child on a dairy farm during the Depression in Australia. She said the only foods she knew were corned beef (beef preserved in brine) bread and potatoes grown in the yard. Two of her siblings died of food poisoning.
@@ted1045I have come across spring being described as the hunger gap in England in the 1500s. It was as you say the gap between winter supplies and anything having grown sufficiently to eat yet.
I live in Saltville Virginia.The first recorded battle ever fought here, over the salt, goes back to the Spanish Conquistadors in the 1500’s. All of them were about food preservation.
@@faithsrvtrip8768"The ceiling's salt, the floor's salt, the walls are salt, the air is salt, you breathe that in and you can constantly taste the salt."
Used to smoke a lot of salmon back in my Alaska years, I lived on an island near a beaver pond and would gather the alder chips they left behind when downing trees, some of the best smoked sockeye ever.
These videos make me feel conflicted. It's such an enjoyable, educational and calming video that gives me a sense of dread due to how little I actually know if the grocery stores turn empty and the grid goes down
Plenty you could do for that. Like start an emergency supply, even one can or other non-perishable item a week or so, whatever is on sale (like canned yams after Thanksgiving, gift jars of popcorn kernels after Christmas, etc). Or take up gardening in a couple pots. Doesn’t have to be a huge garden, just enough to get thru the beginners mistakes of growing one container of potatoes, or salad greens that look like house plants, etc. And tons of YT channels on related topics, though many go down a political, or a “the end is nigh” rabbit hole.
I'm from Norway and "klippfisk" is still very popular here, it is salted fish that has to be soaked in water for many hours before you can cook with it.
I would like to thank you and your friends for creating this content. I've been watching you guys practically since the beginning, and I'm learning a lot from you - not to mention just honing my English. I can honestly say that this is one of the most interesting and best-run YouTub channel. Let's hope for the best. Warm greetings from Poland, cheers 🍻
Your channel should be shown in elementary (6th grade) and middle schools. This is super educational, entertaining, and very appropriate for all ages. It piques curiosity, which is the catalyst for passion. You're like the Bill Nye of olde world cooking, and if you inspire a single child to become a historian then you're a success.
too bad climate changes isn’t real… dinosaurs weren’t driving gas powered vehicles and there were no factories … what are earth is going through is a natural process…” fixing it” is a political agenda
thinking 5 years ago about how to do things in the kitchen more naturally led me to your channel. the cheesemaking episodes you had then inspired me to learn about cheesemaking. now, thanks to a few other cheesemaking youtubers i know how to make cheese of different types. thanks again for years of BETTER THAN TV entertainment combined with knowledge. love ya John and Co.! keep making knowledge videos.
This. Video. Is. SPECTACULAR. I've learned a lot about fermentation and curing the past few years, and I can validated that everything you've said lines up with what I've heard, and I LOVE THIS VIDEO!! Imagine how excited our ancestors would have been over pressure canning! The ability to completely eliminate spoilage and the risk of botulism and other foodborne germs makes me very, very happy.
I find it magnificent that this video is all about preservation and its importance, but all footages used come from this very channel, showing how much information has already been produced and published by you.
In Essex, in England, in the 1930's, two workmen were doing some renovations to an ancient building. They discovered a void between floors. When they broke into it, they found it to be a smoke loft, built as part of a huge chimney. More interesting to the men, was the large ham, black, and aged, hanging there. The owner of the building reckoned it must have been there at least a hundred years. He, and the workmen tried it, and it was pronounced to be excellent.
As a child, I remember that my great-aunt and uncle’s Indiana farm had a fully stocked fall root cellar up until the 1930 when rural electrification finally reached their farm. Potatoes, beets, squash, gourds, mason jars full of green beans, sacks of wheat and the hand mill were all down there. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Respectfully, W.S.
I’m always curious how people dealt with pests like rodents. Was it ever a problem for them? I just know how quick mice can destroy a pantry when they take over, anything but canned.
Agreed. I know a lot of people prefer the more hands-on stuff, which is of course very fun to watch, but my favorite videos on this channel are the ones like this where I can dive deeper into something to really appreciate it.
My great grandfather was from a tiny village called Webb, Saskatchewan. (It’s mostly just a cemetery now) Apparently, the harsh conditions and isolation, combined with alcohol made him go a little loony. He was sent to an asylum nearby (which has since been closed) and he spent five years there. When he was released no one ever heard from him again. The asylum was later known for using LSD to treat alcoholism.
Excellent video on food preparation. By the way, just received parcel with my black linen vest and britches, the ladies that made them did a wonderful job. Thank you.
Years ago I read they would preserve slow cooked meats covered in hot grease in a tall narrow pot so the grease when cooled would seal and keep safe the meat. It was called confit (sounds like con-feet). Apparently, the meat could be kept for up to a year if done right.
Cone-fee, actually. It's French. Like the other guy said, potting is a similar technique, but the modern confit method is to slow-cook meat in its own fat with intention to eat it immediately after. Duck and pork are popular choices, e.g. carnitas.
When my mom was young they would preserve meat in a barrel between layers of salt sealed by a layers of lard. No air would get to the lower layers that way.
With the fear of sodium that we have today, salt preserved foods are pretty much gone, BUT in our world today, having these vintage food preservation techniques, and knowing how to return that preserved food to a palatable as well as edible dish, is a valuable skill set and knowledge base. I'd like to see a renaissance of old foods. Huzzah also for Townsends for mentioning the use of beer over water "in some places" which was quite correct! Too many people think it a myth.
And the funny thing is salt doesn't increase blood pressure. That was a food industry lie to get us eating more sugar, alongside the "fat makes you fat" myth. Calories in combination with sedentary lifestyles make you fat and cause hypertension, not specific chemicals which are literally required for life.
@@Frommerman Salt makes the body retain water which in turn can increase blood pressure that can lead to other issues if left unchecked. You don't have to be fat to have those problems. It doesn't matter if it a natural chemical that our body uses. Too much is never good.
@@Icabod-os6rg Nope. Salt does cause water retention in the extremely short term as the body keeps electrolyte balance in the blood, but salt is also one of the easiest things other than water for the body to excrete. Any amount of salt which doesn't cause death or kidney damage will have zero impact on a chronic condition like hypertension. If you ate a large block of salt and took blood pressure the moment it began entering the bloodstream, it would probably be higher than average. But that effect would vanish the next time you urinated. Chronic hypertension happens when things which can't be trivially excreted, like sugars or dissolved fats, build up in the bloodstream, and as arterial walls sclerose due to aging, plaque buildups, or behavioral damage like smoking. Salt has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
I love the subject of preservation and fermentation and its wonderful you highlight this isn't just about survival - these are delicious wholesome products that have stood the test of time and still enjoyed today. I'm wishing I could have salt beef and sauerkraut for supper ; with a beer of course
It's so crazy to think about how much time each household had to spend just on food production and preservation before the advent of refrigeration and modern preservation techniques! I love how the necessary preservation techniques have translated to today's favorite flavors 😍 #teampickle
I moved to the high desert for other reasons, but quickly noticed how easy it is to dry food here. I shifted to mostly dehydrating my garden produce. I love pickling hard vegetables and making vegetable relishes.
i'm literally overwhelmed; there is just so much in this video. another excellent trip back over the centuries to see what my ancestors had to do for survival. As for smoking I had no idea it could be done so darned simply. I keep thinking of pemmican and how it was usually sun-dried. the trick with potted meats, even covering the meat with a layer of clarified butter, and the pot pies are absolutely news to me. I really was surprised to learn this. John Townsend & Comp., thank you for another excellent video! 😁😁👍👍
Thank you for the continually wholesome content on this channel. Always gets me through stressfull times. Food preservation and fermentation is an area ive been getting into. I havent made sauerkraut but made some wonderful kimchii last week.
Thank you for sharing all this information without a million ads. I found your channel when I was 17, and I learned more from you than I did in 12 years of public schooling.
Technically the fermenting process with cabbage is done by Lactobacillus. While the yeast make alcohol, the lactobacillus creates lactic acid, which pickles it. It's why I still consider it a form of pickling. It's also much healthier as the lactic acid improves your immune health and the bacteria improves gut health.
@l6537 Yes they do. Plus since they create lactic acid by consuming sugar, they can even lower our blood sugar. It's why I love to pickle carrot with this method, plus the flavor is so good.
In the fall I get a few big heads of fresh cabbage and make sauerkraut in a crock with an airlock. Awesome! I share it with my in laws and it usually lasts the whole winter. Super simple to make.
@@Just_Sara Thats my trouble with lacto-acidic fermentation - I found the outcomes extremely varied and unpredictable. I tried a whole bunch of stuff, from Saurkraut and Kimchi to pickeling ginger shavings or garlic. But the exact same recipe has given me stuff I loooved and stuff I hardly managed to eat, too sour, too structurally detiriorated and mushy - I just cant seem to replicate good results.
What you and all the Townsend's crew performs to spread information, techniques and history is important to all culture fans on the world. Thank you very much!
I remember a business near where I lived that smoked salmon to sell to tourists. They used old refrigerators with the lower part with the motors removed. The salmon strips were hung from the old racks, the fire was built just at the front of the open bottom and the smoking coals pushed underneath. They also dug out the area under the smokers a little. They drilled holes in the metal bottom of the fridge for the smoke to rise and the doors provided easy access to the products. My dad and brothers had built a large smoke house for our fish and game and while dad said he admired the creative thinking with the friges, they wouldn't be big enough for our family.
You mention it's funny how today we desire the flavor rather than the preservation. That's actually exactly how modern sushi came to exist. Originally vinegared rice was packed around fish as a method of preservation but it evolved over time to have a slightly sweetened and much less vinegared rice used as a carrier for fresh fish, in order to provide flavor and texture.
My grandparents came from Southern Italy and baccala (salted cod) was something we had often when I was a kid. My mom would hang the dried cod in the garage. When used she would soak it in water for a few days.
@@hetedeleambacht6608 In Dutch we also have Bakkeljauw, from the Antilles and Suriname. This is actually salted cod and despite sounding a lot like Kabeljauw, the name originates from the Portuguese Bacalhau, which in turn is related to the Italian Baccala. It's a small world.
dried corn on the cob will keep with some air flow available to it. Shell corn picked out of the fields is often not dry enough to store without more forced drying . Farmers have corn driers to handle this. The old corn cribs for dried corn on the cob intentionally had air gaps in them to allow air flow so the drying could continue.
Remember that corn has changed a LOT throughout history. Most notably, the kernels have grown to many times the size of what they used to be. It seems entirely plausible that hundreds of years ago the corn dried naturally, but now the kernels are so big that they hold in more moisture and aren't able to fully dry anymore.
While I love your old recipes, this more in depth discussion of the history of something so important was fascinating. Thank you for a wonderful video.
I find your videos fascinating. I love learning how people lived day to day back then. You are a wonderful teacher!!! You make the subject interesting.
The contents, the editing and just your bare charisma make these videos awesome. In the current world full of random nonsense videos, you are a jewel of knowledge totally worth preserving (pun intended) for future generations. Please do keep up your outstanding work ❤
There are a lot of grain farmers who still dry their corn in the field. Guy who ran an elevator once told me a rule of thumb, corn at 14.5% moisture will keep in a bin for 400 days, any percent more will halve that time: 200 days at 15.5, 100 at 16.5 and so on, up to 20.5% that can barely keep safely for a week. The other side of field drying, is the longer it's out there the more yield you'll lose as cobs and kernels get dropped. Owning a dryer lets you trade time and potential losses for fuel costs, and store your crop until after the harvest ends and prices go back up- IME with my little single-fan dryer, it's most economical to harvest corn at 18-21%.
Leave it in the field in most places and the deer, turkeys, racoons, squirrels, crows, etc. will get most of it. That's why the corn crib was invented.
The dryer also becomes necessary when conditions are consistently too wet to leave the corn in the fields. Sometimes there's no way around it if you actually want to sell your crops before they rot.
i stopped watching your channel couple of years ago but this video popped up and i resubscribed, you gave me the same feelings you did those years ago. I loved this video
The excellent game Farthest Frontier simulates building a village but introduces food spoilage and preservation as a key mechanic. It makes a huge difference in how you have to manage your food supply, and a good grain supply can keep everyone from starving when a season goes poorly. Love your videos!
It's not the best to keep eggs. The best and finally simplest way is in lime water, more than six months easily. You have in the channel an excellemnt video about egg preservation.
Finding your channel was on of the best thing in the last few years for me. Your calming voice and excellent way of presentation makes your stories wonderful each time. Thank you!
The preservation techniques are great knowledge from the past that we still use today, in all aspects of food. In first year of culinary we studied food safety by learning FAT TOM, meaning Food Acidity, Time, Temperature, Oxygen and Moisture. By understanding this and stopping any one or more from preventing harmful bacteria growth it's easy to understand preparing food safely for immediate use or preserving it for long periods.
@ Townsends Your videos would have been amazing back in middle and high school history classes. While streaming is the way these days, you should consider making and perhaps selling some hard copies of your videos, perhaps by theme. We are facing an ever-increasing electronic black hole in terms of modern history and preserved hard-copies are the only hedge against it.
Sauerkraut (fermented cabbage) is a lacto-fermentation (results in lactic acid). For a great looking product add some red cabbage to the white, and a few cloves of garlic. 2% of salt by weight, squeeze the cabbage by hand to get the juices flowing, then put under press, to make sure the juice eventually covers the contents. Keep at room temp, agitate periodically to make sure the bubbles escape. Ready in about 4 days (keep refrigerated after that). Delicious, healthy and so simple. Will keep for months. Add to a pork or beef soup, brine and all, also amazing. The "sauerkraut" sold in cans or even jars is drek compared to homemade 🤣
15:30 This is actually a _huge_ misconception. Beer was not drunk back in the day *anywhere* because 'the water wasn't safe to drink'. Clean water is one of the most important components of making beer at all! It was drunk because of the vitamins and calories and whatnot that it provided.
It depends. Beer involves boiling the wort (unfermented), which killed pathogens. Before people understood that water needed to be purified, beer could be a safer option depending on what one's water supply was like. Even into the late 1800's prior to the development of germ theory, this was a significant issue. Look up cholera outbreaks in London.
I have a small deep freezer. Other than that I got a mini fridge and a smoke, & I can foods. Everything else is hanging in my pantry. I have enough food to last me 2+ months. And I live in the French Quarter in a 180 year old apartment. Pretty easy if you know what you’re doing. And they definitely taste a lot better than most store bought foods. And I buy most of my meats and vegetables from local farmers and ranchers, some of em grow their crops in the city.
It's the "if you know what you're doing" part that's tricky though! I well remember my first attempt at simple refrigerator pickles. Thank goodness my mother in law was there to keep me from poisoning myself!! Very few public schools teach even the basic principles behind preservation, much less something this practical.
@@Beryllahawk It really should be parents and grandparents teaching these skills to the children, and passing on family traditions and special recipes. This would provide for a good time together as well, and a time for meaningful conversations.
@@heidimisfeldt5685 That would be ideal, yes...sadly I think a lot of parents don't KNOW these things, or they don't have time for lessons (or won't make time, as the case may be). Certainly my mother in law's background as a sharecropper's daughter gave her a ton of know-how that my own mother (and grandmother) didn't have. My German grandmother was very much a "city girl," even before the war; and her husband hunted, but never preserved anything, simply hunted for the table as it were. It feels like we're losing incredibly important parts of our history by losing these skills.
Even before we switched from hunter gatherers food preservation was always something they did, because not all food products are not available throughout the year, so they needed a means to preserve it.
In the Bible, the term “a covenant of salt” is used to refer to a long-lasting covenant, because of the preserving nature of salt. To this day, in Jewish practice salt is put on the bread for a Sabbath meal, as a reflection of the usage of salt in the Temple, which was an extension of the concept of salt reflecting eternity.
This video inspired a question: what would be done with the discarded salt, sugar, fat, etc. when preserved products were used? I’m wondering if there are small spots in their environment that were ‘poisoned’ by their waste. And have you done a video on 18th century waste management?
@@rfernandz2001 I wouldn't be the person to ask, but you would slowly have less and less salt as you lose some each batch. Personally I'd just add some new stuff and keep going
On one hand, I'm somewhat relieved my late father, much as I miss him, won't be seeing a world where this knowledge becomes necessary again. On the other, he probably knew and did a lot of these things, having grown up in 1940s and '50s Appalachia, so... yeah, that knowledge would have been really helpful.
And specifically to the ship would be hard bread, a flour preservation technique. I still watch your ships biscuit vid from time to time. Great stuff as always JT and company.
Historical Food Preservation Playlist ua-cam.com/play/PL4e4wpjna1vxjVcKc_BHTb0nsvVwimwXt.html
Much Love, J. Thanks for keeping our history.
Know where I can buy hat "blanks" to make tricorn hats? Love this video!
You all wanna know why we are forever stuck in this life and death cycle?
History of food is important.
Try our Master chefs recipes and tips. Learn skills.
Let's get cooking.
Go vegan, stop evil meat industry
Many of those techniques are still used in rural Poland. Every fall, when it gets cool enough we pack sauerkraut into a barrel with salt and shredded carrots for color and health benefits. We dry forest mushrooms to add them to soups and sauces during winter. We pickle cucumbers in jars. And many houses still have small smoke houses in the backyard, to smoke homemade sausages and cured hams or slabs of bacon.
I'm in Canada, and I have a mixed Slavic ancestry, which includes Polish and Ukrainan. My grandmothers made pickled items. Even my dad made homemade sauerkraut with cabbages he grew on his farm, pickling salt, put in a ceramic crock, with a board put on top with a weight. It was really good. Cheers!
I now want to live in rural Poland.
And let's not forget about all type of jams, "kompots".
@@CryoToastYou definetely should visit
@@dwaynewladyka577 Sounds like my dad making homemade kraut, some years get together with the neighbours and process what seemed to be hundreds of pounds of cabbage with the old cabbage mandoline slicer, ceramic crock as well, weighted down with a large dinner plate and a nice 5 # round stone on top. Also pickled herring from time to time. I never really cared for gutting the fish myself as a kid , but if you were going to eat it, you had to help out. I just pickled some cukes a couple of days ago along with some jalapeno peppers. Now I wait.
Beef jerky went from essential preserved staple to luxury good. Jerky prices are outrageous.
Making your own is a little cheaper maybe, and kind of fun! Takes some time, though.
make ur own
Of course it's expensive. It's a time and labor intensive process that starts with the most expensive kind of food (beef) and then removes the cheapest part of its weight (water).
@@AlRoderickDifferent parts of North America are suffering from a severe drought. This is affecting farmers and ranchers, and this is why beef prices are going up.
Get a jerky gun and a dehydrator. First batch is about 200 bucks, but after that it's about $12 a pound if you get ground beef from sams club or costco
My great grandparents had a farm in southern Michigan SW of Battle Creek, the area is now subdivisions sadly. Anyway they had a dedicated smoke house for smoking meat that was built in the mid 1800's, it took 4 cows worth of meat to fill that thing but every fall gramps would do 2-3 batches and give/sell/trade much of it. The dried meat was smoked with apple wood that was trimmings from their apple orchard that made up the majority of their farm land. I have not tasted any dried beef that has tasted so good or had that smooth texture since.
That made my mouth water lol
i believe you!
I know people who do the same up near mackinaw city
Old methods were always not only better but healthier for us humans
stats say otherwise.@@larrybulthouse455
Many people don't realize that they had to endure the spring as well. The harvests of summer and fall are a long way off. Gardens do not produce food immediately. Spring can be bleak.
But hope is there.
Indeed. We tend to think of winter as the time of scarcity. But really, it's spring were you would be most likely not get sufficient calories anymore, although some edible plants would be available again. But you can't exactly live on greens.
i wonder if that's why the catholics put 'lent' in spring. I know that 'fish on fridays' thing was in response to a meat shortage, and was only meant to be temporary.
🌄🏞 Traditionally springtime was a time of food scarcity, as most provisions put away for winter were low and sometimes all gone, and dandilion greens were the first fresh vegetable at hand early in the warm season.
"Hope SPRINGS eternal."
However spring also means far more hunting opportunities with birds returning from migration and animals leaving hibernation. Fruits and veggies are still sparse, but wild game is booming!
It's kind of crazy that preserving food is the backbone of history and yet it's rarely given the credit it is due. Excellent video and wonderful information.
I view it this way. Why would people give food preservation a secons thought as it was a way of life for a long vast period of time? No we can reflect on that period.
I'm convinced that surviving the literal ice age with absolutely nothing but wood, stone, and animal products is the most powerful example of human ingenuity than anything humans have done since. Excluding AI of course I welcome the AI overlords 😂
@@amelliamendel2227I agree
It's going to be needed for what's to come to America. Put your faith in JOHN 3:16 before it's too late.
My mother's family lived on a farm at the start of the Depression. They salted their pork every fall after slaughtering. According to my mom and aunts, the saying: "Scraping the bottom of the barrel" exists for a reason. By the time you got to that last bit of meat, you had to be hungry to eat it. It might not be bad, per se, but it sure wasn't good.
My parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents were around in the 1920s, 1930s, and the 1940s. They had to do different things to preserve food on the farm.
Thanks for sharing.
I know people used to fall Spring "The Starving Times' due to the fact that all the winter stores were pretty much gone.
One of my grandmother's was a child on a dairy farm during the Depression in Australia. She said the only foods she knew were corned beef (beef preserved in brine) bread and potatoes grown in the yard. Two of her siblings died of food poisoning.
@@ted1045I have come across spring being described as the hunger gap in England in the 1500s. It was as you say the gap between winter supplies and anything having grown sufficiently to eat yet.
In a world of chaos, your videos are always a calming presence. Love to watch them. Thank you
Very well produced too. The scriptwriting and cinematics are simply what perfection aspires to be.
I live in Saltville Virginia.The first recorded battle ever fought here, over the salt, goes back to the Spanish Conquistadors in the 1500’s. All of them were about food preservation.
The salt must flow!
Salt is life.
@@faithsrvtrip8768"The ceiling's salt, the floor's salt, the walls are salt, the air is salt, you breathe that in and you can constantly taste the salt."
Since when were the Spanish in Virginia?
Google Dr. Jim Glanville Saltville Virginia
Used to smoke a lot of salmon back in my Alaska years, I lived on an island near a beaver pond and would gather the alder chips they left behind when downing trees, some of the best smoked sockeye ever.
I tried smoking a fish a while back, but couldn’t get it to light. 😢
@@thomasbeach905 just need a bigger lighter my friend.
You are an amazing UA-camr, thank you for your service!❤
These videos make me feel conflicted. It's such an enjoyable, educational and calming video that gives me a sense of dread due to how little I actually know if the grocery stores turn empty and the grid goes down
Same
What have you done to correct your ignorance in the last 3 months?
Plenty you could do for that. Like start an emergency supply, even one can or other non-perishable item a week or so, whatever is on sale (like canned yams after Thanksgiving, gift jars of popcorn kernels after Christmas, etc).
Or take up gardening in a couple pots. Doesn’t have to be a huge garden, just enough to get thru the beginners mistakes of growing one container of potatoes, or salad greens that look like house plants, etc.
And tons of YT channels on related topics, though many go down a political, or a “the end is nigh” rabbit hole.
I'm from Norway and "klippfisk" is still very popular here, it is salted fish that has to be soaked in water for many hours before you can cook with it.
No wonder Norwegians are hardy folks ,klipp fisk and lute fisk makes you strong 👍
That's all well and good but did you have to go and salt the liquorice too? :)
@@Woad25 They definitely did. Salt liquorice is delicious.
@@Woad25 Salt liquorice is for boy scouts. Salmiak liquorice is what will grow some hair on your chest.
@@andersjjensen Isn't that the same thing? That's sort of what I was referencing when I made the comment.
I would like to thank you and your friends for creating this content. I've been watching you guys practically since the beginning, and I'm learning a lot from you - not to mention just honing my English. I can honestly say that this is one of the most interesting and best-run YouTub channel. Let's hope for the best.
Warm greetings from Poland, cheers 🍻
Your channel should be shown in elementary (6th grade) and middle schools. This is super educational, entertaining, and very appropriate for all ages. It piques curiosity, which is the catalyst for passion. You're like the Bill Nye of olde world cooking, and if you inspire a single child to become a historian then you're a success.
Too bad Bill Nye got mean and bought into “the science” instead of listening and debating other scientists to challenge his assumptions.
@@TN-bi9qf every party needs a party pooper :(
Agree! Bill Nye is still awesome, even now. He's doing a lot to help fight climate change 💙
too bad climate changes isn’t real… dinosaurs weren’t driving gas powered vehicles and there were no factories … what are earth is going through is a natural process…” fixing it” is a political agenda
I agree with adding to Childrens education. There’s so many forgotten ways of old that is so important to show it forward 👵🏻❣️
thinking 5 years ago about how to do things in the kitchen more naturally led me to your channel. the cheesemaking episodes you had then inspired me to learn about cheesemaking. now, thanks to a few other cheesemaking youtubers i know how to make cheese of different types.
thanks again for years of BETTER THAN TV entertainment combined with knowledge.
love ya John and Co.! keep making knowledge videos.
I love this channel. I wish everyone was as enthusiastic as Jon in sharing their knowledge and interests. Love and respect from Wales 🏴
This. Video. Is. SPECTACULAR. I've learned a lot about fermentation and curing the past few years, and I can validated that everything you've said lines up with what I've heard, and I LOVE THIS VIDEO!! Imagine how excited our ancestors would have been over pressure canning! The ability to completely eliminate spoilage and the risk of botulism and other foodborne germs makes me very, very happy.
I find it magnificent that this video is all about preservation and its importance, but all footages used come from this very channel, showing how much information has already been produced and published by you.
the entire channel is such a gem, I am so glad I found it
Why the but?
In Essex, in England, in the 1930's, two workmen were doing some renovations to an ancient building. They discovered a void between floors. When they broke into it, they found it to be a smoke loft, built as part of a huge chimney. More interesting to the men, was the large ham, black, and aged, hanging there. The owner of the building reckoned it must have been there at least a hundred years. He, and the workmen tried it, and it was pronounced to be excellent.
That’s an old wives tale.
@ts7844 - You might think that, but I couldn't possibly comment.
As a child, I remember that my great-aunt and uncle’s Indiana farm had a fully stocked fall root cellar up until the 1930 when rural electrification finally reached their farm. Potatoes, beets, squash, gourds, mason jars full of green beans, sacks of wheat and the hand mill were all down there. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Respectfully, W.S.
I’m always curious how people dealt with pests like rodents. Was it ever a problem for them? I just know how quick mice can destroy a pantry when they take over, anything but canned.
I love learning about topics like these. It really is humbling, the techniques we take for granted that built the societies we know today.
Always a great presentation sir. I can't wait for the next, please.
It’s videos like this is why I’ve stayed subscribed over the years. Such a great history lesson.
Sure beats American Pickers.
Agreed. I know a lot of people prefer the more hands-on stuff, which is of course very fun to watch, but my favorite videos on this channel are the ones like this where I can dive deeper into something to really appreciate it.
Up here in Newfoundland, we still have salt beef and pork all the time! We soak it overnight and boil it with our veggies for jigs dinner ❤
It's a great way to preserve the meat. Cheers, from Alberta! ✌️🇨🇦
my best friends mum is a newfie. He was born on the island but left real young. He invited me over for a jiggs supper a few times
Love jigs dinner
@@jennifermarlow. I love corned beef and cabbage
Used to have belly of salt pork soup
in the 1970sin London…..haven’t seen it for years
Thank you to you and your entire team for all of these lovely, educational videos. :D Cheers from the middle of Canada!
I second this message, from somewhere not in the middle of Canada.
I am guessing that is Winnipeg MB! 😊
@@NansGlobalKitchen Winterpeg indeed ... Though I have to say we have NOT been living up to our fearsome reputation this year.
My great grandfather was from a tiny village called Webb, Saskatchewan. (It’s mostly just a cemetery now) Apparently, the harsh conditions and isolation, combined with alcohol made him go a little loony. He was sent to an asylum nearby (which has since been closed) and he spent five years there. When he was released no one ever heard from him again. The asylum was later known for using LSD to treat alcoholism.
@@cpeace3172 social isolation is the worst, its that what makes people go looney mostly
Excellent video on food preparation. By the way, just received parcel with my black linen vest and britches, the ladies that made them did a wonderful job. Thank you.
Years ago I read they would preserve slow cooked meats covered in hot grease in a tall narrow pot so the grease when cooled would seal and keep safe the meat. It was called confit (sounds like con-feet). Apparently, the meat could be kept for up to a year if done right.
There is a video on this channel called "Potted Beef in the 18th Century" that I think is the thing you're describing.
Cone-fee, actually. It's French. Like the other guy said, potting is a similar technique, but the modern confit method is to slow-cook meat in its own fat with intention to eat it immediately after. Duck and pork are popular choices, e.g. carnitas.
@@zhiracsIf we're going to get that nitpicky about pronunciation, it's kōn-fee. The o in "cone" is too long and not correct.
Confit of duck is still sold mostly from France, but world wide now
They still do it in France and you can buy confit duck in jars there (and in Belgium and the Netherlands too) and doubtless other meats.
When my mom was young they would preserve meat in a barrel between layers of salt sealed by a layers of lard. No air would get to the lower layers that way.
This channel is a real treasure.
Love how you covered every possible method of food preservation. Exceptional video.
With the fear of sodium that we have today, salt preserved foods are pretty much gone, BUT in our world today, having these vintage food preservation techniques, and knowing how to return that preserved food to a palatable as well as edible dish, is a valuable skill set and knowledge base. I'd like to see a renaissance of old foods. Huzzah also for Townsends for mentioning the use of beer over water "in some places" which was quite correct! Too many people think it a myth.
They brought back salt preservation by calling it lacto fermentation. Change terminology and folks were ok with doing it.
And the funny thing is salt doesn't increase blood pressure. That was a food industry lie to get us eating more sugar, alongside the "fat makes you fat" myth. Calories in combination with sedentary lifestyles make you fat and cause hypertension, not specific chemicals which are literally required for life.
@@Frommerman Salt makes the body retain water which in turn can increase blood pressure that can lead to other issues if left unchecked. You don't have to be fat to have those problems. It doesn't matter if it a natural chemical that our body uses. Too much is never good.
@@Icabod-os6rg Nope. Salt does cause water retention in the extremely short term as the body keeps electrolyte balance in the blood, but salt is also one of the easiest things other than water for the body to excrete. Any amount of salt which doesn't cause death or kidney damage will have zero impact on a chronic condition like hypertension.
If you ate a large block of salt and took blood pressure the moment it began entering the bloodstream, it would probably be higher than average. But that effect would vanish the next time you urinated. Chronic hypertension happens when things which can't be trivially excreted, like sugars or dissolved fats, build up in the bloodstream, and as arterial walls sclerose due to aging, plaque buildups, or behavioral damage like smoking. Salt has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
@@FrommermanYep. Have high BP and Dr says I'm low on sodium.
I love the subject of preservation and fermentation and its wonderful you highlight this isn't just about survival - these are delicious wholesome products that have stood the test of time and still enjoyed today. I'm wishing I could have salt beef and sauerkraut for supper ; with a beer of course
That was not only perfectly crafted content, but also delivered so well and with so much enthusiasm.
It's so crazy to think about how much time each household had to spend just on food production and preservation before the advent of refrigeration and modern preservation techniques! I love how the necessary preservation techniques have translated to today's favorite flavors 😍 #teampickle
This is the only channel that just fills me with warmth and happiness unlike anything else. It's just so cozy, interesting and nice.
I moved to the high desert for other reasons, but quickly noticed how easy it is to dry food here. I shifted to mostly dehydrating my garden produce. I love pickling hard vegetables and making vegetable relishes.
i'm literally overwhelmed; there is just so much in this video. another excellent trip back over the centuries to see what my ancestors had to do for survival. As for smoking I had no idea it could be done so darned simply. I keep thinking of pemmican and how it was usually sun-dried. the trick with potted meats, even covering the meat with a layer of clarified butter, and the pot pies are absolutely news to me. I really was surprised to learn this.
John Townsend & Comp., thank you for another excellent video! 😁😁👍👍
This was SO interesting and generated a good discussion in our household. Thanks for always posting such great content!
Thank you for the continually wholesome content on this channel. Always gets me through stressfull times. Food preservation and fermentation is an area ive been getting into. I havent made sauerkraut but made some wonderful kimchii last week.
Thank you for sharing all this information without a million ads. I found your channel when I was 17, and I learned more from you than I did in 12 years of public schooling.
Technically the fermenting process with cabbage is done by Lactobacillus. While the yeast make alcohol, the lactobacillus creates lactic acid, which pickles it. It's why I still consider it a form of pickling. It's also much healthier as the lactic acid improves your immune health and the bacteria improves gut health.
Does the bacteria actually survive our stomach acids, which are one of the harshest in nature?
@l6537 Yes they do. Plus since they create lactic acid by consuming sugar, they can even lower our blood sugar. It's why I love to pickle carrot with this method, plus the flavor is so good.
@@coffeelover7687I once fermented bell peppers just right, and they tasted like they had ranch already on them, I've never been able to replicate it!
In the fall I get a few big heads of fresh cabbage and make sauerkraut in a crock with an airlock. Awesome! I share it with my in laws and it usually lasts the whole winter. Super simple to make.
@@Just_Sara Thats my trouble with lacto-acidic fermentation - I found the outcomes extremely varied and unpredictable.
I tried a whole bunch of stuff, from Saurkraut and Kimchi to pickeling ginger shavings or garlic.
But the exact same recipe has given me stuff I loooved and stuff I hardly managed to eat, too sour, too structurally detiriorated and mushy - I just cant seem to replicate good results.
What you and all the Townsend's crew performs to spread information, techniques and history is important to all culture fans on the world.
Thank you very much!
I could sit and listen to John for hours! When he has Joe visit it's like sitting down with two old friends!
What an amazing video, the enthusiasm, production quality, educational value - going to show it to my Grade 8 history class some time!
I remember a business near where I lived that smoked salmon to sell to tourists. They used old refrigerators with the lower part with the motors removed. The salmon strips were hung from the old racks, the fire was built just at the front of the open bottom and the smoking coals pushed underneath. They also dug out the area under the smokers a little. They drilled holes in the metal bottom of the fridge for the smoke to rise and the doors provided easy access to the products. My dad and brothers had built a large smoke house for our fish and game and while dad said he admired the creative thinking with the friges, they wouldn't be big enough for our family.
I prefer dried salmon, a little smoke isn't bad.
The amount of B Roll John has is truly amazing! There’s a clip for everything in 4K!
You mention it's funny how today we desire the flavor rather than the preservation. That's actually exactly how modern sushi came to exist. Originally vinegared rice was packed around fish as a method of preservation but it evolved over time to have a slightly sweetened and much less vinegared rice used as a carrier for fresh fish, in order to provide flavor and texture.
My grandparents came from Southern Italy and baccala (salted cod) was something we had often when I was a kid. My mom would hang the dried cod in the garage. When used she would soak it in water for a few days.
Same with me. Also, in Italy they are masters at salting and then dry curing meat, mostly pork.
@@morrismonet3554 very true. It was too warm to rely on cool cellars so drying was needed.
baccalau in spanish and portugese....in dutch we have Kabeljauw which is the fresh fish
@@hetedeleambacht6608 In Dutch we also have Bakkeljauw, from the Antilles and Suriname. This is actually salted cod and despite sounding a lot like Kabeljauw, the name originates from the Portuguese Bacalhau, which in turn is related to the Italian Baccala. It's a small world.
dried corn on the cob will keep with some air flow available to it. Shell corn picked out of the fields is often not dry enough to store without more forced drying . Farmers have corn driers to handle this. The old corn cribs for dried corn on the cob intentionally had air gaps in them to allow air flow so the drying could continue.
Remember that corn has changed a LOT throughout history. Most notably, the kernels have grown to many times the size of what they used to be. It seems entirely plausible that hundreds of years ago the corn dried naturally, but now the kernels are so big that they hold in more moisture and aren't able to fully dry anymore.
@@Sotanaht01 Yes and some tribes braided the husks together and left them hanging to store, which allowed airflow to dry them more.
Very well done! I love how your video gets to the heart of How and Why food preservation was-and still is-done! Thank you so much!
Thank you for about a decade of informative, colorful and interesting videos.
While I love your old recipes, this more in depth discussion of the history of something so important was fascinating. Thank you for a wonderful video.
Thank you for sharing all of your knowledge with us.. you're so appreciated!!!!
I find your videos fascinating. I love learning how people lived day to day back then. You are a wonderful teacher!!! You make the subject interesting.
This is one of your best videos. Very informative and entertaining. Congrats
The contents, the editing and just your bare charisma make these videos awesome. In the current world full of random nonsense videos, you are a jewel of knowledge totally worth preserving (pun intended) for future generations. Please do keep up your outstanding work ❤
Another great video. Thank you, Jon, for keeping us interested.
There are a lot of grain farmers who still dry their corn in the field. Guy who ran an elevator once told me a rule of thumb, corn at 14.5% moisture will keep in a bin for 400 days, any percent more will halve that time: 200 days at 15.5, 100 at 16.5 and so on, up to 20.5% that can barely keep safely for a week. The other side of field drying, is the longer it's out there the more yield you'll lose as cobs and kernels get dropped. Owning a dryer lets you trade time and potential losses for fuel costs, and store your crop until after the harvest ends and prices go back up- IME with my little single-fan dryer, it's most economical to harvest corn at 18-21%.
Leave it in the field in most places and the deer, turkeys, racoons, squirrels, crows, etc. will get most of it. That's why the corn crib was invented.
The dryer also becomes necessary when conditions are consistently too wet to leave the corn in the fields. Sometimes there's no way around it if you actually want to sell your crops before they rot.
i stopped watching your channel couple of years ago but this video popped up and i resubscribed, you gave me the same feelings you did those years ago. I loved this video
The excellent game Farthest Frontier simulates building a village but introduces food spoilage and preservation as a key mechanic. It makes a huge difference in how you have to manage your food supply, and a good grain supply can keep everyone from starving when a season goes poorly.
Love your videos!
these videos are always such high quality, props to you and the townsends team for this great show!
The wood ash preservation for eggs still blows me away
for me it's potting meats and the whole purpose of "pot pie"
It's not the best to keep eggs. The best and finally simplest way is in lime water, more than six months easily. You have in the channel an excellemnt video about egg preservation.
indeed, right?
Ash is generally basic, so it's not pickling (which is a vinegar based process), but it must taste amazing.
check out chinese century eggs
Thanks!
We must learn to preserve meat,vegetables and fruit now so we can have them in difficult times. Thanks for the info Jon!
Finding your channel was on of the best thing in the last few years for me. Your calming voice and excellent way of presentation makes your stories wonderful each time. Thank you!
The preservation techniques are great knowledge from the past that we still use today, in all aspects of food. In first year of culinary we studied food safety by learning FAT TOM, meaning Food Acidity, Time, Temperature, Oxygen and Moisture. By understanding this and stopping any one or more from preventing harmful bacteria growth it's easy to understand preparing food safely for immediate use or preserving it for long periods.
Your videos are so beautifully produced. I'm in awe that this content is free for me to watch-- Thank you.
@ Townsends Your videos would have been amazing back in middle and high school history classes. While streaming is the way these days, you should consider making and perhaps selling some hard copies of your videos, perhaps by theme. We are facing an ever-increasing electronic black hole in terms of modern history and preserved hard-copies are the only hedge against it.
Go to their website. They sell dvds of each season. Each season is now streaming but they do sell hard copies.
Thanks for sharing with us Jon. It will be going on till the end of time. Stay safe and keep uo the great videos. Fred.
Bravo John. This might have been one of my favorite videos from you.
God Bless
Sauerkraut (fermented cabbage) is a lacto-fermentation (results in lactic acid). For a great looking product add some red cabbage to the white, and a few cloves of garlic. 2% of salt by weight, squeeze the cabbage by hand to get the juices flowing, then put under press, to make sure the juice eventually covers the contents. Keep at room temp, agitate periodically to make sure the bubbles escape. Ready in about 4 days (keep refrigerated after that). Delicious, healthy and so simple. Will keep for months. Add to a pork or beef soup, brine and all, also amazing. The "sauerkraut" sold in cans or even jars is drek compared to homemade 🤣
This video is so wonderful and engaging. I cannot wait to share it with friends and family - it was a whole journey!
And don't forget the "shrubs." Preserving fruits in cider vinegar with some sugar is very tasty.
Fantastic way to start the day, thank you townsends!!
15:30 This is actually a _huge_ misconception. Beer was not drunk back in the day *anywhere* because 'the water wasn't safe to drink'. Clean water is one of the most important components of making beer at all! It was drunk because of the vitamins and calories and whatnot that it provided.
It depends. Beer involves boiling the wort (unfermented), which killed pathogens. Before people understood that water needed to be purified, beer could be a safer option depending on what one's water supply was like. Even into the late 1800's prior to the development of germ theory, this was a significant issue. Look up cholera outbreaks in London.
A fascinating and well put together video yet again. Love this channel. Thanks Townsends.
Necessity is the mother of invention. All these techniques needed to preserve food just to survive, now used for flavour and variety.
Very outstanding and comprehensive video. Keep up the good work Townsends!!
I have a small deep freezer. Other than that I got a mini fridge and a smoke, & I can foods. Everything else is hanging in my pantry. I have enough food to last me 2+ months. And I live in the French Quarter in a 180 year old apartment. Pretty easy if you know what you’re doing. And they definitely taste a lot better than most store bought foods. And I buy most of my meats and vegetables from local farmers and ranchers, some of em grow their crops in the city.
It's the "if you know what you're doing" part that's tricky though! I well remember my first attempt at simple refrigerator pickles. Thank goodness my mother in law was there to keep me from poisoning myself!! Very few public schools teach even the basic principles behind preservation, much less something this practical.
@@Beryllahawk
It really should be parents and grandparents teaching these skills to the children, and passing on family traditions and special recipes. This would provide for a good time together as well, and a time for meaningful conversations.
@@heidimisfeldt5685 That would be ideal, yes...sadly I think a lot of parents don't KNOW these things, or they don't have time for lessons (or won't make time, as the case may be). Certainly my mother in law's background as a sharecropper's daughter gave her a ton of know-how that my own mother (and grandmother) didn't have. My German grandmother was very much a "city girl," even before the war; and her husband hunted, but never preserved anything, simply hunted for the table as it were.
It feels like we're losing incredibly important parts of our history by losing these skills.
This channel, and everyone involved with it, are a national treasure.
Yay! The smokehouse is active!🎉
Gotta love barbecue
You have made many, many great videos, but this was one of the best. Thanks!
Even before we switched from hunter gatherers food preservation was always something they did, because not all food products are not available throughout the year, so they needed a means to preserve it.
Great cinematography in this episode, wow! Very cool
Good morning everyone, time to get educated and inspired
Great video, thank you all for doing this channel.
In the Bible, the term “a covenant of salt” is used to refer to a long-lasting covenant, because of the preserving nature of salt. To this day, in Jewish practice salt is put on the bread for a Sabbath meal, as a reflection of the usage of salt in the Temple, which was an extension of the concept of salt reflecting eternity.
Hospitality is "bread and salt" in many cultures.
Keep going Old Boy!!! Thank you for sharing your paasion and knowledge!
This video inspired a question: what would be done with the discarded salt, sugar, fat, etc. when preserved products were used? I’m wondering if there are small spots in their environment that were ‘poisoned’ by their waste. And have you done a video on 18th century waste management?
You can essentially boil the water out of salt water to recover the salt. Fat is a good fertilizer. Not sure about sugar
@@ieaatclamswow, thank you! So could the same salt be used indefinitely, or would its quality degrade after too many cycles of reuse?
@@rfernandz2001 I wouldn't be the person to ask, but you would slowly have less and less salt as you lose some each batch. Personally I'd just add some new stuff and keep going
Love seeing videos about preservation of food and how it was stored back then!
The smokehouse looks so much better now it's wood has gotten a little weather worn.
Jon, you and your team are doing us a proper treat and a true service. thanks for all u do
On one hand, I'm somewhat relieved my late father, much as I miss him, won't be seeing a world where this knowledge becomes necessary again.
On the other, he probably knew and did a lot of these things, having grown up in 1940s and '50s Appalachia, so... yeah, that knowledge would have been really helpful.
And specifically to the ship would be hard bread, a flour preservation technique. I still watch your ships biscuit vid from time to time. Great stuff as always JT and company.
These are the kind of " Old School" survival skills every prepper should learn.
the potted meats and pot pies were so simple yet effective...!
Best youtube channel bar none
One of.
Thank you for the well delivered overview of the topic.
Barrel makers we probably very important during that time.
might be me but i have these videos playing in the background bc i like his voice and learning is relaxing.