What Did Medieval Peasants Eat?
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2025
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Subtitles: Jose Mendoza
MAKKE
ORIGINAL 14TH CENTURY RECIPE (From The Forme of Cury)
Take drawen benes and seeth them well. Take them up of the water and cast them in a morter grynde them all to doust till thei be white as eny mylk. Chawf a little rede wyne, cast thereamong in the gryndyng, do therto salt, leshe it in disshes. Thenne take Oynouns and mynce them smale and seeth them in oile til they be al broun, and florissh the dishes therwith. And serve it forth.
MODERN RECIPE
INGREDIENTS
3 Cups (450g) Fava/Broad Beans (or any other bean)
1/2 Cup - 1 Cup (118ml - 236ml) Red Wine or Ale
Salt to taste
1 Onion minced (white or yellow)
Oil or Butter for frying
METHOD
1. Wash and boil the beans over a medium heat until soft. Remove the beans from the water and mash them until smooth.
2. Warm the wine or ale over a low heat and mix with the beans. Start with 1/2 cup and add more to achieve desired consistency. Mix in salt to taste.
3. Place a large pan over medium heat and add the butter or oil. Add the minced onion and fry until golden brown, about 7-10 minutes. When ready, garnish onions on top of the beans and serve.
PHOTO CREDITS
Broad Beans: jules, CC BY 2.0: bit.ly/32EHTad
Puffin: By Andreas Trepte - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5: bit.ly/36uQDkj
#tastinghistory #medievalpeasant #medievalfood
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So here's a curiosity. You mention that we didn't write down peasant food because nobody cared but honestly until the Forme of Curre NOTHING was written down, and even then there were no amounts written down. So this begs the question, why? We wrote down just about everything else for posterity and yet foods are a total mystery. Is there a historical reason for this?
Are you stoned in you’re vids
Yo Max, just wanted to say great video, and could you do the miniseries on medieval food? I'd be interested to see what every class ate, from serf to holy roman emperor.
Comparative Religion.
Because of your offer I will probably get a subscription to Great Courses. But here's a funny: as the pandemic hit the US, I was finishing a Yale Courses class here on YT called "Epidemics in Western Society since 1600!" (It's excellent, btw.)
Interesting, how similar people are. Medieval peasants eat beans and fried onions; i, as a college student, eat the exact same thing.
We are the same
Medieval serfs.. college students.. Is there really a difference? "What did millenial peasants eat? Top Ramen and beer.
Poor ppl everywhere eat beans because they grow relatively fast and are a complete protein with complex carbs.
@@morganseppy5180 Yes, I made lentils & rice often while in college - far cheaper than meat.
@@morganseppy5180 beans are not a complete protein, they form a complete protein when digested together with cereal like rice.
"If you'd be interested"
You even need to ask?
Monk food series pls
Yes, I want to know more about monks, travel food of the vikings and sausages
Yes! Would be so fascinated on monastic food
"Yes" to all of the suggestions in the video.
Oh yeah.....great idea
Yes, please!!!
Tasting History: Use whatever bean makes you happy.
Me: [uses coffee beans]
I used jelly beans.
@@jeil5676 i feel like they probably didnt boil well.
@@tuseroni6085 Remember, you're going to mash them anyway. : D
I'm more concerned with how they mixed with the onions.
@@brucetidwell7715 yeah, but after boiling them you just have sugar water.
The king used human beans . . . .
Funny thing about 'peasant food' - the first time I ate in a Vietnamese restaurant (to which I was introduced by a college buddy in the early 1990s) I enjoyed it thoroughly. During the meal my friend commented that most of the food on the menu, seen as exotic and special in this country, was pretty much all 'peasant food' in Vietnam. That started me thinking that such is probably the case with many 'ethnic' foods. From there I got the idea that if someone were to open a restaurant in Tokyo selling cornbread, pinto beans, biscuits and gravy and so on would likely make a killing.
KFC in Japan is huge.
@@notsocrates9529 yeah plus there’s that misconception in Japan that Americans eat KFC on Christmas, so it is kind of like how Americans think of foods from other countries as kind of special and fancy when they’re really just common foods that everyone from that place eats all the time.
@@bonesandhearts5683 KFC for Xmas. Hohoho
@@sophiophile it’s funny because the guy who did the marketing for KFC Japan just admitted that he made up the KFC for Christmas thing as a marketing ploy in Japan. But it worked and it stuck
A bit late on this one, but Pizzas came into being as some sloppily thrown together food for day-laborers in Italy, iirc. Lots of mediterranean foods (southern Italian, French, north african, Greek, etc.) that are famous and beloved today started off as poor people's dishes.
The Raticate in the back reminds me of the quote “when times are tough, the poor eat the rats. When times are tougher, the rats eat the poor.”
😱
Haha, thats a pretty good quote.
Gotta be a russian quote. They have a knack for the macabre.
@@underdog5004 As far as I can see, it started as flavor text for a Magic The Gathering card: Drainpipe Vermin. I can't find any earlier references to this phrase, but I could just be dumb.
Thought it was a meowth in front of a furby at first lol
The Forme of Cury should have a peasant section called "Serf it forth!"
Get thee hence with thine puns!
🤣🤣🤣
what ho?
Imagine being the king of England having an expensive feast and some French dude comes in and calls your wine garbage.
Your cat is a G
I'm pretty sure that exact thing happened at some point...possibly multiple points.
Imagine being the king of France and having an expensive feast and some English dude comes in and says "I ain't eating snail's you dirty garlic smelling frog"
@@TheTwoFingeredBullDog Snails and frogs were what the poor ate when couldn't even catch a hedgehog. They became a delicacy pretty recently, as part of a trend a revisiting traditional foods.
@@mievaselli7910 What's your point? Some thing's should stay in the past.
We grew up very poor in rural America but I always remember the food as being good. One of my favorite dinners from that time was "Hotdog Stew." Sauted onions and peppers, browned hotdogs in a tomato sauce. Sounds weird but is was amazing. My father would bake us bread, my mother gardened and made home made yogurt, grew sprouts under the sink in a jar. I consider this poor but blessed and to this day I still love simple peasant food.
That sounds delicious lol
That is definitely not poor people food nowadays in America. Funions, other heavily processed chips, instant ramen,, the cheapest mac and cheese and anything from boxes is what poor people eat, downed with lots of sprite or coke. The fact your mom grew herbs under her sink put her heads and shoulders above most poor Americans today
That stuff is amazing!!!
Aww 🥰 this is so wholesome & brings back memories of my own childhood.
We were poor as well & my mom came up with some ingenious ideas for hearty yummy meals ❤
We added a can of baked beans to plump it up and ate it with rice for supper. Good stuff.👍
"If you'd be interested"
Always, Max. You choose any topic, and we'll be here. 😂
I am definitely interested. And like you said Jessica, he picks a topic and we are in.
"Punishing peasants for the poaching of prized provisions was rather a popular pastime for the posh." Woah, delivered that tongue twister so smoothly, I almost missed it lol
I'm glad I live in a free country where anyone can go shoot any wild animal for any reason.
Oh...wait...
Love the alliteration!
@@ChevalierdeJohnstone That's why most of them are extinct or very nearly so.
Fibber McGee has entered the chat.
@@dp-sr1fd bwhahahaha extinct eh? DEER ARE PLENTIFUL AND BECOME A NUISANCE ALL OVER AMERICA AS ARE SNAKES AND PIGS IN THE SOUTH
Beans? Fried Onions? Lard? Wait a minute, this is just old timey refried beans!
Some things never change.
Michael Coffee... You noticed that too!! I thought it was just my imagination.
Ayy yo this peasant eatin' beans!
I scrolled down here specifically to find and like this comment.
Tarka dahl.
The word “corn” in England, prior to the introduction of maize from the Americas, was a generic word which referred to grains of all types.
I believe that it was used as a generic term for the main grain of an area. Our corn today was called Indian corn but of course Americans couldn’t be bothered saying all that & just shorten it to corn.
It still is here in England, at least amongst we who haven't yet been Americanised.
I was wondering about this as well. Thanks Greg :)
In Germany we call all types of grain KORN. The word also means cernel or seed .
@@Keksdich I was stationed in Germany in the late ‘60s in Swabia and my landlord and his family came over for dinner once. Totally ignorant of local customs (newly arrived) as an appetizer I served them Fritos and dip. They really ate up the Fritos and then they asked what they were made of. I explained it was fried corn. They were shocked and looked a little ill. My landlord explained that in Germany corn was only for animals. I quickly apologized for my ignorance and insensitivity. 🥴
Ah-ha! So, now we know why noble vampires are actually "turned away" by garlic, they just don't want to get caught eating low class food. :)
Mind. Blown.
Plot twist - Euro vampire myths are just a mythologized allegory for the monstrosity of the upper classes.
Well yeah, dracula was a COUNT
I-...
@@nairsheasterling9457 ..
Yeah. That seems just about it. The vampirism of the rich and greedy was made literal in works like Dracula with literal vampires whose feasting on the poor and weak was made literal.
Max: "If you like subjecting your family to medieval food at Thanksgiving..."
Me, who just made a Pumpion Pie, sweating: who...who would do that????
Some say subjecting , I say character building and why stop at Thanksgiving when you can go through the whole of lockdown ??? Mwahahahaha 😈
The farting helped with social distancing immensely x x
mmmmm.... Pumpion Pie.....
But that's like actually good medieval food so depends on what your standard is
[looks at bowl of lentils with onions and garlic]
Ha ha, yes, those wacky middle ages peasants
:: Looks at my lentil soup ... ::
Hmmmm.
I was eating lentils with garlic (+etc.) while watching this, too. XD
😜😝😅 I was thinking why not just use lentils the entire time.
What about the humble butter bean?
@@Cornerstanding well, most medieval euro peasants wouldn't have *had* lentils. Peas, yes, and they certainly used those. Lentils were a domesticated crop in central asia, and were a late arrival in most of europe.
Yeah, Henry II’s court was NOTORIOUS for the poor quality of its wine. Eleanor did manage to class the place up, but her husband still rarely paid serious attention to the quality of provisions (unless he was trying to impress someone or make a show of largesse).
Henry II was also French and ruled half of France so he didn't even have the excuse of being foreign. He just had very common taste. He had a jester famous for farting which Eleanor also found pretty low class.
@@johnpoole3871 That's the equivalent of the stereotype of a father or uncle today that think he's the best because he got a house, but still enjoy simple hot dogs, cheap beer and corny dad jokes that makes everyone, especialy his wife, groan. (Again, just the stereotype) and I love it!
Sounds sensible to me. If you don’t care and you don’t need to impress anyone, why waste money on it?
@@Robert399 Unfortunately, lack of refinement was the least of Henry’s problems. Aside from his infamous temper, he could be very heavy-handed and was very reluctant to delegate authority. Over time he allowed Eleanor less and less say in the governance of Aquitaine - lands that rightfully belonged to her - and his refusal to share power with his sons led to years of resentment and outright rebellion.
@@kimmy4994 I guess that stereotype isn’t too far off. The caveat is that a private/less wealthy person adhering to that stereotype is very different than when a king does it.
Regarding onions, there's a quotation, though I can't recall by whom, "If onions were as scarce as truffles they'd be worth far more."
There are more dishes I’d want with onions but without truffles than ones I’d want with truffles but no onions.
Haha I love that quote, I'm stealing it. I completely agree.
Onions when fried go good with soooo many dishes man
Exactly. So much of what is considered desirable in food is down to scarcity. Spices become cheap? European royalty are suddenly into "simple" flavours.
@@DZrache
“Fine European cuisine” tends to consist of dishes that require continuous attention, perfect timing and/or superior ingredients, because those were ways to show off once spices became affordable.
Me: Haha I'm SURE glad I'm bot a peasant
Also me: Hope I dont run out of beans during Covid
🤣 seriously
F'real. I have been living on red beans and rice these past few months.
@@jeremyeineichner7271 That's a staple in the South.🙂 Chili over rice is pretty darned good too.
@@trishthehomesteader9873 I'm well aware. It was in New Orleans that I first fell in love with it. Just didn't think I'd end up having it at least once a day EVERY day...
This is why I have always had a garden and some animals. We're doing just fine with are set up. I'm poor as hell but I don't care about money. I love my chickens ducks and goats and my wonderful gardens. All of which cost me very little. You should all invest a little in gardening and you will always have food.
Pottage sounds like the "hunter's stew" that my mom used to make. Basically, take all of the leftovers in the fridge, add beans, & some broth. Boil until it's dead. Serve with bread. :)
When I saw the crock-pot emerge from the cupboard, I knew it was time to try and find a friends house to crash for dinner. 😹
Until it's dead 😂😂😂
A friend of my ex in school used to have this for dinner sometimes, but they called it "cowboy".
When my ex and I were feeding four vermin (teenagers; his two sons & his two nieces that we took in) on a very limited budget (no financial help at all from the other parents or the state), I got quite creative with the game of "what have we got in the cupboards". Real seat-of-the-pants cooking.....when it was done, they got used to being called to the table with a yell of "I don't know what it is, but its dead!" 😄
We had "stew" (also fish sticks which we compared to asbestos shingles) for dinner on Fridays at my university. We would save up and go out for hamburgers.
I'm italian and my mother cooks macco sometimes, it's just fava beans, onions, olive oil and some bay leaves to add some flavour. We usually eat as a side dish with some other vegetables and some meat.
It is so interesting to learn that it has such ancient roots!
Using jelly beans didnt really turn out how I'd like it
yeah coffee beans didnt really turn out well either
Bean-bag chair beans didn't work so well either.
Did you try candied onions with those? It might help.
@@jessstuart7495 damn i was just about to try that
Now, if you melted the champagne Jelly Beans in actual champagne, that might be something, lol!
I love how salmon once used to be peasant food
Fish was poor man's food until like the 70s. Kids would get mocked when their fisherman families would give em fish for lunch on American coast
@@jesush.christ6184 well damn
TJRO 1121 It was. So was caviar lol.
@@jrivxxi2947 ya they feed it to prisoners so much that public opinion voted it was too inhumane, since they were basicly sea cockroaches
@@jesush.christ6184 its funny cuz the poor people ate more healthy than the rich
I know a sicilian recipe called “maccu”, it’s just smashed fava beans, fennel and oil, so probably makke was brought by the romans and was still used at that time
That could be the case but I’m also not sure I can think of a culture that didn’t arrive at beans + aromatics + fat. It could be a Roman recipe, but I think it’s more likely a Roman name for a local recipe.
There are some shockingly old foods that have barely changed in centuries. Hummus was brought to the middle east by Crusaders, Tempura was brought to Japan by Portuguese missionaries or traders and was medieval in origin (being a meal meant for meat free days), and as mentioned on this channel Tamales have barely changed (only using lard instead of corn oil) in the last 5000 years and European fish sauces date back to Roman times.
@@arthas640 No, dude. Hummus was an Ancient Egyptian dish which spread to the Levant in the Middle Ages, along with Falafel. Stop stealing our food
Sounds like Italian refried beans.
@@QureshiOwaisAbdullah i had actually no idea about the history of Hummus, but when i read the other commenter saa that hummus was brought by crusaders to the middle esst i intuitively went... Bullshit. White People. appropriating everything and thinking they invented everything. Im White btw.
Okay, NOW I know who Max reminds me of: Shawn Spencer from Psych! It's the facial expressions and deadpan delivery of the most farcical and alliterative phrases he can manage to write: ..."punishing peasants for poaching of prized provisions was rather a popular pastime for the posh." He deserves an award for that one!
hey! thanks. i didn’t realize he was doing that - did sound like a a posh sentence though :) 🍺🥘🌱
I agree!
Too bad there aren't secret pineapples in every episode!
Yes, he has a very well thought out dialogue. It's a pleasure to watch him...Thank you !
This is really interesting, Here in Italy we have what is called "macco di fave", which is essentially the same thing as this "makke". It's a typical southern Italy "poor" dish: you can find it, slightly different from one region to another, in Sicily, Puglia, Calabria and even Sardinia and it's made with fresh or dried fava beans (but without wine or ale).
I was about to write this too!
I live in Emilia Romagna, so I did non know the "macco di fave". How interesting!
And given that the Normans had a kingdom in Southern Italy, I wonder if the makke was imported from England or the other way around.
Nothing like hearing about the food habits of the peasantry while enjoying the modern wonder of frozen pizza.
... which has a worse nutritional profile :D I feel you though.
After eating said pizzas for a couple of days straight, I would love this makke.
Man I would heat up that pizza before eating it. Frozen it's just ugh.
Pizza is modern day peasantry food. Especially any prepackaged pizza
Pizza 🍕 is nutritious. Bread, tomatoes, cheese, pineapple 🍍 all the major food groups
I'm glad you mentioned monks. In a food history I read (can't remember the title) the monks got around the fish days and Lenten laws by floating a sheep across a river or stream, making sure it's head went underwater at least once. Voila! A white woolly fish
The Monks : "It's Big Brain Time"
Looooool
Imagine casually tricking God lmao
Sounds like a myth or folktale lol
Imagine going back in time to medieval Italy and telling the nobility how much their country is going to be obsessed with garlic in the future
Which is weird, because the Roman in general was obsessed with garlic.
Hi Italian here (from Italy, not from New Jersey "my nona came here on a boat gabagool"). Don't let italoamerican cooking fool you. In Italy we don't use as much garlic as foreigners think we do. The ones obsessed with garlic are the folks from the Balkans
@@DirtCheapTerrains Nah you guys are pretty obsess. Compared to other Europeans, you use quite a lot of garlic, as much as the Middle Easyerners.
@@josephsofaer841 ok seppo
I’m not American lmfao you 🤡
"Punishing peasants for the poaching of prized provisions was rather a popular pastime for the posh."
Is the whole comments section just going to let that alliteration go unlauded? Come on!
Except Robin Hood! There was a story, maybe from the 1800s of a man who lived in the countryside and was found to be the world's oldest man. He became famous, but when they moved him to London, 'the rich there diet killed him'. I think today they would mean too much fat or whatever. But it seems they thought he ate more healthy when he led the rustic life.
Oops, the rich diet in London.
Loved it! My favorite part!
Clearly he’s prepping to be cast in a V For Vendetta reboot
Alright, awesome alliteration! Albeit awkward...
We still eat this in my house, lol. We're Romanian. Only no wine in the beans! Add a bay leaf though.
Yup. It's one of my favorite dishes
Yes! Always the B A Y L E A F
@@nikolatovar9884 HHHHERERERESSSS BORIS!
Yes!! True! My mother put some tomato paste in the fried onions, sometimes...
Yup. Fasolea frecata la putere!!!
"Thyme heals all wounds."
- some ancient cookbook, probably-
Thyme does actually have healing properties.
Helps with coughs, kinda. Don’t use if pregnant, though!
Thymol has antimicrobial properties.
sage words, my friends
@@Just_Sara why?
Monk food would be interesting. I'd also love to see a series on historical 1st Nations foods like pemmican, pine tea etc. Might be tough though with no written history?
Here's Monk food: ua-cam.com/video/zz0y1d6IIpY/v-deo.html
Pemmican coming soon.
No written history but you forget that indigenous people are still alive and exist?!? They know their own history and traditional foods
I would love to see what foods a knight would eat. Also more on what the Pope would eat would be interesting. Love this channel. 👍🏻
I can do those!
Great Idea!!!
wasn't the pope the first person in europe to try hot chocolate. I remember he talked about it as though it was an energy drink lol
@@TastingHistory Make it hap'n, Cap'n!
@@TastingHistory Seconding the pope
That's such a popular dish in Romania today. It's called "fasole batuta", which means smashed beans.
I was just about to write about it :D but in my part of the country (Transilvania) we call it "fasole frecata" which roughly translates to "rubbed beans".
I'm Romanian and I literally just made this dish a few days ago, but I fried a sausage to go with it too because I'm not a medieval peasant so I can afford meat like the wealthy aristocrat I truly am.
@@SilkyCayla i too love rubbing my beans
@@SilkyCayla And if you add a bit of garlic you make it even better! I love it, and yes, it is very popular still.
What kind of beans are used to make it? I was thinking of something like "navy" beans which are small white beans.
So seethe means boil eh? No wonder we say someone is having a seething anger. You can practically see the steam coming out of their nose and ear holes.
Low boil.
Just as someone whom is seething has not *quite* boiled over.
And chafe, as in chafing dish, to “keep at a low heat”.
Depending which spices they mention, we actually have a lot! Native and traditionally used in Britain. From Wood Avens (Clove/cinnamon like), Hogweed seed (Galangal/Cardoman like), Many Mustards, Alexander Seeds (Black Pepper/Myrrh flavour). List goes on.
I'm honestly just so excited for all the mentions and honors that you are getting. its is 1000% deserved!
Thank you so much!
I think it'd be cool to do a comparison between "Crusader" food vs. the local food (maybe divided between what Jews, Christians, and Muslims were eating).
Yes! And some of the regional differences too, that intrigued me
Great idea! I've been looking into potential sources for early Norman recipes. It would be fascinating to see what influence the Norse brought to the local Frankish cuisine. :)
Saw you in the news! Or more correctly, my wife did and said "hey your cooking dude made the news" LOL
Peasant food is home cooking for Eastern European people. Just had haluski. Cabbage, onion,butter and egg noodles. Great on a cold winter night.
I'm positively pleased by your particular proficiency and prowess in the production of alliterative prose ;).
My grandpa actually made something slightly similar to this for his lunch a lot. It was chili beans, fried onions, and bacon bits all stewed together. He had spices though, and put in onion powder, garlic salt, and cayenne pepper.
Sounds like i might be making this for dinner
That sounds actually pretty good
I kept thinking through the video that chili powder or cayenne pepper was needed, alternatively how good would this be with some roasted hatch chilies mixed in.
Technically all herbs and veg
Sounds good especially with the bacon bits.😋
"Horse bread, made of dried peas and beans and whatever else they can find..." Isn't that just Dave's Killer Bread now?
But seriously, I'd love to see more Medieval food--Peasant pottages (which you touched on for just a sec), Monk's meals, farmer's fare...lots of great stuff there!
ModernHistoryTV's channel has a video on peasant diets and one of the foods made was a peas-pottage.
@@robinthrush9672 Did they have all three ways of serving it?
@@JimBob4233 If memory serves, it was spread on a slice of thick bread and served with butter-fried salmon. The pottage was cooked in a ceramic pot.
@@robinthrush9672 I think he was referring to hot, cold and 9 days old.
@@elewysoffinchingefeld3066 It's been too long since I've heard that rhyme.
Dungeons and Dragons player, here. It would be awesome if you made a playlist speculating what a medieval adventurer would eat while they're out traveling. For now, I'm just watching your entire medieval playlist and figuring out what they can buy and travel with, what they can make traveling, and what they would actually eat when in town.
Shadiversity has an episode about that
@@madless6192 Shad's is like a 45 minute episode. I've watched it quite a few times. I want more 😅
@@seymourfields3613 i mean... same here haha
There is a channel that does speculative ‘adventurer’/world building vids. Maybe he has one?
@@CamdenKnightly who's that? Sounds cool!
That's so incredible, this EXACT recipe still exists in Romanian cuisine, mushed (white) beans with fried onions on top. It's very homey, goes great in the winter.
Dear lord, please continue with the medieval recipes for peasants. I'm so incredibly curious what peasants may have been eating. I'd love to try some of those recipes. I love your videos in general though!
Haha yes my family always makes this in the winter~
I work with a Romanian and I'll have to ask her if her family makes this.
@@Steve17010 Hungarians and Slovaks make it too. And Italians as well.
My grandmother used to pass the beans through a strainer so as to not include the skins in
the soup. She made fresh croutons fried in lard to sprinkle on top. And there was smoked
sausage in the soup. We used lard not butter or oil. We were poor but not peasants. ;)
We still eat this and we're Romanian. Add a bay leaf to it and it's 100%.
It reminded me of refried beans
“Artificially” in context likely means “with great artistry”
rather than how we’d hear it today.
Probably based on the word "artifice" instead of "artificial".
@@General12th But artificial comes from artifice, that comes from art. I think people when they hear artificial today are afraid because of a very strong "return to nature" prejudice, if it's artificial it must contain "chemicals" and what not, but when you think about it, synthetizing molecules is quite the art. Since it's so complicated though, it's the business of large corporations, and since they can afford small margins, I think this is where our collective understanding that "artificial = cheap" comes from.
I might be wrong though it's just a guess
@@Vacuon no I think you're onto something. Our meaning of artificial is more like "fake". I'm certain this was not it's meaning centuries ago. I'm not a linguist but I would hazard a guess that the word has taken on that meaning within the last century.
He’s still being a snob about garlic tho
@@Vacuon It's a worlwide trend, really. We used to have so called E-number codes for additives in food instead of their full chemical names here in Europe. This notation has been completely phased out (on producers' behalf) because people got scared of scary-looking ingredient codes like E100 or E330 - curcumin and vitamin C, respectively. Admittedly, this also resulted in phasing out of genuinely harmful additives, because their full names were also scary-sounding (e.g. Sodium benzoate and Dichlorooctylisothiazolinone).
Reminds me of The Black Adder.
Henry - "Who did you kill today."
Edmond - "Um, Peasants. Peasants, there were a lot of peasants... they don't really count though, do they?"
Henry - "Only in the event of a tie."
I agree that it's very important to note that one doesn't need spices as we would define them today. Herbs can be used as spices as well.
And europe has indeed a lot of (wild) herbs: mint, thyme, rosemary, parsley, lovage, chives, wild garlic leaves, fennel, dill...
One would also use garlic and onions. Juniper berries grew in many places, dried mushrooms and roasted bacon could render flavor as well. All of this would 100% be available to peasants as it either could be cultivated in small kitchen gardens or grew in the wild and could be gathered for free.
And yes! Salt was also more common than one might think as a lot of places had salt mines and costal towns had salt pans.
so pretty much refried beans was peasant food. they just needed tortillas.
I said the same thing lol I’m about to put a pot of beans on right now and I feel like a peasant 😂
We have beans on toast!
I was thinking this is more like boozed up bean soup.
Or even unleavened bread, or Cuban crackers.
@@lyllydd yess, frijoles borrachos! my favorite meal
yessss gimme more medieval food, i'm writing a fantasy book set on a medieval-like world and it is SO helpful for worldbuilding
Pease Porridge hot, Pease Porridge cold,
Some like it in the pot, nine days old.
Onions on the top, Leaks on the side.
Pick the right mushrooms, or you're in for a ride.
Get a piece of bread, seven days a week.
Little bit of salmon baked on a plank of teak.
Beef for the rich, chicken for the poor.
Everyone gets ale, till you can't drink no more.
I'm back on a Skyrim binge lately, and I spend far more time frittering around collecting food and planning meals than I do dungeon-delving or questing. My Dragonborn needs to keep her strength up so she gets her 8 hours sleep and three hearty meals per day, by golly. Grilled chicken breast, a slice of goat cheese, a red apple, and some Nord mead is a fine supper, it seems to me, and she can handle most anything thrown at her.
Seriously though Max, I love this topic. I really enjoyed that Knight guy's, Jason from Modern History I think, take on this subject. The peasant meal was imo the best-looking and probably the healthiest. Looking forward to more on this!
I would adore to see what a Medieval Knight would eat, or maybe traveling “adventurers” who lived a nomad style life in Europe
I'd like to see tasting history's take on it too, but this series might interest you at least a bit: ua-cam.com/video/WeVcey0Ng-w/v-deo.html
@TastingHistory I second this suggestion, since one of my favourite medieval foods was originally made to preserve food for travel - the pot pie.
Of course, nowadays we eat the packaging; but then again, we also dip our tea leaves while they're still in the packages because a group of British folk didn't realise the silk envelopes were for shipping purposes and it caught on.
Unless traders or Roma I don't think there's many travelling adventurers around Europe
@@MazHem I'm no expert, but lots of regular folk travelled for things like pilgrimages
Well a traveling adventurer would typically be eating very basic things like boiled bread dumplings, boiled salted pork/beef, cooked peas or pease pudding, cooked beans, boiled cabbage, fried onions, and basic soups and stews. Or whatever you could fish, hunt, poach, or steal off of other people and their land.
I made this last night with a few additions. Add Bacon and Garlic to the Onions and add a bouillon cube to the Beer and it tastes amazing!
Hey Max, "Serve it Forth" should be a merch slogan!
I would like that on a mug.
@@Nimesay1 Or an apron!
@@MildlyRabid 11/10 would buy in a heartbeat.
Oven Mitts
Love the idea of a serise of What did medieval _______ eat? Would like to see you to further explore more pesant food options.
I love that picture of the cow with her calf. Someone thought it was important to show the cow loves her baby.
The calf was brought to the cow to make her let down her milk.
If I weren't already a fan, your mocking of the Italian snob's comment about garlic would have instantly endeared you to me.
"it's just like a bunch of beans"
-Max, while eating a bunch of beans
"What did the medieval Peasants eat?"
*Stares at the raticate in the background*
🤣
YES, would love a whole series of different medieval diets! Honestly, if some good bean soup with sautéed onions is peasant food, call me a peasant.
He says salt came from salt springs or the sea, but there is Salzburg ("salt city") founded 700 AD or so, where they had salt mines. Apparently, there are old salt mines scattered across Europe
Heh, "horse bread" sounds like a 5 star dinner of tough times food compared to what people in Finland and nearby areas had to eat when food was scarce. Bread made out of tree bark and rye flour. It tastes like famine if you ask me.
The way Max began describing it sounded like the ingredients in Ezekiel bread.
Bark could very well be among the “whatever else” in that description.
"punishing peasants for the poaching of prize provisions was rather a popular pastime for the posh"
Nice alliteration :D
Awesome alliteration as always! ;-)
Alliteration is the lazy man's eloquence, unless in spoken form!
Poaching of prize provisions also known in modern vernacular as stealing! Most likely accompanied by trespassing, and lying to an official of the law.
@@Peregrin3 that’s what happens when lower classed citizens are tired of slaving for the comforts of the privileged and want to know exactly what that privilege that they are providing for said privileged tastes like.... honestly, food should never be classed, but it still is today. Fun fact... lobster used to be eaten only by the poor of east coast North America...I have a friend who’s mom used to throw out lobster sandwiches before going to school because she was embarrassed. Now there is a literal lobster war happening, because it’s such a highly coveted item.
@@dinchakno I get what you saying but saying I have the right to steal because it's not fair that some have more than others is a very slippery and slope, I'm not saying you are endorsing theft I'm just pointing out where that line of thought can go, Just because there is injustice in the world, that doesn't excuse me from being unjust. While I like the video as a whole, I didn't appreciate his rather snobby depiction of Nobles, there is a common misconception that Nobles dispized the working class, and while some were tyrants and cruel, just like people from all walks of life can be, it wasn't a general behavior, serfs were appreciated because they were the lord's means of prosperity, if they treated them poorly they were only harming themselves and if the peasants revolted the King would have blamed the lord, also it wasn't a one way street where the lord got everything and the peasants got nothing, in exchange for their service the lord was responsible for their safety and the lord also built and maintained many services that were available to them such as roads, fire protection, etc. One of the biggest myths told about serfs was that they were essentially slaves, this is completely false, serfs could own property, could marry voluntarily, ( the idea that a lord had the right to sleep with his serfs women is a myth), they had holidays and days of rest, had festivals, fairs, etc. And had certain protections under the law that the lord could not brake, if they did the peasant could appeal directly to the King for justice. Sorry I went on bit of a ramble but one final thing to consider is that law was considered very important by people of all classes in the middle ages and other peasants would have considered the act of theft from a lord as a theft like any other, of course there are always exceptions.😉
I would love to see what we could eat along the silk way: It could be a mini serie that follow the Marco Polo trip. Thanks for your videos :)
I love that idea!
Probably fresh game, whatever was on sale around the area and bread.
@@cahallo5964 Central asia has a lot of interesting breads, I'd like to see an episode on that.
That does sound pretty interesting. I also wonder what Irish people ate before potatoes became the thing? When did pasta become part of the food lexicon, and what did Italian people (what we now call Italian people) eat before creating pasta? It's all interesting.
@@Paeoniarosa Irish people were hunter gatherers, contrary to popular belief, agriculture was known to most people but it wasn't really massive and absolutely global until ww2
As someone who studies medieval history, I find learning about the lives of the peasantry the most interesting (including their diet). The vegetables and legumes that comprised of a significant part of the peasant diet, such as cabbage, leeks, onions, peas, beans, lentils, and garlic, are some of my favorites to use in cooking.
If you have any leftovers, you should let it cool down and solidify and then fry in olive oil, as they do in Sicily! Macco (maccu in Sicilian) has been a staple food in Southern Italy for centuries, and still is. It basically was what peasants ate on a daily basis, mostly by itself with a little bread. On special occasions it could become a sauce for pasta. Leftover macco would be eaten cold or fried.
How would the use of macco compare to polenta ? The kind that comes in tubes.
@@sandrabergquist1684 Both polenta and macco would be made in large quantities, both to feed large families and to have leftovers - polenta fried in lard or eaten with milk was standard breakfast for a lot of people. I do believe the usage of macco and polenta would have been pretty similar, but they would have been eaten in utterly different parts of Italy: macco in the south, especially Sicily, and polenta in the North. Polenta is not found in typical dishes from the south, while in the north the only wide spread legumes were beans.
Please note that with "staple food" I mean that more often than not plain polenta/macco would have been the only food people would eat for weeks or months straight, and that the nutritional value of legumes is far superior to that of corn.
Eating only polenta led to pellagra, which was a plague among poor peasants, while the consumption of fava beans may trigger hemolysis in people with G6PD deficiency, which leads to health issues but also protects from malaria.
@@sandrabergquist1684 Nowadays, macco is still made following the traditional recipe using simple ingredients and is often eaten with some kind of vegetable.
Tube polenta is pretty different from traditional polenta, which varies a lot depending on where you are: it can be more or less coarse, made with different varieties of corn, mixed with buckwheat...
You always have the latter with rich stews, mushrooms or plenty cheese and butter, you can eat it soft or wait for it to firm up and then slice it (and maybe grill it or fry it, too). While tube polenta may be used in the same way, it is more commonly used in baked dishes or casseroles.
This reminds me a lot of something my grandmother used to make a lot, she called it the equivalent of 'in the pan' in her Italian dialect. It was just potatoes and onions chopped up and fried up with butter in a fry pan. My mum was surprised when I mentioned that was one of my favourite things that she would cook, saying "That? That was just peasant food!".
My grandmother was German and she used bacon grease instead of butter.
So apparently hash is universal.
It's surprising how the myth that medieval people didn't drink water has endured.
By the way, an episode about sausages would be cool. Extremely broad subject, I know, but an introductory would work.
I have always wanted to make sausages.
Yes! Sausages are interesting because they're so broad, and because they traditionally use offal, which is terribly overlooked in modern European cuisine IMO
Get ordinary sausage on board
the myth with the water had basis in the fact that the water could be contaminated by a lot of things(not gonna list, imagine all the terrible ones you want) and thus it wasn't uncommon for people to just drink very little of it(if they figured out their local water was getting frequently contaminated)
but then people make the mistake of thinking all the ale was as strong as or stronger then todays beer(it really wasn't, you'd be sick from water bloat before you got drunk with some of those ales)
@@prcervi I think that would really depend on where you lived at the time, and there's old texts talking about drinkable water and how to identify suspect water.
Wow i am amazed. It's almost the same as contemporary czech recipe called "hrachová kaše" (pea puree). We use dried yellow peas, just boiled in water then smashed and salted. Maybe they used it also. It is served with fried onions, same as in the video and sunny side up egg, grilled sausage or smoked pork. Hope this helps with your understanding of this recipe :)
The similarity deepens when you realise that eggs and pork would be 2 of the proteins a medieval peasant would be most likely to regularly eat as well. :)
Oooo that sounds really good!
here in my part of russia we usually eat 'gorohovaja kasha' without onions, just by itself, potentially without spices even
I loved this episode and would love more interpretations of what the commoners ate. As an aside, commoners weren’t allowed to cut down trees in a forest for firewood, as part of those same forestry laws. They could, however, take the limbs and such that fell from the trees - these were known as windfalls.
so that’s where that idiom came from!! huh! love your “beret”.
@@feralbluee - Haha, thank you! I also love strange idioms, like the “rule of thumb,” “learning the ropes,” “toeing the line,” the short end of the stick,” etc. And while I do have many berets, I want for the patch on it and don’t have this face: it’s C. Thomas Howell in Red Dawn, Ponyboy Curtis himself. :)
@@b.w.22 very cool not many people are into idioms anymore. Rule of thumb goes back to the diameter of a stick with which will be allowed to beat your wife with or slave whichever is applicable
Will you ever cover foods as medicine? It would also be interesting to see how common foods changed over time. There are so many themes: foods of the Americas, how Italian food changed once it got to America, foods with alcohol, how many ways can you cook eggs, what really is pudding, food from literature, etc. Great channel.
watch John Townsend for American foods of the 1700’s. he has an extensive and convivial bunch of vids. he also talks about other things in the society at that time, mostly in ‘ordinary’ people’s lives. :)
🥟🍲🧀🌷🌿🌼🌱🌷
Max has done a bit of food as medicine..the 4 vapors.
Watching this again - did you know how rewatchable you are? - and pls do that series on what the different classes ate, I love that kind of stuff.
Yep
Just wait until you see your comments on the seventh watch...it happens
He’s a God-send, he is ✨
I love that the recipe says "til they be al brown." It be like that sometimes.
Haha as soon as you said fava beans I was like "Oh man, he's gonna put in that clip from Silence of the Lambs" 😂
Your recent alliteration has been on point; pleasant, planned, and perfected. Props to the presentation.
Nicely done sir!
Your defence of garlic is greatly appreciated. It is indeed a vegetable, and a delicious one at that. I enjoy your content very much.
I loved this! I would love to see more videos about what commoners and lesser nobles would eat in Medieval times. I'm particularly interested in what travelers would eat and what might be served at public houses or wherever people might pay for a meal.
Oh my goodness please do a Canterbury Tales mini series! A dish for each character ❤️🙏
Oooh! That would be great!
@@TastingHistory Wasn't the frame device all the pilgrims betting for a good meal? It fits!
Seconded, or thirded, or whatever! This sounds great!
I love that idea!
@@kramermariav food is the prize for winning the story-telling contest.
"punishing peasants for the poaching of prized provisions was ... rather a popular past-time for the posh" is now my favourite sentence anybody has ever said.
I understand 😔
3 hours b4 I was about to start typing same sentence
That made me laugh and rewind to listen to it again. :)
Amazing alliteration.
That medieval painting of a man tossing his cookies is the screenshot of the day.
Some things never change.
Favorite part is they bothered to show someone holding his hair so it doesn't get gross.
Max has no clue just how many wonderful, simple, and delicious meals he is teaching me to make for my family.
I vote yes for a whole series on who ate what in history. Also: you could even do different areas of the world as to what they ate during certain time periods.
I second the motion for who ate wat and where
when I got this notification I read it as "what did medieval peasants taste like?" time for more coffee
🤣 I bet they were stringy.
@@TastingHistory "they required of the grilled onions"
We still make something like this in Poland, sometimes with peas and usually with added meat, like sausage or bacon.
Yes, it tastes great with the bacon. So simple to make.
In Czech Republic this is part of traditional Christmas diner
This puts so much more history behind "we have frijoles at home" lol
This is very interesting, their is a modern day sicilian dish called Maccu, which is incredibly similar. Minus the wine, this is a recipe that was used until the mid 20th century, just goes to show that things never change that much.
Crazy! Even the name is similar. I’m sure they share an origin.
@@TastingHistory I remembered a conversation with my father and grandfather where they reminisced over how much they loved my Nonna's Maccu. Loved the concept of everyday foods, I've loved every episode though really.
a mini series would be great! I love these more accessible recipes, as a modern day peasant (college student :D)
I would actually love a mini series on this, it was very interesting! My wife and I tend to try and grow what we cook since money comes and goes for us.
Apologies if you already did a series, this is my first video of yours I have seen :)
That miniseries pitch HAS to happen, please! Also, As someone who really should go on a diet this seems a pretty decent option for me, provided I add herbs and spices like you recommended!
I was just watching your Rome playlist and started thinking about this very topic- then you uploaded this!
Get out of my head! 🤣
An episode or two on ancient Greek meals - poor and rich - would be interesting. Great show btw. Appetizingly educational!
FYI - Salt was usually evaporated from sea water if one lived on the coast. There are historic records of this done in England in the 1700's so I'm pretty sure it was going on a lot earlier. I'd like to make this and toss in some cooked carrots and celery for texture - sounds lovely.
He said that in the video.
One if my ancestors was sent to America as an indentured servant for killing an animal on “the kings property”.
That's whatcha get
A blessing in the long run.
Wow really?
Lucky!
That's rather more interesting than my ancestor, who was sent to America as an indentured servant for participating in the Scots Rising of 1745. A *lot* of Scots wound up in America because of that war.
I'd heard about Saint Anthony's Pigs but had no idea about any of their actual purpose. Great work. 👍
Thats actually kinda cool and think if you get caught trying to steal the pig and the whole town now thinks youre an asshole.
I love anything that addresses how ordinary people lived in the past. Thanks for the video! I think the idea of a video series detailing what various groups might have eaten would be a great idea.
Yeah, ordinary people good would always be great, but hard to come at recipes for
@@cleo885 Yeah, unfortunately true. The latter part of the comment was just aimed at what he was talking about at the end of the episode in general rather than the lower classes in specific.
Most salt inland was rock salt. In order to clean it, one took a pinch, rubbed it between the fingers over the salt dish before sprinkling it over you food. The dirty leftovers could be thrown on the midden to help cleanse it.
"If you would be interested". Yes, to any and all areas of Medieval food; Monks, Knights, more about the peasants. You choose, I'll watch.
I might be a peasant, the very first thing I thought on adding when you said the flavour was simple was... garlic. Lots of garlic, I LOVE garlic!
This channel has led to some very interesting conversations between my grandson and me. In fact, once we can travel without masks, we are planning a trip to Europe (Bath) to enjoy some Sally Lunns!
Oh, DO! I was there in the summer of 2001, & we made sure to have tea at Sally Lunn's. Definitely no social distancing there; it was such a popular - and tiny - dining room that we sat elbow-to-elbow with diners at tables spaced barely far enough to get in & out, which was quite sociable. It was a delightful experience.
I heartily endorse that trip idea.
I love how you put the clip of Hannibal lecter in there, every time I hear "Fava beans" I think of that scene lol. Love the content man!