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What Did 17th Century Food Taste Like?
- billconan 9y agothis is an interesting youtube channel related to this https://www.youtube.com/user/jastownsendandson/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/jastownsendandson/videos
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 9y agoA 17th century whisk is a bunch of small sticks :).
- hanoz 9y agoLike animal whiskers still look.
- russellbeattie 9y agoHuh... I just assumed "whisk" was an onomatopoeia. whiskwhiskwhiskwhiskwhiskwhiskwhisk...
- hanoz 9y agoYou assumed right. The cat's whiskers were named after the whiskwhiskwhisk whiskers.
- russellbeattie 9y agoThat's 18th century, which I think is just as interesting, but I think the main point of the article is, "what the heck did people eat before they discovered the Americas, and how did that change as American foods spread?" Personally, if you took tomatoes, potatoes, corn, squash, strawberries, blueberries, peanuts, chilis, turkey and - most especially - chocolate, out of my weekly diet, I'm not sure what I would eat.
- fusiongyro 9y agoI love this channel. Watching John and his pals get utterly confused trying to make these recipes while wearing their period garb—I feel like I'm watching people really enjoying their hobby.
- indigo0086 9y agoI was going to post that even though it's a century off, but it's still entertaining and one of the most entertaining hosts on YT, next to the hot wing guy.
- hprotagonist 9y agoone of the truly frustrating things about renaissance and medieval recipes is that they are shorthand notes, not detailed instructions. Think inferring documentation from commit messages, basically. i found a 15th century recipe for a particular kind of soup that started “make soup as normal;in addition add ...”
- mamcx 9y agoYou will be surprised in how many modern recipes lack of critical details (My mom is chef and try to replicate many!). Contrary to belief, is not about quantities. The procedure is more critical
- nemo44x 9y ago> Contrary to belief, is not about quantities. The procedure is more critical Indeed - in cooking, technique is supreme when it comes to to creating great food. So many new cooks get hung up on precise measurements but don't consider time and temperature and don't ask themselves why they're doing certain things at certain times. With time you begin to acquire a bit of an intuition about how much of whatever it is you might use and you learn quickly that you can always add more, but you can't often take something away. You should also be able to answer why each ingredient is being added - what is it trying to add, complement or remove if it wasn't added. And also remember that you can season and spice as you cook. You should always taste while you're cooking - it's a simple thought but so many people don't and once you find discipline in tasting while you cook, you hit a new level. Now baking - yeah you better get your measuring cups and scales out!
- jhulla 9y agoE.g. intuitively grokking the Maillard reaction, fond, deglazing, etc. In my experience with beginners - the number one error they make is not understanding their heat source and pans. For example, they'll put oil in a thin pan, turn on the burner and drop in a chicken breast right from the fridge and wonder why its not done in 6 minutes. My advice to beginners cooking on stove tops: get a cast iron skillet - treat it with love and kindness. Let it warm up for a bit before you start cooking.
- d13 9y ago"as time went by, a dish tended to become sweeter, spicer, and more complicated." Feature creep!
- zero_one_one 9y agoThe original requirements were for bread and meat. With an optional drink of water if there was time and it came in under budget.
- fragsworth 9y agoThe author unfortunately concludes at the bottom that it's impossible to know what the foods really tasted like: > These early modern foods are culinary false friends. They seem like they'd be the same as our familiar correlates. But we can't be sure that they tasted the same. > Like so much in history, they're so close, yet just out of reach. There are several reasons, probably the most important being that the cultivars of plants they used at the time were so different that we can't know what they tasted like. Heavy selection and breeding over the course of 500 years changes a lot.
- jwilk 9y agoWhat do they mean by "squash" (on the map)?
- elboru 9y agoI've noticed food evolves in a particular way when it arrives to a new country. It's logical that food needs to be adapted to the country taste in order to get popular, but what it intrigues me is that it usually becomes more "complex", a lot of new ingredients are added, and the original refinement is missed. A good example is pizza, I'm from Mexico, so I was get used to pizzas with a lot of different ingredients and a specific shape: https://tinyurl.com/y7wd7hl6 https://tinyurl.com/y7wd7hl6 So I was really excited to taste the real stuff in Italy and then I got shocked when I noticed how simple one of the most popular is: https://tinyurl.com/nqcdhah https://tinyurl.com/nqcdhah Something similar happened to onigiri. What I know: https://tinyurl.com/yanlww6b https://tinyurl.com/yanlww6b Original: https://tinyurl.com/yaaw7f9k https://tinyurl.com/yaaw7f9k And it seems like this is not something particular to Mexico, it happens the other way around too: Original taco: https://tinyurl.com/yb8456mf https://tinyurl.com/yb8456mf American taco: https://tinyurl.com/y8vsuaxs https://tinyurl.com/y8vsuaxs Original burrito: https://tinyurl.com/ycknpbyb https://tinyurl.com/ycknpbyb American burrito:https://tinyurl.com/yb84p8lq https://tinyurl.com/yb84p8lq
- wahern 9y agoThe picture of an original burrito looks more like a quesadilla. Quesadillas in the U.S., even at Taco Bell, are still similar to the Mexican quesadilla. In California you can also get quesadillas stuffed with meats and vegetables, and they're definitely _not_ considered burritos even though you're most likely to find such an item at a burrito shop. I think the burrito is a Mexican-American invention. A few restaurants in the San Francisco Mission District claim to be the inventor. There are obvious similarities to traditional Mexican food, but it's not derivative of anything in particular. When I stayed in Guadalajara I had something called a burrito at a festival, but like the "burrito" I had in Ecuador it seemed like a really bad imitation of the American food item. Indeed, I found no actual authentic Mexican food in Ecuador whatsoever, so it was telling to me that the burritos I had in both Mexico and Ecuador were nearly identical and also both horrible--basically knock-offs of American microwave burritos.
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- Mikeb85 9y agoWas hoping for a little more concrete research or recipes. I work in the food industry and history is one of my favourite topics as well. My grandmother was Ukrainian and lived on a farm, and her cooking was based 100% on ingredients that came from very close to their farm, as well as processed in a non-industrial setting (cabbage fermented in a barrel, natural sour cream, farm animals that were killed behind the barn, etc...). The taste was certainly different than industrial foods. Now going back in time there were no gas or electric ovens, people mainly cooked on wood fired hearths, which would have given a different flavour. Not to mention lack of refrigeration would mean more salted and cured meats and less fresh meat. It is certainly an interesting exercise to try to recreate old tastes, but not really possible. I'd guess we can come close though.
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- jngreenlee 9y agoIf you like this, I can't recommend the BBC's "Supersizers" enough. The pair is super funny as they re-create and re-eat historical foods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Supersizers.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Supersizers... More Claret!
- vram22 9y agoApropos: Wikipedia has articles on topics like Ancient Roman Cuisine, Ancient Israelite cuisine, etc.