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I’m glad. It’s about the limit of my filmmaking abilities 😊

I genuinely found this recipe ok to eat. But I also haven’t defrosted any of the portions I put in the freezer since, which maybe tells a different story

Iceland? Wow! To be fair, the last time I went in one was to try and find some turkey twizzlers for my school dinners episode. I’d rather have had the kangaroo sausages in hindsight. That could be well true re: the predators, but it’s also hard to know whether they would have been aware of these dietary consequences in 19th century Europe.

Re sawdust, there’s a long list of things I’m curious about but likely won’t try. From people bulking out their flour with chalk, to tansy cakes - which were once popular but highly toxic. Sadly, I think sawdust falls in this bracket.

TWIST!

Completely - that’s why I was keen to not just focus on zoo animals and talk about the people eating rats to survive. Thank you!

Gonna put that on a t-shirt 😊 thank you!

Oh for sure - dealing with measurements in recipes just gets murkier the further you go back!

Ah thank you so much for the kind words! I bought it online from a company called Kezie, which was far less intrusive then going from butcher to butcher trying to find a sheep’s head (as I had to do in January). Thanks for watching!

Ah thanks for the insight. And yes, measurements get harder to equivocate or interpret the farther back you go. But we can all agree that shapes aren’t helpful.

@@unicornstew lol definitely not. The brand Baker’s chocolate made their blocks so that a square equaled an ounce to make measuring easy I guess. That would have been fine except for the tendency of Americans to think there’s nobody else in the world, and so in their recipes they started using squares as the measurement 🙄 I’ve now caught up on all of your videos btw. Love your channel. Keep em coming!!

Way ahead of you! I’ve had about 3 peach gin fizz nights since filming.

I went for a standard gomme syrup: 50/50 water and sugar

@@unicornstew thanks. This is actually on my list to try in summer. I think I might do a half batch though, so if I hate it I don’t feel too guilty throwing it out lol

Mine is peanut butter and quavers. They’re a cheese flavoured puffed potato crisp which may be uk specific. I spent years as a fussy eater child eating my toast only with peanut butter or marmite, but I could never combine them. I don’t even like using the same knife!

@@unicornstew yeah they seem to be uk specific. I’d reckon either Twisties or broken Cheezels might come fairly close though. They’re made with corn and rice rather than potato, but still puffed up and flavoured with cheese. Maybe I’ll give it a try one of these days. I’m sure part of the attraction of combining peanut butter and Vegemite as children was that it was a thing to substitute the words for other words starting with P and V that refer to… ummm how to put this… anatomy of a private nature lol. So it was p***s butter and v****a mite. So you tried it and you had it again because it meant you got to say a rude word lol. And then you acquired a taste for it 😊

This was definitely an experience we missed out on in the UK!!

@@unicornstew yeah it just doesn’t work with Marmite 😂😂😂

I know, but I wasn’t prepared to excavate a sewer heap for the original.

@@unicornstew Vintage ingredients may have been more authentic, but I think you were wise to go with fresh. Looks delicious.

Thank you. It was surprisingly fun to say ‘dirty vicar’ that much without irony.

That’s a really interesting consideration that I admit I haven’t made. I do wonder to what extent they had this level of medical Knowledge around nutritional value at this point. All I can say is it was like eating soup made with seawater.

@@unicornstew oh yes they wouldn’t have known how much each person needs every day by weight, but they did know that they needed some every day back then. I’m thinking they probably figured out how much salt the average person uses per day and just multiplied it out. No actual science. But surely they would have had some of the intended recipients taste it before they made giant vats of it too, so it can’t have tasted like seawater to them.

@@unicornstew btw I made a roast and yorkies tonight, which I’ve been craving since I watched your yorkies video (did use my usual recipe that puffs though). Thanks for the inspiration 😊

Ah thanks so much for the kind words, and really glad to have you on the journey! Do let me know if you have any suggestions.

Welcome to the chaos! 😊

Well glad you found it now and hope you enjoy! Always let me know if you have any ideas you want me to try out.

Ah thanks so much!

I have to admit that I stopped short of buying fresh truffle after splashing out on the proteins. I used some preserved shavings I got given as a stocking filler last Christmas! And yes, really heavy on the umami, though it was so rich and buttery that it felt truly indulgent!

Preserved shavings still sound indulgent (I can very occasionally get a bottle of truffle oil from work, and that has maybe half a dozen truffle shavings to infuse it), so I'm sure it was just as good as the original.

Your work sounds like a good place to be!

I still agonised over it, as I think ‘ethical’ is always a matter of personal perspective. But I was glad there are companies that do a non-forced version so I could get a sense of it.

This is a fair possibility - it’s so hard to account for farming changes. And I can confirm from research since filming that it works very well in a gin fizz!

Yes, I had a lot of anxiety around using foie gras. Had to special order something non-forced just to rationalise it, but it was still too rich! Glad I could share that 😊

I like this theory!

The sad thing is - I did use jam sugar. This is why I’m flummoxed that it didn’t work.

I now have a bottle of the stuff and no idea what to do with it. Any ideas?

@@unicornstew look to Turkish recipes for some other things to do with the damn stuff... they use it a lot. Actually find someone with bad skin and make a toner or something with it. It will sit in the cupboard being annoying for YEARS otherwise..

It does turn up in a lot of historical recipes (it was used the way vanilla is today, I think), so it'll hopefully get used. Otherwise... potpourri?

Turkish delight. Marshmallow. A lovely flavour in meringues.

I’ve never been the biggest fan of Turkish delight, I must admit. I still remember the disappointment about reading about it in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe as a kid. The letdown when I finally tasted it was palpable.

Thank you. I can confirm that I had a fair few peach gin fizzes last night with my new supply!

I take this all very seriously!

I’ve often heard this and wanted to try it. The problem is that my decision to make them tends to be pretty spontaneous

Thank you so much!

Yeah, I think it must have been one of the progenitors to Welsh rarebit.

Rabbit. "Rarebit" is a corruption.

Definitely try to reserve judgement until I’ve tried something, but I also feel I’ve probably come close enough to soup Lorraine to feel I’ve had the rough experience. Thanks for sharing!

Amazing, had never heard of this or clafoutis! You may have given me an idea for another episode…

I think questioning comfort food is fair, though I think it’s also fair to say with the available evidence that toasted cheese was one of her favourite dishes.

Thanks for sharing this! I’m in Greece right now as it happens, and have eaten half my body weight in sardines since I got here. I’d forgotten how glorious they are. Thanks for watching!

I often have sardines on toast for breakfast.

🐇

*Rarebit

I know that’s what I’d refer to it as today. I just recreate it as they wrote it 😊

A bit of a slur on Welsh hunters, it would seem.

I’ve never been told I have a lusty laugh before, but I’ll take it! And you’re right, though I’m definitely more averse to the scrambled egg than the powdered almond!

Entirely fair, though it felt like as good a time as any to talk about Jane Austen. And I tried to be up front that I was pandering a bit.

@@unicornstew lol understood

I’ve never found her more relatable.

Absolutely - it got cut for time, but I spent some time comparing it to Welsh rarebit or the croque monsieur where they did more to make the egg part of a sauce, which I think only improves it.

Now there's a thought - would the cheese toastie be improved by having the egg fried and on top, á la croque-madame?

I don’t think it could have hurt!

I just call it as she wrote it 😊

Maybe extra honey was added for flavouring, in the same way that chili or nettles whatever might be added to flavour it? (Those are the only two flavours of mead I've encountered, and I didn't get to drink them as a) I was at work and b) they were samples for quality control testing of the food safety variety.)

Would nettles get added to mead?! That sounds herbaceous!

That’s fair. It depends on where you live here. When I lived in the North, everyone thought I sounded posh as hell. When I lived in the south, people thought I sounded common. So I’ve no benchmark anymore!

@@unicornstew So then: from where is your accent...?

I’m from Manchester but went to school in Surrey and London, so I have a mixed northern and southern accent. To me he sounds typically middle class Home Counties. Not posh, but middle class. Boris Johnson or Jacob Reese Mog is posh southern they’re touching closer to Received Pronunciation, like Prince Charles or the former queen.

@@peteradaniel Is this then the reason for "Unicorn Stew?"

@@Mark723 it’s association with Scotland?