Rubaboo - Pemmican Stew of Canadian Mounties
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ก.ย. 2023
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Subtitles: Jose Mendoza | IG @worldagainstjose
#tastinghistory #pemmican
Check out these other interesting recipes:
S#!t on a Shingle: th-cam.com/video/ry5Du60WPGU/w-d-xo.html
Pemmican: th-cam.com/video/DUAayg3D0XA/w-d-xo.html
Hardtack & Grog: th-cam.com/video/oPTdSMOQRnY/w-d-xo.html
Hardtack & Hell Fire Stew: th-cam.com/video/KTVPV-15GL0/w-d-xo.html
And follow along my travels on Instagram (or X) @tastinghistorywithmaxmiller
Hey, Metis here. We usually use rabbit and pemmican we trap and fish and use dry fish or fresh rabbit or dried moose/elk
Thought you may want to know, there is something wrong with the 4k upload. The red is waaaay oversaturated. I changed it to 1440 and it works fine.
I hope you saved some for checking back in on it every year until you declare it "unfit for human consumption" (at least by the human named Max Miller ;)
shouldn't the last 2 links be labelled "Hard tack *clack clack*" 😂
An Irishman, a Mountie, and a Kentuckian got together for a potluck.
The menu was cabbage stew, rubaboo, and burgoo too.
I'd lament being in the bunkhouse with the lads after eating that meal...
@@smithwesson7765 True, to do number two was a poo to say "Pew!" and spew.
You sir are very clever. I love it! 😂
bring fabreeze and 3 bottles of whiskey
MF DOOM lyrics
I was talking to a Native American chef and he was headed to a cooking competition for "ethnic chefs". For part of the competition, each chef had to bring a food for the others to figure out how to use.
My friend brought LARGE packets of elk pemmican with dried huckleberries, preserved in bear fat.
What competition? I want to look into it, it sounds interesting.
yeah sounds cool, whats the name of the competition?
@@13374me I don't remember.
This was about 10 years ago.
That sounds like a TREMENDOUSLY entertaining competition.
"My ancestors had centuries to figure out how to make the most of this. You have two hours. Have fuuu-uuun~!"
@@Freezair I accept your pemmican and I give you lutefisk!
I'm just imagining one of Max's friends coming over and asking for a snack and Max being like "yeah, grab anything you like! That's my year old pemmican puck, behind that is my jar of fermented fish sauce, that's some hardtack *clack clack*"
Lll
😂😂😂
I’m a Canadian high school Foods teacher and I’ve showed your original pemmican video numerous times! Can’t wait to add this to the repertoire! Thanks Max!
the mounties are traitors to canada why celebrate them? jackbooted thugs.
Aah a foods teacher. A class kids take just to eat something after they get high
Max, I'm always so entertained when you look at a food you've prepared that you're not at all sure of and you give every impression of questioning all your life choices for a split second before diving in whole hog. You're much braver than I would be in your place. Thanks for all the fun!
"I'm curious if I... ugh... get poisoned in the next few hours. I don't think I wi... HHHUUUUUURRRRRRLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!"
I love how he takes such nice big bites of all of his recipes.
Nit a man of faint heart!
Best part is that he'll say when something is mid or just...awful.
Yes is always the best part
I love the facial gymnastics of Max trying to figure out what it tastes like too!
I specialize in Western Canadian History, and literally all my American history buddies have been excitedly sending me this today. Excellent work as usual Max!! 🇨🇦🙌🏻
I love that. I really enjoy when talking to someone we come across a subject that they are passionate about and the whole demeanor changes to that magical wonder we all had about things as children.
Then you know this is a Metis dish and attributing it to the genocidal Mounties is a problem
@@AuntyKsTarot He mentions very early on in the video that the dish originated with the Metis (at 1:23).
Do you mention how all the Asians moved in and now Canada is a police state shithole?
Are you a big Barkerville fan?
“Gee, I hope my pemmican hasn’t gone rancid.” That sentence was not on my bingo card for today. Max always makes me smile.😊😊😊
"Being Canadian he wasn't about to let that gold rush be an ill mannered one."
One of the best sentences ever written.
Another wonderful, informative, and entertaining video. Thanks Max.
Canadian here!
Regarding what you said about it being bland without additional ingredients: bear in mind that voyageurs, coureurs du bois and many mounties of the day would also have been skilled foragers. This would have given them access to quite the pantry during the warmer part of the year. Cattail and waterlily root would have been abundant along the waterways they travelled; spruce, wild leeks, Labrador tea, sumac, and many others were (and are) right there for the taking, if one knows where to look. I'm not a huge fan of spruce as a seasoning myself - but it was apparently very popular, back in the day. Sumac has a sort of lemony flavour that pairs well with savoury dishes, and cattail shoots are not unlike cucumber in taste and texture. Even wintergreen is abundant, if one wants a minty sauce for the meat. These and many others would probably have lent variety and interest to the pot, when the onions and potatoes they had brought along ran low. Between changing seasons and moving through the geography, one would probably never have the same bowl of rubaboo twice on a given journey - apart from those occasions where they harvested an armload of ingredients to take along.
Spruce tips are normally used (ie the first 'sprouts' of new spruce needles)
And wild leeks for the onion flavour. Berries, apples and wild grapes for dessert.
You're right on point about the foraging; when they mention 'herbs', I doubt they were referring to the common aromatics we use nowadays. In France, 'herbe' signifies just about any herbaceous green plant.
I was going to limit it to that, but one of my favorite spring nibbles is young linden leaves, and I love the citrusy flavor of the spruce tips; it would cut through the greasy aspect of the pemmican.
Never investigated Linden leaves. Very cool.
@@kingstonart They are delicious, at least to me. Just as they are unfurled, still tender, they can be tossed into a salad or just grazed in passing. The flavor is very delicate, with a little echo of the honey notes of their flowers, which are renowned for a calming infusion.
Just be sure, as with any plant, not to take them from a busy street where they are subject to pollution.
11:53 "Being Canadian, he wasn't about to let that gold rush be an ill-mannered one." I laughed in Canadian, that was great!
I have lots of friends up in Canada, and they are SO POLITE. Now I am imagining Sam Steele telling those roughnecks in the Yukon to mind their manners! LOL!
As an Indigenous person I found it insulting since this Metis dish was attributed to the genocidal Mounties created to slaughter the Metis as well as my Nation and other Indigenous nations .
@@kenmorris2290 actually they are very very racist just with a smile. #LandBack.
It's actually true. We had virtually no violence in BC in thr good rush compared to what happened a foot over thr border. It's the nature of thr justice system and law enforcement under the crown
@@AuntyKsTarotwhen will you give the land to the people you took it from since you took it off others tribes before it was taken from you
Of all the amazing history you've covered, never would have expected my hometown (Winnipeg) to make an appearance (at least in name only, regsrding Sam Steele being stuck on the river near Lake Winnipeg).
Interesting tidbit: Sam Steele is actually buried here in Winnipeg. He died in London, from the Spanish Flu, shortly after the end of WW1.
He was planning on relocating his family out West to Calgary in Alberta, but his will requested he be buried in Winnipeg, where his career began.
As a Canadian, this episode was even more of a "drop everything and watch" than they normally are for me. I do, however, have two observations about the content here:
Métis has a French pronunciation - more of a may-tee.
And given that pemmican is an indigenous food, I was a little surprised that with all the talk of Mounties, there was no mention at all of the connection between the history of the RCMP and the suppression of the North-West Resistance. I feel that would have been more in line with the lens that this channel normally uses for history.
The cutaway to Yogi and Booboo killed me 😂
For me it was Arrested Development's Lindsay excitedly telling Michael she'd managed to cook "hot ham water." 😂
My first thought when I heard the name was Yogi
Rubaboo!
High point of these videos have always been watching Max take that first bite and see the expressions play over his face.
And José’s captions describing those expressions too … “[chews] [thinks] [chews some more]” 😂
And most of the time, he enjoys what he is trying. Even those that he admits isn't to his taste, he often has something generally positive to say about it. Most times, and I've tried some of those dishes myself, it's because the taste is just so different and one he is clearly not used to. Most times when he doesn't like something, it isn't because it is necessarily bad, it just isn't to his tastes.
I was just thinking that! He could be a good actor, he has such a way of conveing emotions through facial expressions alone
Fun fact: The traditional Metis language Michif is very much a mashup of French and traditional Indigenous languages (a lot of Cree or Anishinaabe depending on the settlement), so the dish's name is perfectly emblematic of that!
I've made roubabou many times, so I've tried several variants. One that is definitely non-traditional substitutes yams (sweet potatoes) for potatoes. Not bad, giving it a sweetness and probably extra vitamins. Another variant that I've been served up north adds finely chopped cabbage, making it more Irish. Another still, which I've picked up from Ojibway friends, involves chopping up some fried eggs and mixing them with a dish of already made roubabou and adding a hearty splash of Worcestershire sauce and some cayenne. I suspect that this version comes from the Finnish "pyttipannu". It's practically identical, and Finns in Canada and Ojibway have always hung out together, sharing the same vibe (and love of sauna, identical to our sweat huts).
In America we eat this. We call it Dinty Moore beef stew
That's pretty neat, I never knew that about those two peoples
@@nuru666 The two groups intermarried a lot, and their descendants in Manitoba, Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota came to be known as "Findians" or "Fintiaanit." They preserved both Finnish and Ojibway [or Chippewa on the American side] customs for generations. But of course, most are now dispersed in both countries.
Every time your show airs, several of my co-workers and I gather in the furniture section of our store (I work at a Goodwill) to watch! We ALWAYS "clack" up at the hardtack clip!
Your videos always brighten up our days! Thanks, Max!
That's so cool! Thank you and the Goodwill Team
Beautiful!
🙏 that’s a precious moment!
Very cool to see a Canadian dish that features Métis culture. I have at least one friend who I'm going to share this with who is Métis and see what their thoughts are. Thanks, Max!
Please do let us all know just what he thinks of this receipe ! (Censored for the young and young at heart, of course.)
I have Metis ancestry myself dating back to the 1600s when my first ancestor Pierre Leon (redacted) retired from life as a French privateer and took a native bride, Anne (redacted) in Acadia in the late 1600s. I am more Canadian then then all but the most full-blooded of First Nations people. Very proud of my ancestry and cannot wait to try this myself!
I'm an Abenaki Indian and French Canadian mix, so excited to see this recipe on your channel and a little bit of our history preserved!
Wouldn’t that make you Métis by definition?
@@ferretyluv Yes and no. He would be "métis", but not Métis. The word "métis" in French means "mixed race". But the Métis are a distinct people living in the western plains of Canada (Manitoba, Saskatchewan). The Abenaki live in the south of Québec and New England.
@@Xerxes2005 Oh I assumed it meant all French Canadian and native mix.
Those mixes on the frontiers of North America were common for trade, security, social and political reasons. We just sort of forgot a lot of our history in the States. I'm here to tell you because the Abenaki took a captive instead of killing an enemy. Welalin brother.
I watched a play last year called Rubaboo by Métis performer Andrea Menard (Grand Theatre, London Ontario). Themes included the blending of cultures and identity, performed in a narrative and song. The background story was a sort of a Stone Soup in which her grandmother befriends the Mounties (with Rubaboo) sent to investigate her poaching.
gotta love Max’s ability to include the hardstack clip. I was thinking “hmm I wonder if hardstack will be mentioned” and then it happened😂😂
Twice! "clack clack"😅
I knew what to expect as soon as the word hardtack was mentioned. And I still laughed...
I hope someone is keeping track of it, I love that clack clack
He could use that bit every episode and I'd still gleefully laugh every time.
I get so entranced by his history lessons that it catches me off guard every time lol
I made some venison pemmican last year, and I ultimately made a simple stew out of it...I had no idea I was accidentally making rubaboo! At the time, I described it as "jerky soup."
Once I read a wonderful book called Black Elk Speaks. Black Elk was a Sioux Medicine man who was in the battle with Custer, and also survived the Wounded Knee massacre. In his book, as an aside, he says that he hoped that when he dies, it is with the taste of Pemmican in his mouth.
He said papa, which just means bison meat, not pemmican
The double helping of hard tack in this episode made my day ❤
Big like for the Canadian content.
Well, we all love Canada down here🙂
@@rockylps9999 Weirdly, yeah.
I know people sometimes get uppity about your laws, but as far as people go I don't think the US complains much about Canada.
You're like the capybara of neighboring nations
@@Your-Least-Favorite-StrangerFrom our northern perspective it’s more like living above a crack house…. ;-)
rubaboo is cree for rabbit soup
@@fillhixx though but fair
I'm a Canadian. I know that Mechif is a mixture of French and Indigenous dialects. I believe Bungee is a dialect that is a mixture of Gaelic and Ojibwa. I've had pemmican before, and it was really good. Also, I've heard that farmers in Saskatchewan found pemmican in their fields that was really old, and it was still edible. Pemmican has a very long storage life, and is a food that offers complete nutrition. Can you do more Indigenous and Metis recipes from the time period? Thanks for this awesome video. Cheers! ✌️🇨🇦
I’ve heard that Natives and trappers/voyageurs used to cache large bundles of pemmican from an entire bison’s worth of tallow and meat bound in the hide of the bison in various places along their routes.
I'm Scotch-Metis and my great nan spoke Bungee. It's more of a mix of Cree, Orcadian Scots and Scottish English, and influence from Norn, French, and Western Ojibwe/Saulteaux/Nakawēmowin.
@@ZastravaI'm from Alberta. I have friends who are Metis, and First Nations. My Metis friends are a mixture of Cree, Scottish, French Canadian, and even Norwegian. They don't speak French. They speak, or understand Cree. They also speak English. Alberta has a sizeable First Nations and Metis population. The food is quite good. Cheers!
@@torianholt2752I wonder how they kept them secure from bears?
@@DovidM I really don’t know; Off topic I’ve heard about “bog butter” found by peat-cutters in Ireland that is at least 3,000 years old and still quite edible.
LOL, Max usually hesitates a little before the 1st bite, but this time it was over a minute before he took the first bite. "it's just that the meats a year old, and I'm about to eat it". HILARIOUS. So glad it tasted good. Someone mentioned Jose's captions of: “[chews] [thinks] [chews some more]” 😂 They didn't show up for me; wish they had had.
I'm Canadian and gotta just randomly say, I think Hudson Peary is the most Canadian name of all time. I've had a long-standing argument with family that Hudson is the most macho Canadian name and you mentioning that gentleman named Peary settled it for me. Hudson Peary, a guy you don't want to mess with.
We have something in Scandinavia that looks a lot like this (Lungemos), which translates into "Mashed lungs". It is actually made from heart, liver, kidney, meat, cartilage, fat and spices, basically all the parts of the animal you don't use for anything else. It may at some time have contained lungs as well, but not any longer. It was traditionally served with potatoes but goes nicely with rice or macaroni as well. When I was young we spread it warm on a piece of bread. People seldom use it today as it has a image of being a poor mans food.
Sounds a bit like the Danish "finker". I love it.
Sort of like medieval numble pie?
Also sounds a bit like an inside out haggis?
Yes, it is basically a haggis with no skin. But does not haggis contain grains?@@joetaylor486
It is a lot like the filling of a steak and kidney pie, but very finely chopped, and without onions.@@WalterReimer
Thought I'd throw this out there since Halloween is coming up: Bram Stokers dracula has pretty detailed recipes in it for Hungarian/transylvanian dishes and brushed over some of the history of that region so I think there's some good potential there for the spoopy season
I love spoopy season lmfao
Indeed, and those are mostly popular, well-known Hungarian dishes.
I admire Max's ability to say the word rubaboo that much without collapsing into gales of laughter!
My uncle is a retired Mountie, he found himself in some fairly hairy situations, but I don't think my aunty ever resorted to pemmican, she is a fantastic cook though!
Love hearing stories about my country, Thank You for sharing it Max! 🇨🇦
The look on Max's face with "...and I'm about to eat it," was priceless! I'm sure if he had died it would be on Instagram by now. 😂😂😂
I'm Scotch Metis, this reminds me of some recipes that were passed down from my great nan! She was a speaker of Bungee, a creole derived from Cree and Orcadian Scots/Scottish English, with influence from Western Ojibwe, Norn, French, and Scottish Gaelic. My mum made a rubaboo variant when I was growing up, althouhgh with fresh instead of dried meat and (for whatever reason) Alphagetti added.
I wish I understood anything that you mentioned, but it sounds amazing!
As somebody with Native American blood, I'm glad to see more pemmican content! I'd love to see more historical Native American style cuisine if possible!
Umm did nobody tell you Mexicans are natives that speak spanish..and pemmican is like the "corned beef" of its day?
I giggled every time you said "Rubaboo," Max. Your joy in saying the word is infectious. 😂
Yes! Just yesterday I saw that the pemmican video was about a year old and I thought to myself "Hmm! It's about time for Max to be making something with that pemmican." I must say, it looked a bit scary, but potatoes and onions make everything better.
Hi ! French here. "Roux" means "orange/ginger" (the colour), which is the colour that flour takes when warmed on a fire with some grease (usually butter). It is the starting point of a lot of sauces, which are meant to be any liquid thickened with a roux. Not to be confused with a stew, a béchamel sauce or other types of gravies (which can often start from a roux).
I hope this helps clearing this persistent confusion among our friends overseas :) 👋
In the Southern US, from which I hail, roux is almost like a sacred artform that one must master in order to cook such a plethora of dishes that I wouldn't doubt that there are cookbooks that specialize in it and it's assorted culinary uses.
@@Kerosene.Dreams I may be speaking blasphemy, but if you mix the oil and flour in a cast iron skillet, throw it in a 350F oven, and stir every 15 minutes or so you can make even a dark roux for gumbo with minimal risk of scorching your roux. Takes longer than on the burner, but less time than burning it, cleaning the pan, and starting over. Dark roux will take an hour or two.
On the flip side, you can always do all of your prep on the grocery list of other ingredients that your recipe calls for. Now you have time to actually cut up fresh okra rather than using that frozen stuff which has no flavor. Cut up plenty of extra, as fried okra goes with anything...
@@kevincrosby1760 My grandmother always made pan fried okra and even grew it. She’d pick the small okras and slice it really thin before mixing it with a mixture of flour, corn meal, salt, and pepper. Then she fried it in a little oil mixed with a little bacon grease. The oil was just to help the okra brown and not stick to the cast iron pan. The okra would get so crispy and a little sweet and was amazing. My mom also made it, so I learned it from both of them.
My dad adored fried okra. He had heart disease so I used only canola oil (it was the healthiest back in the 80s/90s). I took over cooking dinner because my mom hated it and would count it as my daily chore. So I’d call my dad tell him I’m frying okra so call me when he’s leaving to come home. His commute was about the same amount of time as the okra needed to fry. So he’d come home to fresh hot okra.
My grandmother used the larger okra pods for stewed tomatoes with okra. I never liked it because the okra is slimy. We’re all from NC, so we didn’t have a history of gumbo.
@@kevincrosby1760 Brilliant! Thank you, Kevin. I believe that trick would work wonders for roux in general, unless you just need it really light. I'm from Kentucky, now live in Tennessee and I feel like all the southern dishes just kind of congregated in KY and had to find a way to be the most inexpensive flavor bombs there were. Gumbo is definitely on that list.
@kevincrosby1760 that's just a silly thing to do. You just have to keep the roux moving. If your pan is very hot, like that cast iron can be, you'll have your roux done in 5-10 minutes. And I mean a dark roux that would be used for Cajun cooking. Isaac Toups teaches to do it that way. Granted you can't do that with butter because you'll burn your butter.
This reminds me (as a distant cousin) of something we in NE FL and SE GA call "Brunswick Stew." It's sort of a hunter's stew, using what is available, and each batch can be different from the last. Love your videos, Max!
No way I am doing research for a project on what French voyagers ate when coming to Canada (for school) and this happened to be posted 2 days ago!!!! Thank youuu for adding some of the history behind Pemmican and where the word "Rubaboo" came from!🙏🙏
I'm always amazed at how much research must go into each recipe/episode, and yet you still put out a new video every week (even when you're traveling). Very impressive!
Worked extra hard and long to get ahead :x
@@TastingHistory Phrasing Max. Phrasing.
@@danielmantell3084 teehee 😁
@@TastingHistory You get a lot of credit from Society of Creative Anachronism folks because you actually do your homework and try to be authentic to the original recipes where you can.
@@DanteTorn Been a bit since I checked, but is the SCA still around? Was active in the early to mid 90's in Abilene, Texas, or Ansteorra, Barony of Bonwicke (based out of Lubbock).
Another comment mentioned this, but one Canadian topic that could be interesting is Acadian cuisine! Particularly a few previous episodes mentioned ingredients that do feature in Eastern Canada food and Acadian cuisine in particular (summer savory and rutabaga). I love seeing content about indigenous food too, especially since this and indigenous history isnt a topic focused in school here
I really love that you include recipes & history from Canada. So many American’s seem to forget or forgo anything in relation to Canada, you don’t, and you are very respectful about it. I appreciate that more than you know, it makes me want to keep coming back! Also I will NEVER get sick of the hard tack reference, it’s perfect. The sound, the look on your face, the crumbs falling off, ahh chef’s kiss. 😆❤👏🏼😂
canada has become a totalitarian police state worse than china. theres nothing to celebrate about it
I love these callback episodes. Not only are they a nice update, but they refresh my memory on the topic. It's also provides an opportunity to reflect on time gone by. Thanks Max!
I feel like this is one of those recipes that would be more appetizing had you hiked 10 hours thru foot deep snow.
I finally realized why I like this channel so much. And it's not the history, or even the food.
It's because Max gives off the same vibe as my mother while I was growing up.
We struggled when my brother and I were kids. We were poor--not 'we can't buy hamburger' poor, but more 'we have to put fillers in the hamburger to make it stretch farther' poor. Dinner most nights was some combination of rice and beans, since they were cheap in bulk. But mom could make ANYTHING taste good. My modern-day comfort foods are all things that she or my dad would improvise with what we had in the cupboards: chicken breasts covered in green chili sauce and pepper jack cheese, baked and eaten on flatbread. "Chinese" noodles, which was just spaghetti, diced harboiled eggs, little cubes of fried ham, and a touch of soy sauce. My favorite being a bastardized form of lumpia made mostly with hamburger, with homemade sweet and sour sauce. Hell, even burritos stuffed with the aforementioned potato-filled hamburger, without any kind of seasoning bar salt and pepper.
This has gotten long-winded, but the point is...we were poor, we ate like we were poor, but it never FELT like we ate like we were poor. And watching Max makes me feel the same warmth I felt growing up. The passion for food, the roots of where it comes from. It's queerly nostalgic.
So here's to you, Max. I wish you luck for the next thousand videos to come, and I hope you and your family experience more happiness than sorrow. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you. For sharing with us what makes food so incredible.
You're absolutely right, Max finds so much joy in these foods and in learning about them and making them. And you were really lucky to have parents who were good in the kitchen
Was curious where you were going because nothing about Max gives off poor vibes.
I've had a first nation-french Canadian stew of this kind at a hunting camp. It was boiled potatoes, carrots, turnips, simmered with pemmican and heavy amount of salt (which may have been part of the pemmican), it was thickened with flour too. So it was a beefy greasy gravy with root veggies.
I’d love to try that but I’d wanna add some carrots, peas or corn. Gotta say, those Canadian Mounties of yesteryear are utterly fascinating!
Their are quite a few different styles of pemmican. In many cases, the pemmican was flavored with local berries and sage which grows wild on the prairies. I have yet to come upon pemmican that is only meat and fat.
@@MMathis-cu7ew I worked on the Siksika reserve southeast of Strathmore for two years. The ladies used to get me to drive them down to the banks of the Bow river where we would harvest sage for smudging and berries for the pemmican.
there are also wild onions to add some flavor. Cat tails are also edible. You can eat the root and also harvest the brown bulbs, shake off the pollen and make pretty decent flour from them.
Add another confused prairie dweller about there not being any berries in his, would’ve been fun to see him try and find something like saskatoons in LA
@@13374me Yes, I suppose Saskatoons are pretty rare in LA.
@@smithwesson7765 not impossible! saskatoonberries/serviceberries are a pretty common ornamental tree in cities :D
@@lucarubinstein3907 yeah but think of the pesticides they're covered in... ~shudder~ That was my biggest concern when I was in the Midwest about turning all the mulberries from trees in our neighborhood into jam :( At least the walnuts you can take off the husk and shell...
Great video as always! I hope you have more Canadian content in the future.
I think many Canadians, and especially many Quebecois, would love a video on poutine.
Not only is it a national dish, but there's great history behind it as the adoption of it as a "Canadian" dish contributed to the growing Anglo-French divide in Canada.
Love your show as always!
Poutine: In New Brunswick they have a poutine that is a big round ball with minced meat in the middle and dough/biscuit on the outside. It's either steamed or boiled. (Think Scotch Egg.) Before I was celiac, I loved steamed Peking Dumplings and other steamed dough balls from DimSum. As a New Englander I was told I wouldn't like it, even by the woman selling them at the agricultural fair. I explained about my love of dough things and she sold me one. They were correct. But it was an interesting try.
Sounds like you're referring to Poutine Râpée, an Acadian dish. It's important to give it its full name because this dish is entirely unrelated to Québec poutine. Poutine is also what the Louisiana Cajun call pudding. In colloquial Canadian French, the untranslatable word "poutine" refers to any strange, unexpected, mixture of ingredients@@kitefan1
There is a risk of sparking off an interregional war in Québec if he dares delve into who invented it where.
Speaking as a westerner, poutine has always been a 'Quebecois' dish, not a Canadian dish.
@@CaptHollister My mind went to cheese curds and french fries with brown gravy. Close?
Walking around the house saying Rubaboo and freaking out my husband. 😆 Love you and your channel, Max Miller. You so brighten my day.
I love how you put appropriate Pokémon in the background for every video. Bouffalant for Rubaboo is perfect
The stew looks tasty. For a survival food, pemmican is quite versatile for recipes.
And it tastes bad enough that you aren't going to eat it before you need it for survival.
The term Rubaboo appears to be rather specific to this time and place in Canada, polar explorers more commonly called their pemican stew 'Hoosh'. The book 'Hoosh. Roast penguin, scurvy day and other stories of antarctic cuisine' by Jason C. Anthony is an invaluable resource for anyone looking deeper into the history of pemican as a food for polar exploration.
Haha you beat me to it :) "The Worst Journey in the World" by Apsley Cherry-Garrard also features Pemmican and Hoosh a lot.
Wow. Just... wow!
If we had Max as a history teacher imagine how much better learning real history would be
Robert Perry's view of pemmican reminds me of how my Granny used to be with potted meat, which was something we used to take with us to work in the fields when my grandparents were still growing tobacco. And potted meat, being basically a pate of a bunch of different beef and pork parts, earned a similar reaction from her as Perry had over the factory-made pemmican. Just the whole "I don't care what's in it, it tastes good" attitude is very nostalgic there.
The quote about not knowing how much cat, dog, mule, and horse was in the pemmican reminded me of how the master of the house made sausage in Les Miserables.
Rubaboo
Wearing Canadian Red
Roux aboo combined
Across time, it fed
The spirit of the time
Historical findings
Chasing down translation
Rechaud fire dining
A coming together of different nations
Cooking onion and meat
Flour after the water
Pemmican research treats
Softening once much hotter
A Canadian food for survival
Presented here in revival
This is excellent and I'm leaving a comment so more people see it 😊
@@MissingRaptorThank you 😊
Beautiful
Damn! Those lines are lit! 😳🔥🔥 👏👏👏💯💯💯
There was a newspaper comic ('60's and '70's) that was a satire on the Old American West. One of the running jokes was a "Pemmican Burgers" stand. Never saw customers just hecklers.
Max, I just want to say I've been following you for years, and your videos have yet to cease to entertain and educate me. Love what you do, please never change!
So a reminder that the time where Rubaboo was a staple food stuff really wasn’t that long ago at least for the Métis as even into the 50’s and 60’s a lot of Métis and sometimes their families were still travelling trap lines and trading furs for a living, as many families essentially lived a subsistence lifestyle primarily due to having lost their homes through scrip, their reserves through illegal disbandment by the government, and generally being both social outcasts and not having the education or means to purchase either a plot of land or a house. Hence one of the names we are known by, “The Road Allowance People” (others include “The Rainbow People”, “The Flower Beadwork People”, and Otipemisiwak or “The People Who Own Themselves”) as that’s where many Métis essentially made their homes, and tried to farm, on small road allowances and ditches. And at the same time that this is happening you are also seeing the Residential Schools, 60’s scoop and MMIWG2 as well and I believe until at least the 70’s it was considered “unlawful” for Métis people to congregate in numbers greater than 10 for any reason other than religious ceremony (wedding, funeral, church services) post North West Rebellion which Steele tried to strong arm the Métis during, and that was after the terrible things he did to Sitting Bull and the Sioux (seriously everyone lauds Steele as some sort of hero, which he absolutely isn’t) which does make the fact that Métis Nations were able to organize themselves during this period really impressive, meaning that Rubaboo and pemmican were not just important but absolutely vital and a symbol of resilience.
At its most basic it is just a mix of water pemmican and flour (although wheat flour wasn’t always used), add ins like potatoes, wild onions and herbs would likely either be brought if they were fortunate (in the case of potatoes or dried herbs) or foraged, and frankly that was off you had the energy at the end of your day (as trap lines were walked or snowshoed and animals and pelts were packed out by hand) or you had the where with all to forage through the day as you went (trap lines were hundreds of miles long so trappers would be gone for months at a time). Also it was a year round endeavour (more common in winter as they would be attempting to farm a little bit of land if they could) meaning in the winter it was more whatever you brought with you is what you could add. And like I said wheat flour wasn’t always added, cornmeal, rolled oats, or even acorn flour all would have equally been common, camas or cattail roots too in place of potatoes.
It is great to see more Indigenous content on tasting history. Especially as an Indigenous person who feels like their culture is often either overlooked or made a novelty by the media and other cultures. If anyone is looking for more information on anything I’ve mentioned here, I would recommend “Stories of Métis Women: Tales my Kookum told me, which is an anthology by many of our past and current matriarch knowledge keepers. Also there is a show if you can find it actually called Rubaboo by Andrea Ménard (a fantastic Métis artist) and highly recommend going to see it (I’m taking my mum in February to see it)
Thank you for posting that info. I'm afraid that history as it's taught and recorded tends too much to mythologizing and thus rather than true to life complex people stories we tend to get "heroes" which by their existence need an other to make into the "villains" and it is good to remember that a "cool name" does not a good man make.
Thank you for this.
Thanks for extra info and the book recommendation! I will add it to my list of books I want to read.
Mahsi for the information in your comment ❤
Thank you for this. When Max said the bit about Steele bringing “law and order” it sent a shiver down my spine because a lot of that so-called “law and order” the mounties brought was brutal colonial genocide.
May I suggest (maybe a Christmas special) to look into Tourtiere and Cipaille - traditional Quebec recipes. My family made these for so many years and had their own recipes. Each family has their own.
That sounds so interesting! I'm going to Google them! LoL
Tourtiere is so delicious. I make it every year for réveillions
don't promise me tourtière and give me pâté a la viande :p
Tourtière is so good. One of my favourite food for the Holidays!
I make them every year ... tradition in my family. It's not the holidays without them. I make a dozen tourtière every year and 2 humongous cipaille !! Start making tourtière in October ... yum !!
NO, NOT pâté á viande lmao
I love the running gag where everytime you say "hardtack" you show a clip of past you, very disturbed, clacking two hardtacks together
I know this video is 5 months old and you'll never see this but ...
As I watched and got to the scene where you (Max) take that first bite 14:00, I was thinking to myself, this is the epitome for what we call, taking one for the team. Well done Max, well done. I hope you didn't have serious regrets the next day.
I hope I'm not the weird one here when I say the shot of you stirring the finished stew was INCREDIBLY appetizing to my eyes.
I miss growing up and having stew on cold days...
You know, you can make stew. Anytime really, so long as you have the ingredients for a roux and meat. You can use water, homemade stock(chicken takes 3 hours, pork takes 6, and beef 12), storebought stock. As long as it reduces or gets thickened before the meat and veg overcook, you have stew.
For some people it's practically a religious heresy to have thick soups and stews when it is not cold/freezing. I never really understood that line of thinking, I like chili, stews and thick curry year round.
I thought the stew looked to be a perfectly good, old-fashioned hearty one. All it was missing was a few dumplings! As an almost-vegetarian, I’d try a mouthful.
As a Canadian who enjoys food and history thanks for making this. I used to visit Fort Steele quite frequently as a kid.
Except the history is wrong. It is a Metis dish. So you can see how attributing it to the genocidal Mounties is a problem
@@AuntyKsTarot you are wrong, I can not see how it is a problem. No one is claiming it isn't a Metis dish.
The claim being made here, which is based on first hand accounts, is that the NWMP cooked and ate a version of this stew. A reasonable facsimile was produced and described to the audience which made for an interesting video.
If you have such a problem with the video there is a button you click to make it go away.
@@AuntyKsTarot also I may be missing what you're saying as I don't know what gusty means.
@@Roddy556 Imagine sharing a Jewish dish and giving credit to the Nazi's. The Mounties were created to exterminate us on the plains.
Sometimes, a recipe is not needed to make the dish.
Something I learned over the years is what my family call "Ett hopkok." translating to mean something in the lines of togethercooking.
The thing about it, is that you use whatever is at hand. Have some left over bacon, or minced meat? Toss it in the pan/pot, left over vegetables, like carrots, celery, yep throw it in the pan/pot. Have root fruits? Like potato or yam, in the pan/pot they go.
Rice can also be used but boil that on the side and add in later. Can use leftover cooking cream, with some flour to thicken it, and just slowly cook it. It becomes a stew, and you learn what works and what doesn't work. You can also do a fully vegetarian or vegan dish in this way.
So the Rubaboo, is likely something similar with 4 main ingredients, Pemmican, Flour, Potatoes and Water. And whatever is on hand to season it.
Sometimes flour, and potatoes are scarce so won't be found, but water to make it into a soup/stew like consistency with other things, as example hardtack, or bread, it is a base for a survival stew, so there won't be a recipe for it, but a put in what you have, to make it. It will be warm, it will warm your body, and it will help you survive the cold in Canada.
An adventure becone. For us who served in the Vietnam War and ate C-Rations, our indispensable companion was Tabasco Sauce. And that fine company developed a cookbook for preparing varied dishes (pizza or apple crumble, for example). I don't know if you could find a copy, but it would make a good show..
Another favorite was we called Ranger stew. Use an ammo can for M-60 machinegun rounds for a pot. Begin with a package of ramen noodles, then add whatever meat unit from the C-Rations and whatever else comes to hand. And obviously, seasoning with Tabasco Sauce.
So my family-in-law has been doing international dinner nights. We pick a country out of a hat and then we each make a dish from that country and bring it as a pot luck.
Your Mrouza episode aired a few days after Moroccan night. This weekend was Canadian and YOU DID IT AGAIN.
Are you following us? 😂
As a Canadian, I thank you. And also - as a Canadian - I apologize. There's gotta be something.
Yes the Inuit ate their dogs whenever necessary and so did Amundsen when he got to the South Pole. A husky is meal on wheels, and which one it is depends upon circumstances.
My great, great Aunt Faye, whom I knew when I was a very tiny little girl and she was about 90, maybe 95, went to the Yukon in the gold rush, mounted on a mule and wearing pants, with a man who was not her husband. I'll bet she ate plenty of pemmican and packed a side-iron She was the coolest Aunt ever, and I wish I could find some information out about her. She was also one of the first women osteopaths in Chicago, and lived close to Division & Rush in a very rough neighborhood. (Now it's yuppified but it wasn't in the 60s and 70s.) Never made her bat an eye. Her young relatives tried to get her to move out of there but she wouldn't, and she lived to be over 100. . She gave us kids great back rubs. She would treat the neighbors for free in Chicago, and they all loved her. I remember her looking to me like an ancient mummy in a big picture hat - she seemed to always wear one - and I wish I'd been old enough to take notes and ask questions.
I always love your content and love it more when my country is featured, and even more when Mounties are the subject as my grandfather was a Mountie during the 30s and 40s.
I somehow got my wife hooked on your videos. Now we watch one over breakfast and laugh at your antics. Just watched this one over lunch, and you didn't disappoint. Love your cookbook by the way, I just wish it was signed.
1:45 - Those moments when cultures blend to create new dishes....*Chef's Kiss* Literally one of my favorite things about human anthropology.
Please. I beseech you! Never do away with the Hardtack schtick altogether. It is a surprise and a delight in any episode it shows up. I guffaw every time!
Reminds me of how in Monstrous Regiment, Shufti manages to make a meal out of the meager rations the soldiers were given, and somehow it sounds delicious.
I was thinking of the exact thing! Lieutenant Blouse and his misty-eyed love of Scubbo. 😂
I love how very different both men wrote about the pemmican in their lives ❤
The hardtack clap cracks me up every time.
13:52 : That was THE most perfectly-balancedly conveyed "HEEEEEEAAAALLPP!!!!!!!" I've ever seen. Bravo!!
This reminds me of my mom's version of pemmican stew, only she used canned corned beef.
We did as well. I was in the infantry and we would make a pemmican stew from corned beef, canned potatoes and whatever else was in our rations, boiled in a used juice tin.
As he was making I was thinking corned beef could do the job for a home version!
@@dixon_481I always buy corned beef and try frying it. A stew would be good.
@@Roddy556my mom would slice the canned corned beef and make sandwiches. I wonder if canned corned beef is still as tasty as it was 60 years ago?
@@heatherfitzgibbon It's definitely more expensive than it was and isn't a savings like it used to be.
Excellent video Max and thank you for the captions José!
When I was in elementary school a teacher brought pemmican for the class to try when we were learning about the gold rush. I didn't care for it raw it is a shame she didn't cook it.
“The last mouthful as good as the first” can easily become damning with faint praise.
For some reason I never watched the Pemmican episode until today. September 21, 2023. Thought, damn, I need to wait a YEAR? Nope! Was legitimately happier than a normal person should be when I saw this video, the link to Part 2, had been posted 10 days ago. Also every time you mention wild onions I think of ramps. Kindof hoping you hang on to some pemmican to try that in the spring. Maybe with dried cherries or pomegranate molasses to cut through the fat? OK...time to watch while eating a pork pie with hot water crust.
I'm canadian and never heard of Sam Steele (we mostly learn world history), so thanks for this episode! It was interesting. Also a cool throw back to a past episode. ^^
And a cool two-fer on the hardtack clip. Clack-clack.
Do we? I barely learned anything but Canadian history til Grade 10.
If you grew up here during the 90s, you would absolutely know of him thanks to our Heritage Minutes.
I was born in the late sixties, and remember reading his biography in grade 4 or 5. We covered him briefly in grade 7 history, but not a ton.
check out his heritage minute
I was astonished to hear that an entire year has gone by since you made the pemmican. How long has it been since your first episode? 2 years? Well, since then you've been the highlight of Tuesdays for me.
I believe tasting history was started because of quarantine so over 3 years at this point :p
i wonder if there is still some of that hard tack around
@@HappyBeezerStudios *clack clack*
We learned about Soapy Smith when we were in Skagway a few years back. That guy was a piece of work. I highly recomme learning more about this absolute unit of a con artist.
Jose’s Pokémon choice is on point with this one. Bouffalant!
I always look forward to a new video of yours. I love history, and I've tried to pass that passion on down to my 15 year old daughter. Her mom is out of the picture, so I have to teach her all the skills she needs for life, including cooking. We enjoy watching your videos. It's nice to learn the combination of food and the history behind it together.
When I've cooked up pemmaican in the past with potatoes it reminded me of that favourite Scottish traditional comfort food "stovies" & I really enjoyed it. I also found that instead of adding flour I followed another old Scottish trick & added in a couple of handfuls of oats (oatmeal). It's something we do to mince (ground beef) to make it go further & it adds a nice nutty flavour while improving the texture. Oats are also richer in energy & beta glucan (fibre) than wheat & give their energy out over a longer period than what flour. Something that's handy if exerting yourself out in the cold.
I found it funny you went with Yogi Bear for "Rubaboo" as in my head it sounds like a snack Scooby-Do would ask for. Great video, as always I really enjoyed it.
That hardtack clip will never get old 👍
Reminds me of the Dinty Moore beef stew we ate while camping as a kid.
Over 500 views in the first 3 minutes. WELL DONE!
Now, after 20 minutes, over 5k hits. You are hitting the homeruns with this one, Max.
Random fact: there used to be a Canadian silver dollar with voyagers in a canoe but the dye was lost in the mail when the looniie was created. As for stews in general, you use cooked squash instead of some of the potatoes and a turnip or 2 can really change the flavor.
I never get tired of the hardtack clip
The hesitation before the first bite... imagine eating year old meat! You absolute mad man. Respect.
I'd love to see you take on Acadian diasphora cuisine, in particular rappie pie, poutine rapé (not fries and gravy). Acadian food was subsistence food, especially post-explusion (Le Grand Derangement) that sent Acadians down to Louisiana where they became Cajuns.
As someone from Eastern Canada, I definitely agree! An in-law of mine tried poutine rapée for the first time and he said it reminded him of German cuisine so I'd love to see more detail about the crossover of that.
For some reason poutine didn’t really make the trip down here to Louisiana, but thankfully, many other wonderful Acadian things did. I can see poutine being super popular here. Some restaurants are starting to serve it recently.
One of Sam Steele's posts was my birthplace, Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada. I love all the stories of Steele, and I'm especially thrilled that you mentioned him in this video. Thank you.
You know that in Fort Macleod, there can be only one.
I was reminded of the Lucky Luke story, where he teams up with a Mountie. The mountie breaks up a bar brawl and tells the ruffians they've been naughty and that they should go to the station, three days away and have them lock them up for a day. And they just do it.