The Rich Man's Feast
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- There is so much to research and understand about history! The plight of the poor man has been a focus on the channel for a while, but what about the rich? What is a feast to a rich man in the 18th century?
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The cover with a plate full of coins is so hilarious.
*Hilarious
It seems accurate though no? We all eat money in a way, it is hard to eat without it particularly in the modern day
it was very hilariou, yea ngl
Mmm... Lead.
a plate full of whole nutmeg seeds would conveyed the same, has anyone seen the price of those? jeez
Comparing this to Tasting History's videos on things like the Shoguns and Roman Emperors' feasts, it's interesting to see how for most of human history and even across cultures the point of food for elites was seemingly always to show off rather than fully enjoy everything. Unless you enjoyed flamingo tongues or creamed spinach in what would have ended up as a soggy loaf.
those dishes were meant for feast, treat, and celebration, not everyday. and yes showing off is part of feasting and celebration, even today no one cook a whole turkey at home beside the holidy
@@namleist No one cooks a whole turkey because not many families can finish without wasting. You will see some people buy tens of pounds of frozen meat when it's on sale.
Such emphasis on presentation to the point of impracticality is certainly a rather interesting concept! I wonder how many dishes would be absolute flops taste-wise like liver.
I will say however that the creamed spinach in a roll is delicious and not at all soggy if you put it in a firm bread (I typically see round loaves used, though) and break off chunks to dip in the spinach. It's not too hard to make these days since good spinach, cream and bread are all readily available at the supermarket, and it'll certainly impress in both taste and presentation.
Welcome to Earth, I guess? If you're just noticing the point of conspicious consumption, I'm guessing you're new here.
@@tenchraven Ah yes I too am a sarcastic prick when referring to a broader concept than the thing the original poster talked about in order to assert my superiority over knowing a well-known and intuitive to understand concept.
It couldn't have been that I was remarking on a more specific cultural practice than just consumption and how it being expressed in multiple cultures and times is an interesting anecdote. No, it must have been that I just now am learning about the general concept of flaunting wealth.
I'm sure people in your day to day life really appreciate your pedantic smugness.
It's not quite 18th century, but when I went to Versailles in France, I was told that the dishes were so expensive that there was one servant assigned to each plate. Not each place setting - each plate. And the plate was probably worth more than the servant. 😮
I have to wonder what an "average" rich man's dinner would have been like. I assume it would be some well-prepared entree and some sides, enough for the family to enjoy among themselves. The feast descriptions you outlined sound more like dinner parties, where presentation was as much part of the meal as the actual food (hence why you have a foundation with a little guy rowing around, filling drinks lol).
Baked ice cream is definitely a good dessert. And pretty easy to make
"There is a giant chasm between the classes in the 18th century" aaaand here we are again.
That looked amazingly delicious. Sign me up!
NO WAY does an onion with cloves stuffed inside the chicken do ANYTHING to the taste of the chicken.
The class difference is still there.
European Peasants never had the ability to move beyond their social class, because they couldnt READ. American colonists were all voraciously literate. Knowledge is power folks. Learning how to communicate and read are powerful in your fight for Liberty.
feast
18th century: A rich man can afford a pineapple 🍍, a poor man can afford a salmon 🐟.
21st century: A rich man can afford a salmon 🐟, a poor man can afford a pineapple 🍍.
how does that even happen
@@MattSuguisAsFondAsEverrrYou can grow pineapples, not so easy to do that to salmon.
Lobster was considered Poors mans food, back then too!
I suppose it all depended on where you lived, and what food was in abundance!?
just like Car vs Horse
1920: Average People- Horses, Rich - Cars
2020: Average People - Cars, Rich - Horses
Interesting that the wearisome of the extravagant rich man's feast can cross cultural oceans. Around the same time in 18th cent Qing China, Chinese poet Yuan Mei noted that the ruling Manchu dynasty held feasts that "at the start of the feast the menu is about a hundred feet long". He noted that this is "mere display, not gastronomy". After such dinner, Yuan would returned home and cooked congee to fill his hunger.
To this very day there are fancy restaurants that serve things that are just for showing off wealth. There is a restaurant in Stockholm serving things like cooked spruce twigs for $200...Although I would rather be a billionaire than on a meager disability pension as I am now, I would rather eat tasty food at a restaurant that serves dishes for $10 than junk like that.
@@francisdec1615 average 'fancy' food:
half a strawberry drizzled in melted nutella
weeds from the lawn
$3 gold leaf shredding
price: $800
Congee is a tremendous dish. Basic congee is rice and stock, the equivalent of chicken soup if you're feeling down, but I add ginger, garlic, kelp, goji berries, soy sauce, sesame oil and add eggs near the end to poach them in the congee, then top it with cubes of pan fried pork belly.... Yum
Ah yes my favourite dish. A piece of eight.
ARRRRR! ☠️
Just remember, it needs to be nine pieces of eight.
Pieces of eight, pieces of eight😂
And a tankard of ale... He'll show you the map, and tell you its tale~
WOODEN BARQUE THROUGH THE ENDLESS SEA
TONS OF RUM, BRING THE BOOZE TO ME
WE'RE ON A SHIP, TO THE WINDS WE BOW
ALL RENEGADES, WE'LL OVERTHROW
For the rich man's feast, I half expected to see Jon dressed in fancy clothes (as in the thumbnail), sested at a table with at least one person in the background serving or clearing away the plate after each food was sampled.
Having worked in a ritzy hotel's dining room as a waitress, I can tell you a whole army of chefs, sous chefs, cooks, and other prep people were involved.
I was curious if there were going to be more references to historical fashion creators. They would have NO issue showing off exactly how much work goes into an outfit
@@Kehy_ThisNameWasAlreadyTaken perhaps we could pester Jon into making a livestream out of it...
Well, the rich people doesn't cook their own food so he still correct
I would love to see Morgan Donner, Bernadette Banner or any other number of historical fashion TH-camrs do a crossover!@@Kehy_ThisNameWasAlreadyTaken
That dessert fountain description made me feel peasant-poor, hundreds of years down the line watching this video on a $3200 computer lol.
You must have a Mac
Or a high end pc with rtx 3090 and ekwb custom loop watercooling
Funnily enough, I'm at the opposite extreme. I'm watching this on a computer I cobbled together with 250-400 dollars worth of junky parts.
They really made that feast to flex across even future generations.
@@LBJshowedmehisJit's still fascinating that even the cheapest and most "poor" level computer is eons beyond the tech that the richest of the 18th century had
2:44 It is perhaps worth noting that George III was known as a fairly frugal man with modest tastes and a tendency to relatively informal habits in his private life. Perhaps this might partially explain why this list is filled with fairly common items.
Common fare can still be pretty fancy if you make it so. But i have to assume George III didn't go too crazy on the spices lol
I'm so glad you did this episode; it explains why my Mother-in-Law, who grew up poor on a tobacco farm in the South during the Depression, would be so proud of providing for special company 9 different vegetable dishes (plus the main dishes) for her table.
It also explains why traditionally our celebration dinners contain lots of variety. Think holidays, reunions...
These days, nine different vegetable dishes sounds pretty good. Given the price of vegetables these days...
Being southern myself, it was a form of hospitality and making sure that if anyone leaves hungry it was their own fault. Putting on the dog has nothing to do with it.
@@gidget8717Or why people of older generations might consider a place like Olive Garden fancy. Modern cuisine's focus on quality and being in season with small, curated menus is very recent
@@TheSkyline77 additionally, with spices and such being so common and accessible, fancy cuisine forgoes most all of them for rare or local variants of ingredients and substituting fresh herbs for dried spices (because now having the space and time for growing formerly "poverty" ingredients (garlic eater used to be an insult) can often be a luxury)
Making capons is not an easy feat. I have castrated cattle and hogs, but chickens are difficult. My grandfather and his father knew how to do it. During the depression, my grandfather was a glassblower and did not have job worries. He did open his house for family that did not have that security. A small 3 bedroom house had 3 generations and 13-16 people living there. He fed them a lot of capons as people were raising chickens, but you cannot have a lot of roosters around. So, people would bring male chicks to my grandfather and his cost was 1/2 the capons. They would castrate them, and you got x/2 and he kept that. We had a Capon often while he was alive as he still knew how to do it. Now they cost $80-120, truly a rich man''s feast
A wonderful story. Thank you!
What is fascinating. Especially because I thought capons were just small hens until this video 🤣🤣
That's probably because my mother (bless her) wouldn't want to explain 'what really went on'.
Did the capons taste like normal chicken or different?
@@justicedemocrat9357 More tender and juicy. They had a bit more fat than a hen or definitely a rooster (but by the time you ate a rooster, they were real stringy.)
@@paulw6550 I'd imagine it was the distinct lack of testosterone due to being a eunuch?
George the Third was often called farmer George because of his sympathies with common folk, and his work in trying to develop farming methods to make farming more profitable.
Just as an FYI; George III was not a typical 18th century monarch. Obviously he was the King, so he lived better than 99.99% of his subjects. But by the standards of that era, he was actually pretty laid back. He preferred plain food, plain dress and a (relative for the time) informal royal court. His court was nothing like that of his contemporaries Louis XVI at Versailles, Catherine II in Russia or even the more minor monarchies that dotted the map of 18th century Europe. His subjects called him "Farmer George" because of his fondness for a simple country life and aversion to ostentatious ceremony and court etiquette. Completely contrary to the norms for royalty of the period, George spent as little money as he decently could, signed far more pardons than death sentences, loved his wife and doted on his children (some of whom turned into spoiled brats). His eventual decline into debilitating mental illness in an age when that was not understood, was a cruel fate for a generally kind and well intentioned monarch.
As a guide at a historic house once told me, people in those days had fewer ways of showing off their wealth and prosperity than they do now. There were no high-end cars, private yachts or private jets to spend money on. Opulent estates, clothing and food and entertaining were a good way to show your social and economic status.
It's like when you look at a Renaissance painting of a battle. Anyone wearing gaudy colors was probably pretty well off.
Hummm .... I must have been in to too many Regency novels; high-end car = a barouche and matching 4-in-hand and yards and yards of 'fine muslin.' 😉
Not to mention no social media. They had to invite people over to look at their wealth.
@@ianfinrir8724This same concept was in ancient Rome. The wealthy had clothes with vibrant colors. One of the most popular colors was purple, because it was so expensive to make bright colored dyes
@@NiquidFox Kind of, but purple in Roman times was so rare and expensive that it was given religious significance. Someone would only really wear purple if they were a child (to show they had divine protection) or if they were granted a triumph. Purple was then associated with the Emperors and Roman royalty; even if you were rich, wearing purple day to day would be pretty sacrilegious.
As a Georgian enthusiast, it's so nice to see someone really dig into the difference between Russian service and French service!
What is a georgian enthusiast? You mean the country of georgia? If yes hello from Georgia, I also love me own country ❤ 🇬🇪
@@zurabigvishiani1144 Georgian as in the era of King George. Like Victorian for Queen Victoria.
It's interesting to find out that the service we have at Chinese banquets are actually French style.
@@zurabigvishiani1144 Unfortunately nothing to do with the land of Sakartvelo
@@4rumani :((
I once had dinner in the House of Lords here in the UK (I'm not a politician, I was there as a guest of someone who ran a successful charity), and there were a whole lot of courses, but all your food was brought to you on individual plates. A member of the house I got chatting to did say that historically, the food wouldn't have been served to people individually, but laid on the table for people to take for their plate since it prevented the opportunity for targeted poisonings to happen. If you poisoned a dish, everyone would have an equal chance of falling victim to it.
That's...dark, but very interesting.
Interesting indeed. Might be something to it.
That makes a lot of sense
Good thing poisoning is a thing of the past😂
@@Амин-т4х Except in Russia.
Finally feast that Jon Townsend deserves.
The book "The Count of Monte Cristo" (chapter 63) offers a view of the repast of the wealthy and a glimpse of the thinking behind the food served
I need to reread that. It's been many decades.
@@gailsears2913 it's one of my favorites too :) Happy Reading
These days a rich mans feast is a 6 pack of decent beer with a wendys baconator
Hell yeah brother
Fast food is expensive but I'll take fast food over banquet food any day. Poor people spices have simply outperformed rich people spices.
@@theurzamachine😂 care to explain?
@@theurzamachineRemember the fast food feast in Talledega nights? Pizza, KFC, taco bell. That is definitely a rich mans feast now.
@@keptleroymg6877 What's more delicious to you, fast food or some 3 course meal at a fancy banquet hall? I would prefer fast food every time.
The traditional feast for Christmas and Easter in my country is simplified "French serving" I now realise. We call it The Cold Table. You usually have 4-5 servings, each a full table. Less extravagant than the parties of the video, but same concept. And yes, it does take 4-5 hours for such a meal.
1. Fish and egg servings.
2. Bread with sliced meat, toppings, spreads.
3. Warm dishes.
4. Some special dish.
5. Cheese, grapes, crackers, ect. Or desserts.
(6. Tea, portwine, chocolate).
Whereabouts? It sounds amazing
@Kehy_ThisNameWasAlreadyTaken Denmark. It is sometimes called smorgesbord in English, but that is a Swedish word and concept which is more of a buffet. It is different from the Danish one.
This really reminded me of our family's Christmas feast tradition in Finland too.
That's how I handle Christmas dinner here in the United States as well. I've just gone through a whole month of preparation, parties and activities. I'm exhausted and have no desire to do any more than I must. So I set out something like this and people wander by when hungry and eat as they please.
Oh YUM!!!!!!!!!!
Jon's reaction after biting into that that tart was *exactly* like Max Miller when something turns out good 😆
Who the hell is mex miller?
@@justicedemocrat9357tasting history
I thought the same thing!
Interesting that it is called "french style". In Poland when you make table full of food and anyone just take what they want, is called "Swedish table".
I'm with the knave of hearts:
I'd steal me one of them tarts!
9:01 "five pounds of grated nutmegs" - The James Townsend version has 15 pounds
The thumbnail is basically AoE3's dutch in a nutshell.
LMFAO
Those annoying Envoys be spying on my base.
@@Labyrinth6000 Time to pop out the militiaman and show them who's boss!
Jon holding down his excitement about 5 pounds of nutmeg was funny, but I about lost it when he mentioned the sea man in a boating the fountain! "Row, row, row your boat, gently round the wine!! Merrily Merrily Merrily Merrily what a grand old time!!!😂😂
'Well I'm upper-upper class high society
God's gift to ballroom notoriety
And I always fill my ballroom
The event is never small
The social pages say I've got
The biggest balls of all' - AC/DC
We are all richer for having Townsends in our lives .. ☮
I'd love to see something like this when you have the whole "village" together, and could have something of a crew working to make a whole meal for everyone. Maybe at a time of year you could source a lot of things easier (maybe from farmers markets, etc.) like summer-fall, where you could prepare a feast like this, but having more people, more resources, more hands, and more mouths to actually eat all of the food in the feast. Imagining something like a thanksgiving feast for everyone.
and more money to pay for all the food and workers. 😲Not everything can be done relying on volunteers and food donations.
a fancy potluck - I'm in
It sounds like the only person who legitimately enjoyed the whole affair was the boy who got to paddle around the fountain and serve drinks. Depending on his age, I could see a young boy actually being entertained by that for hours.
Do know that for this time, boy can mean a lot of things depending on the person speaking.
What my mother called 'Putting on the Aires' - trying to be what you're not. I really enjoy the videos of the 17th and 18th centuries.
At first I read that as Aries, like the astrology sign, and was thinking yeah, they do think they are the greatest gift to man kind. 😅
We are lol @@labhrais6957
Excellent episode. I’d have loved to have seen him replicate a small “rich man’s” table setting and perhaps borrow an appropriate period outfit (since they’re otherwise expensive). 😁
Its kinda "easy" to bake icecream.
You place it(the icecream) on some buttom of cake/biscuit, perhaps with a tiny layer of whipped eggwhite. Can possibly skip one of the two if you feel lucky.
You then cover all of the icecream with whipped eggwhite n sugar, and you bake that til it turn to maringue. The microstructure of the eggwhite with all its tiny airbubbles wil insulate the icecream just enough that if you time it perfectly, youll have warm baked icecream with a cold center.. Om nom nom
Baked Alaska
I recommend watching "Bebette's Feast" to get a sense of what the elites would eat compared to the average commoner.
I do 14th century reenactment and you don't want to know how much I spent just trying to pull off a "mercenary with some extra coin" look. And an aristocratic impression would be ten times as expensive.
One of the reasons I love your channel is because you don’t focus on rich people. Sure, their history is interesting, but I want to know about how my ancestors lived and ate, and they definitely weren’t rich.
In olden days you don't eat chicken everyday. You keep chickens so you can get their eggs. You only slaughter chickens for special occasions.
Now, I pretty much eat chicken everyday.
The reverse is fish. Fish was so abundant back then, considering most settlements are formed near the bodies of water, people just eat lots of fish. Now, well, they're definitely more expensive than chicken, especially for something like salmon.
My body clearly hates modern tastes because I do not like chicken - it really upsets my stomach, but I love lamb and fish. And thankfully I can afford $25/day of food(like $150 a week, actually quite average where I live) so I can eat steak, lamb shoulder, and salmon every day.
I like the description of a capon as a “special chicken”
I understand that poor people kept chickens for their eggs, rarely eating them before the 19th century.
It's special because it's a neutered male.
@@dbmail545even rich it was an extravagance to kill a laying hen that's like killing a money printing machine, I suspect that's why they went for capons
And this is why* the French Revolution happened.
*Among several other reasons, but listing all that down would kill the joke.
A hogshead is 63 gallons. I know this because more than 2 decades ago I was in a chemistry class where the teacher asked which system of measure we would prefer - imperial or metric. We all, of course (in the US), said imperial. He says, "I tell you what - I will give you an exam testing your ability to convert units of measure - one side of the paper is imperial, the other metric. After scoring I will let you determine which units of measure we use from here on out." One of the questions was, "How many gallons are in a hogshead?" We chose metric in the end.
Would have been more entertaining to have gone with imperial.
Love this! Obviously stayed in your mind. 😊😊
@@Kriss_L There is that. 😁😁
Emm a hogshead of English Somerset cider will get your party going.
Did he teach class in Esperanto?
I see I have arrived at the most opportune of times!
Well met! :)
It is amazing how the traditional 18th centuries western feast closely resembling the southern chinese fancy dining we still have in hong kong, malaysian chinese, and singapore chinese high-end restaurant now. Often time in business dinner, weddings or celebration feasts, we will be sitting at a round table for 8 to 10 persons, with a smaller rotatable round platform in the middle of the table for all the foods, often 6 ~ 12 courses, and have our own small plates and bowls. Throughout the whole meal, there will be new foods served, and our plates changed a few times. There will also be ingredients like dried abalone, sea cucumber and stocks that require up to a week of preparations.
A Capon is a rooster that has been "fixed". Similar to eunuchs and thus they get quite huge and remain tender well past the point of where a normal rooster is butchered...
Have you tasted an eunuch?
@@alainx277The priesthood tends to keep the choir boys for themselves.
"a huge disparity between the rich and the poor and there was barely a middle class"
gee why does that seem sooo familiar???
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Also, poor people wanting to appear rich - that hasn't changed either. So many people driving themselves into bankruptcy in the name of keeping up with the Joneses.
It’s worse now than it was before the French Revolution
9:05 "... five pounds of nutmeg..." In the far distance, through an echo of the time vortex, Jon can be heard shouting, "There's not enough nutmeg!" :)
I suppose the closest thing to the idea of "a rich mans feast" you could get today, would be an all you can eat buffet, with dozens of different dishes all of which you can sample, from starters, mains and desserts.
I wonder if he's ever hallucinated from the amount of nutmeg he eats.
No, because all you can eat buffets cut corners everywhere and try and cheap out where ever they can. The closest you’ll get is wedding faire.
I'd say maybe a Michelin star restaurant serving up 10-15 course meal $$$$
I'm chinese and a family dinner now sounds like rich man's feast. All of the dishes in the middle of a large table and we all reach out to take our pick onto our individual empty plates, and for dishes on far side of table we usually ask person near it to pass it over.
A christmas dinner cooked by Eastern European grandparents is a pretty close one. Two long tables put together, filled with soup, meats, side dishes, pastries and cakes...
I assumed it was just a plate of nutmeg based on previous videos on the channel
I think it's important to note that John's saying this was about "new money" trying to act like "old money." A true rich man's feast would've been very different. Old money relied on ancient heritage and practices. The capon would have been allowed to age for days or weeks (whole with guts), then soused (boiled in a water, salt, and vinegar solution) before baking or roasting. In between "regular" courses (as we know them), there would be what we'd call dessert courses of cakes and tarts and pies and such. Sometimes a live-looking bird (think goose or swan) would come out where a whole bird was cooked and then encased in a paste with the feathers, neck, and head of the dead bird reattached. Other times you'd have a pie that you'd cut into only to have live birds fly out. A lot of these practices dated back to the medieval times and were very much still in use by the old money rich in the 18th Century. New money rich either never had such a legacy to draw from or the financial resources to put on such displays continuously.
The US didnt draw a lot of old money elites the way it drew new money entrepreneurs - why leave a society and culture which already extensively benefits you for one you'll have to reforge a name in?
It predates the medieval times. You can read about an extravagant dinner like that in Satyricon by Petronius Arbiter, who lived in Rome almost 2000 years ago.
That pie with the live birds sounds super cool. Like a stage act.
Many rich people were on the let's get gout diet.
Meat has nothing to do with it.
@@GlossaMEOf course it does. Foods/drinks high in purines cause gout.
@@greensquall2264 There's also the fact that they were amazingly lazy, though. Soldiers eating a pound of meat every day has been covered on the channel.
@@greensquall2264 so all the lions, wolves, foxes, tigers die of gout. Ok. Also the Masai tribes
@@GlossaME Animals process uric acid differently than human beings. Certain indigenous tribes have evolved genetically over thousands of years.
Seeing that Townsends uploaded a new video sure is a feast to the eyes.
So well done, Townsends team! I’ve been wanting to hear that quote about the fountain of punch with all the lemons again! I remember first hearing it on a holiday live stream when you used to do them in front of a curtain, and it blew my mind! So much fun! So well handled. ✌️😌💜
The videos suck now because all he does is talk and not cook
@@pregnant9574rude
@@pregnant9574 it's not a cooking program, Townsend's videos are a glimpse into the 18th century as it really was if you just want cooking without the history buy the art of cookery and do it yourself
The amount of time it took to create dishes like this in the 18th century, must have been immense. That looks really good. Cheers!
I really appreciate the attention Townsends pays to working people and all the different feast vids have really highlighted the various trades and lifestyles of the people. Too much of history is "Great Man" theory focused on the powerful (and often very rich) people who "shaped history." But while there have always been influential people, the history of humanity is the struggle of the working class.
I appreciate the explanation of the process. Feasting for the rich seems more of a societal obligation more than the food itself, so I can see why the food would be hard to feature in an episode. For the hesitation about it, I think you nailed the spirit of the concept. That spinach dish, in particular, may feature on a Thanksgiving spread in the years to come.
Whenever I imagine myself living in this period, my biggest concern is that everything would have lead poisoning or something or food is stored and served in lead/ poison-metal-lined pitchers and stuff? - Should I have to worry about those things? 😂
I think you're more likely to get sick at a relatively young age and die from a mix of that and malnutrition.
Food storage containers were usually ceramic crocks or wooden barrels. Beverages served from glass, ceramic, wood, pewter or silver pitchers into cups and glasses of the same. Only the pewter has much lead.
I have an early 20th century stein with glass insert and pewter filigree design on the outside. I only drink from it with a straw, so that nothing touches the pewter (the lip is pewter too). The thing is old enough that I'm 100% sure there's lead in that pewter.
Probably less lead exposure than an resident of an industrialized 20th century country from all the leaded gasoline.
@@hailexiao2770 Lead and arsenic were used in medicine, pipes were lead, cisterns were lead. It was all over the place.
The reason for all this food and presentation - has nothing to do sustenance, like you said, Jon, and everything to do with Entertainment. A competition of who can put the greatest Show of a Meal with all of the accoutrements and the Best Taste, both Socially and Palette wise. Bored and boring people need a lot of distractions to get and keep their attention for short and long days. 😆😆😆 Thx for doing this, filming it and sharing it with us.
Questions:
Would there be leftovers from a Rich Man's Feast?
Would the help get to eat them?
What would become of the 'waste'?
It's amazing how today a working class person in a developed country can eat better than kings and emperors did a couple hundred years ago. For everything wrong in the world take a moment to appreciate the things you do have.
Indeed.. people dont know how good they have it. Everybody complains about being 'poor' but it's really just jealousy and thus a dysgenics crisis.. nobody in the west is poor. everybody has a smartphone, internet, TV, microwave, dishwasher/washing machines, AC, safe and warm homes, comfy beds, most have a car or cheap available transportation.. clean water, safe and plentiful food.. all results of the economic systems we have had in the last centuries.. which is the same system some people ironically blame for how 'bad' they have it.. not sure you agree but it's just something I thought about
@@Drikkerbadevand Agreed.
@@Drikkerbadevand can say the same in Muslim lands the gulf is great !
@@DrikkerbadevandAre you aware of the homeless crisis in the US?
@@Your-Least-Favorite-Stranger Sure but sorry to say homelessness nowadays is mostly a social (drug) and mental health issue. Not so much outright poverty.. If drugs weren't so common not as many people would end up living on the streets.. We can still agree they need help and everything but I still don't believe it's due to objective poverty
I genuinely could NOT care less about the food people ate hundreds of years ago but there’s something about your channel and your personality that’s so addictive. It’s such a comforting channel and i actually learn a lot.
we have feasts like this every day now. just take a trip to an all you can eat buffet. an expensive one.
awesome videos! Like you said, lotta poor mans meals its so interesting to see a richer one
And I thought my 2 gallon sangria fountain was cool...
I honestly think we are heading in a direction back to just a wealthy class and a poorer class:(
Thank you for addressing that this was not a common everyday thing, but for only a few times a year. I think history shows can often times come across as all these wonderful things always are happening and they don't when they try and present a day in the life of whoever. It would be neat to see what a common dinner was for a generic day, and maybe what they would do when hosting a friend too for the rich.
Keep up the good work.
We are getting close to experiencing what the 18th century was in todays time. Extreme wealth or extreme poverty, there is hardly any middleground or middleclass.
What? You couldn't get 300 gallons of brandy, 25,000 lemons, 20 gallons of lime juice, 1300 pounds of Lisbon sugar, 5 pounds of grated nutmeg, 300 toasted biscuits, and 126 gallons of dry Mountain Malaga wine to create the fountain for this video?!
Lol, jk. Great video!
They tried, but when they came for the nutmeg, Jon kept saying, "My precious!" and he wouldn't give them any!
For all the downsides of our highly interconnected world, it's really cool that so many of us can eat like this at least once a month
10:03 every face here is a meme. all of them.
Called caricatures.
1:05 -- When the middle class began to expand during the early 19th century, upper class people weren't entirely sure where middle class people fit in the social hierarchy.
I believe we're forgetting the amount of food waste at these dinners were legendary as it was considered rude amongst the aristocracy to "finish" what was on your plate. Portions were super tiny, super rich, and of various textures and taste profiles to even allow you to make it through several courses.
I wonder if the "help" was able to make use of the leftovers?
Surprising to see lobster on the list. I remember always hearing it used to be for the poor.
He's face couldn't hide how good the sweet tar was. muhahaha
i really hoped for an IRL feast we can attend and dragoo will be the lead chef
That fountain description fits in with every childhood fantasy I ever had of royalty and I feel so vindicated.
Jon, Foresooth! Your face can 'Never Tell a Lie' when you taste something . I live waiting for your facial expressions
I'm going to a SCA feast this upcoming 18th of May. We use the term REMOVES also. Medieval recipes adapted to modern tastes.
I sent this video to our Shire's Feastacrat. She LOVES to cook like you do. Your featured feast items had me drooling !!!
..I'll be busy sewing myself some new garb. It's only going to cost me about $30 in WalMart fabric. But it will be 100% cotton... that still isn't Period :(
I'd say it's that's a wee bit shy of $10K ! 😂
In Armenia (and I’d wager in many other counties too) we still set the table in the “French style”. It’s common to see in weddings, major holiday feasts, birthdays etc. a big table filled with dishes: usually roasted meat (‘Khorovats’) surrounded by side dishes, different salads, a platter of cheese and, of course, bread (lavash!). We tend to put the same dishes in each end of the table so no one has to ask to be handed something too far off. Even in traditional Armenian restaurants people usually order a plethora of dishes and just share them. I’ve only eaten dishes in consecutive “courses” (on one personal platter) in fancy restaurants haha.
Thank you for talking about the historiography around class in this. it’s a really touchy subject, but it’s so critical and a source of some significant historical misunderstanding and misrepresentation.
It can be so hard for us modern average people to understand that, for most of history, “average” didn’t mean middle-class, or even working-class; it meant poor, and most people lived and died poor.
And in truth, even today, middle-class isn’t the average, we are just very lucky to have inherited a place on the shoulders of giants.
That’s not to say we should keep our heads down and accept our lot, in fact I think it teaches us the opposite - that our lot can be improved, both by innovation and revolution, and that wealth inequality is a weapon of the powerful
The thumbnail was a lie, I came here for coin soup and was left empty handed
rotten horse meat civil war ration/10
😂😂
The irony is that here I am, a couple hundred years later, looking for "poor" recipes, and all I ever find are recipes with super fancy ingredients that my family won't even eat and don't like anyway. 😂 Even "cheap" recipes have 15 ingredients. Maybe that's why I have such an obsession with 19th century peasant food 🤔.
Rich or poor, I always enjoy your food videos, sir. Happy reenacting!
Food history is so engaging. It’s so easy to go grab something fast today it’s easy to forget how much a person’s life through history (especially considering the overwhelming majority of humans since the beginning of civilization were primarily farmers) revolved around food. And how much food was used as a status symbol like clothing, architecture, art.. except we can actually experience most of those dishes today
In European terms the British court was a modest dowdy affair. Parliament had control of the purse strings and limited the sovereign’s income. George III lived happily within his means in his relatively small house in Kew but his son was in a constant battle to raise his allowance to finance his extravagant lifestyle. The satires of the cartoonist Gilroy of his gluttony are worth a look, you wouldn’t get anything as ruthless about the monarch today.
Young wealthy men, deprived of courtly life in England, would embark on a Grand Tour, focussing in particular on Italy where every princeling maintained a lavish court. There they would learn courtly manners, art and opera and high fashion and would return to Britain as laughingstocks, derided as “macaronis”. That is why the bumpkin “Yankee Doodle” stuck a feather in his hot and thought it “macaroni”.
In Australia bread is more expensive than leg of lamb, lamb shank, beef brisket and twice the price of chicken. It would be incomprehensible for 18th century people.
I want to take the top part of that bread and soak up all of those chicken juices! YUM!
So, my oldest, 10, wants to start cooking, got any suggestions for simple historical recipes we could try to make together? .....other than hardtack, which is on the list already :)
That looked incredible. So, was tobacco use after dinner a thing in the time you're talking about? I just read that the Colonies cut way back on tobacco in favor of growing food during the times around the War of Independence.
for me the funniest thing is when I see old recipes re-constructed, I would rather have peasant/poor dishes without a doubt in my mind than the stuff the rich ate...it's not to my taste (except things like cross buns)
Some of us in the wine industry love talking about the vineyard planting that was sold as New World wine back to their European mother nations. Here in Williamsburg we still have sections of town that are registered as landmarks to the 18th century vineyards that were decreed by the British.
if you want a peak into older styles of service, I recommend getting a Basque dinner in Central Nevada
Kind of crazy that a modern family gathering where everyone brings something, blows the middle ages king's feast out of the water.
King George III's menu sounds very plain but when you think about how much of it would be on a plate you would understand that it would be a huge amount of food presented at a table not some small trifles we're talking the keep on would be a full cape on served to him on a plate so that he would eat the whole bird not just a small amount okay we're talking the quantity of the food as much as the quality of the food.
I went to Hearsts' Castle & was disgusted by his opulence. But I was already disgusted by the man himself.. so.
the real rich man's food were bugs, spiders and worms.. like what they are introducing now to the World..