Salt Pork and Beef Pie - 18th Century Cooking
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ม.ค. 2023
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Amelia Simmons Cookbook www.townsends.us/products/american-cookery-cookbook-bk626-p-1419 , possibly the first American cookbook!
Of the three people I like to watch cooking historical/vintage recipes, I really like how they've got radically different approaches to part of the recipe not making sense.
Max Miller: "This didn't make sense, so I did more digging, and after a week of research I think I know what's up."
Mr Townsend: "Let's not worry about that."
Dylan Hollis: (confused screaming)
Too true. Sometimes I have to go with my gut and know that the next recipe will answer my question.
Didn't know Dylan Hollis, thanks for letting me know. But yeah, I agree, love watching Max and Townsends going about the same topic with completely different approaches.
Max is trying to turn historical recipes into modern recipes, so he wants clarification because modern recipes require precision. John is more like cooking how they would have done it back then. If they read a recipe and they didn't know what it said, I think they probably would have just winged it using their sense and moved on haha
Dylan is hilarious 😂. I can only imagine the one liners he'd come up with putting some of these recipes together.
Another vote for Dylan! 😄
I'm 55 years old and when I was a child my mom would use salt pork in beans and peas. She would also fry some up for breakfast. I love salt pork in beans and peas, it's some good eating. As my dad would say we were "eating high on the hog" lol.
The only beans I had for years were also pork 'n beans which my dad loved. Haven't had them in years but totally brings me back to being a kid.
Salt pork is made from the belly, it’s the exact opposite of eating high on the hog.
@@MikehMike01 Not quite. The phrase "high on the hog" refers to the leg or arm portions....starting down at the bottom with feet, trotters or shank meat and going up to the finer shoulder or ham meat. The higher up the limb, the better eating. Pork bellies, ribs, and loins have always been prized for what they are: delicious.
That was the 'store-bought' salted pork belly still available today. It 'made' the Boston Baked beans...for example from our period, GRANDMA BROWNS.
@@teebob21 pork belly is low on the hog do you need a map
The biscuit dough with egg and no leavening is really interesting. It feels like it's still in the transitional state from Ship's Biscuit to the more modern tender American biscuit, with a little detour through noodle or dumpling land
I'd enjoy a little detour through noodles and dumpling land this winter!
@@jamesellsworth9673 That's what Winter is all about, Charlie Brown!
@@jamesellsworth9673 Gotta take the scenic route.
Please inform me of what an “American biscuit” is as I’m American and never heard of a biscuit here. Unless you’re talking about like the soft biscuits in a biscuit and gravy?
@@jackmace6531 Yes that is most likely what they mean. In the UK their cookies are called biscuits, which is very different from what we would call a biscuit.
God bless Townsend's and everyone behind the channel for such lovingly created and informative videos.
‘God save King George!’
Innit
Are you looking for an indentured servant for that homestead? I've got a strong back.
I loved the touch of having the first homestead eggs being used! It’s really all coming together!
I wish Jon had spent a bit more time showing the eggs: the golden yolks, the firm albumen of the white.
the bisquit dough used in this way reminds me of German spaetzle.
Mmmm, spaetzle!
Salt pork is still used in the South. Mostly in stuff like turnips, collard, and mustard greens. Also in peas, beans, and sometimes okra. There's a store here called Piggly Wiggly, one of the last grocery stores that have a butcher and has uncommon cuts of meats and products. Like liver, gizzards,, chitterlings, chicken feet, chicken combs, beef stomach, ox(beef) tail, tongue, pork hooves, marrow soup bones, salted/cured meats, etc.. some people call it soul food.
Indeed, all hail Piggly Wiggly!
Indeed!, food for my soul!
We had a Piggly Wiggly as far north as Indianapolis in the early 80s. Was sorry it did not take hold here.
CHICKEN COMBS!!!!🤮
Some of the carcinerias, Mexican butcher shops, feature less common cuts of beef and pork. Its worth looking.
The way the biscuit dough is applied reminds me of some of the Pennsylvania Dutch recipes you can still find to this day. In that region you can find dried flat "noodle" looking biscuit dough to add as dumplings
Sounds delicious! Being from rural Ohio I can also attest that food at amish shops is amazing lol
Ooo I’m from PA and I’ve never seen these I’ll have to try and find these sometimes soon!
RE Salt Pork: I've successfully made it using 1-inch thick slabs of boneless pork shoulder interspersed with salt. I made it "dry" (without brine) and kept it chilled. I also used a 6qt commercial food service container but I think in the "Unpacking Salt Pork" episode Ryan used a Rubbermaid plastic container. In short, 18th century salt pork is fairly easy to make!
How do you like to prepare the meat after it is salted?:) Boil/fry etc
Was it necessary to keep it chilled?
I was under the impression that the salt preserved the pork without the need for refrigeration.
Am I wrong in my thinking?
I'd like to make some and store it away on a shelf for hard times. The refrigerator doesn't have that much room.
I can imagine that would have been a very welcome supper after a full day of work out in the cold. Thanks for the great video!
Especially the salt pork. We lose more than water when we sweat, which is why I generally take locally branded corn chips to work. They are light on salt and oil, having just enough to help with hydration, and the corn breaks down in to sugars...not to mention the flavor and taste, which also encourages water consumption. I'm in coastal Texas, and those are HEB corn strips.
A happy new year to you Jon, and to all the crew there behind the scenes.
"you know it's going to be good with a bunch of butter in it!" Empties bowl happily! 😁 Love it!
Please please please do a whole episode on salt - just salt, nothing else. You could do a Ken Burns documentary on salt and I’m sure there’s a lot of interesting stuff about salt in the 18th century - how it was produced, where it came from, how methods differed from Europe to the colonies, Native experience with it, how common it was, what it was worth, what was its cultural significance, etc. Could be amazing!
Syracuse NY supplied most of the country's salt in the early days. Its nickname is Salt City. It's a fascinating history.
Mark Kurlansky's Salt is one of the most interesting book I have ever read
@@jeroboamjerm ooh that sounds awesome, thanks for the recommendation!
@@jameseglavin4 Salt is still important. Gandhi's march to the sea with everyday Indians to make salt was meant to avoid the British colonial tax on salt, salt needed to preserve food. The British forbade the private, untaxed making of salt which is why this became such a symbol of the non-violent revolution in India. India is mostly hot or at least warm, and ordinary people had no refrigeration or access to ice, so ... salt.
@@donbaccus2074 Wow! Thank you. What a cool piece of history. I've never been to India but I was born there and left at 2yo. The Roman Soldiers used to be paid in Salt too I think, at least for a certain part of their nation's history.
Happy New Year, Jon to you and all at Townsend's! This looks like a great receipt.
When you read about break into proportion, I understood it to mean to break the dough up in pieces about the same size, as one would dumplings. With no leavening, they wouldn't rise like our modern dumplings, but would likely absorb some of the broth and meat flavors. I like the idea of cutting the dough into noodly bits.
THANK YOU for your post: your solution seems reasonable. Noodles or dumplings, the shapes being in proportion to the pot would help thicken the gravy.
You mean recipe?
@@stupidmango4036in at least the 1700s probably earlier, they called them receipts. which evolved into recipe
If a show about the colonial times was ever produced, I would sincerely hope that all these recipes would be subtly used in them. That’d be authentic!
@Uncle Charlie🔧 cool deal! I’ll check it out. Grazie!
they could have Burger King
@@MikehMike01 that too. Hahah
Isn't that this show? Their production value is great lol
@@soknightsam good point! What I meant was like a period piece done during the colonial times. But for sure, we pretty much the show already!
Just what I needed, a wonderful and wholesome video on this cold January day. All the best to you and your team, Jon!
Ya'll are great! I had to laugh when you said, "I don't know what that means. And so, I'm just going to ignore it.". Haha! What other choice do we have at times 🤣 Happy New Year!
Here in Pennsylvania we would call this a "pot pie" since your "biscuit" is essentially an egg noodle. (My family has been here since 1730.) Later generations added some vegetables. Usually celery, onion and carrots.
So nice to have your own eggs, isn't it? I haven't bought eggs from the store in ages! And they are so pretty!
Dang you, now I want to try farm fre(edit)sh eggs
This is the hardest I've ever worked to make a simple comment. I need a new phone...
"Break and in the same portion" might mean, knead then spread out evenly.
Love the deciphering. Using the tin lid to the pot to cut the main biscuit layer was GENIUS. Also tried using strips of biscuit like noodles..., interesting test too. I would've thought you would cut the top layer into a wedge like a "pie" piece, placing it on top. I enjoyed this very much. BRAVO ; Well Done
I would have thought that the top biscuit layer would have been eaten. Not a lot of food went to waste in the 18th century.
I was already thinking about your not needing to add any salt eith salt pork in the receipt. Wish we had smell a vision. 😁 Thanks Jon👍🏻
Thank you for all your time and effort. I always enjoy listening while I work. Happy new year!
Thank you for EVERYTHING you do. I have learned more from cooking from this channel than I have from any other source. You people are amazing! I am wondering. did the people of this era and area that the channel is about, ever attempt to cook foreign foods? Happy New Year to all!
I can't express how much I love your content. Absolutely amazing. This is where I come when I need to relax and learn.
I bet you could but a bunch of veggies in there like carrots and potatoes and they would come out great. They probably did at the time as well as its free flavour and bulks up the expensive meat
Love this! Thank you! 🧡
My great grandmother used to make this. She called it biscuit stew.
Had an idea, since we do this at our house, but correct me if it's a wrong thing to do: when initially boiling the beef put in it cabbage trimmings, or broccoli or whatever brassica you have, don't put it in the stew itself, they get trained out.
What we found is brassica has something that speeds up the process of gelatinization of collagen and those bits stay in the broth/stock. Not much flavor added, maybe a bit, but it does change the texture of the meats used at the end.
Also a way to use up cabbage trimmings.
When you say "Stew Pie" my first thought is a kind of pot pie. I really enjoy all of your videos, keep up the good work!
I'm thinking pre-cooked biscuits would be hard tack. Basically kind of like dumplings, without the levening. Very curious to see how this recipe turns out. In any case i'm thinking the biscuit is there mainly as a thickener, with the added benefit of a textural component.
Plus, when you're eating in a subsistence environment, you plug in every calorie you can, from whatever source you can.
Hard tack is tasteless and hard enough to break teeth. Using it in things like stews allowed you to use a very long lasting resource as an additional source of calories in many dishes.
That is what I was thinking, ship's biscuit or hard tack laid on top of the meat and the water poured over, then all cooked together. The cooking would soften the hard tack same as when you cook it in lobscouse.
If to break bread actually used to mean to knead, that really adds meaning to the metaphor “break bread together” because you are not only eating with somebody but cooking with them.
A happy new year to you and yours.
Fantastic episode, always curious about the use of heavily cured food stuffs
I love the citrus garland in the background 😊👍. A nice touch to complement the drying herbs❤
What a great recipe to start off the new year
Man I love Townsends videos. So completely pleasant. Love this guy.
Happy New Year Jon and all theTownsends crew.. That recipe looks great. Surprised there wasnt veggies added (carrot, potato, onion, etc.) it.
Would cooks have used whatever leafy greens, etc., they had on hand as a simmered side dish? The original recipe called for veal. Jon opines it was for tenderness but it is also true that bull calves were culled and that calve's meat and bones had good collagen levels to add unctuousness (well...body) to a stock. Also in springtime, there would have been pork left in the barrel to use up here and there.
5:13 _Biscuit. - One pound flour, one ounce butter, one egg, wet with milk and break while oven is heating, and in the same proportion._
"... break while oven is heating, and -in the same- _also_ while the oven is heating -proportion- divide the kneaded dough." trans.: Combine ingredients, knead and portion into biscuits in the time it takes for the oven to heat.
Great to see you cooking. Boiled dough is what we might call dumplings which could be part of soup or a stew.
Looks good!!! Thanks for sharing these awesome recipes with us, cheers!
I love that you had homestead eggs to use in this recipe. I've also been wondering about this particular recipe from American Cookery. I now have the confidence to make it! Thank you, Jon.
Did you know that if 1 in 3 houses had chickens, then the whole chicken breeding industry would not be needed. Just the scraps from the 3 households would keep them in eggs & a little chicken from time to time.
They don't want us to thrive together as it makes them no money.
Happy New Year!!! The veal was very important to cheese making and keeping a dairy cow. If your dairy cow calfs a bullock, you'd cull the calf for rennent. If she calfed two bullocks, you cull one for rennet and veal and steer the other for beef later.
Excellent shots in this video. And as always, an absolutely wonderful channel. Food is maybe the most relatable bit of history(everyone's got to eat). What a wonderful channel.
Also food can tell you a lot about people and economy of the time period based on what was common to eat that was also what was cheap and available to most people so if you knew where those ingredients were coming from you can pretty much trace shipping routes across the map so food is actually a phenomenally good starting point into history not just because its relatable but because if you care to look beyond the dish you’ll see a larger section of history unravel in front of you so food is possibly the best place you could start in history
Happy New Year, Team Townsend!
Mr. Townsend you by far make the most relaxing cooking videos on TH-cam, plus the fact that we learn about history along with it is just the cherry on top.😂
Sure have missed your programs lately. Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. God Bless all at Townsends
I sprinkled a bit of nutmeg and cinnamon on top of my tea yesterday and today. And I feel good.
"You know it's gonna be good with this much butter in it right?"
Yes. Yes we do!
I would love to see this same recipe made as a pie baked in an oven with less liquid! With that dough lid, it would be perfect!
Great job on deciphering this recipe! Looks delicious!
These shows remind me of something that would be on PBS when I was growing up .Like I'm chilling ,it's raining outside and I'm watching these
I appreciate the description of your watching circumstances
This has to be the best, most wholesome channel on all of youtube, i love it.
@townsends Always appreciate the cooking videos. One recommendation for the social media staff: link the referenced videos in the description, please. Personally, I used those to find the previous recipes and simplify ordering from the Townsend shop (Super awesome to call).
This channel brings me such simple happiness
Nice john. Hope you have a great new year with lots more videos. I can remember my granny making something very similar to this back in the 70's. Only thing was when she removed the top layer she had some hot butter in a pan and made like an Indian fried bread with it. Modern touch I guess. She also added some wild spinach if memory serves correctly. Thank you for sharing. And again happy new year and looking forward to many more.
That version sounds lovely! Indian fry bread - YUM!
I legitimately didn't think this channel would make me as hungry as I am hahaha love the content, wonderful watch late at night while I work on personal projects. :)
Happy new year to this channel
Really enjoyed this video! Wonderful!
This channel really really cheers me up. :) So good.
That's a very interesting recipe. It looks really good. The more butter, the better. I hope you have a Happy New Year. Cheers!
Definitely trying that recipe. Not complicated and seems very delicious. Thank you sir, awesome video.
Jon got a new jacket for Christmas! Looks like a great recipe!
HappY New Year 🥳 Here's to your family, and Nutmeg!!! 🍻
Looks very tender! Thanks for sharing this recipe!
Such an interesting program and with the musical background, so relaxing. Thank you. UKUK
it reminds me of Pennsylvania Dutch pot pie. thanks for all you do..inspiring.
Wishing y’all a happy and healthy new year
Wow, that recipe looks amazing! Great video!
It's historic, and trying historical recipes connects us to a shared heritage. If you don't like the sound of it, there are many more in the channel's video list!
sounds like your getting over a cold, me too! feel well, and thanks for the great videos
The crossover I didn't know I needed:
J.A. Townsends and America's Test Kitchen.
Take maybe three or four "really hard" recipes from the 18th century and get ATK to figure out how to actually make them well.
(Mainly I just want to see Jon in costume in the ATK kitchen.)
That's a BRILLIANT idea! Maybe invite Jon to a Cook's Country episode to make some 18th Century dishes and show a modern adaptation so anyone can make them.
The Thirteen Colonies' Test Kitchen
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 LOVE IT!
In Chinese cuisine, there's a bao that's literally call soup bao. It's a giant bao with soup inside that you drink with a straw...
Man, that's some way to one-up a bread bowl. :P
@@Infirito_Ekra Well, it's fully enclosed and steamed. It's a Shanghai dish.
You were supposed to use a straw? 💀 I am stupid (despite being an american-born Chinese person)
Love your videos. And I am very glad Iran acrossthis channel a couple years ago now.
"In the same proportions" likely means for you to evenly divide the dough.
Keep up the Greatword Sir.
Keep doing this. Can't wait to see more of your meat history dishes. Good job 👍
The reason you probably don't find a recipe for biscuit or salt pork in period cookbooks is because it was a very commonly cooked food. Prior to the internet, very few cookbooks explained how to boil or fry an egg. Girls as young as 6 learned at their mother's apron side how to make biscuit, and handling salt pork. So the books author would have assumed they knew the period basics. Just like parsing out medieval/Renaissance recipes, you have to read as many as you can to find "common" recipes that have been included in longer ones as part of the process.
Both Meriadoc Brandybuck and Gimli son of Gloin must be excited about this one!
That looks so perfect for a winter day.
It's great to see some homestead eggs! I can't wait to see the homestead smoked meat to go with them next time
I'll never get tired of watching this man boil things
That was very interesting, Jon! Thankyou.
2:50 Nice knife work. Clean claw, good grip, full control of the blade. 👍
Since the dough recipe didn’t give an amount for the milk, I wonder if “in the same proportion” was referring to the volume of the milk being the same as the volume as a beaten egg. The recipe states to have them together, so I heard it as a 1:1 ratio of egg to milk and adding your liquid at the same time to the flour mixture
Wow…I honestly think you might be 100% right. Broken down your way the recipe real deal makes sense. That’s crazy. I did not look at it like that at all.
A note about beef, since it is in the area of my knowledge: I think it's worth pointing out that modern, mature beef is very different from the veal that was used 200 years ago, and not only in terms of tenderness. The veal of the 1700s would have been from dual purpose or tri purpose heritage breeds that are not commercially available, and would have been pastured and milk fed. (Breeds bred exclusively for meat are a relatively modern development, as on the early farmstead cattle needed to be usable for milk, meat and draft animals) modern beef is also usually confined to a feedlot and finished by feeding a specialized diet, which didn't exist in earlier times. Similar situation with pigs as modern pigs have been bred to have a pale flesh and very little fat compared to the old breeds. All that aside I understand that it is not usually feasible to find authentic meat of that time period and that logically substitutions must be made for the purpose of this demonstration. But it is simply stunning how much animal and vegetable agriculture has changed over time along with the flavors and textures of the food.
Always great content. Stay safe, my friends!
It seems to me that it's meant to turn out like what we would know as dumplings. In fact, whenever my family makes a pot of either chicken and dumplings or squirrel and dumplings, the dumplings themselves are just blobs of homemade biscuit dough. I don't see why it would any different back in colonial times.
I haven't had squirrel dumplin's since 👵 Gran passed on in the 1970s. Wonder if I could recreate her's. 🤔
So this is a beef based version of chicken and dumplings? That's what I thought of when you read the recipe. Sounds good to me!
It's never occurred to me to wonder before, but did people "recycle" the salt from salt pork? Like boil it dry or something?
Thank you for this information, it is always educational and enjoyable.
I'm so glad to get back to the Townsend videos. We sometimes forget that in the past people actually prepared and ate food.
Imagine that, I know people who were amazed to watch me cook. When I asked I was told that growing up they never ate anything that didn't come from a box or a restaurant. 😢🤔🤓🍻
Salt pork was the canned spam of it's day! ^-^
Any emergency prepper who doesn't have a few cans of spam in their pantry is missing out.
I am not "prepper" prepper, but i do live in a hurricane prone area, so i keep a pantry full of long lasting foodstuffs, just in case of extended power outages. And canned spam is just one of those essentials to have on hand.
Wait the homestead egg is a huge moment for the channel! There is so much that goes into the care and growth of chickens. Congrats team!
FYI this is one of my favorite channels on TH-cam
These vudeis are si awesome. I love your channel townsends!
Part of me wonders how this would turn out if instead of putting in the broth, you just baked it.
Keep it up man love your videos
The restraint against using nutmeg in this recipe is simply EPIC! {G!}
Veal shoulder is hard to bone out- the boiling was to remove the meat from the bone; you'd then add the butter and salt pork for flavor and grease, as veal is also very lean and somewhat bland. The dough on top is sort of like a dumpling cover- to keep in the heat and absorb the excess juices as your 'veal stew' slowly cooked down. I'd serve it over boiled root vegetables, myself.
My mind rests watching Townsends.
I would honestly say that salt pork after it’s been washed should be paired with mashed potatoes and gravy.
I’d simply turn around and take that briny water and boil the potatoes in them so they can have the salt already in them than use it to salt the potatoes more.
Or for modern times microwave that salted water and dump in the instant mashed potatoes and stir it up.
Add some pepper plenty of it.
love watching this channel. would love to try this meal.
Thank you for this recipe, it sounds divine
Cool recipe and video John! Thanks and Happy New Year!
Hello from Detroit Michigan brother thank you for sharing your knowledge and expertise and for taking us on your adventure through time i see your add in the backwoodsman mag do you ever contribute to the Articles And to the pages I do believe you can offer a wealth of knowledge