Brandy vs. Sugar - 18th Century Fruit Preservation
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ต.ค. 2024
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I love these Locust Grove videos! The tale of two cakes is one of my all-time favorite Townsend videos.
Your my favorite of all time
@@toothpickstickerbananas4914 You are not the only one! I think the young lady in the bonnet has a little crush going on! LOL
Mine as well. I love the Tale of Two Cakes
My wife and I had our wedding reception at Locust Grove. It is a beautiful place in the spring.
BTW, nutmeg tastes great on peaches, I'm surprised he didn't pick up on that.
These windows into the past are great.
Far more interesting than anything on tv right now.
your right, the things that people are doing for themselves are far far better than the rubbish on TV. Such good quality filming and present from Townsend and from other people on here as well.
In the words of a "Dire Straits" song about a tour in America where they got bored out of their minds "fifty seven channels and nothing on".
Totally agree TV has gone downhill The British dramas r well done though.
As far as you're not doing that yet, youtube has many 70's and 80's documentaries on. The picture is somewhat shabby for today's standards and the music is something special, but unlike nowadays documentaries that are just trying to shock you, the older ones are actually educational and often force you to use critical thinking to decide which of the presented information you consider more plausible and true.
I've made peaches the second way as desert several times, i recommend adding orange zest, cloves, ginger and cinnamon to them for a perfect cobbler base that is perfect with icecream (if you use winter peaches add a splash of orange juice to bring the flavor back up, since their a tad blander than normal, from my experience)
Word of note: the "peach trick" only really works with freestone peaches. The sweeter eating peaches are not freestone and trying that "trick" will only garner you a huge mess of hands full of mashed peaches.
seeing her sewing by hand the elaborate decoration - omg - and it hit me - it’s fun to play, but i’d rather live now.
it always bugged me that children can play, but adults shouldn’t. well, i love this kind of playing. thanks so much. :)
I still use the sugar method to make some of my preserves and would like to address some of the concerns mentioned in previous comments.
Cyanide in peach kernels (as well as in apricot and bitter almond):
yes, that's true but you have to consume quite an amount of raw kernels before it's harmful and they do not taste good. Cyanide is not heat resistant and will be gone after cooking/baking.
Water content:
To prevent the preserve from perish you'll have to reduce the water content. You'll do that by extracting water by macerating the fruit in equal amount of sugar by weight preferably over night and heat the mixture to 105 degrees C. Before the appearance of cooking thermometers the temperature was judged by appearance (bubbles) or a simple test on a cold plate.
Sugar content:
Well, you are not supposed to consume a load of the preserve at a time and f.ex. honey or maple syrup match the sugar level. And sugar is a natural preserve.
Alcohol soaked paper:
Nowadays cellulose foil is available and a better solution than wax paper. The alcohol both kills germs and seals the surface from oxygen. The nowadays common content of 37,5% is a bit low. If you can get booze with 40% or higher, take this in stead.
Thank you very much for the good scientific explanation!
My Louisiana grandmother told me that when she was a child that she ate the inside of the pit of either a peach or an apricot and had an hallucinogenic experience...more likely she was poisoned from the laetrile - she was tiny so it may have not taken much!
what method do you use to keep from eating all the peaches when you cut them up? i cant get past that part as badly as ive tried. someone help please!
Start with 10lbs of peaches, that way you can eat 8lbs and have 2 left for preserves.
Move to Alaska, not a ripe peach in the state
@@mrdanforth3744 Hahahahaaa
Every time you start to reach for a juicy peach slice, just bite into a pine cone instead.
Outsource the job to someone who doesn't like peaches; form a group of people with different tastes, each cutting the fruit they hate the most for all the others.
almost all northern households had a root cellar to keeps foods cool. Where pickle, slaw, vinegars and other fermented foods would be kept until needed.
when I used to visit my aunt near auburn alabama as a boy one of the things I found so exciting was going into the storm cellar. it was a huge mound of earth that had been excavated for a brick-lined room in the center with two tunnels going off North/South. It was completely out of use by my time so all there was in there was dusty old broken wooden shelves covered in webs and rusted farm hand tools. But man did I like it down there. We'd always visit in the summer and they basically made us stay outside all day and I always went to the cellar. Just felt timeless, like I was going to fall down Alice's rabbithole or something. Havent been to that property since 1997 so I don't even know if it's still there or not. But southern households would have had cellars aswell, they were just called by a different name. Fallen almost completely out of use down here though, but my neighbor does have one.
@@maxdecphoenix Those cellars were life savers when tornados came. My dad survived German tanks by hiding in a root cellar under a collapsed building. He and his buddy for it while looking for food. Later, when they got caught behind enemy lines they hid there as the tanks rumbled past shaking the earth. When they got back to their unit, Patton chewed them out in front of everyone and busted them to Private. MacArthur would have commended their resourcefulness.
Northern? Root Cellars are common at least as far south as Kansas and Georgia
The thing that makes me love this channel, is the true happines this man has in his face, he looks so happy while he's cooking
Greetings from Brazil ^^
1. Make peachbrandy out of the spring peaches.
2. Preserve your autum peaches in said peach brandy.
The big peach farms in Georgia and the Carolinas made peach brandy out of most of their product. You could sell peach brandy, you could never bring peaches to the bigger cities.
Another victim of prohibition, like the big cidermakers in New England.
Yeah, shame men had no self control, drinking all their money. There was a real social crisis of pervasive alcoholism that was broken by the Prohibition years. Glad it's over, but ot was a good thing for a time.
Are there brewers or distillers trying to bring the old tradition of peach brandy back in peach country? New England and New York are littered with independent cideries now - there's been an explosion of innovation and quality in ciders for the past 10 years or so.
But you could can the peaches or dry them. You just didn't make huge swaths of cash for small amount of expense
@@nora22000 Is it really about self control and not "shame that society~" made men work like dogs until they dropped, so that they had to drink in order to keep orderly and morale up.
Alcohol competes with coal for fueling the industrial revolution and further industrialization of the west.
nora22000 Nevermind the hundreds who died as a result of Prohibition...they’re not important when we’re dealing with The Good of Society™️.
but also: you would need to cook it long enough for all the sugar to melt. even if it's been sitting in peach liquid/water for hours if you don't make sure that every granule has melted you'll end up with a crystallized crust over the peaches
Wow...nice tip. Thanks
I am loving these colabs with these other historical channels.
🍑I’m using that peach cutting trick for my next batch of cling peaches!🍑
free stone peaches are easier to work with but cling peaches taste better =3
Thanks to all who bring us these wonderful videos. Jon and all behind the scenes crew.
I think you have to add the water because the peaches probably wouldn't have enough juice to fully dissolve that much sugar. Undissolved sugar would screw up the super saturated syrup needed to preserve the peaches. Then cooking the extra water off would cause the temperature in the pot to raise higher than it could otherwise, adding to the anti-microbial environment.
Personally I use both when preserving fruit, rumtopf! Start with Summer fruits and it's ready by Christmas.
As usual, another excellent presentation. Jon and his guests are so exquisite in the roles they portray it's almost like having a magical lens to peer directly into the past.
Thanks also to the excellent behind-the-scenes staff who make it all possible.
I love these videos at Historic Locust Grove and Mount Vernon. Great historic insights about the difference between brandied peach preserves and sugared peach preserves. I would have liked to have seen the brandy preserves made as well with some suggestions about servings. Love this channel! Keep up the good work!
Love how there's discussion on generational differences during the 18th-19th century, brings a new (well old) perspective
Ahhh, bradied fruit. My mom used to do this from a recipe passed down to her from some neighborhood lady that was pushing 90 when I was a little boy back in the early 70s.
I loved the reenactment you opened with. The whole thing was great!
Thank you for continuing to mention the contributions of the enslaved in such an educational and honest way.
Have you viewed this channels Michael Twitty episodes yet? Fantastic!
Twitty reminds me of my ex I was with for 7 amazing years. Lots of good food. Lol mmm bbq
@@amberinthebox4462 M Twitty is brilliant imho
Exactly...I agree
Thank you for this comment, dasuberedward. This is something we are really trying to work on at Locust Grove. We were actually in the kitchen yesterday passing out this letter and doing a version of this demo, where we talked about Nanny and her role in the small farm economy.
My grandma used to put brandy paper on her jams and preserves.
What is brandy paper?
@@Maeglin7936 Paper soaked in brandy. In the video they describe how they would put a disc of brandy soaked paper on top of the peaches, then cover the jar with paper tied down with string.
You can just mist the surface of a jam with brandy if you don't have paper, it stops mould forming.
Brandy used to have paper in it?
Mr Danforth 374 the video said “letter writing paper” not lost.
I grew up in the days when jams, jellies and preserves were all sealed with paraffin melted and poured on top. It was usually poured in about three thin layers and the jar rolled around gently to make sure the paraffin was all the way to the edge of the inside of the jar. I also remember that pins were used to burst any air bubbles in the wet paraffin.
Ripe peaches preserved in brandy or rum for at least a month's time are absolutely excellent as is the peach flavoured liquor.
I wonder how close the sugar-preserved peaches are to Gramma's canned peaches, and "peaches in syrup" in tin cans at the local grocery store -- save being actually sealed. I find it really fascinating how little some methods of preservation may change sometimes.
I love these series, thank you for taking the time to create such a wonderful youtube channel!
I found this channel a few days ago and I am blown away by the quality and quantity of the uploads. Soo informative and interesting!
John! Time to show the work of the tradesman! Those ceramic pots were made by hand! Benjamin Franklin was the son of a candle maker!
I’m so happy to hear someone pronounce Louisville correctly!!!! God bless you!!
I like Townsends because not only is it insightful into the historical aspects of the everyday life of 18/19 americans (especially colonists/rural/frontier life); BUT more especially it helps to give a low-tech survivalist guide of how to do things while still making the food edible and other more appealing survivalist skills.
Never thought I’d hear someone describing two different canned peaches as “two different monsters” 😂 love this show.
Anyone else just hit pause, went to the pantry, fished out a jar of sliced peaches, opened the darn thing, came back with a fork, then played? lol
Yajie Liu.....peach yoghurt over canned peaches. Sigh. No self control at that moment. Excusing self by claiming to be on “seefood diet”!! lololol!!
I have Japanese peach jello with little slices of peach butterflies in it!
My wife and I did a bunch of prunes in port (fortified red wine). Leave them for ages until the liquid thickens, and we ate most of them over ice-cream.
Also wonderful with figs!
Zomg!!! Did you guys see the huge nutmeg tree outside Locust Grove? Coincidence? I don't think so... 🤣💖💖💖
...'cause NUTMEG!
My family makes mixed fruit preserves, starting in the early summer with strawberries with sugar and brandy/rum and adding cored/pitted chopped fruit as it comes into season through the fall. No cooking required. Top up with brandy if the fruit isn't covered. Serve, maybe at Christmas-time over ice cream or in a trifle. Delicious, and the fruit does not get "soft": the sugar and brandy/rum draw water out of the fruit, so the fruit get more firm with time. No need to store refrigerated or any other precautions.
That sounds amazing
I don't know how I missed this, but the letter really makes this so special! Thank you ^_^
Hmmm . . . I wonder if those brandied peaches would go well with some ice cream?
That's exactly what I was thinking.
Without a doubt.
My preserves are better than my mother's...but both ours palled in comparison to my Grandmother's.
my mother has 10 animals inside her house so everything from boiled eggs to liver and onions tastes like dog... i could cook a fart and it would taste better than anything she makes.
RAVENSNFLIES oh man. That sounds....unpleasant. Congrats on improving your cooking
Locust Grove is wonderful; it must be so inspiring to work in the place whit such minute historical records on its residents.
YUMMMM! Sounds absolutely delicious. Was there a difference in the flavor and distillation of Brandy in the 18th century and the 19th century?? I wonder if there's a difference there as well for the flavor and preservation of the fruit. Thank you for such a great video.
Always the beautifull and relaxing shows
This video is just peachy.
It’s channels like this that make my day!!!! Thank you !❤️
I love the Locust Grove episodes. It woud be interesting, I think, to compare what was going on there with what was going on in St. Augustine.
"Now, these are preserved in brandy.."
John: *immediately snatches and gobbles a peach* "Oh yeah they're preserved in brandy alright!"
My spirit animal.
Locust Grove! Fantastic living history! Fantastic hearth! Great info!
Thoroughly interesting and enjoyable presentation.
Amy.... I wish I could have a job like yours. You are so enthusiastic, knowledgeable and you look beautiful in your early 19th century clothes. Thank you for this 💐
Oh gosh Sarah, thank you so much. Just looking back through this since Townsends posted it, and that comment really made my day
Very interesting! Thanks Jon and Locust Grove!💜
I hope you enjoyed your visit to Louisville Kentucky. Locust Grove is a very beautiful place to visit. I hope you got to take in some sightseeing while you were here. Louisville has a lot to offer everybody I know I have lived here for over 50 years. I hope Lily came with you.
Oh my this reminds me of my Mamaw's peaches she used brandy and sugar syrup for grown ups and the sugar syrup for us kids miss those I remember her sitting on the back porch w/a bushel of peaches peeling cutting them in a pan on her lap it was the best times ! Never realized how much Is miss them but now that I'm older I really do ♥️😇🙏
My grandmother used those precise measurements. She used her fingers to measure nearly everything.. When she used a measuring cup it was an old metal one that was beat up and would not even be close to what is was supposed to be.
I love Locust Grove and have been blessed to perform period music there on several occasions, living nearby. Did John C. write with his left hand? Surely that would be very unusual at the time.
Brandy always wins with us.... but we probably should try this challenge ourselves... cause brandy.
If it involves alcohol you girls are all for it! 😅
@@brissygirl4997 Always!!!! And costumes..... It's all we need.
I think a brandy and sugar combo for the win!
Science Fiction Double Feature Yeeeeeees, we see the wisdom in your words. Sugar is our third favorite thing.
@@healinggrounds19 enough brandy to cover, then equal the weight in sugar. Genius I tell you!
There was a French cookbook by Nicolas Appert published in 1810 called ' The Art Of Preserving Animal and Vegetable Substances"
He developed his method to preserve food for a contest held by the French Government and Napolean in the 1790s to preserve food for transport for his Army.
Do you think people in America would of known about this by the 1820s. Thank for the video.
Is there any connections between Locust Grove and Mount Locust on the Natchez Trace.
Loved the intro! 👍👍
i love these videos because it sheds a bit of light on an aspect of history that isn't that often covered. also i hate to say it, but those peaches do have an... "interesting" looking syrup.
Interesting to see how they did things back then, but still glad I'm living now with the knowledge of then.
Thanks for the peach slicing tip!
I love the clothes, even the bonnet.
I think that's technically a cap... an indoors, hair-covering thing that a bonnet could conceivably be worn over outdoors.
Although English isn't my first language, so this is just an outside observation - it would in fact probably be the same word in my native tongue. :D
This video is just wonderful, and this lovely lady with dark ringlets is so clever&sweet!
Those peaches look sooo good!
Always great to watch your content
Jon, correct me if I am wrong, did you say one time that you were going to Conner Prairie for their "hog killing"? Did you go? How about an episode on salting hams??? Fat back? etc.?
Truely fascinating. Just watched the making butter/ buttermilk eps. I live in Australia and I wonder if apart from Souverin Hill in my State of Victoria I don't know of historical communities like this. Research time....
Very cool! Love your videos! Thank you!
Between 1820 and 1895, world sugar production increased from 400,000 tons to seven million tons en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_sugar_economy
My mother used to can fruit and vegetables for our family. I wish I paid attention how she did it. My job was to keep the stock rotated that was stored in the basement. Great video thanks.
I love your videos!
Townsend is the best!
Suddenly dawns on me that Jon is wearing the work hat. I even wear mine to sleep in! It's great!
(]:-)
I want to try the brandy peaches. That seems pretty awesome.
Stupendous! My granddaughter and I love peaches. Neither of us drink lol, so the original probably wouldn't work but the other one.....yum! We also love strawberries and they go so well with peaches or nectarines and a bit of sugar....thanks Jon and friends! Wish I could visit. We do have a small reenactment village just down the road tho, so maybe I might see some of this live.🤗🎄🍷🍊🍓
Wow. Paper. I'd have never seen that coming. I guessed the recipe would have called for wax. Hum.
The paper over the top of the jar was probably waxed or oiled paper.
Even today every generation adds their own twists to previous generations recipes.
Like the Cornbread Stuffing recipes from my Great Grandmother>My Grandmother>My Mother>Me>My Children>My Grandchildren. The basics are still the same but additional seasonings & added ingredients make it that much better. Each generation adds their own signature to the family recipes.
My late mother had a big jar of brandied fruit. It was great on angle food cake and ice cream.
Barry Hope SGT Hope All one kind of fruit or different kinds? Cut small like fruit cocktail we have now? Would look pretty in a large jar, if there were varying layers fruit and you know it would have had killer brandy on it to drink! Mmm Hmmm!!
Fancy an 19th century guy man-splaining to his mother about peach preserves. The cheek. lol!
Preserved peaches and peach preserves; not exactly the same thing, as you just discovered. LOL! Loved this Video! Thanks so much for posting it!
Fascinating video. Thank you!
these are really good programs more young people should watch these. I'm 32 by the way.
One thing you must think about the variability of sugar.! That's almost 30 years between recipes. Very good video I enjoyed it very much.
I love how she said "Wonderful" with the same inflection that Jon does.
You try spending a day with that man delightful and not picking up his inflections :-) Jon's excitement is infectious!
I feel like the vague amounts and measurements are really helpful in recipes where the size of the produce varies wildly.
I’m not fond of brandy or nutmeg. I think I’d have had trouble back then finding tastes I’d like or maybe not because brandy and nutmeg seemed to be staple you just got used to it. But both taste like medicine to me. I’m going with old Nanny’s peaches for sure.
I love these Locust Grove videos Jon, is there any way you guys can show the peaches preserved in brandy as a video?
What a wonderful idea, thank you so much for sharing! I wonder, do you know how long they would last before going bad?
John is right once again. The development of mass producing sugars and the beginning of processing foods began the increase in diabetes as well as cancers. The first increase of the diabetes epidemic started to be noted in later 1800s. Diabetes steadily inclined as we continued on the sugar, higher carb track. War rations and the depression we saw health start to improve... then after, we got sicker agin. Then, when the USDA implemented the food pyramid and suggested we eat low fat and high carbohydrates, the diabetes and health pandemics massively had an uptick. Sugar is a real issue for our bodies and the historical evolution is fascinating.
John mentions the sealing process of paraffin. My grandmother used this method until she died even though metal rings and seals were available. If brandy was the preserving and ‘sealing’ preference in the 17th century and sugar with brandy soaked paper the sealing preference in the 18th century, when did paraffin become the preferred method? Was there ever a preference for bee’s wax as a sealing method?
scald1
/skôld/Submit
verb
past tense: scalded; past participle: scalded
injure with very hot liquid or steam.
"the tea scalded his tongue"
synonyms: burn, scorch, sear; technicalcauterize
"the boiling water scalded his skin"
heat (milk or other liquid) to near boiling point.
immerse (something) briefly in boiling water for various purposes, such as to facilitate the removal of skin from fruit or to preserve meat.
Outstanding video and content
Jon was really struggling with peeling that peach.
Here in south Alabama, persimmons and paw-paws are quite common. Are there any known uses of them in historical times?
But how do you make the brandy jam? You tasted it, but you didn’t show us. :(
Great video. Thanks again.
Would it have been cheaper to use brandy as opposed to sugar during this time period?
Jon suggests that in 1796 brandy was cheaper and easier to get, while in 1825 sugar was cheaper and more abundant. This makes sense, as the making of sugar became more mechanized and the price came down during the 19th C.
And - this probably doesn't apply to the US, but I think beetroot sugar also became a thing in the 19th century and made sugar more widely available, to more people.
That brandy would be great in a beverage. Make your iced tea special.
This was very cool!
I would love to see another encounter with "The Sons of Liberty"
oh and scalding is only to bubble around the edges but if the time is long enough that sort of heat will get into the center of the pan without bubbling. You don't want to boil it. This is completely off topic but where can I get beef suet? I lived in the UK for 10 years not long ago and every baking aisle had suet and every refrigerated cabinet had lard beef or pork. Here it seems to be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
You'd be drunk eating brandy peaches... Southern Baptist Peaches & every teetotaler lined up for miles ... LMBOOO!!!
So I am guessing you could also do this with plums?