As we all know, what makes John's videos so appealing is his unbounded enthusiasm, and I think that enthusiasm has never been on more prominent display than when he's eating pure gruel.
I grew up eating corn mush. Add chunks of squash and meat and sweeten with maple sugar or add salt. dried/fresh berries. It is delicious. Add kernels to soups. I grew up on a iroquios reserve btw lol good vid. It is a versatile ingredient. Dont buy the bland store bought corn meal. Make your own. Tortillas and tamales are amazing make with this stuff. You's missing out lol. Here Is a simple recipe an average person that you can make from grocery store. Buy corn meal from store take about 2 cups and put into dry frying pan or sauce pan over high heat and stir and agitate(shake) constantly so it doesnt burn until corn meal turns a brown colour and the toasted aroma come off of it OR make your own parched corn flour/meal as seen in video. Take about 3 cups of water to a simmer and slowly add your 2 cups of meal stir in into a soupy mush add more water as needed, if too watery just let simmer until it thickens or add more meal if you wish. Then, fry smoked bacon until crispy, chop into chunks then add to mush and sweeten slightly with maple syrup(or brown sugar) simmer on low heat until corn meal is softened. corn meal as you can imagine being highly processed cooks fairly quick. But home made parched corn will take a while longer and may require a few additions of water to maintain a mushy consistency. Bolster this type of a mush with chunks of squash or dried/fresh berries or a a can of kidney beans (sky is the limit) and enjoy :) I used to have to make this when I was going to school living in the city away from my home lands and had make a grocery store substitute it wasnt to bad
I've always heard that Indigenous Iroquois ate corn, but no further description of how it was prepared. Your explanation is perfect! It makes so much more sense than the way I imagined, which was roasting whole ears and eating corn on the cob. I couldn't ever imagine how it could be kept for a long time and wondered. Now I have some better ideas thanks to you.
So, would you put this is water and add pemmican to it ? ... because that combination sounds somewhat like the dish you describe ... and even though i have only seen both and never tasted either, the combination (especially pemmican with berries) sounds like it will turn into a very tasty 'meat stew'.
@@999Giustina Indians also would just soak corn/maize and pound it to make a flour or just make hominy. You can purchase hominy at the grocery store in yellow or white at least locally and a lot of people around here made it and ate it.
People in the far north of Scotland in places like Caithness, Orkney and Shetland in the late 19th century/early 20th century used to parch their barley and oats like this for summer use. They would roast the grains together in pots, beat them up with a spade and then sift to a fine powder. They called the flour/meal "burstin" and made it into thick griddle cakes with butter a bit like your ash cake but called a "burstin broonie". The most common way of eating it was without cooking; they just stirred it into buttermilk, sour milk or new milk. They also made a drink called "pramm" by putting a handful in a bowl, adding a pinch of salt and pouring hot milk into it until it was a creamy consistency. People in mainland Scotland also made a drink called "blenshaw" or "stoorum" by pouring hot milk into a mug with oatmeal and some salt or sugar and nutmeg, leaving it for a bit then drinking the starchy milk after the grains settled. I think farm labourers and nursing mothers drank it. When you tried to heat your meal a bit in a pan it reminded me of the oatmeal brose I sometimes make for breakfast when I'm too lazy to make porridge, but I just wet the oats with boiling water, add a teaspoon of butter and salt and leave it for 5 minutes. That's not my invention though, it's a traditional Scottish dish (look up the song "Brose and Butter") but it tastes better if you toast the oats first.
The descendants of the french in Louisiana U.S.A. have a version of Hagis made with pork. I think it is essentially the same recipe. Have you ever tried it? They call it "Boudin rouge". I have only tried "Boudin blanc". It's quite good.
Richard Yates That's very interesting, I just had a look at a recipe online for "boudin rouge". I've never had it; I had some French boudin noir once with calvados and apples which was delicious, but I'd love to try the Cajun stuff. I think the main difference I can see is that haggis has no blood in it and uses lungs/heart and more offal instead of muscle meat, but the rice in the boudin rouge reminds me of the oats in our haggis. We also have lots of onion like a boudin and it tastes very peppery, but we also use a good bit of suet whereas boudins looked leaner in comparison. The actual appearance seems really similar though, but we usually serve it in little heaps on plates, scooped out of the casing (formerly a stomach but now plastic). That said, you're right to draw attention to the close ties between the cuisine of the South and Scotland/Northern Ireland. Southern food or especially African American soul food i.e. grits, hoe cakes, collard greens, big breakfasts, lots of sour dairy is very similar to 19th century (and even modern) Scottish food. I suspect all the Scots and Ulster-Scots settlers in the South had a considerable influence; unfortunately the legacy of Scotland in slavery probably plays a part too. But all in all oatmeal in Scotland was very much like corn in the south; a lot of people here still take their oatmeal porrridge savoury with salt and cream, though butter was once popular like grits. I'm also always reminded of how the Irish feel about sodabread when I hear Southern people expressing their distaste for too much sugar in their cornbread.
I'm descended from Scots in the state of Virginia and comparing their version of Haggis to what I have only ever seen, not tasted (apparently the same youtube video you watched) , and assumed, from the darker color that it would be more comparable to the red version our Cajun brothers make. The family style Haggis (which I was to young to prepare personally) was mutton with barley I believe, it had the hearts and lungs etc. as you mentioned and very little muscle meat it smelled like the Boudin blanc cajun version, but I can't imagine why it would have had a darker color other than they were also adding the blood. The states-side Scots breed had very little to do with slavery as a whole, the majority seem to have moved to the northern mid-west of America; apparently to avoid being mistaken for whitey. And no we never add any sugar to our cornbread, we are a savory bunch. Thanks for the reply.
"Dried Hominy meal" is Masa. Mix it with water, roll it thin, bake it, and you have a corn tortilla. Tortillas are NOT made with plain, normal corn meal. The corn is hominy corn.
@Det Nine true, that's how you release vitamins like Niacin in corn. Early settlers developed a condition called Pellagra because they switched from European wheat to Mesoamerican corn as their staple grain and ended up developing the disease. It lead to malnutrition and the pellagra can cause alot of serous health problems and killed many early settlers until they caught on to using hominy.
I’ll stick my neck out here and admit I *like* burnt popcorn! Not actually charred to charcoal, but very near. It’d be easy to carry a little salt, and that’d be perfect for me. Being a Star Trek Salt Monster 😉.
I've eaten stuff kinda of like that and it does taste like crap, but theres nothing better than a ton of starch when you've gone a few days without food.
I'm a little embarressed to say when i was in a hurry I've eaten cold mush like that. When my microwave was busted at work and i didnt have time to go anywhere i just dumped warm water on some oatmeal and ate it raw.
If you make several batches before departure, you can sort them into a light, medium and dark roast. Then as you go you mix them to create flavor varieties
It's probably obvious by now, but he reason your corn tastes like coffee grounds or burnt popcorn is that you burned the bejabbers out of it when you parched it. Next time, toast the corn kernels slowly over a much lower heat.
yeah I imagine the taste would be alot softer and cornier if it wasn;t that burnt. Some of the corn were burn to a solid black I can imagine what that did to the taste
Sue Castillo we always said Bejeebers. I researched it once. It used to be bejesus, but the Bible Belt felt that was too close to blasphemy so they altered it further. Sort of like the exclamation, Fudge! Rather than the other 4 lettered f word.
My neighbors from Durango have prepared and given me this exact recipe for "blenshaw" or "stoorum" that Mr. Mulholland has given here, but the "Chef" not speaking english as fluently as her husband, was unable to understand which nombre I was asking for and just called it aveeno. Is there a specific name for this dish in the spanish language please?
Richard Yates I'm not sure... "aveeno" sounds to me like "avena"... the avena is the same thing like your "oats". We take some Oats and mix with milk to make "atole de avena", with some raisins and some cinnamon and sugar. Or to make cookies. Sorry about my English.
Jon, you have only redoubled my respect for you by using the initial results of the parching experiment. I imagine in general practice the kernels might not have been parched quite so dark; that said, I can imagine worse flavors than scorched popcorn, especially since there's no burnt butter to go with it. Thank you for doing these videos. I've learned a lot from both.
There is a breakfast dish in Bolivia (in the lowland foothills of the state of Santa Cruz) called Piré A corn meal porridge, where you toast the corn meal first the add water until it soaks up. Then you add some salt and cheese. This Reminded me a lot of that. Bolivians cook corn in so many ways and it is often toasted before hand, it in deed changes the flavor...in a good way...as long as it is not toasted too much ;)
In 1950 my grandpa marched into Korea to help prop up the north, he had a sack of parch corn/rice/whatever grain available and said he would eat a handful of that and then a handful of snow to wash it down.
Actually the soldier could break down the rice by putting a handful into a cloth sack and pounding with a rock or club (pestle and mortar). Empty the crushed rice into a container using only enough to make a thick drink. I bet the NKoreans wished for this much rice today. My father fought this episode in 1953 to 1955. He came home with a serious head wound ( the bullet ripped his scalp back several inches cracking the skull; this was replaced with a metal plate and the scalp brought forward and reattached to the forehead) in late 1955. We ate ground rice with vegetable sides or an egg for a meal. Quite good.
my brother died last week and watching your episodes on TH-cam has helped me with his loss it helps me be able to get up every morning and want to cook and I thank you very much for helping me with my depression
Thank you Linda for that comment. My oldest, dearest son, age 41 just died a month ago after a three month nightmare with cancer. I am just beginning to return to my TH-cam friends, like this happy channel, and it is such a nice break from my sorrow. I may bake bread again..... I hope you are feeling much better now, Linda.
In my comment after the previous episode I mention that cowboy reenactors would make parched corn. How that came to be a cowboy food is interesting. During the Civil War soldiets from the rural South showed their fellow soldiers how to make a grain using the dried corn still on the cob. This would help them survive the winter. Properly parched corn has an increased protein amount. This was brought west after the Civil War. These rural boys taught recipes learned from their grandma's who learned from theirs. Cookies, the cooks on the chuck wagon, would use ground, parched corn to supplement or even replace grains like rye and wheat. Books and newspaper accounts from the 1870's even mention parched peas! I do not believe that this was something sudden but a heritage that dates back to the first contact with Native Americans.
To give more context. Feed corn was left to dry on the cob in the field. Confederate soldiers, at the end of summer, were given sacks of either cobs or shelled feed corn. It would almost impossible to grind it so parched corn. The end of the summer is when the cattle trains set out...parched corn. The beggining of fall is when serious hunting for winter occurred...parched corn.
You know how Jon sometimes talks about having the best commenters on TH-cam? That's you, right here. I actually use ground split peas in my bread recipes sometimes, so I will definitely try toasting them first. I probably won't go as dark as in this episode and the last though. That seems closer to burnt.
Thanks so very much for posting the two episodes on parched corn. Over the years, I've read many references to parched corn in stories and novels. I had always assumed the corn was eaten like parched peanuts. I had also read an account of a Native American war party, moving fast, and about how they carried corn meal. They would pause only a few minutes at a creek, taka very small handful of corn meal, hold it in the water a moment, then eat it. While the account rings true, I would imagine that it was not corn meal, but your parched corn meal. I really want to try this. Thanks again.
Always wondered about 'parched corn'. My gggg-grandfather spoke about surviving on a hand-full of parched corn a day at Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War.
The Japanese have commercially available toasted rice and green tea, probably originating from adding water and tea to rice left in the cooking pot. So parched corn tea has a modern cousin. I have tried toasted rice tea it and I really enjoy the cereal flavour in what is a very comforting sipping tea.
John, thank you for another fascinating cooking demo. I was very interested in the idea that parching the corn made is a sustainable food base. The whole point of the nixtamalization (lye treatment) was to make the bound niacin and other vitamins more available. I went looking for more into on the actual nutrient value of parching the corn and then grinding. One study from 1974 found that roasting maize released the bound niacin. (Roasting maize can release bound niacin (Kodicek and others 1974). Along the way I came across a clever modern way to toast / roast the corn kernels - an air popper. The demonstration showed that air popping the flint / field or ancient dried kernels resulted in either no pop or a tiny pop all of which were ground to meal. I was trying to find any way of releasing the niacin and vitamins without resorting to lime/lye treatment.
Again is amazing how native American came up with the same dishes all over the continent. In Nicaragua we have Tiste, Pinol and Pinolillo which is basically parched corn, cacao beens and different spices. Great video thank you.
There is a difference in milling that I suspect is the result of different maize preparation techniques. In the Southwest nearly all corn is milled on a metate with a handstone or mano. This is roughly equivalent to neolithic querns and mullers in Europe. But parching the maize allows it to be processed in a mortar. The use of sand or salt is especially interesting.
I really appreciate your telling us that these are interesting flavors, and that these are guesses at the accuracy of the original recipes--i.e. the aboriginal recipes. Thanks for all the research and the field testing!
In brazil we use the corn meal and mix it with different seasonings to create a sort of traditional topping powder called farofa. You can also make farofa with toasted cassava/manioc flour instead of corn (how it was always made before corn was introduced to brazil).Normally, you eat it mixed with rice and beans but you can eat it in other dishes too. Love yr channel!!
I enjoyed both of these videos. When I was a little girl my Grandmother would make parched corn for us as a treat and we would eat it whole. I don't remember it popping. She would cook it with a little salt. It was the way that the mormon pioneers prepared and ate it.
This is called Pinolio in Nicaragua, it’s grounded up corn and other spices, you combine it with water or milk and then add sugar for sweetness. It’s part of my culture so I’ve never thought of it as a source of food in times of scarcity but that makes total sense. Some of my family members just make the drink as a meal substitute late at night or for a snack.
When I was growing up, my great-grandmother would parch corn, and we just ate the parched kernels as-is. A bag full of parched corn went on many a fishing trip. I don't think we ever used them for anything else.
I grew up in southern West Virginia in the 1950s eating parched corn as a snack. I remember Dad would bring home cobs of dried corn, and we'd shell it into a pan. The corn was rough and brittle so my fingertips would be scraped up by the time I was done. Mom would cook it, and we'd eat it warm with salt. I'll have to check with her (she's now 98 and going strong) to see what type of corn we used and how she prepared it. The taste reminds me of corn nuts, very crunchy, which you can buy at any convenience store in the snack section.
There is an old Indian dish called sattu. It is also similar... you roast and pound bengal grams. with water and sugar it tastes like heaven and with a little bit of salt and lime its the most filling thing.
This is really cool. I was just reading a reference to the drink in "The Book of Camping and Woodcraft: A Guide For Those Who Travel In The Wilderness" by Horace Kephart. The book was produced in 1910 and says that travels could survive for months with a bag of parched corn supplementing with what they could hunt or fish. Quite awesome to see it made. I'll have to try it out!
Thank you for sharing this amazing knowledge with us! I've never heard about parched corn as a source of survival food and I will try it. I really appreciate all this knowledge from the 18th century, and how the people survive without the current food suppliers. We, as humans, we endure, we survived, we are creative. Have contact with this ancient knowledge is really important. Thank you again, keep this channel alive. Regards from a Brazilian follower.
You have to roast the kernels slowly until you smell a pleasant aroma, or until they are golden, or they stop popping. Depends on the corn. You have to keep an eye on them. Your goal is to keep the kernels from turning black. If they turn black really quick the skillet is to hot. You slightly burnt this patch. You can still use it on the trail, but it'll taste well you experienced the taste. Also if you could get one a small stone, or ceramic (is best lighter in weight) mortar and pestle are great when making small patches for the trail. Parched corn tastes great. I've gotten ash cakes to taste like plain corn bread though I do recommend using a little sugar, or salt. If you're going to just mix it with water in a bowl it can taste like wet plain corn flakes, and for the Parched corn drink with just water Parched Sweet corn warm the water up a bit pour it in the cup let it sit, and you have a slightly sweet drink to enjoy by the fire.
It's so fun to watch someone with so much enthusiasm and passion for what they do. It reminds me of my favorite teachers; they weren't teaching you so much as sharing the delight they took in something they truly loved.
I giggled a bit at the mention of being like eating coffee grounds. Ground coffee is actually a condiment and spice ingredient in some Indian (sub continent, not tribal reference) cooking. I was skeptical but ground coffee as a seasoning for a spicy curry workks quite well.
ground coffee is also a secret ingredient to gourmet chocolate chip cookies. it gives it a richness that complements the chocolate chips and butter like you wont believe. its essence actually hides itself fairly well in this secret mixture
When I was a kid, we ate parched corn all the time. We did not grind it up, we just added the kernels to our popping corn to warm them in the skillet. They were very dry and had a unique flavor that tasted more like a plain "corn-nut" you might get at the store.
When we were kids we would take corn meal or cereal and make a drink out of it and sometimes cook it like that in the fire when allowed. It is nice to know we were kinda doing something others did before. Would of been so cool to know some history like that behind dishes and to know how to make the meal. We did the store stuff but in our minds, we were being inventive.
There is a national dish in Kenya made with ground corn called ‘Ugali’ that looks like it could be similar. It’s generally eaten with vegetables or a stew
I bought parched corn at the Korean grocery store. They sell it as "Corn tea." They simmer the corn for nearly 20 minutes. I haven't tried it yet, but I bet it has an interesting flavor.
Primitive Technology, is a favorite channel on you tube on how to learn to build a shelter with nothing but what you find in nature. This channel is awesome in so many ways. As I see it, after I have shelter I need to know how to survive day by day. This is one of the best Basic living video series EVER!!! Townsends your doing an awesome work by preserving knowledge and sharing it with the world.
I am glad to see you sift out the finer particles as you go along. It really helps to keep the over-all grinding process on track. And you can use different size particles for different uses. That is a helpful principle in grinding most things. I also find that soaking grains, beans, cracked foods for a while in water greatly increases their palatability.
There was a paper published in the Oxford (UK) University Food Coloquium journal many years ago on Grits, and the conclusion from 17th Century accounts was that it was prepared (soaked) over night then 'cooked' all day - everyone came in for the evening meal and when the pot was emptied the next day's Grits were prepared it it, left over night and then put on the fire when everyone was up & going out to the fields to work and left to cook slowly over the banked fire until the evening meal at sundown. Rinse, repeat.
The videos you make are simply amazing. So much history and information that we are never taught. People like you keep the history alive in a world where so much is being forgotten.
I've never seen a man that excited about corn. That's something you'll find only in this precious channel. Thanks a bunch for sharing your experiences with 18th century cooking, they're really inspirational.
I am amazed by this channel. I really consider it to be the best channel on YT to my taste. It's a statement in itself how consistently good the videos are year after year after year. Kudos!
I love this show and especially Mr Townsend. The attire really makes it. As well as the period pieces of cookware and table ware. But he’s right about the flavor it can be strong. With that being said many things were brought together and used to stretch resources. So most of this stuff could be made using regular wheat flour or wheat flour and used as extenders or to add those flavors and make them more palatable. I used to make crocks of beer with my grandpa. And Apple jack. And made lots of beef jerky and tinctures. All kinds of stuff. It’s fun.
The early mountain men mixed a bit of sugar in with the parched corn and carried that way for different methods of cooking. You did an outstanding job of showing how making it is done....... my thanks for all your work.
I love learning the old ways! Love this channel. Now I’ve got to try this lol . What a great survival party experience this will be. Yes I’m having a survival part ha. Building our village. Blessings to you from NM♥️
It seems that I remember a western writer (Louis L'Amour, maybe Forrest Carter?) who mentioned the use of parched then ground corn as the ultimate energy food. During long, rapid journeys it was thrown into the mouth then swallowed incrementally as the limited water was taken in over the course of several hours.
A couple of points. One they warned not to burn the corn when parching it. They usually added sugar in equal parts, whether maple or regular sugar. Take 2-3 tablespoons of the mix, add water and drink immediately. Most of the time they just put it in their mouths and drank from their canteen to help swallow it. The sugar was important for quick energy. By consuming the meal that way it would swell in your stomach and you would feel full. Call it cold flour, pinole, rock a hominy and sometimes just parched corn. Cold flour was the common term used most of the time.
Thank you for doing more of these "survival" type foods! I've often wondered what a long, cheap trek across untamed lands would be like in the past, and these videos really help me understand what cheap, portable, relatively non-perishable foods were available. Please do more videos like this! Quick question: If you were to go on a 500 mile trek across, say the Appalachian Mountains, what sort of food would you pack? How long could you go on that food, and how often would you have to resupply at trading posts or towns, or even by hunting?
I loved these two videos! It was great to get a chance to follow the ingredients and see different ways one could cook them up. You guys did a great job! Thanks for doing these!
If you know how to forage, the flavors of the parched corn would actually be a good base. Grab some wild herbs as you walk, mix 'em when you take a break. Heck, you don't even have to stop; mix and eat as you walk. I learned about parched, or toasted, corn and wheat in a summer camp I went to in '89. We learned a lot of survival skills and techniques that trace to the Native Americans and colonialists.
This is pretty similar to a traditional food that my people (the mvskoke creek) have called sofke (pronounced sof-key). It's like hominy or posole that's been ground (you see it a number of ways from very coarse to very fine) and then prepared as a porridge, which is sometimes allowed to ferment, and sometimes prepared as a drink like the Iroquois one shown above (typicaly made with the very fine meal), just the cornmeal and cold water, which is drunk, meal and all.
Love your videos Sir. I have always been very interested in that time period and enjoy seeing how passionate you are. My wife and I watch all of your videos and hope there are many more to come. Can't wait to make the 4 hour trip to your store.
You are so wonderful and this channel is so calming! I've watched a ton of your videos but somehow have never subscribed. I am so now and I need to go back and like em all! Thank you so much for everything you do!!!
It would be pretty funny if they actually just used the corn to catch squirrels and birds, but as a prank they always told the new guys that the corn was the meal and somewhere along the way the prank became history.
Having hunted squirrels (w/ a sling shot) with my other young feral friends -- squirrel isn't bad at all but there isn't much to it. A couple of them in a simple stew with the hominy, some salt and maybe some forage could be tasty.
The mush version looks...interesting, but i think you could mix it with some ground dried meat before adding the water. It would be a nice seasoning and a protein source as well.
But not balanced. This is calories and it has some protein, but you couldn't make a steady diet of corn alone for that and other reasons. Beans prepared the same way, animal products, etc. would be good additions if you can get them.
👍Good info & demo. Also corn has many uses. When it is ground, people could make a porridge, corn cakes and corn milk by adding water. Mexicans have been drinking “atole” for a long time and it dates back to Mesoamerican empires. Originally, it was made as a blend of maize and water. Sometimes served warm and as a breakfast since ancient times. It is still popular in Mexico and sometimes is flavored with chocolate or strawberry etc. 💞
Fascinating! Love your channel. Glad I subscribed yesterday after the Pantry Prepper channel gave yours a shout out. Will be passing the word about this channel. Thank you!
More parched corn recipes! This is great stuff. The staples of the native peoples & early settlers. Love this stuff. Real food - before we started really messing it up with meat & eggs & dairy. Thanks & keep up the great educational entertainment.
I am so glad I found this channel! Laura Ingalls Wilder mentioned parched corn, not ground but the kernels themselves. I always wondered how to parch corn. It sounds great. The ash cake looked good, though I must confess the mush didn’t appeal to me. Thanks for such wonderful videos.
Milk or cream and butter, or milk/cream and a spoonful of jelly/preserves makes it into a very good kid's breakfast. We ate this way made with grits and from oatmeal.
It’s so cool reading all these comments of folks from different cultures that can all relate to parched corn and corn mush! People have been eating the same all over the world for centuries!
saute' field corn longer (about 1/2 hr) LOTS lower heat. Do not burn. I add a little butter and seasonings. Puffs up and tastes great, very much like CorNuts.
Koreans have a type of parched barley tea that sounds amazingly similar to Sagamite (idk if I spelled that correctly). We use the whole grain instead of pounding it into powder, but it's delicious and tastes like toasted cereal grains, so I assume it to taste very similar to what you concocted from the parched corn. It's so interesting to see the similarities between cultures separated from each other by thousands of miles and across open seas. Love this channel and it's light hearted love for the past.
I had once tried Cherokee bean bread but I wasn't sure if I was on the right track. This episode gave me quite a bit of insight into the corn's preparation. Will have to revisit this.
The "tea" reminds me of Korean corn tea - Oksusu-cha. It's a popular drink in summer and is supposed to be rich in Vitamin E. I've had it many times and it tastes naturally somewhat sweet and has a flavor like really good popcorn.
Curious about the sagamite I did a little looking and found a couple of interesting things.Merriram-webster defines it as a thin porridge or hulled corn. Wikipedia defines it as a stew made from hominy and grease with root vegetables, wild rice and a meat of the day. I see several references to a Native American restaurant called Sagamite. A search for parched corn tea brings up a recipe of 1 tablespoon added to 1 pint of hot water. I am thinking your source for the word sagamite may have used it incorrectly. That is not to say the recipe was wrong just not named correctly. I am VERY interested in this tea though and may very well be roasting corn this weekend and the Georgia museum of agriculture - Living history museum.
Just now caught this one. Really interesting episode with some compelling culinary techniques. I especially liked the cooked in salt and cooked in ashes versions of this. Considering doing the ash one over a campfire with hominy, then making cheesy grits or polenta with some roasted chicken and gravy. Thanks Townsends.
Mexicans make a drink called Atole which is cornmeal that has been cooked very wet. It's thick and loaded with energy. During holidays, there is a version called Champorado that is flavored with cacao and cinnamon. Super delicious and filling on a cold night.
depending on the iroquoian tribe sagamite is different, for the Huron/Wendat/Wyandot, sagamite is actually a soup that is a full meal, you would usually add fish to it although nowadays we add moose to it and sometimes salted pork
As always your videos entertain and educate. Thanks for all that. I had a thought when you discussed separating the charcoal/ash from the corn. I don't know if the indigenous tribes used wood like you did. Different types of woods create different types of heat and ash. Some had a high burn and then the ashes would crumble once cooled. When I was in China a few years ago I was in a remote province (either Guilin or Guanxi) and saw the local community harvest rice. They would thresh the rice using hand equipment to separate the chaff. Then they would spread the rice on large flat mats (about 5 by 7 feet) and then toss the rice and chaff upward to winnow out the chaff. It would just blow away in the wind. If, in your example, the ash had crumbled sufficiently I assume it would be lighter than the corn and perhaps 'winnowed' in a similar manner.
Looks very interesting. I'm going to try this and then mix the meal into a chunk of heated pemmican. I melted a pemmican cake I made and then refried some boiled rice in it. That came out good and tasty. I think the parched corn would do well that way. Always enjoy your presentations. Keep 'em coming!
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"If you like that burnt popcorn taste..." Jon is always looking on the bright side of not starving.
Well, you don't need to burn it, he did overcook it till it was blackened. 😂
@@MicukoFeltonexactly. Dude scorches everything
As we all know, what makes John's videos so appealing is his unbounded enthusiasm, and I think that enthusiasm has never been on more prominent display than when he's eating pure gruel.
Or talking about nutmeg.
gruel and nutmeg... lets be honest
@@ryanshelefontiuk9578 grog, gruel, and nutmeg
@@thebrewster Yum.
Gruel is watered down oatmeal that parched corn is quite sweet there's a massive difference.
I grew up eating corn mush. Add chunks of squash and meat and sweeten with maple sugar or add salt. dried/fresh berries. It is delicious. Add kernels to soups. I grew up on a iroquios reserve btw lol good vid. It is a versatile ingredient. Dont buy the bland store bought corn meal. Make your own. Tortillas and tamales are amazing make with this stuff. You's missing out lol.
Here Is a simple recipe an average person that you can make from grocery store. Buy corn meal from store take about 2 cups and put into dry frying pan or sauce pan over high heat and stir and agitate(shake) constantly so it doesnt burn until corn meal turns a brown colour and the toasted aroma come off of it OR make your own parched corn flour/meal as seen in video. Take about 3 cups of water to a simmer and slowly add your 2 cups of meal stir in into a soupy mush add more water as needed, if too watery just let simmer until it thickens or add more meal if you wish. Then, fry smoked bacon until crispy, chop into chunks then add to mush and sweeten slightly with maple syrup(or brown sugar) simmer on low heat until corn meal is softened. corn meal as you can imagine being highly processed cooks fairly quick. But home made parched corn will take a while longer and may require a few additions of water to maintain a mushy consistency. Bolster this type of a mush with chunks of squash or dried/fresh berries or a a can of kidney beans (sky is the limit) and enjoy :)
I used to have to make this when I was going to school living in the city away from my home lands and had make a grocery store substitute it wasnt to bad
Tyrone Deer sounds great. Can’t wait to try it.
I've always heard that Indigenous Iroquois ate corn, but no further description of how it was prepared. Your explanation is perfect! It makes so much more sense than the way I imagined, which was roasting whole ears and eating corn on the cob. I couldn't ever imagine how it could be kept for a long time and wondered. Now I have some better ideas thanks to you.
So, would you put this is water and add pemmican to it ? ... because that combination sounds somewhat like the dish you describe ... and even though i have only seen both and never tasted either, the combination (especially pemmican with berries) sounds like it will turn into a very tasty 'meat stew'.
That actually sounds pretty good. I usually just turn corn meal into corn bread, but I think i'm going to try this sometime. Cheers!
@@999Giustina Indians also would just soak corn/maize and pound it to make a flour or just make hominy. You can purchase hominy at the grocery store in yellow or white at least locally and a lot of people around here made it and ate it.
"Very nice, slightly flavored water."
Everything about this is hilarious.
Huge fan of this guys videos.
People in the far north of Scotland in places like Caithness, Orkney and Shetland in the late 19th century/early 20th century used to parch their barley and oats like this for summer use. They would roast the grains together in pots, beat them up with a spade and then sift to a fine powder. They called the flour/meal "burstin" and made it into thick griddle cakes with butter a bit like your ash cake but called a "burstin broonie". The most common way of eating it was without cooking; they just stirred it into buttermilk, sour milk or new milk. They also made a drink called "pramm" by putting a handful in a bowl, adding a pinch of salt and pouring hot milk into it until it was a creamy consistency. People in mainland Scotland also made a drink called "blenshaw" or "stoorum" by pouring hot milk into a mug with oatmeal and some salt or sugar and nutmeg, leaving it for a bit then drinking the starchy milk after the grains settled. I think farm labourers and nursing mothers drank it.
When you tried to heat your meal a bit in a pan it reminded me of the oatmeal brose I sometimes make for breakfast when I'm too lazy to make porridge, but I just wet the oats with boiling water, add a teaspoon of butter and salt and leave it for 5 minutes. That's not my invention though, it's a traditional Scottish dish (look up the song "Brose and Butter") but it tastes better if you toast the oats first.
Very interesting info! Thank you.
The descendants of the french in Louisiana U.S.A. have a version of Hagis made with pork. I think it is essentially the same recipe. Have you ever tried it? They call it "Boudin rouge". I have only tried "Boudin blanc". It's quite good.
Richard Yates That's very interesting, I just had a look at a recipe online for "boudin rouge". I've never had it; I had some French boudin noir once with calvados and apples which was delicious, but I'd love to try the Cajun stuff. I think the main difference I can see is that haggis has no blood in it and uses lungs/heart and more offal instead of muscle meat, but the rice in the boudin rouge reminds me of the oats in our haggis. We also have lots of onion like a boudin and it tastes very peppery, but we also use a good bit of suet whereas boudins looked leaner in comparison. The actual appearance seems really similar though, but we usually serve it in little heaps on plates, scooped out of the casing (formerly a stomach but now plastic).
That said, you're right to draw attention to the close ties between the cuisine of the South and Scotland/Northern Ireland. Southern food or especially African American soul food i.e. grits, hoe cakes, collard greens, big breakfasts, lots of sour dairy is very similar to 19th century (and even modern) Scottish food. I suspect all the Scots and Ulster-Scots settlers in the South had a considerable influence; unfortunately the legacy of Scotland in slavery probably plays a part too. But all in all oatmeal in Scotland was very much like corn in the south; a lot of people here still take their oatmeal porrridge savoury with salt and cream, though butter was once popular like grits. I'm also always reminded of how the Irish feel about sodabread when I hear Southern people expressing their distaste for too much sugar in their cornbread.
I'm descended from Scots in the state of Virginia and comparing their version of Haggis to what I have only ever seen, not tasted (apparently the same youtube video you watched) , and assumed, from the darker color that it would be more comparable to the red version our Cajun brothers make. The family style Haggis (which I was to young to prepare personally) was mutton with barley I believe, it had the hearts and lungs etc. as you mentioned and very little muscle meat it smelled like the Boudin blanc cajun version, but I can't imagine why it would have had a darker color other than they were also adding the blood. The states-side Scots breed had very little to do with slavery as a whole, the majority seem to have moved to the northern mid-west of America; apparently to avoid being mistaken for whitey. And no we never add any sugar to our cornbread, we are a savory bunch. Thanks for the reply.
Alexander Mulholland i
"Dried Hominy meal" is Masa. Mix it with water, roll it thin, bake it, and you have a corn tortilla. Tortillas are NOT made with plain, normal corn meal. The corn is hominy corn.
You must soak it in ash.
@Det Nine true, that's how you release vitamins like Niacin in corn. Early settlers developed a condition called Pellagra because they switched from European wheat to Mesoamerican corn as their staple grain and ended up developing the disease. It lead to malnutrition and the pellagra can cause alot of serous health problems and killed many early settlers until they caught on to using hominy.
And the rest of the meals are what Mexican natives call "Pinole" it's still very popular in Mexico
galanie Arepas forever!!!!!!!!!
Hominy is one of those things that has been lost to a point over time.
"if you like that burnt popcorn taste than this might be the thing for you" 😂😂😂😂
nothing like eating that burnt popcorn kernel left on the bottom of the bowl
Ya gotta mash it up for the "good" taste to come out!
My wife never lets me eat the best popcorn kernels, saying they are unhealthy to eat. I don't believe her.
I’ll stick my neck out here and admit I *like* burnt popcorn! Not actually charred to charcoal, but very near. It’d be easy to carry a little salt, and that’d be perfect for me. Being a Star Trek Salt Monster 😉.
ITS GOT A LOT OF FLAVOR TO IT
I think we finally found a dish Jon doesn't like: Cold feedcorn mush.
I've eaten stuff kinda of like that and it does taste like crap, but theres nothing better than a ton of starch when you've gone a few days without food.
Cold, BURNT, corn mush.
Lol
I'm a little embarressed to say when i was in a hurry I've eaten cold mush like that. When my microwave was busted at work and i didnt have time to go anywhere i just dumped warm water on some oatmeal and ate it raw.
@@akxdev hell yeah, you have any idea how cold it is in Northrend. I need to defrost that owlbear meat somehow
I can smell your brain struggling not to say a bad thing about the flavour LOL
"Interesting Flavor" we all know what that means, lol
cerberus144 😂
I prefer to call the flavour "Sadness and depression"
Same goes for "slightly flavored water"
LMAO
"Eating coffee grounds has to be much worse than this." Is not exactly a ringing endorsement.
Note to self: Don't burn the parched corn.... it'll be a long trip.
If you make several batches before departure, you can sort them into a light, medium and dark roast. Then as you go you mix them to create flavor varieties
@@4philipp did they do that back then? Actually a pretty smart move
Make multiple batches, and trade the burnt (I mean blackened) corn with the Indians for something else. 🤔🤫
😆
It's probably obvious by now, but he reason your corn tastes like coffee grounds or burnt popcorn is that you burned the bejabbers out of it when you parched it. Next time, toast the corn kernels slowly over a much lower heat.
yeah I imagine the taste would be alot softer and cornier if it wasn;t that burnt. Some of the corn were burn to a solid black I can imagine what that did to the taste
Gary Cooper LMAO!! What a great post!! I'm STILL laughing! I haven't heard bejabbers in years!❤️😂
Sue Castillo we always said Bejeebers. I researched it once. It used to be bejesus, but the Bible Belt felt that was too close to blasphemy so they altered it further. Sort of like the exclamation, Fudge! Rather than the other 4 lettered f word.
Gary Cooper I love your response!❤️❤️❤️😝
True ! My Granny would have boxed his ears when she saw he had burnt the corn that much.....slow and steady she would say.
Could've used a little nutmeg ;)
Tim Doerner lol
mushroom ketchup
Mushmeg
🤣🤣😂😆
In Mexico we call "Pinole" to the corn toasted an turn into a powder. You can make "atole" with it... congrats for your excelent channel.
My neighbors from Durango have prepared and given me this exact recipe for "blenshaw" or "stoorum" that Mr. Mulholland has given here, but the "Chef" not speaking english as fluently as her husband, was unable to understand which nombre I was asking for and just called it aveeno. Is there a specific name for this dish in the spanish language please?
Richard Yates I'm not sure... "aveeno" sounds to me like "avena"... the avena is the same thing like your "oats". We take some Oats and mix with milk to make "atole de avena", with some raisins and some cinnamon and sugar. Or to make cookies.
Sorry about my English.
Thank you, maybe it has no name then.
Decimo Maximo Meridio
Yeah. They also make gorditas de dulce snd quajada.
Jon tried really hard to sell this one.
Props for keeping a straight face while eating some of that stuff.
Jon, you have only redoubled my respect for you by using the initial results of the parching experiment. I imagine in general practice the kernels might not have been parched quite so dark; that said, I can imagine worse flavors than scorched popcorn, especially since there's no burnt butter to go with it. Thank you for doing these videos. I've learned a lot from both.
There is a breakfast dish in Bolivia (in the lowland foothills of the state of Santa Cruz) called Piré
A corn meal porridge, where you toast the corn meal first the add water until it soaks up. Then you add some salt and cheese. This Reminded me a lot of that.
Bolivians cook corn in so many ways and it is often toasted before hand, it in deed changes the flavor...in a good way...as long as it is not toasted too much ;)
In 1950 my grandpa marched into Korea to help prop up the north, he had a sack of parch corn/rice/whatever grain available and said he would eat a handful of that and then a handful of snow to wash it down.
Actually the soldier could break down the rice by putting a handful into a cloth sack and pounding with a rock or club (pestle and mortar). Empty the crushed rice into a container using only enough to make a thick drink. I bet the NKoreans wished for this much rice today. My father fought this episode in 1953 to 1955. He came home with a serious head wound ( the bullet ripped his scalp back several inches cracking the skull; this was replaced with a metal plate and the scalp brought forward and reattached to the forehead) in late 1955. We ate ground rice with vegetable sides or an egg for a meal. Quite good.
Le Di Chang: we take so much for granted. Thank you for your story.
my brother died last week and watching your episodes on TH-cam has helped me with his loss it helps me be able to get up every morning and want to cook and I thank you very much for helping me with my depression
I'm sorry for your loss. ❤
Thank you Linda for that comment. My oldest, dearest son, age 41 just died a month ago after a three month nightmare with cancer. I am just beginning to return to my TH-cam friends, like this happy channel, and it is such a nice break from my sorrow. I may bake bread again..... I hope you are feeling much better now, Linda.
Blacktimus Prime Thank you! God bless you!
i am also sorry for your loss,
weltvonalex thank you Welt. We will all be together again one day. I look forward to that endless sunny day.
In my comment after the previous episode I mention that cowboy reenactors would make parched corn. How that came to be a cowboy food is interesting. During the Civil War soldiets from the rural South showed their fellow soldiers how to make a grain using the dried corn still on the cob. This would help them survive the winter. Properly parched corn has an increased protein amount.
This was brought west after the Civil War. These rural boys taught recipes learned from their grandma's who learned from theirs. Cookies, the cooks on the chuck wagon, would use ground, parched corn to supplement or even replace grains like rye and wheat.
Books and newspaper accounts from the 1870's even mention parched peas!
I do not believe that this was something sudden but a heritage that dates back to the first contact with Native Americans.
To give more context. Feed corn was left to dry on the cob in the field. Confederate soldiers, at the end of summer, were given sacks of either cobs or shelled feed corn. It would almost impossible to grind it so parched corn. The end of the summer is when the cattle trains set out...parched corn. The beggining of fall is when serious hunting for winter occurred...parched corn.
You know how Jon sometimes talks about having the best commenters on TH-cam? That's you, right here.
I actually use ground split peas in my bread recipes sometimes, so I will definitely try toasting them first. I probably won't go as dark as in this episode and the last though. That seems closer to burnt.
I'd love to see a mock-outtake at 4:18 where John spits it out and then continues talking enthusiastically so the edit can pick up :P
:D
Thanks so very much for posting the two episodes on parched corn. Over the years, I've read many references to parched corn in stories and novels. I had always assumed the corn was eaten like parched peanuts. I had also read an account of a Native
American war party, moving fast, and about how they carried corn meal. They would pause only a few minutes at a creek, taka very small handful of corn meal, hold it in the water a moment, then eat it. While the account rings true, I would imagine that it was not corn meal, but your parched corn meal. I really want to try this. Thanks again.
mix it with chocolate and sugar and you have atole, a native mexican drink
Exactly! He's making Pinole!
The Spaniard Celts did like the Scots and used roasted grains with milk. They still do today, chocolate is just one version.
Thanks for helping me appreciate both the hardships of my ancestors and the incredible bounty of my local supermarket!
We've got it way too easy!
Always wondered about 'parched corn'. My gggg-grandfather spoke about surviving on a hand-full of parched corn a day at Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War.
The Japanese have commercially available toasted rice and green tea, probably originating from adding water and tea to rice left in the cooking pot. So parched corn tea has a modern cousin. I have tried toasted rice tea it and I really enjoy the cereal flavour in what is a very comforting sipping tea.
I've had that too, very nice tea.
Pete Thomas Are you talking about genmaicha? If so, I whole-heartedly agree. Phenomenal-tasting tea! ☺
Arheru - I am! I'm glad you agree. Same to Wingedshadowwolf.
I used to drink horlicks which is based on malted barley, wheat flour and milk.
Horlicks was always a bedtime drink for us as kids. We also have Ovaltine in the UK - which is cereal based. Malted milk shakes are great too.
John, thank you for another fascinating cooking demo.
I was very interested in the idea that parching the corn made is a sustainable food base. The whole point of the nixtamalization (lye treatment) was to make the bound niacin and other vitamins more available. I went looking for more into on the actual nutrient value of parching the corn and then grinding. One study from 1974 found that roasting maize released the bound niacin. (Roasting maize can release bound niacin (Kodicek and others 1974). Along the way I came across a clever modern way to toast / roast the corn kernels - an air popper. The demonstration showed that air popping the flint / field or ancient dried kernels resulted in either no pop or a tiny pop all of which were ground to meal. I was trying to find any way of releasing the niacin and vitamins without resorting to lime/lye treatment.
That IS interesting.
Again is amazing how native American came up with the same dishes all over the continent. In Nicaragua we have Tiste, Pinol and Pinolillo which is basically parched corn, cacao beens and different spices. Great video thank you.
That sounds like something I would like to try. What spices please?
There is a difference in milling that I suspect is the result of different maize preparation techniques. In the Southwest nearly all corn is milled on a metate with a handstone or mano. This is roughly equivalent to neolithic querns and mullers in Europe. But parching the maize allows it to be processed in a mortar. The use of sand or salt is especially interesting.
Thanks for doing the research!
Hey buddy
Hey buddy
I really appreciate your telling us that these are interesting flavors, and that these are guesses at the accuracy of the original recipes--i.e. the aboriginal recipes. Thanks for all the research and the field testing!
In brazil we use the corn meal and mix it with different seasonings to create a sort of traditional topping powder called farofa. You can also make farofa with toasted cassava/manioc flour instead of corn (how it was always made before corn was introduced to brazil).Normally, you eat it mixed with rice and beans but you can eat it in other dishes too. Love yr channel!!
I so Love his honesty and willingness to try and explain the taste and texture. He is why I keep watching. Thank You so much.
I enjoyed both of these videos. When I was a little girl my Grandmother would make parched corn for us as a treat and we would eat it whole. I don't remember it popping. She would cook it with a little salt. It was the way that the mormon pioneers prepared and ate it.
This is called Pinolio in Nicaragua, it’s grounded up corn and other spices, you combine it with water or milk and then add sugar for sweetness. It’s part of my culture so I’ve never thought of it as a source of food in times of scarcity but that makes total sense. Some of my family members just make the drink as a meal substitute late at night or for a snack.
When I was growing up, my great-grandmother would parch corn, and we just ate the parched kernels as-is. A bag full of parched corn went on many a fishing trip. I don't think we ever used them for anything else.
I grew up in southern West Virginia in the 1950s eating parched corn as a snack. I remember Dad would bring home cobs of dried corn, and we'd shell it into a pan. The corn was rough and brittle so my fingertips would be scraped up by the time I was done. Mom would cook it, and we'd eat it warm with salt. I'll have to check with her (she's now 98 and going strong) to see what type of corn we used and how she prepared it. The taste reminds me of corn nuts, very crunchy, which you can buy at any convenience store in the snack section.
*makes a mini cringe face telling you he is now questioning every decision he's ever made in his life* "well it's got a lotta flavor to it"
" questioning every decision he's ever made in his life " really? do you know that for certain?
That's all of humanity, actually.
lucasmetro 😂😂😂😂‼️
seronymus It’s called a joke.
Sue Castillo yhuriruririddiufjuirieisjrjufiffrrxizddnfjddjdfijedirfufuffiururv bffuihgbb
There is an old Indian dish called sattu. It is also similar... you roast and pound bengal grams. with water and sugar it tastes like heaven and with a little bit of salt and lime its the most filling thing.
This is really cool. I was just reading a reference to the drink in "The Book of Camping and Woodcraft: A Guide For Those Who Travel In The Wilderness" by Horace Kephart. The book was produced in 1910 and says that travels could survive for months with a bag of parched corn supplementing with what they could hunt or fish. Quite awesome to see it made. I'll have to try it out!
"it's got allot of flavor"....."allot of burnt flavor" 😂
I love how excited he is about heated up corn. This is a man in love with his craft, pray that we’re all so lucky in our endeavors. .
Thank you for sharing this amazing knowledge with us! I've never heard about parched corn as a source of survival food and I will try it.
I really appreciate all this knowledge from the 18th century, and how the people survive without the current food suppliers.
We, as humans, we endure, we survived, we are creative.
Have contact with this ancient knowledge is really important.
Thank you again, keep this channel alive.
Regards from a Brazilian follower.
You have to roast the kernels slowly until you smell a pleasant aroma, or until they are golden, or they stop popping. Depends on the corn. You have to keep an eye on them. Your goal is to keep the kernels from turning black. If they turn black really quick the skillet is to hot. You slightly burnt this patch. You can still use it on the trail, but it'll taste well you experienced the taste. Also if you could get one a small stone, or ceramic (is best lighter in weight) mortar and pestle are great when making small patches for the trail. Parched corn tastes great. I've gotten ash cakes to taste like plain corn bread though I do recommend using a little sugar, or salt. If you're going to just mix it with water in a bowl it can taste like wet plain corn flakes, and for the Parched corn drink with just water Parched Sweet corn warm the water up a bit pour it in the cup let it sit, and you have a slightly sweet drink to enjoy by the fire.
It's so fun to watch someone with so much enthusiasm and passion for what they do. It reminds me of my favorite teachers; they weren't teaching you so much as sharing the delight they took in something they truly loved.
I giggled a bit at the mention of being like eating coffee grounds. Ground coffee is actually a condiment and spice ingredient in some Indian (sub continent, not tribal reference) cooking. I was skeptical but ground coffee as a seasoning for a spicy curry workks quite well.
I usually use some ground coffee when making chili, stew and roasting (as a rub).
ground coffee is also a secret ingredient to gourmet chocolate chip cookies. it gives it a richness that complements the chocolate chips and butter like you wont believe. its essence actually hides itself fairly well in this secret mixture
When I was a kid, we ate parched corn all the time. We did not grind it up, we just added the kernels to our popping corn to warm them in the skillet. They were very dry and had a unique flavor that tasted more like a plain "corn-nut" you might get at the store.
When we were kids we would take corn meal or cereal and make a drink out of it and sometimes cook it like that in the fire when allowed. It is nice to know we were kinda doing something others did before. Would of been so cool to know some history like that behind dishes and to know how to make the meal. We did the store stuff but in our minds, we were being inventive.
I love how excited you are about this! Really gives me that camping itch! Gotta try this!
There is a national dish in Kenya made with ground corn called ‘Ugali’ that looks like it could be similar. It’s generally eaten with vegetables or a stew
Tony Cheema Ugali is great! I loved the version mixed with greens. Kinyegi I think it was called. Very good with a bit of beef with broth.
This is a staple with the Kenyan marathon/ultra distance runners in training..
I bought parched corn at the Korean grocery store. They sell it as "Corn tea." They simmer the corn for nearly 20 minutes. I haven't tried it yet, but I bet it has an interesting flavor.
Primitive Technology, is a favorite channel on you tube on how to learn to build a shelter with nothing but what you find in nature. This channel is awesome in so many ways. As I see it, after I have shelter I need to know how to survive day by day. This is one of the best Basic living video series EVER!!! Townsends your doing an awesome work by preserving knowledge and sharing it with the world.
Thanks, I am glad you enjoy the channel!
I am glad to see you sift out the finer particles as you go along. It really helps to keep the over-all grinding process on track. And you can use different size particles for different uses. That is a helpful principle in grinding most things. I also find that soaking grains, beans, cracked foods for a while in water greatly increases their palatability.
If you go to a Korean grocery store, in the tea section, you'll find roasted corn tea. It's one of my favorites!
In Peru, they boil purple corn strain it and add sugar - chicha morada
It's sooooo good 💖
I want some now >.>
Time to check if I have the ingredients :3
There was a paper published in the Oxford (UK) University Food Coloquium journal many years ago on Grits, and the conclusion from 17th Century accounts was that it was prepared (soaked) over night then 'cooked' all day - everyone came in for the evening meal and when the pot was emptied the next day's Grits were prepared it it, left over night and then put on the fire when everyone was up & going out to the fields to work and left to cook slowly over the banked fire until the evening meal at sundown. Rinse, repeat.
Bless you, sir.."that burnt popcorn taste.." I laughed my ...off. Always a positive spin..thank you.
The videos you make are simply amazing. So much history and information that we are never taught. People like you keep the history alive in a world where so much is being forgotten.
I've never seen a man that excited about corn. That's something you'll find only in this precious channel. Thanks a bunch for sharing your experiences with 18th century cooking, they're really inspirational.
I am amazed by this channel. I really consider it to be the best channel on YT to my taste. It's a statement in itself how consistently good the videos are year after year after year. Kudos!
I love how excited you get. It makes me excited.
I love this show and especially Mr Townsend. The attire really makes it. As well as the period pieces of cookware and table ware.
But he’s right about the flavor it can be strong. With that being said many things were brought together and used to stretch resources. So most of this stuff could be made using regular wheat flour or wheat flour and used as extenders or to add those flavors and make them more palatable.
I used to make crocks of beer with my grandpa. And Apple jack. And made lots of beef jerky and tinctures. All kinds of stuff. It’s fun.
The early mountain men mixed a bit of sugar in with the parched corn and carried that way for different methods of cooking. You did an outstanding job of showing how making it is done....... my thanks for all your work.
I bet if you added some molasses and or maple syrup and a pinch of salt all of these things would ahve tasted fairly decent...
RobRuckus65, look up "alboroto salvadoreño" right here on TH-cam
I love learning the old ways! Love this channel. Now I’ve got to try this lol . What a great survival party experience this will be. Yes I’m having a survival part ha. Building our village. Blessings to you from NM♥️
The ash cake version actually looked like it might be kinda good.
kinda good for building IKEA furniture.
is it unhealthy to eat ash? im genuinely curious
@@eldwinc9884 isnt it just carbon
It seems that I remember a western writer (Louis L'Amour, maybe Forrest Carter?) who mentioned the use of parched then ground corn as the ultimate energy food. During long, rapid journeys it was thrown into the mouth then swallowed incrementally as the limited water was taken in over the course of several hours.
A couple of points. One they warned not to burn the corn when parching it. They usually added sugar in equal parts, whether maple or regular sugar. Take 2-3 tablespoons of the mix, add water and drink immediately. Most of the time they just put it in their mouths and drank from their canteen to help swallow it. The sugar was important for quick energy. By consuming the meal that way it would swell in your stomach and you would feel full. Call it cold flour, pinole, rock a hominy and sometimes just parched corn. Cold flour was the common term used most of the time.
I really appreciate Your program and the knowledge You share. Outstanding!!
Thank you for doing more of these "survival" type foods! I've often wondered what a long, cheap trek across untamed lands would be like in the past, and these videos really help me understand what cheap, portable, relatively non-perishable foods were available.
Please do more videos like this!
Quick question: If you were to go on a 500 mile trek across, say the Appalachian Mountains, what sort of food would you pack? How long could you go on that food, and how often would you have to resupply at trading posts or towns, or even by hunting?
I loved these two videos! It was great to get a chance to follow the ingredients and see different ways one could cook them up. You guys did a great job! Thanks for doing these!
In Korean we drink a lot of toasted grain tea. We drink it hot and also chilled. It's not too bad.
If you know how to forage, the flavors of the parched corn would actually be a good base. Grab some wild herbs as you walk, mix 'em when you take a break. Heck, you don't even have to stop; mix and eat as you walk.
I learned about parched, or toasted, corn and wheat in a summer camp I went to in '89. We learned a lot of survival skills and techniques that trace to the Native Americans and colonialists.
I'm thinking something like this might be good to add to a batch of hard tack.
This is pretty similar to a traditional food that my people (the mvskoke creek) have called sofke (pronounced sof-key). It's like hominy or posole that's been ground (you see it a number of ways from very coarse to very fine) and then prepared as a porridge, which is sometimes allowed to ferment, and sometimes prepared as a drink like the Iroquois one shown above (typicaly made with the very fine meal), just the cornmeal and cold water, which is drunk, meal and all.
Love your videos Sir. I have always been very interested in that time period and enjoy seeing how passionate you are. My wife and I watch all of your videos and hope there are many more to come. Can't wait to make the 4 hour trip to your store.
I think you should revisit this one day.
You are so wonderful and this channel is so calming! I've watched a ton of your videos but somehow have never subscribed. I am so now and I need to go back and like em all! Thank you so much for everything you do!!!
Jon, how do you think a squirrel roasted on the fire go with the hominy parched corn go for an end of the day meal on the trail?
It would be pretty funny if they actually just used the corn to catch squirrels and birds, but as a prank they always told the new guys that the corn was the meal and somewhere along the way the prank became history.
Having hunted squirrels (w/ a sling shot) with my other young feral friends -- squirrel isn't bad at all but there isn't much to it. A couple of them in a simple stew with the hominy, some salt and maybe some forage could be tasty.
The mush version looks...interesting, but i think you could mix it with some ground dried meat before adding the water. It would be a nice seasoning and a protein source as well.
Corn is already a protein source.
But not balanced. This is calories and it has some protein, but you couldn't make a steady diet of corn alone for that and other reasons. Beans prepared the same way, animal products, etc. would be good additions if you can get them.
👍Good info & demo. Also corn has many uses. When it is ground, people could make a porridge, corn cakes and corn milk by adding water. Mexicans have been drinking “atole” for a long time and it dates back to Mesoamerican empires. Originally, it was made as a blend of maize and water. Sometimes served warm and as a breakfast since ancient times. It is still popular in Mexico and sometimes is flavored with chocolate or strawberry etc. 💞
My fave episodes so far! Really useful and interesting!
Fascinating! Love your channel. Glad I subscribed yesterday after the Pantry Prepper channel gave yours a shout out. Will be passing the word about this channel. Thank you!
More parched corn recipes! This is great stuff. The staples of the native peoples & early settlers. Love this stuff. Real food - before we started really messing it up with meat & eggs & dairy. Thanks & keep up the great educational entertainment.
Thanks for the experiment, Jon. Parched corn is something I have heard of but knew nothing g about. Great information. Thanks.
Other than my grandma, I have never seen someone react to corn with such a wholesome joy; Great video!
I love your videos. The content and your narrative are very informative and entertaining. Thank you for giving us your channel!
I am so glad I found this channel! Laura Ingalls Wilder mentioned parched corn, not ground but the kernels themselves. I always wondered how to parch corn. It sounds great. The ash cake looked good, though I must confess the mush didn’t appeal to me. Thanks for such wonderful videos.
Milk or cream and butter, or milk/cream and a spoonful of jelly/preserves makes it into a very good kid's breakfast. We ate this way made with grits and from oatmeal.
It’s so cool reading all these comments of folks from different cultures that can all relate to parched corn and corn mush! People have been eating the same all over the world for centuries!
saute' field corn longer (about 1/2 hr) LOTS lower heat. Do not burn. I add a little butter and seasonings. Puffs up and tastes great, very much like CorNuts.
Educational videos. Thanks for sharing with us.
Koreans have a type of parched barley tea that sounds amazingly similar to Sagamite (idk if I spelled that correctly). We use the whole grain instead of pounding it into powder, but it's delicious and tastes like toasted cereal grains, so I assume it to taste very similar to what you concocted from the parched corn. It's so interesting to see the similarities between cultures separated from each other by thousands of miles and across open seas. Love this channel and it's light hearted love for the past.
i LOVE THIS CHANNEL, its like a living window into the past, keep up the good work
I had once tried Cherokee bean bread but I wasn't sure if I was on the right track. This episode gave me quite a bit of insight into the corn's preparation. Will have to revisit this.
The "tea" reminds me of Korean corn tea - Oksusu-cha. It's a popular drink in summer and is supposed to be rich in Vitamin E. I've had it many times and it tastes naturally somewhat sweet and has a flavor like really good popcorn.
Curious about the sagamite I did a little looking and found a couple of interesting things.Merriram-webster defines it as a thin porridge or hulled corn. Wikipedia defines it as a stew made from hominy and grease with root vegetables, wild rice and a meat of the day. I see several references to a Native American restaurant called Sagamite.
A search for parched corn tea brings up a recipe of 1 tablespoon added to 1 pint of hot water. I am thinking your source for the word sagamite may have used it incorrectly. That is not to say the recipe was wrong just not named correctly. I am VERY interested in this tea though and may very well be roasting corn this weekend and the Georgia museum of agriculture - Living history museum.
So interesting ! It is pleasure indeed to see and learn even though such "ordinary" yet so humanely nice and traditional things. Thanks a lot !
Just now caught this one. Really interesting episode with some compelling culinary techniques. I especially liked the cooked in salt and cooked in ashes versions of this. Considering doing the ash one over a campfire with hominy, then making cheesy grits or polenta with some roasted chicken and gravy. Thanks Townsends.
Mexicans make a drink called Atole which is cornmeal that has been cooked very wet. It's thick and loaded with energy. During holidays, there is a version called Champorado that is flavored with cacao and cinnamon. Super delicious and filling on a cold night.
depending on the iroquoian tribe sagamite is different, for the Huron/Wendat/Wyandot, sagamite is actually a soup that is a full meal, you would usually add fish to it although nowadays we add moose to it and sometimes salted pork
As always your videos entertain and educate. Thanks for all that. I had a thought when you discussed separating the charcoal/ash from the corn. I don't know if the indigenous tribes used wood like you did. Different types of woods create different types of heat and ash. Some had a high burn and then the ashes would crumble once cooled. When I was in China a few years ago I was in a remote province (either Guilin or Guanxi) and saw the local community harvest rice. They would thresh the rice using hand equipment to separate the chaff. Then they would spread the rice on large flat mats (about 5 by 7 feet) and then toss the rice and chaff upward to winnow out the chaff. It would just blow away in the wind. If, in your example, the ash had crumbled sufficiently I assume it would be lighter than the corn and perhaps 'winnowed' in a similar manner.
Looks very interesting. I'm going to try this and then mix the meal into a chunk of heated pemmican. I melted a pemmican cake I made and then refried some boiled rice in it. That came out good and tasty. I think the parched corn would do well that way. Always enjoy your presentations. Keep 'em coming!