Every time I hear bedight, it always brings up the poem Eldorado, by Poe, because I love Poe, and that poem was my only exposure to the word up until these videos, and it also happens to be the very first thing in the poem. "Gaily bedight, a gallant knight in sunshine and in shadow, had journeyed long, singing a song, in search of Eldorado"
This makes me wonder: Maybe in the medieval "ginger" was a more generic term than it is today. In my native language German, "Pfeffer" used to refer to any kind of spices that packed heat, and not just what we know as pepper today. Perhaps medieval English referred to many 'hot' spices as "ginger" even they had nothing to with ginger as we understand the term today?
I'd wondered if it was ginger in the British sense of "red", especially when Max mentioned the sandlewood just adding a reddish color. So maybe gingerbread being any reddish spiced dessert bread?
That's quite likely. In this era there is very little standardization and a lot of recipes were created simply from the description of what someone had elsewhere but using local ingredients. Its part of why you'll often find multiple things under the same name but with very different recipes as he's demonstrated in some of his other episodes. Cooking from a written recipe would be incredibly unusual and even those rarely include any sort of detailed instructions. So even if they were using the same ingredients you could still end up with wildly different results.
English also shared the same unambiguous use of "pepper," with things like coriander, grains of paradise and eventually even allspice being referred to as peppers continuing through the colonial period. I know that by the Tudor period, "ginger" is used very specifically, and is more frequently in medicinal recipes, but we begin to see references to other recipes within given recipes, much like today where, in the US, we'd call gingerbread spice, "Pumpkin Spice," or y'all would call it "Lebkuchengewurz" (except with the diacritic).
@@sion-dafyddlocke9913 really? Pumpkin spice is Lebkuchen? I always assumed that "pumpkin spice anything" was that special kind of american taste that also brought us deep fried marsbars... If it is Lebkuchen I might actually dare to try the stuff...
I got to go to one of the oldest, still functioning gingerbread factories in Europe, in Toruń, Poland. They've got a whole museum. Bottom level is medieval themed, top level is industrial revolution. Great visit if you can
I absolutely adore you, “Gingerbread was neither GINGER nor BREAD....DISCUSS!”. Your videos are such a precise balance of history, humor, and hunger cravings. You make such fascinating content and I appreciate you exist, you deserve all the abundance and joy in the world; I hope you and your loved ones are happy and healthy. 💙
Really interesting linguistic point on what “lengh” could mean. Since you have been jumping around through different eras, you’re actually pretty well placed to notice some of these trends in language usage.
@@TastingHistory Another possibly true/false piece of linguistics. My granny would always say that the word Pepper Cake came from Allspice which is called "Spicepepper" in Swedish and has a "peppery" name in many languages. It tastes a lot like cloves and often replaced it back in the day as it was a LOT cheaper.
@@TastingHistory I appreciate the work you do to translate the texts. But I do not think 'lengh' is related to the '-lenge" in boiling, because the similarity in spelling is not a reliable guide. Spelling was still not standardized at that time. And while we English speakers do like to take long words and shorten them (bus from omnibus; auto from automobile; sync from synchronize), I am doubtful that 'boiling' would need to be shortened.
@@TastingHistory I don't think "boiling" would be shortened to "lengh" because the -(l)ing part is a common suffix. That would be like shortening a word such as "addition" into "-tion" instead of "add". Too many other words share the suffix for it to be clear what the shortened form refers to. But you might have stumbled across something else! According to the OED, -ing as the suffix for present participles came from Old English -ende. "The vowel weakened in late Old English and the spelling with -g began 13c.-14c. among Anglo-Norman scribes who naturally confused it with [-ing suffix for completed or habitual actions]." So perhaps what you're seeing with the spelling of "boylenge" is part of the transition from earlier "boylende"? to modern boiling.
As someone who got her BA and MA in linguistics, you would definitely be invited to my dinner parties!! These language things are the things I like to talk at LENGH-TH about
"clove is really really strong". Me: flashes back to this morning when I spilled a bunch of cloves in my pancakes "that is correct". Also I feel oddly guilty and also grateful that I live in a time when I can have cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and chocolate in my peasant food.
I actually come from Toruń. Polish word for gingerbread is "piernik" an the word "pierny" is a bit archaic expression for spicy/peppery, because in torunski piernik, amongst other spices there was actually pepper. Greetings from Poland and happy Christmas time!
The gingerbread man walks into the gingerbread house. He sees that the material of the house is the same as his flesh. Is he made of house, or is the house made of flesh? He screams, for he does not know.
For i'm from Germany, i do appreciate Max's efforts to prenounce German words and names correctly, and yes. I'm pretty satisfied with his efforts! Max, you did indeed a good job on being accurate!!
You mention that they probably didn't eat the full cloves, but I think it's in the realm of possibility. Not because I particularly know much about food history, but because it's something that my grandpa picked up because he read somewhere that it was a good natural breath mint and that dentist's used it to numb patients mouths for procedures back in the day. I think he mostly did it for the fun story, but it caught on. I know he started it as a trend and ended up getting several of the old church elders to carry around altoid tins of whole cloves. He tried to get us kids into it, but those are pretty strong sensations for a 6 year old. Though it did eventually get me into enjoying clove flavored gum for nostalgias sake 😊
Interestingly cloves are antibacterial and do seem to have some form of pain killing quality. When I was in pharmacy school we did this amazing experiment where we extracted the different chemicals from cloves, identified them using mass spectrometry and then tested their antimicrobial activity. And 2 of the components (1 more than the other) was clearly antibacterial!
I am always pleasantly surprised how well Max is pronouncing things in German. It is so much closer than I am used to hear. Regarding "Reinheitsgebot" it says you should not add any "Geferk". As a German, I have no Idea what that is, only a hunch.
To anyone out there who has never tried Lebkuchen, I HIGHLY recommend trying it. I have the wonderful privilege of having a German father and bah gawd Lebkuchen might be my favourite thing around the holiday season!
My wife's family is German, but she is Canadian and we are Canadian, but every Christmas she gets a box of Lebkuchen sent over from Germany at great expense. To be honest I could take it or leave it. My Christmas must have is short bread and mince tarts.
My grandparents were poor Northeastern peasants and so the Bavarian/Franconia Lebkuchen was never something I grew up with. I grew up having lots of different shortbread cookies and nut based cookies. Also fruit dumpling and a Christmas cake made in the shape of a star to symbolize Polaris as it guided those to Bethlehem to see the newly born Jesus. My grandmother would put a baby Jesus in the cake and whoever found it got money.
I'm German and I live in the West of Germany. And you'll notice, that most German people don't like *Lebkuchen* that much. Depents of course, on what kind of Lebkuchen you eat. There is a kind that I enjoy; soft Lebkuchen with bitter chocolate. But there's also the less common version; the "hard" version which is mostly made out of beet syrup...so yeah not my favourite. But the soft version is.
@@crasher4737 My grandfather's housekeeper was from Cologne and she would back cookies each year - including Lebkuchen. They were always leftover lebkuchen - it's an acquired taste. But her stolen was fought over!
I wonder if the 'cakey gingerbread' got started in the US because we had molasses and sorghum and the like? My recipe for that calls for a lot of molasses.
Yeah, in my English class a story we read set in the deep south mentioned a 'cake of sorghum and molasses' and most of the class thought that it meant sorghum flour, and I wound up explaining that it was probably actually referring to sorghum syrup. Apparently none of the other students knew that that was a thing that exists... poor sorghum, people forgot about it...
We make soft gingerbread cakes in Sweden too. There's no syrup in my grandma's recipe, but it does have lingonberry jam and filmjölk to make it really moist. Ginger thins broken into pieces on top of a bowl of filmjölk is a real luxury christmas breakfast.
@@plutus2559 Lingonberries go very well in spiced cake. In my family we usually add some even though our recipe for “krydderkake” doesn’t call for any.
I appreciate the accuracy of the gingerbread given to Sir Walter "Rather a Wally" Rahleigh. It's these little details that take the videos from good to great. *chef's kiss*
About the gold leaf: In PL Travers' **Mary Poppins** Jane and Michael are taken to a shop to buy gingerbread, each slab of which is decorated with many gold stars. Later, in one of the curious happenings which were part of the Poppins Experience, they witness Mrs Corry, the proprietor of the shop, assisted by her two very tall daughters and Mary Poppins, pasting the stars in the sky from the top of a lofty ladder. So you see, the gold leaf IS important.
I've come across an Italian recipe of the period that uses polenta instead of bread crumbs. It also incorporates raisins. it's like a gingery Garibaldi biscuit.
@@TastingHistory Seriously, it's my favourite decorative object in their house. It's about 2 and a half feet tall, in the shape of an old Polish(?) man with a long pipe, a coat, and a big fur hat. No idea where they got it from, I'll have to ask them!
Greetings from Germany. My grandma used to make gingerbread houses for Christmas. One for all 4 of her children families. My aunt continues this also. So this tradition is not dead yet. :)
When my kids were little, I used to make a Gingerbread Dreidle for a centerpiece - with a removable top, and I'd fill it with a mix of Chanukah Gelt and "all-sorts" candies (mail order. Love the stuff.)
Max suppeth upon Gyngyrbredde with spices sweete and hoote, T'was assembled fromme a booke he read, and lyke it he did not! Max quaffeth Calyfornya Wyne, and drams of spirits wharm, He cooketh throughout Yule tyme, and baketh up a storm! Happy Holidays, Max! I love your content and I'm so happy that you're picking up plenty of steam on TH-cam! Good luck to you and keep up the amazing work! All the best to you and yours and best wishes for a safe and happy 2021! Happy Holidays to everyone else as well! Have a safe and happy New Year everyone!
I once tried making a gingerbread-spiced (cinnamon, ginger, cloves and cardamom) blueberry cordial. It was really quite good and was rather well-received by my family at christmas.
I was just re-watching this episode and it dawned on me where a Danish expression comes from. It's slightly old-fashioned, but we use "Schlaraffenland" to describe something in excess. This. This is why I love history!
In Sweden it is also called "Pepper Cookie", "Pepparkaka" in Swedish. I think it's because in older Swedish/Scandinavian, the word "peppar" was used for spices in general, I think. Now "peppar" is "pepper", and we have the word "kryddor" for spices. But I might be totally wrong.
Same thing with German Pfefferkuchen. The terminology around spices was not common knowledge for a long time so everything was "pepper". For the same reason the Hanseatic traders were often called "Pfeffersäcke", pepper bags, for their lucrative spice trade.
"His guests, on tasting the cake, believed they were experiencing all the delights of heaven." Man... imagine if these medieval folk took a bite of a cheesesteak, their heads would explode.
it's wild how just a month or so ago I read a fantastic astrology-focused novella which mentioned Cockaigne as part of the context surrounding the meanings we attribute to Saturn and the Moon, and now Cockaigne came up in your show! Everything is connected in such interesting ways. Thank you so much for this show, I love you man 💗
Clove is not used in the USA as an anesthetic, legally. That's because it has not been approved by the FDA as an anesthetic. But, if you are planning a dental visit, or for that matter, a permanent makeup tattoo, such as eye or lip liner (been there, done that), chewing clove gum for the dental work or lip tattoo, or applying clove oil c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y around the eye, may be a smart move.
@@simonederobert1612 Clove oil is quite "hot" and could burn one's delicate eye area. I would dilute clove oil with a carrier oil but the thought of clove oil on my face just sounds scary.
In Germany, we don't have gingerbread, but Lebkuchen - literally: cake of life. That's because a traditional German Lebkuchen consists of about 30% nuts and seeds, which makes Lebkuchen quite substancial. It also contains several spices and honey.
the "Leb" part probably comes from the latin libum wich would be a flat bread, the other name for it "Pfefferkuchen" probably originates from the fact that any foreign spice in medieval germany was just called Pfeffer
Yeah, I bought some gingerbread from Nürnberg for my family and I nearly offed my granddad. He ate half of the thing and went damn near comatose for the rest of the day. Lying on the couch, not moving a muscle, only breathing and digesting. Ever since then I thought that Tolkien's famous elven bread that could sate your hunger with one bite must have been inspired by gingerbread...
We still build small gingerbread houses at home around Christmas time (sometimes called "Witch Houses"). You can buy a set in a supermarket, which contains everything you will need. We usually build them together with our family, kids etc. And of course, later we tear them apart and devour them like big hungry giants.
I inherited our springerle rolling pin. Mom always made the little square anise flavored cookies for Christmas since I can remember. Now it's my turn. 👵❤️
Before ever watching this video, my father and I made this recipe as an experiment. We were unsure about the whole cloves. So we kept it off of the first ones we tried. We agreed that it was missing something. The whole clove is exactly what it was missing.
There’s a whole family of folk songs that have similar themes of an imaginary paradise, like the Norwegian-American “Oleana” about the supposed easy life in the New World that never materialized.
this is some of the freshest content on TH-cam, I just want to thank you again for keeping this platform interesting for me, you're one of my few subs I watch every video for
This episode dredged up a clove memory. Picture it: Hershey, PA. Home Economics. I’m in 6th grade, or 11 years old, and my cooking partner and I are supposed to make a spiced cake. It calls for 2 tsp of clove. We didn’t know you were supposed to use ground cloves, so we put whole cloves in. When it came time for tasting at the end of class, our teacher got a whole clove in her slice of the cake. She made a face. We knew it wasn’t a good thing. She explained ground cloves to us. (I’m a HUGE ginger fan, too. I’m always looking for the perfect ginger snap. It must “bite back.”)
I actually made this exact recipe for one my high school classes! It was a Shakespeare class; there were a number of extra credit projects available for near the end of the semester. One of them (you could only pick one) was to create a pamphlet containing a list of some recipes from his era, as well as an actual preparation of one of the recipes in your pamphlet. This recipe was pretty well received as it was *very* strongly-flavored compared to the other offerings that day (they were things like cheesecake, regular bread, fruit salad, etc.). Watching this video has given me an urge to make this "ginger brede" again some time.
Dear Max, if dinner parties could actually take place, you would be my ideal guest, and we could discuss cuisine, history and etymology all the time (you being way more informed than I am, but I am a very curious person, always keen on learning). Maybe, once the damn virus has been defeated, you and your husband will visit Italy, and such a dream might come true :) I have issues with ginger, which tastes really "pungent" to me, yet I think that these candies, using a slightly lower amount of ginger, might really be appealing.
My grandma had Springerle molds, she gave them to my Aunt before she died. I miss the Springerle cookies she used to make, she got the recipe and molds from her mother who was from Germany.
Try to make good use of your aunts molds. Dough consists of just eggs, sugar and flour, a bit of baking soda or potash and we like to add ground anis seeds. In former times Springerle was called Gebildbrot: bread showing a picture. They even coloured the cookies after baking - pictures telling stories from the bible. But beware Springerle can be firm as rocks after baking. They will get a bit softer in time. They are quite easy to make, the only thing is you have to let the unbaked cookies rest to dry for a few hours before baking or they will not jump = springen. To jump: they built a so called foot and puff up.
@@frauleintrude6347 I don't have the molds myself, there's no way my Aunt would let them out of her sight, lol. They are likely really old. Thank you for the history on them.
I have several of these molds not bragging, I just thought I was the last person on the planet who wanted them. Mine came from my grandmother and when she passed on, no one wanted them but me, so you understand my delusion
At Christmas in Latvia "piparkukas" pepper cookies can go from little tree-like things to works of art. Also they are hot, sometimes at same level as Asian food.
I know it's been a year but your Streisand concert reference was perfect! It's one of my mom's favorite recordings so my sisters and I grew up knowing every word and loving it.
You should probably look into the history and recipes of Finnish gingerbreads - they're a lot like the modern variety all the way back in the late 18th century, except with a tad more pepper (IIRC) for a spicier burn. Extremely popular among children of the timne.
Maybe those goods were seasonal and as they were imported, just happened to be shipped around the Christmas season. I haven't heard that anywhere, just pure conjecture on my part
I agree with Mama Dragon, especially because ginger is a historically known remedy against colds and general illness, which tends to crop up more when it's cold. Actually, isn't cinnamon also a "folk" cure for a lot of cold-weather-related ailments like infections and viruses? -- I looked it up and yes, yes it is.
Yes they were/are considered "warming" spices in various medicinal traditions. Supposed to increase heat in the body as opposed to "cooling" foods like cucumbers and such. Not a professional, I just know a lot of herbalists and traditional medicine enthusiasts
My favorite part about your videos is that your background in entertainment and experience with voice acting really comes through. It creates this really special combination of experienced voice work and comedy with your genuine personality and style of presentation. That must be the marketing background haha
Kourabiedes, a Greek cookie often made for Greek Orthodox Easter, get their clove flavor from whole cloves inserted before baking. The clove flavor is picked up very well by the cookie
Several years ago, I had the opportunity to go to Torun, Poland and visited a gingerbread shop. They really are amazing. The traditional gingerbread is hard by the way.
Somewhere in my parents' storage we have a German cast iron gingerbread house mold. I remember my dad breaking his toe when he accidentally dropped it when I was a kid. 😬
Ah, www.Leevalley.com used to have a cast-iron gingerbread mold with a log house on one side and a more traditional house on the other. Definitely toe-breaking candidate as well. Alas, this year they are stocking a gingerbread bundt house mold instead.
Fun facts: The medieval Carmina Burana contains a drinking song/poem whose first line is Ego sum abbas Cucaniensis (I am the abbot of Cockaigne), which the composer Carl Orff included in his musical work of the same name. For comparison, the American version of Cockaigne is The Big Rock Candy Mountain. Ego sum abbas Cucaniensis, et consilium meum est cum bibulis, et in secta Decii voluntas mea est, et qui mane me quesierit in taberna, post vesperam nudus egreditur, et sic denudatus veste clambit: Wafna, wafna! quid fecisti sors turpissima? Nostre vite gaudia abstulisti omnia! (roughly) I am the Abbot of Cockaigne And my Assembly is drunkards, I wish to be in Decius' (the god of dice games) Order; Find me at the Tavern in the morning- after Vespers, one would leave naked, and would thus cry out: Woe! Woe! Vilest Fate, what have you done? You have taken all my life 's joys away! See also The Drinkers' or Gamblers' Mass en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinkers_Mass
I like how in the beginning he was like "ginger bread in medieval times was a sad excuse of ginger bread, I have never been more insulted. Let's make it"
If you follow this recipe but use almond flour instead of breadcrumbs, you end up with something like a spiced marzipan. I used a similar recipe and made it for Christmas gifts years ago. It was a big hit.
My husband just introduced me to this channel....I SWEAR, I think I've just found my 9 year old son's Twin Soul in this man (cooking, cats, and pokemon). 😳🥰😅
@@microtasker Yeah, and The Royal Spicery would have been a very valued part of the household because of that. Tbh I find it hilarious that they literally had a whole thing called “The Spicery”.
Your German pronounciation is really good, my respects! And thanks for another Forme of Cury recipe. Greetings from southern Germany; we still have the Lebkuchenhaus (Gingerbread houses) and Spekulatius (bisquits with a lot of spices in them molded from those carved molds you mentioned) around Christmastime. And Nürnberg is still famous for their Lebkuchen, as is Lübeck for their Marzipan. Thank you!
I suggest substituting turmeric for the sandalwood. Turmeric's mild flavor goes great with ginger and black pepper (which I'd be using in place of long pepper), and turmeric adds some color.
I'm so happy I became a subscriber to Tasting History. You satisfy my love of cooking and history in one show. Please do an episode on marchpane, aka marzipan. I think it would be perfect for Christmastime.
I love how you are making a point with the german pronounciation. As a german myself i'm flattered by the effort and amazed by how close you got to it. But i'm also happy that you acknowledge the amazing history of germany's kitchens in the middleages. Up until covid my medieval reenactment group and i where busy to show the people that germany's culture and history does not only constist of the dark and horrible times around the second worldwar, but also has a plentyful history before that, including beautiful poems, delightful dishes and overwhelming art. If you ever need help with the pronounciation or translation of german text, feel free to contact me. We even got some in the reenactment group who are quite good in translating Mittelhochdeutsch (middle high german) and Althochdeutsch (old high german) and they have a very broad knowledge from around 1100-1450.
Curses upon the heads of the ones that don't invite you to feast parties! I love your channel, even when i can't make the recepies bc I'm vegetarian, lactose intolerant and cant eat gluten as well my taste and smell being partially distorted thanks to covid. I like really fun the history and stories you tell and the importance of food in the world. I miss eating, the pleasure of enjoying a meal, as well the memories that certain dishes brought me, the cultural foods and many other things, but I find enjoyment in watching your channel and being able to enjoy food even if is not eating it. Eating sometimes makes me really sad and makes me cry, but your videos are awesome and make me happy. So thanks, thanks for the work you do, that u educate about it and make it funny! Hope you have a lovely celebrations and keeping enjoying food all your life!
The little pieces such as what you made were often cooked again---hence "bis-cuit," cooked twice. Gingerbread sold on the street was often shaped like a pig, and it was hard enough to break a tooth unless you soaked it in hot soup broth---in a time when coffee and tea were not yet around.
Strange fact: Market Drayton, a town in Shropshire, England, claims to be the home of Gingerbread, Idk how accurate that is, but it's a cool bit of local knowledge/legend, there's even a Gingerbread museum!
This made my Sunday! I freaking LOVE gingerbread. I have even made a gingerbread wine. I really can't say enough how much I love your show. Your quirky humour is perfect!
the moment at 10:40 was so wholesome i actually felt joy. I love this guy so much and the videos are so great and interesting definitely one of my best findings of all time in yt
This channel will never get old. I still love rewatching your videos. I love butterbeer and soon I plan on trying to doing the capon chicken! I wonder what I’ll do next!
Crisp cookie since here in America the word biscuit usually refers to a round small bread with a soft center and a crispy crust and is used for jams or jellies or a hearty gravy. Love your channel--and YOU for your lively and warm personality.
I am a fan of most things foodie with ginger. My gran, who never over indulged but did make herself sick one Christmas eating too many pieces of crystalised ginger, used to make good use of a seasonal glut of marrows by making the most delicious marrow and ginger jam. She used a standard gingerbread recipe for biscuits and gingerbread men/women. My mum married a northern lad so learnt to make wonderful parkin, a dense ginger cake traditional in Yorkshire. Betty's, the cake and tea emporium, makes a fantastic ginger delight that looks the same size and shape as your gingerbread, Max, but is firmer and more crystalline. It tastes divine!
Twenty seconds in and I’m realizing how very much I love Max Miller. 💕 Merry Christmas Max, thanks for being with us through this trying time and making us all smile.
In Poland, gingerbread (in the form of loafs or cookies) was usually made to last winter, as the spices preserved it and, if stored properly, it would keep for years.
Max-honey, I was scrolling through my subscriptions. I saw “Tasting History” and then I stopped scrolling and immediately clicked on your video. 👨🏻🏫➡️👨🏻🍳 This is my 11th and last year of teaching. I’m starting culinary school in August. I am very very interested in using your and Townsends’ recipes and ingredients like garum, the scented wood from Galyntyne Sauce, mace, and that Aztec ingredient for nixitization.
@@NecromancyForKids Dear “Death-magic” For Kids, I warmly received your well wishes and I pray that you and yours continue to stay safe and healthy during these infected times. I’m a Slytherin and I love your handle! 👍🏻
@@jacksonbarker7594 Calcium hydroxide is a basic compound that is often used in the preparation of foods such as in the process of making corn tortillas. This process is known as nixtamalization, which literally translates from the Aztec language into "ashes" and "corn dough."
Not only would I enjoy a dinner party with you, I'd love to cook with you! Have you considered having an interactive cook along? I think this would be fun to do with gingerbread or something similar.
Since I make most of my Christmas gifts I'm embroidering everyday now for Christmas this year :). I thought I would watch this video again. I strongly encourage everyone to make at least a few of their gifts it makes Christmas and Chanukah much more special.
Polish homecook here :) - so if you'd want a recipe more similar to what we may know now - you should've gone for Piernik Toruński [btw, very nice pronounced by you!] it is more like a cake than a candy. Still - through all the Europe our gingerbreads are more dense to what you in US are used to. Pain d' Epices and UK Christmas cake would be more similar to American gingerbread cakes :) As for the molds - we do not use those carved molds in Poland. They are popular in Germany, Netherland and Belgium. The Dutch version is called speculaas, really popular thing, you may have seen speculoos spreads in US as they are popular treat too :)
Where do you stand on the debate: Hard Gingerbread Biscuit or Soft Gingerbread Cake?
Gotta be the biscuits
Either will do, thank you very much.
But, if pressed, biscuit please.
Hard biscuit.
while the biscuits were more fun to decorate, the cake definitely is more pleasant to eat
Biscuits!
Max" which is probably why I don't get invited to many dinner parties". Me: adding Max to the top of my ' who I'd invite to dinner ' list
I was going to say, mumbling to myself in my head, “...I’d invite Max to all my dinner parties”
He's got my invite.
Absolutely.
I'd invite him too! He'd be a lovely guest!
Those people are missing out! I have a feeling after Covid clears up, he's going to be overwhelmed with dinner invites!
I see your campaign to bring back the use of "bedight" is going well.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Past tense of 'bedeck', innit? 😁
🤣🤣🤣
Every time I hear bedight, it always brings up the poem Eldorado, by Poe, because I love Poe, and that poem was my only exposure to the word up until these videos, and it also happens to be the very first thing in the poem. "Gaily bedight, a gallant knight in sunshine and in shadow, had journeyed long, singing a song, in search of Eldorado"
Y'all are soooooo nuts!
My kind of people.
This makes me wonder: Maybe in the medieval "ginger" was a more generic term than it is today. In my native language German, "Pfeffer" used to refer to any kind of spices that packed heat, and not just what we know as pepper today. Perhaps medieval English referred to many 'hot' spices as "ginger" even they had nothing to with ginger as we understand the term today?
I'd wondered if it was ginger in the British sense of "red", especially when Max mentioned the sandlewood just adding a reddish color. So maybe gingerbread being any reddish spiced dessert bread?
That's quite likely. In this era there is very little standardization and a lot of recipes were created simply from the description of what someone had elsewhere but using local ingredients. Its part of why you'll often find multiple things under the same name but with very different recipes as he's demonstrated in some of his other episodes. Cooking from a written recipe would be incredibly unusual and even those rarely include any sort of detailed instructions. So even if they were using the same ingredients you could still end up with wildly different results.
@MrAranton - And "plums" meant any dried fruit.
English also shared the same unambiguous use of "pepper," with things like coriander, grains of paradise and eventually even allspice being referred to as peppers continuing through the colonial period. I know that by the Tudor period, "ginger" is used very specifically, and is more frequently in medicinal recipes, but we begin to see references to other recipes within given recipes, much like today where, in the US, we'd call gingerbread spice, "Pumpkin Spice," or y'all would call it "Lebkuchengewurz" (except with the diacritic).
@@sion-dafyddlocke9913 really? Pumpkin spice is Lebkuchen? I always assumed that "pumpkin spice anything" was that special kind of american taste that also brought us deep fried marsbars...
If it is Lebkuchen I might actually dare to try the stuff...
I got to go to one of the oldest, still functioning gingerbread factories in Europe, in Toruń, Poland. They've got a whole museum. Bottom level is medieval themed, top level is industrial revolution. Great visit if you can
I absolutely adore you, “Gingerbread was neither GINGER nor BREAD....DISCUSS!”. Your videos are such a precise balance of history, humor, and hunger cravings. You make such fascinating content and I appreciate you exist, you deserve all the abundance and joy in the world; I hope you and your loved ones are happy and healthy. 💙
Agree..love the humor
Well said, and lots of people agree.
Linda Richman would be very proud.
Coffee Talk. 😆
I concur ❤❤❤
Really interesting linguistic point on what “lengh” could mean. Since you have been jumping around through different eras, you’re actually pretty well placed to notice some of these trends in language usage.
It’s something I really find interesting, though I have no definite proof that’s the case.
@@TastingHistory Did anyone check the OED?
@@TastingHistory Another possibly true/false piece of linguistics. My granny would always say that the word Pepper Cake came from Allspice which is called "Spicepepper" in Swedish and has a "peppery" name in many languages. It tastes a lot like cloves and often replaced it back in the day as it was a LOT cheaper.
@@TastingHistory I appreciate the work you do to translate the texts.
But I do not think 'lengh' is related to the '-lenge" in boiling, because the similarity in spelling is not a reliable guide. Spelling was still not standardized at that time. And while we English speakers do like to take long words and shorten them (bus from omnibus; auto from automobile; sync from synchronize), I am doubtful that 'boiling' would need to be shortened.
@@TastingHistory I don't think "boiling" would be shortened to "lengh" because the -(l)ing part is a common suffix. That would be like shortening a word such as "addition" into "-tion" instead of "add". Too many other words share the suffix for it to be clear what the shortened form refers to.
But you might have stumbled across something else! According to the OED, -ing as the suffix for present participles came from Old English -ende. "The vowel weakened in late Old English and the spelling with -g began 13c.-14c. among Anglo-Norman scribes who naturally confused it with [-ing suffix for completed or habitual actions]." So perhaps what you're seeing with the spelling of "boylenge" is part of the transition from earlier "boylende"? to modern boiling.
As someone who got her BA and MA in linguistics, you would definitely be invited to my dinner parties!! These language things are the things I like to talk at LENGH-TH about
I was gonna say, we "word nerds" should give more dinner parties ... so that we can invite other "word nerds"!
Also, everyone will definitely go to HIS dinner parties, because the food's so good.
@@Visplight You certainly never know what will be on the menu. Or if you'll even know what it is.
@@Visplight ummmm...
Ye olde grammar nazi? 🤣
Last time I was this early, Max’s kitchen didn’t smell like Garum.
🤣 it’s been a while
@@TastingHistory Since I could...hold my head up high! It's been a while!
@@TastingHistory I always wondered what the combo smell of Garum & Asfettaida would be ...?
@@katiearbuckle9017 probably me, on my period, after not taking a bath for a week. LOLOL, sorry about that on a cooking channel. 🐟☣️
lmao. Since that video I call my green smoothie garum. its healthy but gross and smelly
"clove is really really strong". Me: flashes back to this morning when I spilled a bunch of cloves in my pancakes "that is correct". Also I feel oddly guilty and also grateful that I live in a time when I can have cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and chocolate in my peasant food.
I actually come from Toruń. Polish word for gingerbread is "piernik" an the word "pierny" is a bit archaic expression for spicy/peppery, because in torunski piernik, amongst other spices there was actually pepper. Greetings from Poland and happy Christmas time!
The gingerbread man walks into the gingerbread house. He sees that the material of the house is the same as his flesh. Is he made of house, or is the house made of flesh? He screams, for he does not know.
Franz? Is that you?
I always think of that comic lol
And now is the time on Sprockets when we dance!
Ok, that was good.
The gingerbread man is not of man or house but a horny devil is he.
it's EXTREMELY validating to see that someone else dreams of owning an antique springerle mold
For i'm from Germany, i do appreciate Max's efforts to prenounce German words and names correctly, and yes. I'm pretty satisfied with his efforts!
Max, you did indeed a good job on being accurate!!
He did okay with Piernik Toruński too, which I must add, is absolutely delicious.
You mention that they probably didn't eat the full cloves, but I think it's in the realm of possibility. Not because I particularly know much about food history, but because it's something that my grandpa picked up because he read somewhere that it was a good natural breath mint and that dentist's used it to numb patients mouths for procedures back in the day. I think he mostly did it for the fun story, but it caught on. I know he started it as a trend and ended up getting several of the old church elders to carry around altoid tins of whole cloves. He tried to get us kids into it, but those are pretty strong sensations for a 6 year old. Though it did eventually get me into enjoying clove flavored gum for nostalgias sake 😊
Interestingly cloves are antibacterial and do seem to have some form of pain killing quality. When I was in pharmacy school we did this amazing experiment where we extracted the different chemicals from cloves, identified them using mass spectrometry and then tested their antimicrobial activity. And 2 of the components (1 more than the other) was clearly antibacterial!
Just for information: in Germany, a guild was formed for everything and everything was regulated. The best example is the "Reihnheitsgebot" for beer.
I am always pleasantly surprised how well Max is pronouncing things in German. It is so much closer than I am used to hear. Regarding "Reinheitsgebot" it says you should not add any "Geferk". As a German, I have no Idea what that is, only a hunch.
How German. 😆
To anyone out there who has never tried Lebkuchen, I HIGHLY recommend trying it. I have the wonderful privilege of having a German father and bah gawd Lebkuchen might be my favourite thing around the holiday season!
My wife's family is German, but she is Canadian and we are Canadian, but every Christmas she gets a box of Lebkuchen sent over from Germany at great expense. To be honest I could take it or leave it. My Christmas must have is short bread and mince tarts.
My grandparents were poor Northeastern peasants and so the Bavarian/Franconia Lebkuchen was never something I grew up with. I grew up having lots of different shortbread cookies and nut based cookies. Also fruit dumpling and a Christmas cake made in the shape of a star to symbolize Polaris as it guided those to Bethlehem to see the newly born Jesus. My grandmother would put a baby Jesus in the cake and whoever found it got money.
I'm German and I live in the West of Germany. And you'll notice, that most German people don't like *Lebkuchen* that much. Depents of course, on what kind of Lebkuchen you eat. There is a kind that I enjoy; soft Lebkuchen with bitter chocolate.
But there's also the less common version; the "hard" version which is mostly made out of beet syrup...so yeah not my favourite. But the soft version is.
See my recipe above, Oisín!
@@crasher4737 My grandfather's housekeeper was from Cologne and she would back cookies each year - including Lebkuchen. They were always leftover lebkuchen - it's an acquired taste. But her stolen was fought over!
I wonder if the 'cakey gingerbread' got started in the US because we had molasses and sorghum and the like? My recipe for that calls for a lot of molasses.
Very likely
Yeah, in my English class a story we read set in the deep south mentioned a 'cake of sorghum and molasses' and most of the class thought that it meant sorghum flour, and I wound up explaining that it was probably actually referring to sorghum syrup. Apparently none of the other students knew that that was a thing that exists... poor sorghum, people forgot about it...
We make soft gingerbread cakes in Sweden too. There's no syrup in my grandma's recipe, but it does have lingonberry jam and filmjölk to make it really moist.
Ginger thins broken into pieces on top of a bowl of filmjölk is a real luxury christmas breakfast.
@@plutus2559
Lingonberries go very well in spiced cake. In my family we usually add some even though our recipe for “krydderkake” doesn’t call for any.
@@Amy_the_Lizard We have an 1880's living history-type farm here in Dayton, OH area. They make sorghum in the fall.
I appreciate the accuracy of the gingerbread given to Sir Walter "Rather a Wally" Rahleigh. It's these little details that take the videos from good to great. *chef's kiss*
About the gold leaf: In PL Travers' **Mary Poppins** Jane and Michael are taken to a shop to buy gingerbread, each slab of which is decorated with many gold stars. Later, in one of the curious happenings which were part of the Poppins Experience, they witness Mrs Corry, the proprietor of the shop, assisted by her two very tall daughters and Mary Poppins, pasting the stars in the sky from the top of a lofty ladder. So you see, the gold leaf IS important.
I remember loving that story as a little girl.
I've come across an Italian recipe of the period that uses polenta instead of bread crumbs. It also incorporates raisins. it's like a gingery Garibaldi biscuit.
My grandparents have had one of those giant antique wooden cookie molds hanging in their house for decades!
They’re so amazing!
@@TastingHistory Seriously, it's my favourite decorative object in their house. It's about 2 and a half feet tall, in the shape of an old Polish(?) man with a long pipe, a coat, and a big fur hat. No idea where they got it from, I'll have to ask them!
When you learn, please share. Thank you.
That opening "talk amongst yourselves" throwback was like BUTTAH.
Buttah!
@@TastingHistory Should've thrown in a reference when you mentioned the Discord channel: *"Cawffee, dawgs, dawghters; y'know, no big whoop..."*
As a Jew I can honestly say I know many many...many women just like that. They are so fabulous
My poor mother has to deal with me making round tamales and ye olde gingerbread this Christmas because of you.
Sounds tasty
Did she like it?
Greetings from Germany.
My grandma used to make gingerbread houses for Christmas.
One for all 4 of her children families.
My aunt continues this also. So this tradition is not dead yet. :)
As someone that also perhaps suffers socially from my interest in etymology, I appreciate your devotion to proper translation.
When my kids were little, I used to make a Gingerbread Dreidle for a centerpiece - with a removable top, and I'd fill it with a mix of Chanukah Gelt and "all-sorts" candies (mail order. Love the stuff.)
That’s a super cute idea for kids.
"Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, I made you out of gingerbread" doesn't quite have the same ring to it...
Allsorts from England are the best!
What is Gelt?
@@joanhelenak The gold foil covered chocolate coins used as a traditional bidding coin in the Dreidle game (four sided top you spin to play)
Reminds me of the filling for English treacle tart,but tastier.
Also, the decorative carvings on the stern of a sailing ship was called gingerbread.
It’s similar actually! I hadn’t thought of that.
19th century houses' wooden trim as well!
Max suppeth upon Gyngyrbredde with spices sweete and hoote,
T'was assembled fromme a booke he read, and lyke it he did not!
Max quaffeth Calyfornya Wyne, and drams of spirits wharm,
He cooketh throughout Yule tyme, and baketh up a storm!
Happy Holidays, Max! I love your content and I'm so happy that you're picking up plenty of steam on TH-cam! Good luck to you and keep up the amazing work! All the best to you and yours and best wishes for a safe and happy 2021!
Happy Holidays to everyone else as well! Have a safe and happy New Year everyone!
I appreciate your poem
@@namedrop721 I appreciate your compliment, friend! Have yourself an awesome day!
I once tried making a gingerbread-spiced (cinnamon, ginger, cloves and cardamom) blueberry cordial. It was really quite good and was rather well-received by my family at christmas.
I was just re-watching this episode and it dawned on me where a Danish expression comes from. It's slightly old-fashioned, but we use "Schlaraffenland" to describe something in excess. This. This is why I love history!
It's a german word though 😁
In Sweden it is also called "Pepper Cookie", "Pepparkaka" in Swedish.
I think it's because in older Swedish/Scandinavian, the word "peppar" was used for spices in general, I think. Now "peppar" is "pepper", and we have the word "kryddor" for spices.
But I might be totally wrong.
Same thing with German Pfefferkuchen. The terminology around spices was not common knowledge for a long time so everything was "pepper".
For the same reason the Hanseatic traders were often called "Pfeffersäcke", pepper bags, for their lucrative spice trade.
+
Åh, jag tänkte precis kommentera om pepparkakor! Du hann först!
Blessed are we, with a new TastingHistory video. Now all i need is a Townsends video
"His guests, on tasting the cake, believed they were experiencing all the delights of heaven."
Man... imagine if these medieval folk took a bite of a cheesesteak, their heads would explode.
it's wild how just a month or so ago I read a fantastic astrology-focused novella which mentioned Cockaigne as part of the context surrounding the meanings we attribute to Saturn and the Moon, and now Cockaigne came up in your show! Everything is connected in such interesting ways. Thank you so much for this show, I love you man 💗
“i don’t get invited to a lot of dinner parties” i find that extremely hard to believe, max
I know, right? =)
Currently I don't think anyone is getting invited to a lot of dinner parties
"Clove is really, really strong." No kidding. The oil from it is used as an anesthetic to this day, particularly in dentistry and such.
Clove is not used in the USA as an anesthetic, legally. That's because it has not been approved by the FDA as an anesthetic. But, if you are planning a dental visit, or for that matter, a permanent makeup tattoo, such as eye or lip liner (been there, done that), chewing clove gum for the dental work or lip tattoo, or applying clove oil c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y around the eye, may be a smart move.
Tiger balm
that's why I now hate those recipes for ham that have you stick cloves all over it. made Thanksgiving dinner taste like the perfume department!
I have a sensitive tooth and have been chewing a clove every day, it is potent
@@simonederobert1612 Clove oil is quite "hot" and could burn one's delicate eye area. I would dilute clove oil with a carrier oil but the thought of clove oil on my face just sounds scary.
In Germany, we don't have gingerbread, but Lebkuchen - literally: cake of life. That's because a traditional German Lebkuchen consists of about 30% nuts and seeds, which makes Lebkuchen quite substancial. It also contains several spices and honey.
I grew up in Germany as a military kid, Lebkuchen was my favorite part of christmas. Much better than when black Peter showed up, hated that.
the "Leb" part probably comes from the latin libum wich would be a flat bread, the other name for it "Pfefferkuchen" probably originates from the fact that any foreign spice in medieval germany was just called Pfeffer
Also, Black Peter was his name. Think, Krampus.
Yeah, I bought some gingerbread from Nürnberg for my family and I nearly offed my granddad. He ate half of the thing and went damn near comatose for the rest of the day. Lying on the couch, not moving a muscle, only breathing and digesting. Ever since then I thought that Tolkien's famous elven bread that could sate your hunger with one bite must have been inspired by gingerbread...
@@LupoSenpai you can find it here in the states at Aldi's grocery stores.
We still build small gingerbread houses at home around Christmas time (sometimes called "Witch Houses"). You can buy a set in a supermarket, which contains everything you will need. We usually build them together with our family, kids etc. And of course, later we tear them apart and devour them like big hungry giants.
I inherited our springerle rolling pin. Mom always made the little square anise flavored cookies for Christmas since I can remember.
Now it's my turn. 👵❤️
Before ever watching this video, my father and I made this recipe as an experiment. We were unsure about the whole cloves. So we kept it off of the first ones we tried. We agreed that it was missing something. The whole clove is exactly what it was missing.
The Land of Cockaigne reminds me of a song I learned in elementary school from the California Gold Rush... "Big Rock Candy Mountain"
There’s a whole family of folk songs that have similar themes of an imaginary paradise, like the Norwegian-American “Oleana” about the supposed easy life in the New World that never materialized.
th-cam.com/video/JqowmHgxVJQ/w-d-xo.html
Tom Chapin
I love that song!!!
this is some of the freshest content on TH-cam, I just want to thank you again for keeping this platform interesting for me, you're one of my few subs I watch every video for
Thank you so much! That really means a lot to me.
This episode dredged up a clove memory. Picture it: Hershey, PA. Home Economics. I’m in 6th grade, or 11 years old, and my cooking partner and I are supposed to make a spiced cake. It calls for 2 tsp of clove. We didn’t know you were supposed to use ground cloves, so we put whole cloves in. When it came time for tasting at the end of class, our teacher got a whole clove in her slice of the cake. She made a face. We knew it wasn’t a good thing. She explained ground cloves to us. (I’m a HUGE ginger fan, too. I’m always looking for the perfect ginger snap. It must “bite back.”)
Been there 🤣
I actually made this exact recipe for one my high school classes!
It was a Shakespeare class; there were a number of extra credit projects available for near the end of the semester. One of them (you could only pick one) was to create a pamphlet containing a list of some recipes from his era, as well as an actual preparation of one of the recipes in your pamphlet.
This recipe was pretty well received as it was *very* strongly-flavored compared to the other offerings that day (they were things like cheesecake, regular bread, fruit salad, etc.).
Watching this video has given me an urge to make this "ginger brede" again some time.
Dear Max, if dinner parties could actually take place, you would be my ideal guest, and we could discuss cuisine, history and etymology all the time (you being way more informed than I am, but I am a very curious person, always keen on learning).
Maybe, once the damn virus has been defeated, you and your husband will visit Italy, and such a dream might come true :)
I have issues with ginger, which tastes really "pungent" to me, yet I think that these candies, using a slightly lower amount of ginger, might really be appealing.
We won’t need a second invitation to visit Italy 😁. Can’t wait for this virus to be history.
@Simona Righini......Yes!!!! I would be there!!! Max...a virtual dinner party what a great Patreon idea!!!!
My grandma had Springerle molds, she gave them to my Aunt before she died. I miss the Springerle cookies she used to make, she got the recipe and molds from her mother who was from Germany.
At least they’re still in the family.
Try to make good use of your aunts molds. Dough consists of just eggs, sugar and flour, a bit of baking soda or potash and we like to add ground anis seeds. In former times Springerle was called Gebildbrot: bread showing a picture. They even coloured the cookies after baking - pictures telling stories from the bible. But beware Springerle can be firm as rocks after baking. They will get a bit softer in time. They are quite easy to make, the only thing is you have to let the unbaked cookies rest to dry for a few hours before baking or they will not jump = springen. To jump: they built a so called foot and puff up.
@@frauleintrude6347 I don't have the molds myself, there's no way my Aunt would let them out of her sight, lol. They are likely really old. Thank you for the history on them.
@@lisamoore6804 - Make them WITH your Auntie! Show an interest and they might one day come your way.
@@MossyMozart I would but I live 900 miles from her, lol. I'll try to do that when the covid thing is over.
I have several of these molds
not bragging, I just thought I was the last person on the planet who wanted them. Mine came from my grandmother and when she passed on, no one wanted them but me, so you understand my delusion
At Christmas in Latvia "piparkukas" pepper cookies can go from little tree-like things to works of art. Also they are hot, sometimes at same level as Asian food.
My mom has a few for specolass cookies from holland
I know it's been a year but your Streisand concert reference was perfect! It's one of my mom's favorite recordings so my sisters and I grew up knowing every word and loving it.
You should probably look into the history and recipes of Finnish gingerbreads - they're a lot like the modern variety all the way back in the late 18th century, except with a tad more pepper (IIRC) for a spicier burn. Extremely popular among children of the timne.
The cruelty of a Tasting History video uploaded two minutes ago right as you were going back to sleep
Bah! Sorry. It’ll be here when you wake.
I wonder what makes gingery, cinnamon, nutmeg flavors so ingrained with the autumn and winter seasons.
Not sure when the connection came about but it definitely is there now.
I think it's because they're such warming flavors; good against the cold.
Of course, there's nothing like an ice-cold ginger beer in the summer...
Maybe those goods were seasonal and as they were imported, just happened to be shipped around the Christmas season. I haven't heard that anywhere, just pure conjecture on my part
I agree with Mama Dragon, especially because ginger is a historically known remedy against colds and general illness, which tends to crop up more when it's cold. Actually, isn't cinnamon also a "folk" cure for a lot of cold-weather-related ailments like infections and viruses? -- I looked it up and yes, yes it is.
Yes they were/are considered "warming" spices in various medicinal traditions. Supposed to increase heat in the body as opposed to "cooling" foods like cucumbers and such. Not a professional, I just know a lot of herbalists and traditional medicine enthusiasts
That Mike Myers impression was spot on. Well done, sir.
My favorite part about your videos is that your background in entertainment and experience with voice acting really comes through. It creates this really special combination of experienced voice work and comedy with your genuine personality and style of presentation. That must be the marketing background haha
Kourabiedes, a Greek cookie often made for Greek Orthodox Easter, get their clove flavor from whole cloves inserted before baking. The clove flavor is picked up very well by the cookie
Several years ago, I had the opportunity to go to Torun, Poland and visited a gingerbread shop. They really are amazing. The traditional gingerbread is hard by the way.
Somewhere in my parents' storage we have a German cast iron gingerbread house mold. I remember my dad breaking his toe when he accidentally dropped it when I was a kid. 😬
Ouch! But cool!
You know an heirloom is especially good when it's capable of causing injury.
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine
I think that’s why I love my grandmothers meat cleaver.
Ah, www.Leevalley.com used to have a cast-iron gingerbread mold with a log house on one side and a more traditional house on the other. Definitely toe-breaking candidate as well. Alas, this year they are stocking a gingerbread bundt house mold instead.
Fun facts: The medieval Carmina Burana contains a drinking song/poem whose first line is Ego sum abbas Cucaniensis (I am the abbot of Cockaigne), which the composer Carl Orff included in his musical work of the same name.
For comparison, the American version of Cockaigne is
The Big Rock Candy Mountain.
Ego sum abbas Cucaniensis,
et consilium meum est cum bibulis,
et in secta Decii voluntas mea est,
et qui mane me quesierit in taberna,
post vesperam nudus egreditur,
et sic denudatus veste clambit:
Wafna, wafna!
quid fecisti sors turpissima?
Nostre vite gaudia abstulisti omnia!
(roughly)
I am the Abbot of Cockaigne
And my Assembly is drunkards,
I wish to be in Decius' (the god of dice games) Order;
Find me at the Tavern in the morning-
after Vespers, one would leave naked,
and would thus cry out:
Woe! Woe!
Vilest Fate, what have you done?
You have taken all my life
's joys away!
See also The Drinkers' or Gamblers' Mass
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinkers_Mass
I like how in the beginning he was like "ginger bread in medieval times was a sad excuse of ginger bread, I have never been more insulted. Let's make it"
If you follow this recipe but use almond flour instead of breadcrumbs, you end up with something like a spiced marzipan. I used a similar recipe and made it for Christmas gifts years ago. It was a big hit.
My husband just introduced me to this channel....I SWEAR, I think I've just found my 9 year old son's Twin Soul in this man (cooking, cats, and pokemon). 😳🥰😅
🤣 sounds like a cool kid.
Ah yes, the most important establishment in the royal medieval household- *The Royal Spicery*
England literally went to war to gain a hold on the spice market in India.
@@microtasker Yeah, and The Royal Spicery would have been a very valued part of the household because of that. Tbh I find it hilarious that they literally had a whole thing called “The Spicery”.
Oh man, I'd love to have dinner parties with linguistics/history nerds! Bring on the interesting talks!
Your German pronounciation is really good, my respects! And thanks for another Forme of Cury recipe. Greetings from southern Germany; we still have the Lebkuchenhaus (Gingerbread houses) and Spekulatius (bisquits with a lot of spices in them molded from those carved molds you mentioned) around Christmastime. And Nürnberg is still famous for their Lebkuchen, as is Lübeck for their Marzipan.
Thank you!
I'm from Toruń, if you ever get to visit you will love the gingerbread museums!
Yes there's more than one, haha
I suggest substituting turmeric for the sandalwood. Turmeric's mild flavor goes great with ginger and black pepper (which I'd be using in place of long pepper), and turmeric adds some color.
Long pepper has a slight difference flavour, and a “slower heat” (best way I can describe it) than black pepper.
@@ragnkja That's what I hear / read. I'd be using black pepper because I've got a ton of it already. Just being practical. ;)
I'm so happy I became a subscriber to Tasting History. You satisfy my love of cooking and history in one show. Please do an episode on marchpane, aka marzipan. I think it would be perfect for Christmastime.
Excellent video, especially live the tidbits about gingerbread being dubbed heavenly, as well as Frederick iii distributing gingerbread men.
I love how you are making a point with the german pronounciation. As a german myself i'm flattered by the effort and amazed by how close you got to it. But i'm also happy that you acknowledge the amazing history of germany's kitchens in the middleages. Up until covid my medieval reenactment group and i where busy to show the people that germany's culture and history does not only constist of the dark and horrible times around the second worldwar, but also has a plentyful history before that, including beautiful poems, delightful dishes and overwhelming art. If you ever need help with the pronounciation or translation of german text, feel free to contact me. We even got some in the reenactment group who are quite good in translating Mittelhochdeutsch (middle high german) and Althochdeutsch (old high german) and they have a very broad knowledge from around 1100-1450.
Curses upon the heads of the ones that don't invite you to feast parties! I love your channel, even when i can't make the recepies bc I'm vegetarian, lactose intolerant and cant eat gluten as well my taste and smell being partially distorted thanks to covid. I like really fun the history and stories you tell and the importance of food in the world. I miss eating, the pleasure of enjoying a meal, as well the memories that certain dishes brought me, the cultural foods and many other things, but I find enjoyment in watching your channel and being able to enjoy food even if is not eating it. Eating sometimes makes me really sad and makes me cry, but your videos are awesome and make me happy. So thanks, thanks for the work you do, that u educate about it and make it funny! Hope you have a lovely celebrations and keeping enjoying food all your life!
“Coffee Talk with: Max Miller”
Like buttah.
Among the things I learned today, all the spices in the gingerbread also explain the Norwegian (Scandinavian?) name for gingerbread- pepperkakke!
Your continued commitment to working "bedight" into your videos is admirable.
Soon it will spread throughout the 🌎
The dramatic flair you bring is equally good to the cooking and history
The little pieces such as what you made were often cooked again---hence "bis-cuit," cooked twice. Gingerbread sold on the street was often shaped like a pig, and it was hard enough to break a tooth unless you soaked it in hot soup broth---in a time when coffee and tea were not yet around.
Max: puts a quote from Canterbury Tales
Me, an English lit. Major:
**internal suffering and flashbacks intensify**
Use this gingerbread man to point out where the bad canterbury tales touched you
Your Coffee Talk impression has made my day.
I worry the kids won’t get the reference 🤣
Same!
Strange fact: Market Drayton, a town in Shropshire, England, claims to be the home of Gingerbread, Idk how accurate that is, but it's a cool bit of local knowledge/legend, there's even a Gingerbread museum!
This made my Sunday! I freaking LOVE gingerbread. I have even made a gingerbread wine. I really can't say enough how much I love your show. Your quirky humour is perfect!
the moment at 10:40 was so wholesome i actually felt joy. I love this guy so much and the videos are so great and interesting definitely one of my best findings of all time in yt
4:59 That spatula is delightful.
😂
Gingerbread was made with real gingers ,thats why they ate it at Saturnalia .
😆
The extra souls they carried around added that little extra something to the recipe.
So twisted! I love it!
🤣🤣🤣
Ginger is brown. We're redheads, so we're safe.
This channel will never get old. I still love rewatching your videos. I love butterbeer and soon I plan on trying to doing the capon chicken! I wonder what I’ll do next!
Awww thank you! Let me know what else you make!
@@TastingHistory Will do! You’ve got a lot to choose from!
Crisp cookie since here in America the word biscuit usually refers to a round small bread with a soft center and a crispy crust and is used for jams or jellies or a hearty gravy. Love your channel--and YOU for your lively and warm personality.
I am a fan of most things foodie with ginger. My gran, who never over indulged but did make herself sick one Christmas eating too many pieces of crystalised ginger, used to make good use of a seasonal glut of marrows by making the most delicious marrow and ginger jam. She used a standard gingerbread recipe for biscuits and gingerbread men/women. My mum married a northern lad so learnt to make wonderful parkin, a dense ginger cake traditional in Yorkshire. Betty's, the cake and tea emporium, makes a fantastic ginger delight that looks the same size and shape as your gingerbread, Max, but is firmer and more crystalline. It tastes divine!
How wonderful an extra Tasting History! I saw what you did: the gold leaf was there to work in "Bedight"!
Max explains his theory on "lenge" That's the exact thing that gets you invited to dinner parties! At least my dinner party!
Twenty seconds in and I’m realizing how very much I love Max Miller. 💕
Merry Christmas Max, thanks for being with us through this trying time and making us all smile.
Linda Richman is always a good choice. Love it. He nailed it.
In Poland, gingerbread (in the form of loafs or cookies) was usually made to last winter, as the spices preserved it and, if stored properly, it would keep for years.
I appreciate the fact that your ability to understand old English into a somewhat modern understanding of it.
Max-honey, I was scrolling through my subscriptions. I saw “Tasting History” and then I stopped scrolling and immediately clicked on your video. 👨🏻🏫➡️👨🏻🍳 This is my 11th and last year of teaching. I’m starting culinary school in August. I am very very interested in using your and Townsends’ recipes and ingredients like garum, the scented wood from Galyntyne Sauce, mace, and that Aztec ingredient for nixitization.
Best of luck in your future endeavors!
What is the aztec ingredient? Lime is usually used right?
@@NecromancyForKids Dear “Death-magic” For Kids, I warmly received your well wishes and I pray that you and yours continue to stay safe and healthy during these infected times. I’m a Slytherin and I love your handle! 👍🏻
@@jacksonbarker7594 Calcium hydroxide/Tequesquite
@@jacksonbarker7594 Calcium hydroxide is a basic compound that is often used in the preparation of foods such as in the process of making corn tortillas. This process is known as nixtamalization, which literally translates from the Aztec language into "ashes" and "corn dough."
OK, the Coffee Talk reference has convinced me you are indeed a child of the 1980s (even if you don't at all look your age)!
He’s definitely a child of the 80s 😙
Best. Coffee. Talk. Impression. EVER.
He missed an opportunity when he mentioned the Discord channel: *"Cawfee, Dawgs, Dawghters; y'know, no big whoop..."*
Not only would I enjoy a dinner party with you, I'd love to cook with you! Have you considered having an interactive cook along? I think this would be fun to do with gingerbread or something similar.
Since I make most of my Christmas gifts I'm embroidering everyday now for Christmas this year :). I thought I would watch this video again. I strongly encourage everyone to make at least a few of their gifts it makes Christmas and Chanukah much more special.
Perfect impression of “Linda” ! Mike Meyers would be proud 😂
You should give parkin a go, a kind of gingerbread cake that is unknown even in southern parts of the UK by many people.
Gingerbread is called "pepparkaka" in swedish, a little fun fact :)
Pepparkaka means pepper cake in direct translation.
Pepper cake or pepper cookie*
@@jesperbostrom1879 Sant
I didn’t know that! Just like those Germans with pfefferkuchen.
@@TastingHistory Indeed, merry Christmas and a happy new year to you Max.
@@jesperbostrom1879
“Cookie” just means “small cake” :)
Thanks for teaching me about springerle molds! One day I'd like to try baking some spiced bread in one of those big antique ones too.
Polish homecook here :)
- so if you'd want a recipe more similar to what we may know now - you should've gone for Piernik Toruński [btw, very nice pronounced by you!] it is more like a cake than a candy. Still - through all the Europe our gingerbreads are more dense to what you in US are used to. Pain d' Epices and UK Christmas cake would be more similar to American gingerbread cakes :)
As for the molds - we do not use those carved molds in Poland. They are popular in Germany, Netherland and Belgium. The Dutch version is called speculaas, really popular thing, you may have seen speculoos spreads in US as they are popular treat too :)