Medieval historian and economist here. I’d like to add some points: Wheat back then, even in the early 1960s, was nearly gluten free. Today’s wheat has 19 times the amount of gluten than in the past. “Refined” white bread (as we know it) did not exist. Wheat was never bleached. “White” bread was actually tan in color, due to continued sifting to produce a finer flour. Much of the bread the commons and lessers ate would be today called “artisanal” and health food. After the Plague/Pestilence/Black Death, the rep of The Church took a nosedive. If they couldn’t intervene with the Lord to spare good Christians from the plague, what good were they? (Many churchmen ran away from their flocks and parishes rather than stay and pray for everyone.) And then the Schism almost dealt the Church a death blow. Church rules became a guideline, instead of mandatory. Except for certain holidays and observances. Beer and ale contain tetracycline from free yeasts. When the narrators cite about forty years for an average lifespan, they give a false impression. This figures in 40-60% child mortality. If one lived to late teens, a man could expect to live to about 60 years old, perhaps more depending on class. Women expected fewer years to to the dangers of childbirth. The tales of rotting meats covered with sauces: pure lies. Rotting meats will poison everyone, pauper to prince. Pigs in the video are modern pigs. The medieval “pig” was much closer to a wild boar (and call that). They were also much smaller. Look at the period illustrations. No pink oinkers there! Tastes of medieval foods were different, too. No added sodium, “additives” or sugar imparted different flavors. Red meat was gamey, and served spicy. A true noble dinner was roast beef sprinkled liberally with powdered sugar. (That sounded odd until my wife and I made such a dish from farm to kitchen beef. Wow!) Mind you, a pound of powdered sugar in the 1340-1360s, cost 60 pence. A common laborer earned one to almost two pence per day. Go figure the expense. Chocolate was not available until the discovery of the New World. However, vanilla was extant. It grew in tropical Africa and India. Even the ancient Egyptians knew of it. Needless to say, extremely expensive and very hard to come by. Thought I’d share. Cheers!
@@shanewalters4632 Limited? Perhaps in inland Europe, away from a river. But in Britain, no place is very far from the sea, let alone a river. Everyone had access to fish, and not just for holy days. Fish, including eels, were a staple food for all classes. Salmon, an expensive treat today, was considered a working man’s food. Trout, on the other hand, was expensive and this a noble’s dish. If one lived near a port, shrimp were to be found, as well as lobster and other crustaceans. Porpoise was considered a royal meal. If one were caught, the head (!) was to be sent to the king. Whale, too. Usually, but not limited to such as minke and pilot whales. Barnacle geese and puffins were considered by the church to be “seafood”. Oysters were a commoners’ dish, perhaps because of their very limited shelf life. I hope that helped. If you have any other questions, please ask. Cheers!
Medieval people would be amazed that we could turn down heat on our ovens. And if you were rich, yeah, you could essentially buy food from the market and kinda order takeout, but in the case of the latter it's not EXACTLY in the same method (telephones weren't invented yet).
The average person in a developed country eats like this every day. That's so amazing. Regardless of all its faults, I'm so blessed to be born in this era.
19:34 Butter had yet to be invented? WTF? I was actually enjoying this series until they threw out that nugget of complete and utter b.s. Now I wonder what else was completely false.
It's not perfect and i still like it, but instead of inaccuracies due to un-updated info they drop total idiocies, like in the previous episode they said Romans didn't have orgies, then less than 60 seconds later they admit they actually had orgies... In this episode they denied that Medieval peasants starved 1:03 no less than 10 minutes later 8:03 to 8:51 They admitted peasants starved XD It's funny how almost the entire intro meant to change our view of medieval is a steaming pile of BS that they themselves disprove.
Costumes and settings are charming, but the English is odd (probably translated somewhat clumsily from French based on some of the idioms), and the historical accuracy is made questionable by innacurate statements like "butter had yet to be invented" (around 19:50) -- when it was known to the Romans and common in northern Europe.
Narrator: where the poor only had a morsel to eat. While the rich gorged themselves to excess. Me: wait I thought this was a medieval documentary. Why am I listening to the news?
I did not hear what you did. They said salmon was a luxury that the peasants were cooking for the landowner. Peasants did not catch fish because the fish in the streams and lakes belonged to the king, the squire, etc. If they caught you fishing or poaching game, you could be killed.
@funnyname725 For starters the statement that butter hadn't been invented yet, even though butter dates back to the Neolithic era. Source off the top of my head: Irish butter found in bogs. Dried fruits were not reserved for children, they were commonly used in mincemeat pies and fruitcake as extant recipes show. The claim that cows weren't butchered... yes, they were more valuable for dairy and plowing, but beef was definitely around as there are extant recipes for beef. Source: multiple extant cookbooks. The claim that all peasants were forbidden from fishing or hunting. England had the notion of kings parks, yes, but not all of Europe had such rules.
@@karingroenewegen5906 I’m reaching out to Madame Barriere to ask which sources they used in the documentary. In the meantime, there’s this page that names some sources and there a medieval cookbook by MK Black. At the bottom under references you’ll also find sources en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_cuisine?wprov=sfti1#References
This is terrible! People have had indoor cooking fires and butter thousands of years before the medieval period and during this period as well. It's like they know most people don't know or won't look anything up. I guess that's what you get from free documentaries, you get what you pay for😂
This document suggests that butter and indoor cooking were new to this time period and that is patently false. Whether it was in Europe or the middle east. This awful and can be fact checked with cursory Google search.
Would have hated seeing any animals severed heads on the table and wouldn't like to see that even today! While not a vegetarian 100 percent, or vegan, I eat only poultry and fish/shell fish, NO red meat or from any animal that has four legs , eyes, a nose and mouth i.e. mammals! Sugar didn't come into Europe until the Venetians introduced it in Italy! They even made their goblets and eating utensils out of spun sugar and at the end of a banquet, they would eat them as well! From "The History of Desserts", very interesting and entertaining reading, highly recommended! The cavaties they must have had back then!
@@FreeDocumentaryHistory that’s false. Butter pre-dates medieval Europe by a long time. Butter can be traced back as far as 8000 BCE. Where there are cows, there is milk, and where there is milk, there is butter.
Dairies were an important means of calories, not to mention making money for farms & estates- especially for women: Butter, when well-salted, was a means of preserving milk, same as cream & cheese (cheeses were either eaten fresh- in a ricotta/ cottage cheese-style, or aged, & could thus be transported over substantial distances- as evidenced by the fame of Parmesan) - what on earth is this 'not invented' rubbish?!
At 19:35 it is claimed that, "Butter had yet to be invented". This is not accurate. Just do a Google search to find out the truth. For me, this puts a doubt on any information in this documentary, thus being unreliable.
The wine available to peasants at that time in medieval Europe must have had quite a low alcohol content, otherwise everyone would have been completely wasted most of the day. And obviously you can't exactly till fields as a farmer or forge horseshoes as a blacksmith if you're falling over and spewing your guts out because you drank multiple liters of wine everyday. 😂
Medieval historian and economist here. I’d like to add some points:
Wheat back then, even in the early 1960s, was nearly gluten free. Today’s wheat has 19 times the amount of gluten than in the past.
“Refined” white bread (as we know it) did not exist. Wheat was never bleached. “White” bread was actually tan in color, due to continued sifting to produce a finer flour.
Much of the bread the commons and lessers ate would be today called “artisanal” and health food.
After the Plague/Pestilence/Black Death, the rep of The Church took a nosedive. If they couldn’t intervene with the Lord to spare good Christians from the plague, what good were they? (Many churchmen ran away from their flocks and parishes rather than stay and pray for everyone.) And then the Schism almost dealt the Church a death blow.
Church rules became a guideline, instead of mandatory. Except for certain holidays and observances.
Beer and ale contain tetracycline from free yeasts.
When the narrators cite about forty years for an average lifespan, they give a false impression. This figures in 40-60% child mortality. If one lived to late teens, a man could expect to live to about 60 years old, perhaps more depending on class. Women expected fewer years to to the dangers of childbirth.
The tales of rotting meats covered with sauces: pure lies. Rotting meats will poison everyone, pauper to prince.
Pigs in the video are modern pigs. The medieval “pig” was much closer to a wild boar (and call that). They were also much smaller. Look at the period illustrations. No pink oinkers there!
Tastes of medieval foods were different, too. No added sodium, “additives” or sugar imparted different flavors. Red meat was gamey, and served spicy. A true noble dinner was roast beef sprinkled liberally with powdered sugar. (That sounded odd until my wife and I made such a dish from farm to kitchen beef. Wow!) Mind you, a pound of powdered sugar in the 1340-1360s, cost 60 pence. A common laborer earned one to almost two pence per day. Go figure the expense.
Chocolate was not available until the discovery of the New World. However, vanilla was extant. It grew in tropical Africa and India. Even the ancient Egyptians knew of it. Needless to say, extremely expensive and very hard to come by.
Thought I’d share.
Cheers!
Did the poor have limited access to fish, as indicated therein?
@@shanewalters4632 Limited? Perhaps in inland Europe, away from a river.
But in Britain, no place is very far from the sea, let alone a river. Everyone had access to fish, and not just for holy days. Fish, including eels, were a staple food for all classes.
Salmon, an expensive treat today, was considered a working man’s food. Trout, on the other hand, was expensive and this a noble’s dish. If one lived near a port, shrimp were to be found, as well as lobster and other crustaceans. Porpoise was considered a royal meal. If one were caught, the head (!) was to be sent to the king. Whale, too. Usually, but not limited to such as minke and pilot whales.
Barnacle geese and puffins were considered by the church to be “seafood”.
Oysters were a commoners’ dish, perhaps because of their very limited shelf life.
I hope that helped. If you have any other questions, please ask.
Cheers!
just imagine how lucky we are, going to the grocery store buy what we like and cook what we like or ordering take away.
In the big cities, it was much more like that because cities were generally not subject to the aristocrats the way the rural people were.
Medieval people would be amazed that we could turn down heat on our ovens.
And if you were rich, yeah, you could essentially buy food from the market and kinda order takeout, but in the case of the latter it's not EXACTLY in the same method (telephones weren't invented yet).
@@PakaBubi as it turns out it’s been a blessing and a bane
The average person in a developed country eats like this every day. That's so amazing. Regardless of all its faults, I'm so blessed to be born in this era.
Indeed. These are the good old days !!!!
@@larryzigler6812 WW2 veteran lost their lives 😭
@@shaynewheeler9249 Approx. 80,000,000 people were killed during WW2
@@larryzigler6812 WW2 grave
@@shaynewheeler9249 WW2 NO GRAVE
19:34 Butter had yet to be invented? WTF? I was actually enjoying this series until they threw out that nugget of complete and utter b.s. Now I wonder what else was completely false.
It's not perfect and i still like it, but instead of inaccuracies due to un-updated info they drop total idiocies, like in the previous episode they said Romans didn't have orgies, then less than 60 seconds later they admit they actually had orgies... In this episode they denied that Medieval peasants starved 1:03 no less than 10 minutes later 8:03 to 8:51 They admitted peasants starved XD It's funny how almost the entire intro meant to change our view of medieval is a steaming pile of BS that they themselves disprove.
Complete and "butter b.s." Aye? Ehh? Ehhhh???
20:18 might not have had butter, but they had sedans.
Butter is as old as cheese, which is as old as agriculture itself.
@@Galejro 9 months later still nobody upvoted the utter bs you wrote. My faith in humanity is restored.
The re-enactment cast of actors is wonderful!
the problem with this documentary is that it needs a "citation needed" written on the corner of the screen every 5 minutes lol
Costumes and settings are charming, but the English is odd (probably translated somewhat clumsily from French based on some of the idioms), and the historical accuracy is made questionable by innacurate statements like "butter had yet to be invented" (around 19:50) -- when it was known to the Romans and common in northern Europe.
Food as medicine is something that I strongly believe in. Today, society's lost this in favor of drugs and artificial medicine
Superb! Culinary schools should make this required watching.
Amazing Wine was growing well even in England, since the temperatures during the Middle Ages were approximately 2 degrees Celsius higher than today 🤗
huh?....i thought English people only drink ale during that times and they imported most of their wine from portugal
Within the first two minutes it proved once again that no matter what else happens to everyone else, I'll always have a job.
Narrator: where the poor only had a morsel to eat. While the rich gorged themselves to excess.
Me: wait I thought this was a medieval documentary. Why am I listening to the news?
Very deep man.
4:47 what?? Only peasants catched and cooked salmon they have s many mistakes
Same thing about butter. Quite disheartening that this is a documentary.
Made me think of the Modern History TV episode about a Medieval peasants diet.
CAUGHT I do believe we can BULLY you now ! 😂😂😂
I did not hear what you did. They said salmon was a luxury that the peasants were cooking for the landowner. Peasants did not catch fish because the fish in the streams and lakes belonged to the king, the squire, etc. If they caught you fishing or poaching game, you could be killed.
The inaccuracies in this…
Source?
@funnyname725
For starters the statement that butter hadn't been invented yet, even though butter dates back to the Neolithic era. Source off the top of my head: Irish butter found in bogs.
Dried fruits were not reserved for children, they were commonly used in mincemeat pies and fruitcake as extant recipes show.
The claim that cows weren't butchered... yes, they were more valuable for dairy and plowing, but beef was definitely around as there are extant recipes for beef. Source: multiple extant cookbooks.
The claim that all peasants were forbidden from fishing or hunting. England had the notion of kings parks, yes, but not all of Europe had such rules.
These reenactors really look like they know what they're doing! If the actors aren't actually chefs, they fooled me.😊
Happy New Year. God bless. All the best.Good luck.
Folks, this is from The History Channel. You cannot expect accuracy there.
I want that cookbook
@@karingroenewegen5906 I know right?! There actually are some still available. Takes a bit of searching but it’s possible
@@FreeDocumentaryHistory what is the name of the cookbook? Or code so i can search ? Much thx
@@karingroenewegen5906 I’m
reaching out to Madame Barriere to ask which sources they used in the documentary. In the meantime, there’s this page that names some sources and there a medieval cookbook by MK Black. At the bottom under references you’ll also find sources en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_cuisine?wprov=sfti1#References
I wish we could get that squire recipe and sorrell juice recipe.
Chillpickle, you said "developed nations" eat like this ... I assume you meant "UN developed nations" eat like this ... Right? Very good point.
This is terrible! People have had indoor cooking fires and butter thousands of years before the medieval period and during this period as well. It's like they know most people don't know or won't look anything up. I guess that's what you get from free documentaries, you get what you pay for😂
Butter was used by peasants in the Middle Ages. In Europe. This is about the Middle Ages in Europe.
This document suggests that butter and indoor cooking were new to this time period and that is patently false. Whether it was in Europe or the middle east. This awful and can be fact checked with cursory Google search.
Would have hated seeing any animals severed heads on the table and wouldn't like to see that even today! While not a vegetarian 100 percent, or vegan, I eat only poultry and fish/shell fish, NO red meat or from any animal that has four legs , eyes, a nose and mouth i.e. mammals! Sugar didn't come into Europe until the Venetians introduced it in Italy! They even made their goblets and eating utensils out of spun sugar and at the end of a banquet, they would eat them as well! From "The History of Desserts", very interesting and entertaining reading, highly recommended! The cavaties they must have had back then!
Butter hadn't been invented?
Butter hadn’t been invented.
Are you sure about that?
@@FreeDocumentaryHistory that’s false. Butter pre-dates medieval Europe by a long time. Butter can be traced back as far as 8000 BCE. Where there are cows, there is milk, and where there is milk, there is butter.
Don't forget nobody had kitchens or a cooking hearth either and they all cooked outside😂.
Dairies were an important means of calories, not to mention making money for farms & estates- especially for women: Butter, when well-salted, was a means of preserving milk, same as cream & cheese (cheeses were either eaten fresh- in a ricotta/ cottage cheese-style, or aged, & could thus be transported over substantial distances- as evidenced by the fame of Parmesan) - what on earth is this 'not invented' rubbish?!
Butter had yet to be invented? If they had cheese, they had butter.
@37:58 the camera man was like damnnnn
Me too 🥺
I keep getting fooled by this exact documentary on TH-cam under many different names/channels/thumbnails….🤬
At 19:35 it is claimed that, "Butter had yet to be invented". This is not accurate. Just do a Google search to find out the truth. For me, this puts a doubt on any information in this documentary, thus being unreliable.
I kinda wanna make that pork sausage chowder.
2 to 3 liters of wine / day? OMG 🙏🌙💕💕💕
The wine available to peasants at that time in medieval Europe must have had quite a low alcohol content, otherwise everyone would have been completely wasted most of the day. And obviously you can't exactly till fields as a farmer or forge horseshoes as a blacksmith if you're falling over and spewing your guts out because you drank multiple liters of wine everyday. 😂
But bread is carbohydrates. I love this show however.
At 27:06: Is that Ruth Goodman making a cameo?
🍞
Bread
Why do we humans put up with bloody toffs??
👀👀👀
🗣️WERE THOSE ALIENS?!? 👀
Nowadays white bread is cheaper 😭
king richards fairs mead
jodi welch brechts carob seed
jim lamothes drawn bead
spoiled consumers
breaking bread neighbors rumors
hongmeizhous boomers
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