Lobscouse, Hardtack & Navy Sea Cooks
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ม.ค. 2024
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Have you tried making this with drysalted meat? I think the ships might have used salted meat a lot
Just an FYI you can find PILOT BREAD/CRACKERS around.
WOODEN BARQUE THROUGH THE ENDLESS SEA
TONS OF RUM, BRING THE BOOZE TO ME
WE'RE ON A SHIP, TO THE WINDS WE BOW
ALL RENEGADES, WE'LL OVERTHROW
- Storm Seeker.
Love your videos!💚
There a Dutch/ Belgian dish that uses slices of stale bread smeared with mustard floated on the surface to thicken the dish.
Apparently the mustard helps emulsify it.
I wonder if it’s related
The “hard tack!” Clack-clack honestly gets me every time 🏴☠️
Beat me to it. Max, please don't leave that out in future videos featuring this simply sturdy side dish.
Me too 😂
Yessss 💯💯💯
Classic
It has become the running gag of Max's videos.
I watch Tasting History every day while I eat lunch. Now my toddler won’t start eating until we turn on “histy!” She gets so excited when she hears the opening music. Thanks Max!
Get ‘em started young! A budding history lover.
@@TastingHistoryyou're the Best 😊😊😊❤❤❤❤❤
That's adorable!❤
That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.
I also watch tasting history on my lunch breaks! It's a great vibe.
Truly, the hardtack cut to you clacking them together literally never fails to make me smile
and we now have a 2024 version XD
@@astaroth_sasazaki_yt The 2024 version isn't as good as the original, I think. Both the clacking sound and the expression aren't as good
@@scalylayde8751 Agreed, I hope the new clip doesn't replace the old one.
Otherwise we'll be able to divide all of his videos into "Before Lobscouse" and "After Lobscouse"
@scalylayde8751 Yeah, the bigger kitchen means the hardtack acoustics (and the way he's holding them differently) just doesn't sound the same.
@@corvus_daI love the idea of separating Max's videos in the same way we date modern history around the death of Jesus Christ. That's how meaningful those clacks are to fans of his channel.
The hard tack (clack, clack) will NEVER get old. It is now iconic. I, literally, LOL every 👏single 👏time👏!
And the crowd goes wild. Round of applause *Clack clack*
I love that part 💯💯💯
For real 😂
@@BeerKa007Big same! 😂
Imagine a life-session with Max Miller in some theater and the audience does not clap, but every one pulls out his or her homemade hard tack and "clack-clack" as an applause 🙂
Local headline: "Cheer of hard tack; heard miles across county as Tastorians applaud Mr. Miller's conference"
Lapskaus is still eaten in Norway! Usually made with beef, potatoes and root vegetables, it's served with flatbrød(flatbread) that is made from water and barley flour. The flatbread is usually dipped or used almost like a spoon for the lapskaus.
In Germany as well! We add beet root and eat it with pickled herring.
In Finland too, at least in the west coast with sea farer history. I didn't even realize lapskoussi has such an interesting history, it's been kinda everyday meal served in schools and homes too. A bit more elaborate than this version, though 😊
This was my favourite food as a kid when I lived in northern norway... such a nice change from the 5 days a week with mainly cod with boiled potatoes, luckily bestemor fried some bacon in butter to go with that
i was coming here to say this! when i visit family and go camping i always bring a camping pack or can of lapskaus!!
@@birthemuller7310 Jedesmal in Hamburg im "Old commercial room". Bestes Katerfrühstück der Welt. 😋
The *clack clack* with Max’s goofy smile gets me every time 😂
That's worthy of a ringtone.
We still make it in Germany its made with corned beef, picked cucumber and potatoes it is topped with a fried egg my father in law used to work as a cook on a fishing trawler and used to make it quite often some people serve it with pickled herring . Apparently thats why people from Liverpool are called Scousers 👍😍I Its a national dish on the German coast and their islands 👍
Pladdütsche Köken :)
And beets! The Labskaus that I know is always hot pink from all of the delicious red beets 😋
@@krugerdave yes true and the red herring salad 👍👍👍
@@wombataldebaran9686 genau 👍
@@hablin1 a fixture of Christmas dinner at my house. My dad loves it, but hates beets. When his mother gave the recipe to my mother when they got married, she made sure my mum would keep the fact that there were beets in it secret 🤫 I don't know how he thought it got that colour 😅
can't believe we got a hardtack and asafetida reference in the same episode. The Tasting History lore is really coming together 👀
Add a sprinkling of garum, and we’re good to go!
It occurs to me that this channel may indeed be nothing more than an elaborate Pavlov's Dog experiment. Max has trained all of us to expect the clack clack anytime he says "hardtack." And, like the good doggy that I am, I delightedly tune in every week for fascinating food, a history lesson, and if I've been a very good boy all week maybe, juuuuuuust maybe, I'll get a clack, clack.
I think it is the other way around.
We trained him that we love that clip so he finds excuses to include it.
Imagine if he forgets it once and all the comments are just “where’s clack clack?!?! QAQ”
yessss, I had this exact thought!!
Not just him! I've seen other people's videos that mention hard tack, and I always a split second of confusion when I don't hear the *clack clack*. Then it's like, 'oh yeah, this isn't Max'.
Honestly at this point if I ever someone so much as mention hardtack without hearing the clack-clack immediately afterwards I feel an incredible amount of disappointment and unease
Lobscows (Welsh spelling) was also a staple stew for landlubbers along the north wales coast and Liverpool (hence the nickname ‘scousers’ for a Liverpudlian). I’m sure there must have been a myriad of receipt, but the one I inherited (from Anglesey) was for cubed stewing beef or lamb simmered in water seasoned with salt and pepper, with onions, swede and carrots, and dumplings made of beef suet, flour and water added for the final 20 minutes. It always tastes better reheated the second day with fresh dumplings.
Bang on. Another variant is the Lancashire Hot pot.
I love the hardtack bit, NEVER GETS OLD! NEVER STOP DOING IT! Cracks me up every time and its cool inside joke to regulars of the channel.
The caboose on a train was where the crew rested and cooked their meals. It got its name from the caboose on ships because of the stove.
The German word for galley is Kombüse 👍
@@krugerdave and the Afrikaans word for any kitchen is kombuis.
I didnt think there was a connection! How cool! Ive always wanted to sleep in a caboose on a train as a kid.
I don’t know which I like better, the clack-clack sound of hardtack or Max’s facial expression when he claps them together 😄
That expression is the closest we'll ever get to peering into a 17th century sailor's soul during dinnertime.
It's all pure poetry
I gotta say, both together are what makes it.
i literally cried out "YEAH!" when I saw the clip of you tapping the hardtack, it's the simple things in life :)
I'm from Argentina and here stores sell "galletas marineras" or "sailor's biscuits" (I guess), my great grandma loved them and they're popular between vegans because they're just flour and water. They're definetely not as hard as hardtack, you can eat them on their own and don't have that much shelf life but are very dry and thin. I never knew what they had to do with sailors unitl I started watching your videos but it makes sense that they could be some kind of adaptation from hardtack that people made once they were settled, considering our population is made mainly from european inmigrants who came in very long trips on ships.
Anyway, I hope you read my comment 😊😊. I love your channel and I love how you always match the tiny stuffed animal to the videos. ♥♥♥
Four? Four hard tack "clack clacks"? We have been blessed! Also, I appreciate you calling this a one pot meal. It made it me really happy for whatever reason.
Four hard tack "clack clacks", Jeremy? Four? That's insane.
Not only 4, one of them is new.
And in this economy!
We're living the high life now, folks.
SIX! SIX CLACKS! AH AH AH...
And I counted at least two missed opportunities!
Not only do we get lots of *clack clack* but we get a new *clack clack*?!? Max has smiled upon us!
Seriously though, the history of stews fascinate me because on the one hand its just cooking food in liquid but on the other hand, there are sooooo many different variations of something like a beef stew. I mean who doesn't have a relative's recipe that they swear by? That difference and variation is just so fascinating.
I really appreciated how you took the time to discuss the disability angle. It's very rare to see the roles of historical disabled people mentioned outside of discussions about institutions/medicine. Many assume that historically, disabled people always just died, lived on the streets, or were institutionalized. Not always the case, as can be seen here!
My dad was a civil war re-enacted and they would make hardtack for demonstrations in sample size. Conveniently it was about the size of long rifle ball, so during one of the after season parties they shot some of the leftovers at pumpkins LOL
That's still a thing! Here in Germany you can get Labskaus, both fresh and canned, which is basically this, ft. added beets, mashed to a completely disgusting-looking but absolutely delicious... well, mash, frequently garnished with a fried egg and/or pickles and/or fresh fish. Looks like puke on a plate, but it's savory and filling and *good*.
I am not from Hamburg, but it is one of my favorite German dishes. Max, you have to try it when you come to Germany this year!
You also often eat it together with Rote Beete/red beet
@@xekon14 „Beet Root“
@@eliptikon thanks
Bremerin here - ditto - I think it looks like dog food…but oh soooo lecker!
Here in Rauma, Finland, "lapskoussi" is still a common sight. Many lunch spots serve it once a week. Grocery stores in the area also sell it in 1 kg buckets.
There's no hardtack (clack clack!) in it, but it's thickened with potatoes.
Similar in Northern (and just Northern) Germany
@@napoleonfeanor Now that you mentioned it, yes! I've had it once in Rostock and I recall their version was red because it had beets. Otherwise very similar.
Same in northern Sweden, "lapskojs".
@@Ozrichead Oh, how neat. I have to find a recipe and give it a go.
*Labskovs* as we call it in Denmark.
We also skip the hardtack (clack clack!)
Cubes of beef, onions, potatoes, water, laurel leaf, salt, pepper. Boom!
Pickled red beet is served on the side, not incorporated as they do in other regions.
Edit: I forgot about the skipper! How could I forget about the skipper?
I don't know the difference between ordinary labskovs and skipper-labskovs. The dish is usually called skipper-labskovs. It's just a fun name.
I cannot describe the joy of not only having hardtack in the title but multiple *clack clack*s! ❤❤❤
Max, greetings! Terry from Huntington Beach here. I'm a former "sea cook" in the US Navy - an MS on the USS TARAWA LHA-1 (crew of 5000 sailors and Marines while underway). I retired from the culinary industry 7 years ago after cheffing for 30 years. I've been enjoying your channel for about the last 6 months or so. I love how you give the recipe interpretations then whip a little history on us. I'm going to give this Lobscouse dish a go this weekend. Like very hearty and filling, something for a good voyage or a brisk Winter's night's meal. If ya ever head down to OC, give me a dollar. We can swap seafaring recipes and anecdotes.
How were you on the Navy sticky bun? Man, those were like the best part of a balanced breakfast.
@@w.reidripley1968, I honestly don't remember making any. My best friend was head baker and we'd help him bake the breads and pastries at night for the next day. I don't remember making sticky buns. We did make donuts and pop/turn overs which went fast. Sticky buns would've been the death of me 😀
@@terrymyers699 ,They were an appreciable threat to my figure then too. I've seen the recipe, which is basic, with butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. The secret seems to have been they used ship-raised yeast dough, like underway-baked bread.
hey there! Former MS here! USS McKee AS-41... I got out a little before you did- just thought I'd shout out to a fellow cook and shipmate! fair winds and following seas!!
@@eclipsehorse8693 Bravo Zulu, shipmate! We Navy cooks are few and far between so its always nice to hear from a fellow Navy chef.
As a proud Scouser (and long time viewer!!!), I can’t tell you how excited I was to see you do an episode about our “national” dish!! And I don’t mind telling you, I completely geeked out when you gave a nod to our city’s association with the dish.
Just as a point of interest, although we dont use hardtack any more, Scouse is invariably served with hard “crusty bread” and beetroot (which is also a key ingredient of labskaus in Hamburg, another city with a Beatles connection!).
Amazing content as always Max, you are a treasure!
It is Hamburg's "national dish" as well, although we do the recipe a little different. Greetings from the other side of the North Sea!
American married to a Scouser here. Love the national dish, and was excited to see it get covered here. I make the modern version a couple times per year and would be hard pressed to think of something different for a final meal if pressed, though red borscht would be up there!
Expat Scouser in my case….my Grandad used to make an amazing pan of the stuff. Love this channel, and was thrilled by this video.
My family have always called it Tatterash and when we were lucky, mum would do suet dumplings or a crust on top. Originally we lived in Warrington.
Leigh, Lancashire my home town, our nickname is the Lobbygobblers due to our affinity for Lobby
Scouse!!! The National dish of Liverpool ❤ Literally just finished a big pot I made last week.
The reason Liverpudlians are called 'Scousers' or 'Scouse' is because the Sailors/Dockers were known for enjoying Lobscouse so much they got the nickname from others due to this preference for this hearty meal.
Easy there la.
Isn't the Liverpool accent also the one most people associate with the "pirate" accent? It seems they're just bound to be connected with sailing 😂
I honestly wondered where Scouse came from, now I know!
@mgtproductions9524 Wouldn't say the Scouse accent is pirates- but it is a mix of dialect and accents (Irish, Scottish, N.Wales, Lancashire).
The stereotypical Pirate accent originates from actor Robert Newton who played Long John Silver in a film adaptation of Treasure Island in 1950. His accent is very much West Country.
@@torreykatnah, the stereotypical accent is Cornish/southwestern, popularised by Robert Newton in Treasure Island.
My 10 year old daughter begged me to put this on while we were eating dinner, and of course I had to oblige. Thank you Max for making history so appealing and appetizing (and a couple glasses of wine make it even more so!)
Labskaus ist also a Dish, I grew Up on.
My Mother comes from Rostock, which was a verry Prominent Port in Germany. Thank you ☺️
In Liverpool nearly every family has their own recipe for Scouse, also it is commonly made in one large pan as the poor often wouldn't have frying pans or multiple pots available. You just throw it all in for a long, slow stew, skimming off the foamy top till it's gone. It's not unusual to cook it to eat the next day as it often tastes better and better each day you reheat it.
Traditionally its a cheap beef cut cubed (one that can take a long stew and still hold its shape ), potatoes, carrots, onion and optional bacon. Any other veg or meat type makes it an Irish stew. Then enjoy with lovely piece of crusty bread to mop up and often pickled red cabbage or beetroot on the side.
Most families have their own seasoning combinations and flavour additives (for example Worcester sauce, OXO cube or herbs) often guarded and handed down as a secret recipe.
@@user-et6pj4db9s Scouse is usually much, much thicker than an Irish stew (and its mother dish the Lobscouse) due to the long cooking time, the volume of potatoes and repeated reheating which helps break some of the potatoes down naturally thickening it and as I said traditionally any veg other than potatoes, carrots and onions makes it Irish. Half my family are some of those Irish immigrant Scousers and they make both regularly and would still be very insulted if you called their Scouse no different than an Irish stew.
It's similar to Sheppard's pie and Cottage pie being differentiated simply by one using ground lamb/mutton and the other using ground beef. Yet the areas they come from are very protective and proud of their traditional dish.
We always add a few drops of vinegar to our scouse
@@user-et6pj4db9s, All regions of the British Isles have some version of meat, potatoes and/or vegetables cooked in a stew. The ingredients may vary a bit, depending on what was available locally, but it was a traditional way to cook the cheaper cuts of meat the working classes could afford - and also cooking over a fire. It's nothing to do with Ireland or Irish immigrants.
As mentioned above, scouse is nothing like Irish stew
@@LadyLocket lots of Scousers out there make scouse with lamb or ideally half beef and half lamb, but I've never seen it with bacon before. Scouse made with lamb is definitely not Irish stew! Irish stew in my experience has leeks and barley and usually carrots, and scouse is thicker and usually doesn't have carrots. Also lobby I believe is scouse made with corned beef (UK style tinned corned beef that is).
@user-et6pj4db9s Dude. This is a discussion about meat and potatoes boiled in a pot. Take a chill pill and accept that there's gonna be variations on that.
Has it really been three years since the hard tack video was made?? Good grief, where did all that time go- I remember watching that one when it was put up! Then again, I also remember watching the very first Garum video when it first went up, too!
It's interesting that Max says his lobscouse reminds him of the Irish Stew he made, for this, too can be traced back to Liverpool. This was the port where I guess Irish men landed to work in England and the rest of the UK... and there was a large number of them come over to build both the canals and the railway networks. They are even recorded as a specific group, known as the Navvies, and their presence can be found in the many folk songs that come from in and around Liverpool. What's not to say that some of these Irish folk got chatting to ships' cooks on the Irish Sea crossing, and ended up exchanging favourite recipes along the way?
Bruh I remember when this channel had less than 2000 subs. How time flies and things change.
I’m super excited to see all the future hard tack “Clack Clack’s”! I can see it now old clacks then new clacks!
I honestly would be devastated if I heard him say “Hard tack” without the cut away! My favorite part of the videos 😂!
As a former hospital corpsman, I'd love to see a video dedicated more to loblolly's history, especially one including it's associations with sickbays and the loblolly boys.
Also known as Loblolly 'lob' to bubble or boil, 'lolly' stew or porridge. Loblolly 'boys' were 'waisters' of the ship who were relegated to looking after the sick, assisting the ships surgeon. The term is recorded as far back as 1597. These Loblollyboys would become sick berth attandants (Medic rating) of the Royal Navy by order of the Admiralty 4 May 1833. They are now known as the Royal Navy (& Royal Marines) Medical Assistant (since 1965). The USN would create a new medical rate from their Loblollyboys the Hospital Corpsman (after having had a couple of other different names). The MA and HM have served side by side at China Boxer rebellion 1900, Korean War (1950) and Iraq (2003) and many times after this (I have twice in Iraq with great HMs). 29 years and still serving. Corpsman up my freind! Video here on 191 years of the Royal Navy Medical Assistant: th-cam.com/video/O0Sxt2E_a7w/w-d-xo.html
We still eat "labskaus" in Germany to this day. It's a staple food on the menus of practically all traditional northern German restaurants (German dishes).
It's also often made at home. I personally cook its at last once a year.
The recipe is a bit different and it now contains pickled beed (especially the juice), pickles and pickled herring.
We don't use hardtack and only the corned beef these days though.
It's eaten with fried eggs.
Edit. We also eat it mashed.
It's already been mentioned in the comments that in Denmark, it is called Skipperlabskovs. It is the signature dish of the Tivoli restaurant "Grøften". Here it is a meat and potato stew. The meat can be any meat but salt pork is probably the most common. Apart from salt, the seasoning is white pepper and bay leaves. The potatoes are boiled out, not mashed. But as in much Danish food, the real secret is in the toppings. You need chopped chives, cold dices of butter, pickled red beets, Worchestershire Sauce and perhaps also or alternatively brown sauce (like H.P. Sauce). Some have ketchup and mustard, too, but to me, that is a bit over the top. And buttered whole grain rye bread on the side for texture. You also need snaps and beer.
Danish food often seems bland at first glance, but it comes to life with the different toppings and condiments and the combination of sharp and gentle beverages.
I have a historical cookbook, but not here, and it will take a while before I can find it, but to cut it short, there was a common North Sea culture, encompassing Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Western Germany and The Netherlands, and they have a lot of recipes and other cultural stuff in common, albeit with local twists. The culture was still alive when I was a kid in the 60s and 70s, but as shipping and fishing methods changed, the culture almost died out. I could speak a Yorkshire Dialect in Vendsyssel, and be understood. Now both regions share a great understanding of American English.
Thanks for sharing, that was so interesting especially the part about the North Sea culture!
The only problem I have is that Yorkshire and American understand each other 😢 All identities disappear 🫥
Best food I ever had was in Denmark. With superior ingredients and copious amounts of butter you don't need much more. ❤
Seriously interesting! Thank you! What are snaps?
Fellow Dane here - see you in Tivoli!
Hi, i live in Germany and Labskaus is very famous North German food. The ingrediens are: Potatos, Onion, Cored Beef and beetroot. It is served with a Fried Egg on top and a "Rollmops" (rolled fillet of marinated herring)
I just finished making Lobscouse as per your recipe. Dude, , AWESOME!!! I gave some of my hardtack to my friend. I challenged him to use it as well. Thank you again for the awesome recipe. And your book rocks!!
In case you wondering, the hard tack thing is still delightful. Always makes me smile.
I was looking forward to it. Hehehe!
Well, hard tack *clack clack* never gets old...
I look forward to your videos every Tuesday! My 1 year olds, I put a Playlist on of your videos during the day. Everytime the sound of time for history plays my daughter immediately is glued. My mother in law and her mom has fallen in love with your videos and both bought your cook book now. They love watching when they come over. Them being from England they love seeing those recipes ❤ thank you for what you do!
That's lovely, thank you to the family for watching.
What a breath of fresh air this channel is! When the world is falling apart, this is a safe place! ❤ thank you!
I honestly don't think that the *Clack Clack* every time Hardtack is mentioned will ever get old for me
In the Patrick O'Brian books the ship's surgeon sometimes uses asafoetida in his medicines, so the sailors know they have been properly dosed.
**Clack Clack** 3:39 its always music to My ears and we got a new one! THANKS MAX! YOU'RE THE BEST 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Having read through Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series of Naval based books, I love when you focus on a ship’s dish
Please never stop the hardtack running gag on this channel I love it so much 😂
So I do an impression of an early 19th century ships cook. A couple of other things to know about navy cooking during the great age of sail
1) The reason ships biscuits are round and hardtack is square is that the army stores hardtack in square wooden boxes and the navy stores theirs in barrels
2) while potatoes were in the 1908 recipe, potatoes were a later addition to navy cooking. During long sea voyages potatoes had a tendency to rot, and traditional sailors (mindful of their privileges) considered potatoes to be either unfamiliar or a poor persons food. Same with fish. You could give a sailor fish once in a while, but consistent fish in ration was considered to be short changing them
3) Don't feel bad about doing it as a two dish recipe, as historically that's how it would have been done aboard a navy vessel. Generally a ships cook mainly used big pots for cooking and generally fat and onions was not part of their regular rations, so they would have fried their onions seperately after the main beef/pork was cooked
4) on that same note this was a dish mostly prepared by the Mess Cook, not the Ships Cook. Men were organized into messes of 8-12, and every mess had a cook as a position that would move between members of the mess as a temporary shift instead of their regular duties. The mess cook was gather all the ingredients for the day's meals, prepare them for cooking, and then turn them over to the ships cook for heating, and then take them back and make them into particular dishes. It was the mess cook that turned different combinations of the same 3 or 4 ingredients into different issues. The mess cooks could haggle/batter with the ships cook for doing things like frying things as that's usually behind them (the ships cook would sometimes have a supply of fat that had been rendered off of boiling meat that they would sell access to for frying/flavor purposes. Money towards this 'slush' would form a slush fund for the galley, and would be used to buy things beyond the normal rations)
5) beyond acting, as you say, as effectively a pension service for the navy (although this custom was mostly a British navy thing and wasn't universal), the other thing that got a cook selected was reliability. His duty was to maintain the only source of flame aboard ship, and fire at sea was a terrifying prospect, so they needed to be someone that would always be aware and at their station any time the fires were lit (which wasn't actually all the time. Generally breakfast, such as it was, was a hot beverage and cold biscuit/meat and supper was a cold meal as well usually. Only the mid-day meal, which was also generally the only meal that most of the crew dined together regardless of watch, was a hot meal
I'm from Liverpool (UK) and we're known as 'scousers', nice to see my homeland getting a mention on one of my favourite TH-cam channels.
The norwegian dish called Lapskaus (pronounced very similar). Kind of resembles this yeah. We have two kinds, "light" Lapskaus" (with pork), and "dark" (or just regular) Lapskaus (with beef). Often served on our national day. Served with flatbread by the side.
Sweden has lapskojs, which is basically just mashed potatoes with mixed in pork.
I am from Liverpool😀🇬🇧, our accent is called Scouse! Because of the stew😀
Mum made our scouse from leftovers from sunday roast, preferably lamb, potatoes, carrots, parsnip, barley, cooked down over many hours, add Extra spuds ( potatoe) the original comfort food😀.
Any leaftovers made into a scouse pie😀 yum!!
I live in Liverpool among the wonderful Scousers (nicest , funniest people you'd ever want to meet) and I've had scouse countless times in my 25 years here and it's rarely the same twice but it's always amazing. It usually consists of whatever you have available to to you; whatever is cheap at the market that day- carrots, onions, lamb or beef (flour the meat before you cook it to help thicken the stew), potatoes, bacon (much thicker here than in the US) are standard ingredients. It's not unusual to keep a pot of scouse going and just add to it over time. It freezes well and it's a hearty, warming, filling comfort food. A crusty bread on the side rather than hard tack might be a bit easier to make if you don't have any in hand.
Lee, honourary Scouser
sounds really similar to my grandads coddle (we're irish) he ate and grew up with,
like exactly as you described just sausages were usually added too
Sound La! 👍
The "Max Miller" drinking game just has a new entry: take a shot every time you hear **Clack Clack** :)
Way to contribute to alcoholism! ^-^
The hardtack clacks never get old. ❤
Dear Max & Crew, you are loved and appreciated. Thank you for this great video!
I loved your episode on Fannie Farmer and disabled women cooks. Glad to know disabled sailors on ships were still getting paid, even though they couldn't climb rigging.
Max 🥹 I've been wanting you to do a video on "Scouse" for ages. Really glad to see you have done the origin video of it. This is where us scousers get our name from. I love how food has so much culture and history and how it connects different parts of the world together ❤
Fun fact. Eight Avenue in Brooklyn New York used to be called colloquially “Lapskaus Boulevard” because of the high Norwegian-American population there.
My mum was from Birkenhead so scouse is a childhood comfort food of mine. She always made it with stewing beef and cooked it in a pressure cooker so it was super tender. Sometimes we'd have it with suet dumplings, which was always the my fav version.
That's a very interesting comment on copper versus cast iron, especially since many people think of iron as an upgrade to copper. This shows one of the ways in which that was not true.
ALSO! New hardtack clip?! NEW HARDTACK CLIP!
I cant read the word hardtack without the clip popping into my head.
That hardtack clip never ever fails to get me to legit goonlaugh every time. I've been in the dark, in bed at 2am when suddenly I break the silence with one of those deep, spontaneous, guffawing laughs that I just can't suppress.
Winco Foods here in the States sells sea biscuits in their bulk food section and I have some stored for emergencies! There is a movie "17 Miracles" where a pioneer mother experiences a sacred moment with these hard tack biscuits that helps her family survive a terrible journey west, I was privileged to meet that Mother's Great Granddaughter, who heard the story from her Great Grandma's own lips. So special.
See also "The Potteries - Lobby" Stoke On Trent is far from the sea, but we've eaten this dish for hundreds of years and still do here. We call it Lobby which is a variation on the Lobscouse name, and it was eaten here by the poor Staffordshire Pottery workers as cheap food. It is one of our local dishes that every family knows & eats, along with the delicious Staffordshire Oatcakes (a soft oat pancake wrap unique to the area that is often eaten topped with grilled cheese)
Interesting, in Germany Labskaus contains gherkins as well. Oh, and no hardtack. Just gherkins, potatoes and salt beef. Modern recipes go something like this: Boil potatoes and peel them, make mash using the liquid from the gherkins. Chop gherkins and potted meat and mix with the mashed potatoes. You can add butter and salt if you want to. You can also use pickled beetroot instead of the gherkins. Serve with pickled herring and fried egg.
Probably a similar taste, since corned beef has been pickled in a brine. Likely the same general idea, using what they had on hand.
My Mom and myself always do it with beetroot so it's bright pink. My Grandma didn't, so when I visited her as a child and she made Labskaus it was dull grey and I didn't wanna eat it. By the way: I'm from Hamburg, Germany
@@bridge6649 Very cool! My parents lived in Stuttgart before I was born. There's a lot of similarity between regional dishes. It sounds like your mother was attempting to recreate the more traditional dish, since the beetroot would both make it the pink of corned beef, as well as add in the pickled flavor. Very clever trick!
So is my godmother who taught me the recipe. She made it with gherkins and my mum made it with beetroot (that's the Australian influence, :) add beetroot to everything). As a kid I despised pickled beetroot, so I preferred my godmother's. Agree about the horrible colour though.@@bridge6649
@@The_Cranky_Painter I live in Mittelfranken now, so I make it with tinned Bratwurstgehäck. Nice and salty, goes well with the gherkins.
Idk what all this is about but i liked it because i saw you said you had to make more hard tack in a post.
Ps thank you for all the great stories and history and research and time and effort you out into making these.
I liked learning about history already but you make it somehow even more enjoyable like story time after dinner thank you.
Your channel is honestly legendary. It fills a niche which I personally love and I watch every video. Thank you for your work and I hope that you continue to make recipes until the end of time.
Lapskaus is a Norwegian stew with diced potatoes, carrots, leeks, kohlrabi, and parsley root. You make it with stock and also diced beef or pork. It was interesting how the name of that dish sounds like how you say lapskaus in Norwegian.
Is kohlrabi widely available in Norway? I love it, but it’s difficult to find in stores here.
Yes, you can find it in pretty much all shops@@Takenmynameandmycat
@@Takenmynameandmycat I think it's relatively easy to acquire. But I do believe they might be seasonal.
We need a compilation of everytime the hard tack joke has been used!
Ohhh my goodness!!!! My family still eat a very similar recipe just called "Scouse", given that we live near Merseyside I never questioned it but - it's really great to see my own living heritage be represented in a way that I genuinely learn something!!! Thank you for making my day Max! :))
OK I MAY NOT HAVE FULLY FINISNED OR GOT THAT FAR VIEW THE VIDEO, TO KNOW THAT HE MENTIONS MODERN SCOUSE BUT STILL THANK YOU MAX!!! :))
Oh blessed thee who heardth the call of thee hard tack! The research and montage is really amazing and its like getting a fun, short lecture on history through food!
Ah, love scouse, especially served with pickled red cabbage. Favourite dish of Liverpool!
No one :
Absolutely no one :
Hard tack : clack clack.
My uncle has worked on US river grain barges practically his whole life. It's hard work, and he got injured about 10 years ago. Back and knees are pretty much shot. But he's now a cook for one of these barges lol
Man, I truly love these videos. Such an experience of informative and interesting tidbits of history mixed with a meal that is replicable by anyone is a true representation of what history is about.
These videos have been accompanying me everyday as I cook dinner for myself and they have inspired me to keep on cooking. Much thanks Max
Lobscouse is a beautiful word to say
Sailing from port to bay
Diced beef, potato, onions and bacon
Seaborne kitchen, waves forsaken
Keeping a crew in rude health
While searching the seas for new wealth
Creating bowls of hearty meals
For storms, high winds and damaged sails.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Very nice! Source? Or is it original?
@@exidy-ytthank you. 😊 All me. Sorry for any typos
@@Firegen1 I don't know if you have ever read the 'Master and Commander' (Aubrey/Maturin) book series about naval life during the Napoleonic wars, but midway through the series two of Captain Aubrey's lieutenants are poets and have a bit of a rivalry in composing. This could easily have been written by Lt. Mowett. Again, nice job.
@@exidy-ytI've always wanted to read it! It sounds like such a heart read.
Thank you! That feedback means a lot to me. ❤️
Now you've done rubaboo, hellfire stew, lobscouse & Irish stew it would be lovely if you could do traditional "Stovies" from Scotland. (If you do please don't do the imitation one with corned beef - that's just a hash). Proper stovies, with the leftover from a roast/drippings. A very humble dish, but one close to my heart. A winter staple & one we traditionally had every Guy Fawkes night after the fireworks served with oatcakes, skirlie & pickled beetroot.🎆😋
Loved this one! I really enjoy learning about different historical stews thanks so much for all of your hard work :)
Nothing but enjoyment watching your videos. The cooking, the history and especially the humor makes it so much fun!
I want to start a drinking game. Watch Tasting History episodes for several hours and do a shot every time a hard tack “shot” gets played. 😀
That's a short road to alcohol poisoning... 😮
When do we start? 😅
US Navy in late 1960's and I'm very grateful for our ship's cooks after watching this episode. Food was great! I appreciate all the research and writing you put into your channel. Thank you!
I grew up in Denmark, and it was one of my mothers favorite winter meals to make. She would sometimes make it with leftover roast and always used a bay leaf. She served with a tsk of cold butter in the top middle of a portion and a generous sprinkle of fresh parsley. While she didn’t serve it with sea tags, she would serve it with a slice of rye bread.
Hardtack vidoes and the clanking of them together bring me so much joy! I love this channel but for some reason these hardtack
videos spark so much joy for me over the years.
I'm from Stoke-on-Trent, I grew up eating Lobby which is our local variant of Lobscouse, specifically a variant that uses Pearl Barley instead of hard tack. I always assumed we inherited it from Liverpudlian immigrants during the Inudstrial revolution but it sounds more like we got it from "Lob lolly" from the West Country. Also find it bizzare to think this dish spread as far florida. Thanks so much for focusing on a bit of Northern English history!
In Norway, "Lapskaus" (both light and dark versions) is still a staple of our cuisine. Guess most seafaring nations have their version of this dish :) I even believe a street in Brooklyn, NY was called Lapskaus Boulevard for a time...
Well, people talk, and seaports were places where people from many nations/areas would be able to meet and pass on recipes. Plus, people jumping ship, etc. A lot of cross pollination of ideas.
Or, it could be like pickling or jerking meat. When you need to preserve foods, a lot of the same methods were developed all over the world, because chemistry is a thing. Pickling is not hard to figure out, nor is drying of food stuffs.
Stews are awesome, as it's really just whatever you have dumped into a big pot and cooked slowly. So not terribly surprising that every type of cooking i have ever heard of has something like a stew in it.
In Norway it's called lapskaus. It's an ancient dish that is still popular and cozy to eat in the winter!
I'm so happy that this was an episode, though a different version, no one around me knew what I was saying, asking 'what the hell is Lobscouse?', I always had to explain it as a potato and meat stew. xD
So, I want to thank you, for doing this video. Now I can just send people here when they ask me what Lobscouse is. :)
In case you're curious, my history with it;
Over 25 years ago (I'm 32 now), I had my great grandmother come to Australia from Norway to visit. Her son - my grandfather - was a fisherman, and was most of his life. He even sailed the sea from Norway to here, over 60 years ago, obviously stopping at many docks on his way here.
When great grandma came, she showed my grandmother her version of Lobscouse - Celery, Shallots/Spring Onions, (peeled) Potatoes, (peeled) Carrots, and Rump Steak. Add some beef stock ro the water, and let simmer for 8 hours, stirring every half hour for the first two hours, then every hour after, scraping the bottom. It's a dish I still enjoy to this day. Though I've had to change the cutting sizes, as she always said 'smaller', as if it was the only english words she knew, it was cute. :) So the sizes were usually smaller than 1cm. I've made the potatoes and steak bite size now, but everything else still tastes the same.
Hands down my favorite channel. The perfect marriage of cooking and history.
In Patrick O'Brian's book series on the adventures of Royal Naval Officer Jack Aubrey and Dr Maturin the meal of Lobscouse is often mentioned. There's even a cookbook based on the meals mentioned in the series called "Lobscouse and spotted Dog."
And it's a rather different recipe calling for juniper berries!
Asafoetida is often mentioned in the book series as an additive to medicines prepared for the sailors. They used to think foul smelling = effective.
'You must ALWAYS choose the lesser of two weevil's!' I thought of the same novels when I saw the title. Just picked up a book of Patrick O'Brians short stories.
Aubrey’s favorite dish was pickled pigs head.
I believe my dad owns that cookbook. I should look through it and see if I can find something good.
My wife grew up on the Baltic Sea coast in northern Germany. There the traditional way of cooking it is as a hash, with no water. You start with the bacon and potatoes and then add in the corned beef. It also includes the addition of red beets and pickled herring, including the juice, which are part of the simmer in the frying pan. It’s then serviced with fried eggs.
Well, it sure doesn't resembler the Swedish Lapskojs as you say, as it's more of a mash with pieces of beef in it. It does however have similarities to the dish Sjömansbiff (Sailors steak), but then you just add beef, so no bacon etc and boil the beef, onions and potatoes in layers in beer (preferably porter) and some stock plus some herbs. It's quite a treat and easy to make.
It must be either my ancestors calling me, or my own time in the Navy, but every time I see a sea based episode from Max, I gotta stop everything to watch it ❤
I'm originally from Liverpool, but live in Australia now. Scouse still gets made a fair few times a year. I hope I give it justice having watched my Mum make it for many, many years. Nice to see my home city get a airing on your channel! ❤
Max, I really love your channel simply because I love history and coking. The way you tell your stories is so entertaining. Thank you.
The term “Fresh Hardtack” seems like an oxymoron, does it not?!?! 🤭
How? Very stupid of me but I can’t understand how that is an oxymoron
contemperary "Labskaus" which is a regional dish in coastal Germany has a similar base, but also includes beetroot and gherkins and is served with pickled hering and an egg sunny side up. ... all things which can be easily taken on a ship trip.
I also noticed that the German term "Kombüse" for ship's kitchen probably derived from these stoves. Thanks.
Thanks for the video, I usually learn something and always enjoy watching!
I love how you choose so many recipes that include a connection to hardtack (tock tock)
Thanks! My father used to be a sailor already during the sailing ship era, and it was often we had lapskoussi (Finnish version) at home. Just meat, lots of (half smashed) potatoes and butter. That was good. I used to spice it richly with ketchup. My father was not a cook steward, but a captain, yet it was most often his job to make this dish in our family. - For some odd reason, it is not so commonplace food on ships nowadays.... 🤔
I looked into making hard tack after watching your original hard tack video. Out of curiosity, I ended up making a batch of them. I vacuum sealed them, and set them aside. They are every bit as delightful as chewing on a brick. I tried soaking one for several hours in coffee... nothing. All and all, it was great fun. I hope to God I will never need to eat them. I feel they would be more useful as a melee weapon during a zombie apocalypse, than a source of sustenance.
Or sharpen an edge and throw them at enemies, like the villainous henchman with the razor edged hat in a James Bond movie (Goldfinger?)
@@sabinegierth-waniczek4872 They'd have to rename it 'James Bond indigestion never dies'
@@abdulalhazred3027 Hi, cool alias name ;-) Labskaus is a recipe I would expect to find in the Necronomicon.
Good proposition, but I throw out "Hard Tack is Noooot Enough" or "With A View to the Grill" or "Stew Finger"
You see, I try to laugh about what I fear (Labskaus with pickles and beetroot and herring thrown - I am just not brave enough to try this dish, albeit I believe that many people like it this way). Q surely would have a belt ready with small vials of caraway and/ or Jägermeister during mission briefing...
I hasten to add that I normally love cooking and eating one pot stew dishes!!! But Labskaus is an acquired taste ,and the imagination to have to eat the Northern German version aboard aship and battling with seasickness adds yet another dimension to the experience. Trauma squad to the rescue!
@@sabinegierth-waniczek4872 The life of a sailor must have been really tough back then.
Great episode as always. The recipe is very similar to Northern England Panaculty (which I just made). Layers of potatoes, onion, corned beef, bacon lardon, with beef broth and beef gravy and baked in the oven. Comfort food. No hard tack involved. Thanks, Max!
Delightful that we have higher quality footage of the hard tack baking 3:38, but nothing can replace the original clack-clack 2:03. It is part of the history of Tasting History.