In celebration of another informative and witty episode, I hope to pit my (AuntDebra's) against Josémm's or JMaximus' Pokémon some time in the near future!
I made a big bowl of puls from spelt for a Roman themed party once, pretty much as a joke. It looked disgusting. Weirdly, it tasted really good and everyone ate it until it was gone, which was both surprising and hilarious.
Out of laziness I tried cooking rice with lentils in the same pot. Didn't get the timing right. The lentils turned mushy and the rice soggy, but it tasted surprisingly good. There is something about grains + beans that somehow complements each other.
@@marcheck3400 what you made on accident sounds a lot like Indian Khichdi (/Khichuri), if you liked what you made and want to give it another go, I hope you look up any of those recipes, they're super easy too!
@@marcheck3400 Apparently the one amino acid that prevents lentils from having a complete amino acid profile is found abundantly in rice. Tyrosine I believe is the one. Regardless, they are super tasty together
My grandparents are from a small village in southern Italy, in the province of Calabria, and I just realized watching your video that they often eat a porridge of barley and mashed fava beans exactly like this Roman puls you made, it looks identical and is really delicious. I've noticed that some of the Roman recipes like this one that you've made are still cooked today in some rural Italian villages, even though they are not really mainstream Italian food, so you won't find them at an Italian restaurant. But in the rural villages in Italy, especially in the south, like in Calabria and Sicily, they actually still eat some of these ancient Roman dishes all the time!
In Italy we have many dishes that recall ancient Roman dishes, and also a food culture that has been handed down for centuries. In northern Italy we still make hams as the Romans did.
I'm a little disappointed that "Silence of the Lambs" wasn't referenced every time fava beans was mentioned...but then Romans get nervous any time Hannibal is talked about
This is honestly a really great recipe to find on this channel. It’s filling but still relatively cheap enough for someone tight on a budget. And the flavor a bit of vinegar adds to a dish is amazing. Thank you so much for this dish!
There's a little interesting fact: Gladiators would usually be given a set time contract if they were not criminals and instead volunteered to be gladiators to support their families. They were essentially a combination between an actor and a athlete.
I'd be willing to bet that the "music" played at gladiatorial events was intended to let the crowd better know what was going on. A trumpet sounding with every hit certainly sounds that way. Likely the other instruments also had such meaning when played, allowing the crowd to know what was happening without opera glasses or an amplified announcer.
Sure but the DID like to buff of, something that can be seen in paintings. Apperantly a layer of fat functioned as a type of armor giving at least some pitiful protection.
@@michaelpettersson4919 Whatever was cheap, calorie-rich and nutritious enough to not cause any obvious deficiency issues was what they were given, basically.
in most cases they ate better than the nobles that held them, they were in essence viewed as live stock and you feed your livestock to keep them in top shape for events. an account of one such gladiator i read was a man that fought for 20 years and won all but one match where his opponent showed leniency and this bloke up and killed the man that spared his life moments later. from some of the things i read about him he was 36 when he won his freedom and had trained for 5 years before his first fight...so he was around 11 when he either willingly went into service asa gladiator or was sold. he may have even been a servants child. until his hard won freedom he was fed on grains, fatty meats, and fresh fruit and vegetables. This account pops up in several places where i try to learn more about that time and is used as an example as to the life of a gladiator that survived most if not all of their fights. Can yall imagine an 11 year old being told that he needs to buff up these days? most of them would whine that it is too hard.
"Gladiator sweat could be sold as an aphrodisiac" "Complained that his students were talking about gladiators during lectures" That's... Wow, I see a lot of similarities to today right there. I guess we've always been this way, huh?
So if the fights had some kind of orchestral musical score, do you think that the popular gladiators got their own entrance theme music like in WWE? Imagine introducing Magnus the “Throat-ripper” of Dalmatia into the Coliseum as a rendition of “ Break the Walls Down” is played on flutes and lyres
One personal change I'd make is frying the garlic for a little bit before adding the water, just to help the oil's fragance and enhance the dish's garlic-y aroma.
I'd also swap out the salt and season with fish sauce too. Going to try this recipe as I happen to have all these ingredients in my pantry at the moment.
Tacitus complaining about his students chattering about the gladiators during his lessons crack me up. 2,000 years later, teachers bemoan their students chattering away about professional athletes: footballers, basketball players, wrestlers. People never really change, do they? Even with all the advancements we've made, humans are gonna human I guess.
The logistics of that always floored me (being a former stage crew member). How'd they pipe in that quantity of water? How'd they keep it from leaking into the lower levels? How did they get whole ships into this structure? I want to know how they did it all!
@@slwrabbits from what I`ve read, the Colosseum had it`s own aqueduct and channel system for flooding and draining, the ships weren`t full size, but small scale, think large fishing boats, made to look like the real ones. The water on the arena was not deep, otherwise the weight would become a huge problem.
Wait, so this dude is part of a group of 5v5, surrenders, decided he doesn't want to die, and then solos the entire other team and lives?! How is he not the coolest gladiator ever?
The gladiatorial games started out as essentially human sacrifice to the gods and its not a good look when one of your sacrifices doesn’t play his part
That video he did a while back doing Poscha and pork fat about how Roman soldiers were punished by being given barley rations makes more sense now considering barley was associated with being the food of slaves. Probably also goes along with the Roman disdain for beer too.
There's a traditional barley-and-pork stew they make around where my dad's from and I absolutely love that stuff. But even there, it had a reputation as a poor man's grain well into the 20th century.
The jocks get everything. Nothing has changed. So true. So true. Such a bitter pill. On the upside, never made to fight for my life on a daily basis and be treated like a prisoner.
A group I was a part of did Norman cookery. We had five different dishes and we distinguished them as "the brown glop, the tan glop, the off-white glop, the glop between tan and off-white, and the dark brown glop." I think you have found a new shade of glop. [For the record, the dark brown glop was a beef with cinnamon and rose petals that was delicious. All of the glops were delicious, they just all looked alike.]
@Sarafina Summers I'm with you on the sweet pasta salads. What hath they wrought? I think the answer to the "how can midwestern folks eat all that" is: the cold. Cold burns fat.
I would really love to have your recipes. Meal makes a meal. Glop is the glue that holds the world together with such inventive variety. I'm of such a mind as to say there is so much to cherish in a thin nut gruel. ;-)
I guess these days food photography is such an inescapable thing that it'd be hard to give a tasty helping of glop away for free. Shame about it! Fun thing about a good glop (a.k.a a thick soup): it stays in the stomach a lot longer than the exact same ingredients would do if they hadn't been boiled to a soup, so the satiation lasts longer.
I'm reminded of the time my father made rice and beans but forgot to soak the beans first. By the time they were edible, the rice was mush. It was very tasty, but my sister and I delighted in pointing out that we had done our chores and then been served gruel.
You know, on the same general theme as this, you might want to consider making chankonabe, the rich stew that they feed to sumo wrestlers to bulk them up. It's hard to say how long this has been around, but based on pictures of sumo wrestlers, the "bulked-up" version started appearing around the mid-1700s, so some version of chankonabe was probably around by then.
i love how historicly acurate this video is i love that you got the thumbfing right! They had some of the best doctors of the time. It was also great for doc to learn there.
The official gladiator games funded by the state---which virtually had unlimited funds to put on a show---at the coliseum in Rome were often choreographed to play out a story from Greco-Roman Mythology or to commemorate some famous battle that the legions had won down through history complete with props and what not. It was like watching a Broadway show....but with actual maiming and killing.
@@MonsterPumpkin As long as fighting has been a spectacle, which is since forever, it has been a "work" to one degree or another. There's money in spectacle and everyone involved can make more money, more reliably, if the fighters don't hurt each other too badly and can live to fight each other another day.
I just want to say that your videos have been so comforting during this crazy time. My 9 yr old is has struggled with the isolation, but is showing an interest in cooking, so we've incorporated your videos into our homeschool and it's really gotten him excited to cook and learn and just get out of his head a bit.. Thank you for all the work you put in. It's very appreciated. 🥰
Gladiator fights are fascinating. They were more the professional wrestling of their day than a combat sport. The fights between actual stars were almost certainly fixed, as no one had an interest in someone dying. The diet and extra fat was definitely designed to help gladiators "blade" (bleed on purpose) without endangering themselves.
And their gear was almost certainly gimmicked. If a blade is made with a deliberately poor shape it can cut shallowly easily but not deeply. The trident with the triangular tips would also be difficult to pierce deeply with, especially compared to a spear. The armor also leaves exposed areas with fat deposits and no bones or tendons right by the surface. I think a common ending was a shallow slash across the stomach, which the loser grabbed as if they were holding their guts in from an actual disembowelment.
If I recall correctly, they were trained to aim for the back, slashes on your ack piss blood, are really impressive, but not threatening to your life ^^ Of course there were deads, but not a daily occurence.
Pretty sure that the quality of the fighters in a social context greatly determined how the fight was going to be set up. Prisoners? Feed them to the lions for blood sport. No-name random grunts? Probably a decently dangerous fight where dying was going to determined by if one of the gladiators genuinely wants to kill the other. Celebrity fighters? No chance these guys were dying and they were going to do a full-on spectacle fight full of dumb, flashy moves with no real combat application but would look cool as hell.
This year this has become one of my favorite recipes. I'm just not a huge fan of fava beans in my puls. I prefer extra onions & bacon, zucchini & kielbasa, plums & kielbasa & raisins. For sure I'll be trying other ingredients as well. It's such a cheap, healthy, delicious, versatile food and I can make great quantities of it on my wok. It lasts me and my gf 2-3 days. Romans sure knew what's up. Thank you, Max. I'm learning a lot from your channel.
Now I can't help imagining a "Gladiator" scene where, say, Lucilla goes to Maximus in the cell and complains for the fart stink LOL Gosh, this notion ruined it for me (and Russell Crowe is my absolute idol as it comes down to acting).
Keep in mind, the living conditions of gladiators improved quite a bit after Spartacus' rebellion, because Roman leaders obviously didn't want that to happen again.
13:30 I felt this so much. Our football team hadn’t won anything since before the year 1990 but every year they got more funding and chorus and theater arts got more cuts. Even the sports that we’re doing well year after year got snubbed for more football.
In Romania we make "Bulz" which is a sort of meal made with polenta (corn flower porridge), eggs and cheese. It is also usually considered as a "peasant's food" so I kinda feel like it could be a survivor of the food our roman ancestors used to make :)
I remember a book from middle school, it was part of a series called "You would not want to be: _" and it was "You would not want to be A Roman Gladiator" and it also talked about these gladiator kits, granted it being a kids book, it left out the whole "being pimped out to high class women if you won"
I watch alot of RUclips… and this is my favorite show period. Love the history thats usually laugh out loud funny, and the cooking part is almost like a bonus to a show that can stand on its own based on just the history part. What knights ate, the rosewater and sugar pizza , two of my favorite episodes. This is better than any history channel show that you actually have to pay for.
I remember seeing an article on what gladiators ate a couple years ago, idly thought I'd try it out. After seeing this I'll definitely add it to my meals, especially as I've started working out again. Got to pad myself for one day being amongst the crowds again. The bit of gas may help with distancing as well.
In medieval Latin, you sometimes get misspellings, like 'alium' (other) vs 'allium' (garlic). Once I put a medieval Latin document through Google Translate before doing the full translation myself, and I got a contract that asked for "garlic inserted into the document".
Considering how much Rome valued physical fitness, this story is pretty hilarious to envision. The desire of the whole empire; the heartthrob boy-band stars of the day, were basically all rocking dad-bods.
They also tended to have different standards of fitness. Could you go all day in doing rough and ready stuff? Cool? Have a little flab? Good! It means you have meat on your bones and won't starve. Also, women who were pudgy tended to be seen as much more beautiful than the rail thin supermodels we consider such these days.
Well, most people who rock the dad bod aren't packing pounds of muscle underneath-- same deal with sumo wrestlers. Sure they're fat, but it's subcutaneous, not visceral fat. And they train got hours to build muscle underneath. That kind of body takes real dedication
@@LancesArmorStriking Exactly, the caloric surplus ensures that they are building muscle at the fastest possible rate. According to Mike Israetel, in order for the body to make muscular hypertrophic adaptations, it has to be convinced that food is not only there, it is abundant. The inmates in US prison have the best most perfect strength regime for optimal fitness. The dirty bulk, and they train to get their push up, pull up and squat number higher and higher and higher. From former ex inmate in Mississippi, who is now a bartender, I have heard that they do half their max reps each set, for push ups and squat, each set 15-30 minutes apart, all day, and when doing half their max reps feel easier than before, they go for a new max attempt, build their next training cycle (aka sets of half of their new max reps) based on their new max, and repeat this cycle indefinitely. It's not rare to see 250 pounds or better hulking dudes who can bang out 20 pull ups and 100 push ups like it's cheescake, and majority of that bodyweight is hulking muscle, which also gives them beast stamina and cardio.
Actually, Italian cuisine uses a lot less garlic than non Italians think and, most importantly, we do it smartly There's a good video on pastagrammar about it Also, garlic bread doesn't exist in Italy
@@iafozzac i have seen several dishes that call for garlic and just as many that do not. but i will hand it to the ones that know what they are doing, they know how to use herbs and spices to make the dish pop and not overpower and less salt than many other regions do.
@@iafozzac I do suppose that depends on the region, right? The dishes I had in the Emilia-Romagna region were quite garlicky, from what I remember, as were those in Rome (which I don't mind, as I LOVE garlic and always put tons of it in nearly every dish I make, whether it be Italian, Thai, Chinese, Indian or French). I don't know about the south though, visto che Sicilia e Napoli sono ancora sulla mia lista dei desideri.
If you made a channel just about history, I would be all over that! The way you talk is so comforting that I feel like I could learn anything from whatever you talk about.
I often have porridge for breakfast, so I would have this for breakfast too. Porridge is a very popular breakfast during the winter in the UK. We only have the 'full English breakfast' usually when we don't have to cook it ourselves, like when staying at a hotel.
Food fact; Both porridge and gruel are soups with a slight difference between the two. Porridge -> more food than water. Gruel -> More water than food. On that note; if anyone has any idea what Firefly gruel is made of please let me know. I've been looking for a recipe since 2004 and have yet to find anything.
I know what you mean by more water than food in your gruel, i have had gruel in which it was basically a big bowl of soup with not much food in it, like a few scoops of rice and a trace amount of meat. It did not fill me up for long, my stomach was growling again in about 2 hours
This episode was especially enjoyable to me, since I once translated to Spanish a manga called "Bestiarius", which depicts with great artistic flair and fantasy liberties the combats of the titular Bestiarius (the gladiator which specialized in fighting wild beasts), and their lives and tribulations during the reign of Titus Flavius Domitianus. The plethora of cultural references, like the Ludus, the Lanista, and many more, was a delight (and a pain) to research in order to properly explain them for the reader. As it happens with historically inspired stories like such, many liberties were taken (though Domitianus is properly assassinated at the end and succeeded by Nerva), and the Bestiari that compose the cast end up fighting many a mythological creature brought to the Colosseum for the games, including a British Wyvern, a Minotaur, a Behemoth, and even a Manticore, together with assortments of demi-humans like werewolves, elves, ghouls and goblins, to name a few. Fun read. And there is even a gag in one chapter precisely about the porridge, which is cooked by one of the characters (a Minotaur), which reportedly tastes awful (but mainly, the characters are just tired of the damn mush). Thank you, Max, this was a delightful stroll down the arena of my memories. You get your well deserved thumbs up 😉👍.
Reminds me of what we would say about military rations, especially after weeks in the field and eating the same damn shit day in and day out. You get tired of eating MREs, even though modern issuings have a lot more variety, very quickly if that's all your eating for weeks on end. Not helped by the fact that how palatable some are depends heavily on whether you have the time, or are simply allowed, to cook them with the FRH.
My school had the same thing. State champ choir, crap football team that got all the $$…. Also had an excellent swim team, not overlooked, but still under appreciated
They sound similar to our modern day gladiators, the sumo wrestlers, or rikishi as they are called in japanese. They live traditionally as they have done for hundreds of years, together in sumo stables where they train every day, and eat the same meal every day, chanko nabe, sometimes called a sumo hot pot. The highest ranked rikishi, the yokozuna, will also be given a sword that symbolize his samurai status. When the rikishi is no longer able to compete they will often take the role of teacher and train the new generation.
So many references to modern professional sport...like last but not the least the fact that ex-gladiators often became coaches and trainers of new gladiator-generation. And the fact that in the war they were actually not an elite group at all but the PR-value was huge...
"here's how you fatten up a gladiator" "their flesh is a bit flabbier than pork" "they pair well with fava beans" So, uh, Galen definitely ate people, right?
The amino acid profile of legumes and grains complement each other to help our body make the most protein. All plants have all the essential amino acids but not necessarily in a good ratio.
Fun fact: the song that most people associate with the Circus is titled "Enter the Gladiator". I now want a music video for Gladiator set to that tune.
For the record: the circular arena used in Gladiatorial combat is called a circus. The circus was also used for chariot and horse racing, staged battles, and monster chariot rallies (kidding). The association with the modern circus began with an English equestrian rider named Philip Astley, who started trick riding in a circular path in 1768 (his predecessors preferred straight lines) and filled the intermission periods between his performances with jugglers, clowns acrobats etc..... The first use of the word circus in this format was by another Englishman, Charles Dibdin, when he opened the Royal Circus in 1782, featuring acts similar to Astley's. The latter opened his own full circus in Paris the same year, calling it the Amphitheatre Anglais. These circuses were permanently moored to a single purpose built building, and the traveling circus with a canvas big top didn't debut until 1826.
You reminded me of the high school I went to. The football team was not that good and got what they wanted but the concert band was one of the best in the state and received very little in funding
Being a gladiator wasn't great, but working the mines was much, MUCH worse. You had a slim chance of manumission as a gladiator. You had NO chance of manumission working the mines. And at least your death would be a lot faster as a gladiator. Miners had terrible working conditions and abusive masters. It was a slow, miserable death sentence. With that out of the way, I love your channel. Food and history, presented by a very charming and intelligent person, what could be better? I also bought your cookbook and love it. Thank you for all you do. ❤
When the world stabilizes more I hope we get experiencing history. Where you explore other countries and the food scene there!! Keep up the good work!!
"Where there is the smell of garlic there is Rome" was probably used as a pejorative by the Gauls. Also not gonna lie, I used to make big pots of this stuff to take with me on the road when I was still trucking. One Tupperware container was enough for a day, it was very healthy, but not tasty enough to eat when bored. I was probably the healthiest driver out there.
I love how every depiction of gladiators in modern media is of huge chiselled body-builders but every ancient account is of flabby and flatulent men who never leave their room other than to work. Truly, I have achieved the body of a gladiator!
@@Boris_Belomor Or like professional wrestlers from the 80's on back. Not many were chiseled, or even showed much muscular definition, but those guys still trained/worked out all of the time. You had to just to be able to keep up for a 20-30 minute match without being gassed in the first few minutes. They were strong SOB's and you didn't want to mess with them outside of the ring.
@@Boris_Belomor Yeah, it's like in any "Worlds strongest man" contest they don't look chiselled, they look like someone shaved a bear and then decided to see how many carbs they could fit in it. It's almost like Hollywood has been consistently lying to us about male perfection.
@@aidanfarnan4683 Nah, it started long before Hollywood. Have you seen ancient Greek and Roman statues? They also mostly admired the chiseled body-building type look.
Dude the same thing happened to our chorus. Our high school set records for seasons long losing streaks yet out music programs won most of the time they went to competitions.
Each army have some form of staple food. Taking potatoes to Europe allowed for mass armies. Here in Sweden we also have our traditional swedish pea soup made from remoisturised dried yellow peas typically with small cubes of pork and lots of custard. Thursday peasoup with pancakes for dessert become so popular with our soldiers that they took the traditional back to civilian life.
Depending on how far back you want to go a lot of it was whatever they could carry and pillage. Different types of food preservation and wealth of the army helped, and more modern canned goods made war whole new type of horror. Now leaders could worry less about keeping soldiers fed & focus on new weapons and strategies. As an aside, there is a Spam museum in Austin, Minnesota that has a lot of info about WWII and the benefits of canned meat. It's a strange and wonderful place.
Sometimes I just make a huge pot of lentils, with a chopped onion and a couple cloves of garlic. Salt and pepper to taste. Some crusty, whole wheat bread, and yoghurt/creme fraiche on the side, and I have myself one of my favorite meals. This seems very similar -- I'll try to look for fava beans and barley next time I'm shopping.
I experienced one the most severe abdominal pains I've ever felt after eating a whole pot of lentils even though I grew up eating beans all the time. From then on, I treat them with a lot of respect
cooked fava beans smashed with olive oil, onions dry and fresh, dried tomato, cappari is delicious, also has a high % of protein. You can find this in many traditional restaurants in Greece, locally called just fava.
"this could get monotonous very quickly" Me seeing at my mother who grew up in a small farmer family in my country eating plain beans with rice everyday of her life for more than 25 years: O.O
Oh god, I just don't understand how people can do that. I get bored of eating the same thing super fast, can't eat the same dish (or even just similar ones) for more than 2 days in a row, and even _that_ is hard most of the time.
@@Serjo777 Have you lived alone and cooked everything yourself? Lazyness is a very powerful motivator. I can cook like 3 things and eat them in different combinations for 4 days no problem, it happens often. Like cooking a shitton of rice, bean chilli and sauteed veggies and just eating that everyday (with some different breakfast and snacks)
Honestly, that sounds like it would be phenomenal with some olives, roasted peppers and herb oil. Adjust the salt levels, add some rosemary or tarragon, maybe roast it or pan-fry it so you get a little bit of color in there and enhance the flavors of the beans and barley? I'd eat that with some parsley or chopped greens on top in a hot second!
If you want the dish to have been possible in Roman times you’d have to leave out the peppers, but everything else was probably commonly done by farmers at the time.
@@ragnkja Point well made. With a little cursory digging it looks like sweeter peppers like bell and pimento didn't arrive in european countries until mid~late 1400's, but I'd be surprised if hot peppers from India weren't making their rounds in the BC's and early AD's from the spice trade. Though I don't know how well bird's eye chilis and the like would do in a dish like this. Maybe if you added them to the oil as well for a little bit of a kick?
@@DarkPatu Chili peppers are from the New World--South and Central America--hence only showed up in the Far East and Europe in the 1500's But black pepper was native to India, so it was certainly around before that.
This food is very interesting, because it represents probably the most common dish in human history (aside from bread). A combination of cheap grains, made even cheaper by not having to grind them, with some sort of legumes was very common throughout most of human history for being cheap and available and also for providing a good combination of proteins. Grains themselves do contain a lot of protein but not of the essential ones in sufficient quantities, while legumes can very well compensate for it by having the right amino-acids in abundance. This combination of proteins in grains and legumes allowed people to survive even without access to meat or milk. In Europe people ate a lot of barley, rye, or oats with peas, lentils or beans, Chinese ate a lot of rice and millet with soy beans and native Americans ate corn with beans as well. Thanks for your video and, by the way, this food is greatly improved by garum you introduced as well.
What you said about the beans and barley being just a base for other flavours made it click for me, because I do reenactment and we have a dish called pottage which is very similar. You basically eat pottage every day, but you put different herbs in it depending on what's in season and it changes the flavour quite a bit. The gladiators were probably doing the same, putting in whatever herbs or seasonings were available and cheap for the time of year and getting their variety from that. A little fresh lovage in the spring, some stewed fennel in the fall, maybe?
Preach, Max. My high school's marching band and drum line regularly took home championships for not just state, but the country as well. Who got all the funding? Our football team that barely kept up with the two neighboring towns.
i guarantee you your football team made the school money. i don't understand why people get so peeved about it. Sure you brought home state and national awards but did you generate any revenue?
@@landynstella5977 Outsider here: how does a not very successful football generate money? The whole idea of a school earning money from their sports Team is a bit alien to me. I figured sports teams _cost_ money, same as bands.
@@kevionrogers2605 🤯 How it works in my country: free to play, although parents may need to buy some equipment eg. shoes. Officials, referees etc. usually volunteers. If a team wants to travel far from home the students fundraise by holding raffles, sausage sizzles etc. - sometimes for more than a year if it’s an overseas trip. And the spectators will all be parents. As for college sport, it’s just a way to unwind, keep fit and make friends - or an excuse to go to the pub after.
@@SimuLord lmao this recurring topic reminds me of a famous dutch book quote "I'm not saying grace for brown beans!" Said by a small poor farmersboy , totally done with the available menu.
Oh wow, now I see where the romanian bulz comes from. My grandmother used to make this(well the modern version of it) when I was a kid, I always regared it as a rural, traditional sort of dish.
This format is such a great idea, and this channel and that of Jon Townsend do it in an excellent way. You have a real knack for transitioning between the cooking and the historical information, all while keeping it light with the occasional joke. Keep it up!
And wishing Max and Jose every happiness as their wedding takes place next week. I'm sure many thousands will join me in these wishes for two lovely people.
Fun fact: the word arena comes from the Colosseum, meaning sand. The sand covered the entire top level of the Colosseum's ground where the fights were performed.
Why this account didn't yet reach million subscribers? Historical food, recipes, and accurate historical background is the way to fill up our historical needs. I like this video, and kudos to Tasting History on what have you done on Filipino's Adobo. Really appreciate it. 🤘
8:21 I see Consul Catus has been supervising the construction. Undoubtedly a great help, and is absolutely not considering napping inside once your back is turned.
You mean they didn’t feed them cafeteria food… no mystery meat? Love your show btws, left Disney a bit earlier than you but your doing so amazing here, I never miss an episode! 💕❤️ glad you didn’t stop!!!
Just want to thank you and encourage your decision to make this channel a full time endeavour. I've learnt a few new things today. I'm educated to degree level and always loved classical history, You'd make a fantastic teacher as I'm sure you know by now!
During the age of Roman Empire, gladiators feed themselves on puls, a kind of porridge made of emmer groats and barley with fava beans, which became a staple food being eaten. And there's Machoke on it near him.
Gotta say, growing up with a Nonna who said she loved peasant food she grew up on, this isn't too far off of something she made. Not using Fava beans but cannolini beans. Lol
Gladiators used to drink a sort of energy drink made of vinegar, and the ashes of certain plants. Would be interesting to see you recreate that as well.
Never heard of using ashes, but they did drink "switchel", diluted, spiced vinegar. (Think spent pickle juice.) When Jesus was given a sponge of "vinegar" on the Cross, that's most likely what it was; provided for the Roman soldiers there. N.B. Bread&butter pickle juice is tasty!
Roman gladiators drank an energy drink of vinegar and plant ash, according to an anthropological investigation of arena fighter's bones. Swiss and Austrian researchers examined bones from a 2nd century gladiator graveyard uncovered in 1993 in the ancient Roman city of Ephesos, Turkey.
@@kyloren3693 Have you a link to that? How did they determine beverage ingredients, from skeletal remains? As I understand it, the Romans pickled many things; so pickle juice would have been readily available as was vinegar (spoiled wine).
So gladiators were basically the Pokémon of their time. You collect them, train them, pit them against eachother and they come in different types.
🤣 yes!
With nuzlocke rules on as well.
In celebration of another informative and witty episode, I hope to pit my (AuntDebra's) against Josémm's or JMaximus' Pokémon some time in the near future!
The lucky -trainer- Lanista caught a shiny one!
@@peasant8246 I dunno, Maximus was kind of a looker in Gladiator. :v
"Gladiator sweat was sold as an aphrodesiac"
Move over gamer girls you got competition
Lmao
Stop before Jake Paul gets wind of this...
@Jonathan LaPointe If only it was their sweat...
@Jonathan LaPointe real simps buy gamer girl bath water
Amouranth sells farts now. Idk who she is, but I know she sells farts.
I made a big bowl of puls from spelt for a Roman themed party once, pretty much as a joke. It looked disgusting. Weirdly, it tasted really good and everyone ate it until it was gone, which was both surprising and hilarious.
Out of laziness I tried cooking rice with lentils in the same pot. Didn't get the timing right. The lentils turned mushy and the rice soggy, but it tasted surprisingly good. There is something about grains + beans that somehow complements each other.
@@marcheck3400 what you made on accident sounds a lot like Indian Khichdi (/Khichuri), if you liked what you made and want to give it another go, I hope you look up any of those recipes, they're super easy too!
“A Roman themed party” Hmmm, back in the 70’s we’d have called that a toga party. I never would have thought to bring Puls though…Toga! Toga! Toga!
@@davidfusco6600 toga parties are still a thing
@@marcheck3400 Apparently the one amino acid that prevents lentils from having a complete amino acid profile is found abundantly in rice. Tyrosine I believe is the one. Regardless, they are super tasty together
My grandparents are from a small village in southern Italy, in the province of Calabria, and I just realized watching your video that they often eat a porridge of barley and mashed fava beans exactly like this Roman puls you made, it looks identical and is really delicious.
I've noticed that some of the Roman recipes like this one that you've made are still cooked today in some rural Italian villages, even though they are not really mainstream Italian food, so you won't find them at an Italian restaurant. But in the rural villages in Italy, especially in the south, like in Calabria and Sicily, they actually still eat some of these ancient Roman dishes all the time!
Come to graubünden..we eat that stuff all the time
In Italy we have many dishes that recall ancient Roman dishes, and also a food culture that has been handed down for centuries. In northern Italy we still make hams as the Romans did.
We ate that growing up at our grandparents house
Mine were from there as well (Ferruzzano) and also ate it. 🙂
@@scotmclean5124 oh wow thats just down the road theyre from Guardavalle, so cool! You dont see that many Calabrese people
I'm a little disappointed that "Silence of the Lambs" wasn't referenced every time fava beans was mentioned...but then Romans get nervous any time Hannibal is talked about
underrated comment
I actually think he hasn't watched it irl. Call it Christian vibes, I could be wrong 🤔
"And, right off the bat, I'M OUT..." I have never felt a statement DEEPER in my bones lmao
"Basically, if Dad had to die... he wasn't going alone." Yeah, yeah, we've all been on a family roadtrip before, Max.
Well he failed, if you’re commenting.
Make sure to tie the kids to the seats, so they don’t escape. Also, tape their mouths so they don’t get carsick on the real leather
@@smartstudyingdoggo9031 ahh yes, *life hacks*
Well not me..
0
“Where there is the smell of garlic, there is Rome” I love that so much. My house is basically Rome
And vampire repellant
@@jlshel42 it attracts Ukrainians as well
YOOOOOO DISTURBAN WATCHES TASTING HISTORY?
Well, darn. Considering I haven't done the dishes yet, I could probably stab someone with Rome...
Saaaame
It's so bittersweet that the gladiators often spent more time with family than feasting the night before a fight 😢
This is honestly a really great recipe to find on this channel. It’s filling but still relatively cheap enough for someone tight on a budget. And the flavor a bit of vinegar adds to a dish is amazing. Thank you so much for this dish!
There's a little interesting fact: Gladiators would usually be given a set time contract if they were not criminals and instead volunteered to be gladiators to support their families. They were essentially a combination between an actor and a athlete.
So like a modern day professional wrestler.
Virilis Vir Lupus Barbarus, the cream of the crop...
@@bigfatchubbybritboy9445 more like mma
@@bigfatchubbybritboy9445 with more death
Its like signing up for a death game gamble like in kaiji/liargame or the shiity live action squid game
I'd be willing to bet that the "music" played at gladiatorial events was intended to let the crowd better know what was going on.
A trumpet sounding with every hit certainly sounds that way.
Likely the other instruments also had such meaning when played, allowing the crowd to know what was happening without opera glasses or an amplified announcer.
I heard that gladiators traditionally ate what was popular/common to their area. So some ate a lot of grains, some ate fish, etc
Sure but the DID like to buff of, something that can be seen in paintings. Apperantly a layer of fat functioned as a type of armor giving at least some pitiful protection.
@@michaelpettersson4919 actually a layer of fat bled nicely, but an injury to it was less fatal. Put on a better show
@@michaelpettersson4919
Whatever was cheap, calorie-rich and nutritious enough to not cause any obvious deficiency issues was what they were given, basically.
in most cases they ate better than the nobles that held them, they were in essence viewed as live stock and you feed your livestock to keep them in top shape for events. an account of one such gladiator i read was a man that fought for 20 years and won all but one match where his opponent showed leniency and this bloke up and killed the man that spared his life moments later. from some of the things i read about him he was 36 when he won his freedom and had trained for 5 years before his first fight...so he was around 11 when he either willingly went into service asa gladiator or was sold. he may have even been a servants child. until his hard won freedom he was fed on grains, fatty meats, and fresh fruit and vegetables. This account pops up in several places where i try to learn more about that time and is used as an example as to the life of a gladiator that survived most if not all of their fights. Can yall imagine an 11 year old being told that he needs to buff up these days? most of them would whine that it is too hard.
@@helema23 was that last part you honestly being nostalgic for when kids were Tough and sold into slavery? Lmao
"Gladiator sweat could be sold as an aphrodisiac"
"Complained that his students were talking about gladiators during lectures"
That's... Wow, I see a lot of similarities to today right there. I guess we've always been this way, huh?
Same shit, different age. Cancel culture happened back then too, it was referred to as 'damnatio memoriae'.
@@tylere.8436 lol
gladiator girl bathwater
Sadly we don't appreciate superior forms as they did back then
@@bartoszstarszobracki8675 you mean dead person bathwater?
So if the fights had some kind of orchestral musical score, do you think that the popular gladiators got their own entrance theme music like in WWE?
Imagine introducing Magnus the “Throat-ripper” of Dalmatia into the Coliseum as a rendition of “ Break the Walls Down” is played on flutes and lyres
**tucks you in**
And his opponent, I give you Granitus Thermos Austinius Murmilo.
"Cue Stone Cold's theme song in Lyres and Flutes.
One personal change I'd make is frying the garlic for a little bit before adding the water, just to help the oil's fragance and enhance the dish's garlic-y aroma.
Or a garlic-y Roma aroma. 😏
But how many men you've cooked for have died in the arena?
You can mash this dish in a food proccessor, and you'd have a hummus-like dish
I'd also swap out the salt and season with fish sauce too. Going to try this recipe as I happen to have all these ingredients in my pantry at the moment.
@@-jank-willson Good Idea!
Bloody hell, the gladiators ate better than I do
🤣 That’s worrying
Boiled barley (made with stock and/or spices if you prefer) can be made in bulk and frozen in plastic bags for easy use later.
@@ragnkja Not in the roman era.
@@dnmurphy48 i think theyre giving OP tips, not the gladiators.
@@dnmurphy48
Are you saying that they didn’t have freezers or plastic bags in the antiquity? 😂
Tacitus complaining about his students chattering about the gladiators during his lessons crack me up. 2,000 years later, teachers bemoan their students chattering away about professional athletes: footballers, basketball players, wrestlers. People never really change, do they? Even with all the advancements we've made, humans are gonna human I guess.
Similar to the notes by DaVinci's students with penises doodled in the margins
@@reddragoon7981 Only difference is Da Vinci would complain that the doodles were horribly drawn, and they should be ashamed of that.
This is why it's wise to study people if you wish to change your situation. Morals and cultures change, human nature does not.
It’s only 2000 years, a blink of an eye, relatively speaking. We are not that different from our ancient ancestors.
Some things never change, huh?
Sometimes they’d flood the colosseum to do ship battles, always found that interesting
The logistics of that always floored me (being a former stage crew member). How'd they pipe in that quantity of water? How'd they keep it from leaking into the lower levels? How did they get whole ships into this structure? I want to know how they did it all!
@@slwrabbits from what I`ve read, the Colosseum had it`s own aqueduct and channel system for flooding and draining, the ships weren`t full size, but small scale, think large fishing boats, made to look like the real ones. The water on the arena was not deep, otherwise the weight would become a huge problem.
@@takhu That makes sense, thank you!
@@slwrabbits I believe it was there before the lower levels were added in transition for gladiator fights.
@@takhu Also if the water was too deep you risked drowning your prized gladiators and that's not very fun to watch.
Wait, so this dude is part of a group of 5v5, surrenders, decided he doesn't want to die, and then solos the entire other team and lives?! How is he not the coolest gladiator ever?
because part of being a good gladiator is to accept your death after you surrendered, clearly
Expect a movie for him 20 years from now.
Right! This dude sounds awesome
The gladiatorial games started out as essentially human sacrifice to the gods and its not a good look when one of your sacrifices doesn’t play his part
reminds me a lot of a battle royal win I got last week
That video he did a while back doing Poscha and pork fat about how Roman soldiers were punished by being given barley rations makes more sense now considering barley was associated with being the food of slaves. Probably also goes along with the Roman disdain for beer too.
Good point. Interesting because I love barley.
@@Anesthesia069 How plebeian
@@Anesthesia069 Pffff, peasant.
It seems to depend on the period. There are quite a few barley recipes in Apicius. Must have been reasonably respectable then. (1st century)
There's a traditional barley-and-pork stew they make around where my dad's from and I absolutely love that stuff. But even there, it had a reputation as a poor man's grain well into the 20th century.
The jocks get everything. Nothing has changed.
So true. So true. Such a bitter pill.
On the upside, never made to fight for my life on a daily basis and be treated like a prisoner.
A group I was a part of did Norman cookery. We had five different dishes and we distinguished them as "the brown glop, the tan glop, the off-white glop, the glop between tan and off-white, and the dark brown glop." I think you have found a new shade of glop.
[For the record, the dark brown glop was a beef with cinnamon and rose petals that was delicious. All of the glops were delicious, they just all looked alike.]
@Sarafina Summers I'm with you on the sweet pasta salads. What hath they wrought?
I think the answer to the "how can midwestern folks eat all that" is: the cold. Cold burns fat.
I would really love to have your recipes. Meal makes a meal. Glop is the glue that holds the world together with such inventive variety. I'm of such a mind as to say there is so much to cherish in a thin nut gruel.
;-)
I guess these days food photography is such an inescapable thing that it'd be hard to give a tasty helping of glop away for free. Shame about it!
Fun thing about a good glop (a.k.a a thick soup): it stays in the stomach a lot longer than the exact same ingredients would do if they hadn't been boiled to a soup, so the satiation lasts longer.
I'm reminded of the time my father made rice and beans but forgot to soak the beans first. By the time they were edible, the rice was mush. It was very tasty, but my sister and I delighted in pointing out that we had done our chores and then been served gruel.
As a history major who decided to begin dabbling in cooking.. I think I have found the perfect channel.
So gladiators were basically their superheroes. They even made toys of them. Okay.
THAT'S SO AWESOME
So much like Gladiators, Sumo Wrestlers had their own schools, housings, and dishes unique to them. I'd like to see you do an episode on sumo dishes.
Chankonabe!
Go away Asia
One word: full
Nabe!
Chanko nabe :D
Why do I feel like this video was 100% made so Max could show off his Lego Coliseum set?
#NotASponsor
AND RIGHTFULLY SO!! lol
More like he made this video so he could list the purchase as a business expense 🤣
No, it was to show off "his" cat. The Lego set is just to keep the cat's attention while filming.
@
Ornessar Hithfaeron Lego should have sponsored it.
I don't have the fighting skills of a gladiator, but I have the flabby/gassy part down.
And u know what? That’s half the battle :)
And your girlfriend / wife / significant other will be so thrilled to learn that she's 50% of the way to being in bed with a gladiator!
😂😂😂
@@Julia-lk8jn lmao
You'd be a great jobber, at least. Bleed a lot to excite the audience.
You know, on the same general theme as this, you might want to consider making chankonabe, the rich stew that they feed to sumo wrestlers to bulk them up. It's hard to say how long this has been around, but based on pictures of sumo wrestlers, the "bulked-up" version started appearing around the mid-1700s, so some version of chankonabe was probably around by then.
It's very very goooood!
i love how historicly acurate this video is
i love that you got the thumbfing right!
They had some of the best doctors of the time. It was also great for doc to learn there.
The official gladiator games funded by the state---which virtually had unlimited funds to put on a show---at the coliseum in Rome were often choreographed to play out a story from Greco-Roman Mythology or to commemorate some famous battle that the legions had won down through history complete with props and what not. It was like watching a Broadway show....but with actual maiming and killing.
Wow we have been doing WWE for a long time thats fascinating
@@MonsterPumpkin As long as fighting has been a spectacle, which is since forever, it has been a "work" to one degree or another. There's money in spectacle and everyone involved can make more money, more reliably, if the fighters don't hurt each other too badly and can live to fight each other another day.
Although deaths were surprisingly rare.
I just want to say that your videos have been so comforting during this crazy time. My 9 yr old is has struggled with the isolation, but is showing an interest in cooking, so we've incorporated your videos into our homeschool and it's really gotten him excited to cook and learn and just get out of his head a bit.. Thank you for all the work you put in. It's very appreciated. 🥰
Gladiator fights are fascinating. They were more the professional wrestling of their day than a combat sport. The fights between actual stars were almost certainly fixed, as no one had an interest in someone dying. The diet and extra fat was definitely designed to help gladiators "blade" (bleed on purpose) without endangering themselves.
That's right, gladiators would have been taught to fight in a style that would have been designed to look as flashy as possible.
And their gear was almost certainly gimmicked. If a blade is made with a deliberately poor shape it can cut shallowly easily but not deeply. The trident with the triangular tips would also be difficult to pierce deeply with, especially compared to a spear. The armor also leaves exposed areas with fat deposits and no bones or tendons right by the surface.
I think a common ending was a shallow slash across the stomach, which the loser grabbed as if they were holding their guts in from an actual disembowelment.
If I recall correctly, they were trained to aim for the back, slashes on your ack piss blood, are really impressive, but not threatening to your life ^^
Of course there were deads, but not a daily occurence.
@@krankarvolund7771 not in a daily occurrences? Actually very few of gladiators survived more then 10 fights
Pretty sure that the quality of the fighters in a social context greatly determined how the fight was going to be set up. Prisoners? Feed them to the lions for blood sport. No-name random grunts? Probably a decently dangerous fight where dying was going to determined by if one of the gladiators genuinely wants to kill the other. Celebrity fighters? No chance these guys were dying and they were going to do a full-on spectacle fight full of dumb, flashy moves with no real combat application but would look cool as hell.
This is seriously one of the best channels on RUclips
This year this has become one of my favorite recipes. I'm just not a huge fan of fava beans in my puls. I prefer extra onions & bacon, zucchini & kielbasa, plums & kielbasa & raisins. For sure I'll be trying other ingredients as well. It's such a cheap, healthy, delicious, versatile food and I can make great quantities of it on my wok. It lasts me and my gf 2-3 days. Romans sure knew what's up. Thank you, Max. I'm learning a lot from your channel.
Thanks Max, now when gladiators in movies aren’t flabby and gassy I’m going to disappointed by the inaccuracy.
🤣
Now I can't help imagining a "Gladiator" scene where, say, Lucilla goes to Maximus in the cell and complains for the fart stink LOL
Gosh, this notion ruined it for me (and Russell Crowe is my absolute idol as it comes down to acting).
So I’m on my way to be a gladiator. Flabby and gassy, now I just need to learn to fight.
@@Ethernaut7 played by Kirk Dougl”ass”
@@Ethernaut7 Outstanding
Keep in mind, the living conditions of gladiators improved quite a bit after Spartacus' rebellion, because Roman leaders obviously didn't want that to happen again.
Are you saying that my "Dad Bod" is actually a "Glad Bod"?
🤣 yes!
Thats a good one
@@bustedkeaton
The real question is: would you be glad to have a dad bod?
😂😂
@@austinpresley6187 Personally I'm dad to have a glad bod
13:30 I felt this so much. Our football team hadn’t won anything since before the year 1990 but every year they got more funding and chorus and theater arts got more cuts. Even the sports that we’re doing well year after year got snubbed for more football.
In Romania we make "Bulz" which is a sort of meal made with polenta (corn flower porridge), eggs and cheese. It is also usually considered as a "peasant's food" so I kinda feel like it could be a survivor of the food our roman ancestors used to make :)
What's with 'kinda'? Words like "kinda, gonna gotcha wanna" are incorrect English words that originated from Southern USA states.
@@michaelciccone2194 why are you like this?
@@michaelciccone2194 he can say whatever he wants
Learn English
@@michaelciccone2194 Daily Reminder that American Southern English is the best representation of historical English
Of course machoke is the background pokemon for this episode.
oh shit there always is a background pokemon in his eps? never knew about this easter egg EDIT; just checked and its true :o
Has anyone ever gone back and cataloged the Pokémon for every video? I’d be interested to see how many we’ve gone through 😂
Looky man!
I think Falinks would have been a better choice here. Maybe if he did/has done a Roman Legionaire video (IDK)
Technically, all of them would be appropriate for a gladiator episode.
“The party was SO raucous. There were piles of bodies everywhere. And then the gladiators started fighting!”
- Some ancient Roman hedonist, probably
"The party was filled with corpses. And then some members started to act violently!"
I remember a book from middle school, it was part of a series called "You would not want to be: _" and it was "You would not want to be A Roman Gladiator" and it also talked about these gladiator kits, granted it being a kids book, it left out the whole "being pimped out to high class women if you won"
I watch alot of RUclips… and this is my favorite show period. Love the history thats usually laugh out loud funny, and the cooking part is almost like a bonus to a show that can stand on its own based on just the history part. What knights ate, the rosewater and sugar pizza , two of my favorite episodes. This is better than any history channel show that you actually have to pay for.
I remember seeing an article on what gladiators ate a couple years ago, idly thought I'd try it out. After seeing this I'll definitely add it to my meals, especially as I've started working out again. Got to pad myself for one day being amongst the crowds again. The bit of gas may help with distancing as well.
In medieval Latin, you sometimes get misspellings, like 'alium' (other) vs 'allium' (garlic). Once I put a medieval Latin document through Google Translate before doing the full translation myself, and I got a contract that asked for "garlic inserted into the document".
I’ve seen _so_ many examples of single consonants that should have been double in Norwegian, mostly written by children.
some people like their documents bland and flavorless i guess 🙄
Heh, job security.
Garlic juice was used as glue to adhere gold leaf by illuminators, so there may well have been garlic in the documents!
@Sarafina Summers Randy Asplund is a calligrapher using medieval materials & techniques - saw it on his FB page!
Considering how much Rome valued physical fitness, this story is pretty hilarious to envision. The desire of the whole empire; the heartthrob boy-band stars of the day, were basically all rocking dad-bods.
They also tended to have different standards of fitness. Could you go all day in doing rough and ready stuff? Cool? Have a little flab? Good! It means you have meat on your bones and won't starve. Also, women who were pudgy tended to be seen as much more beautiful than the rail thin supermodels we consider such these days.
@@jgkitarel So what you're saying is, THEY LIKE EM THICK
Fitness doesn't mean rocking a 8 pack year around. Not always.
Well, most people who rock the dad bod aren't packing pounds of muscle underneath-- same deal with sumo wrestlers.
Sure they're fat, but it's subcutaneous, not visceral fat.
And they train got hours to build muscle underneath. That kind of body takes real dedication
@@LancesArmorStriking Exactly, the caloric surplus ensures that they are building muscle at the fastest possible rate. According to Mike Israetel, in order for the body to make muscular hypertrophic adaptations, it has to be convinced that food is not only there, it is abundant.
The inmates in US prison have the best most perfect strength regime for optimal fitness.
The dirty bulk, and they train to get their push up, pull up and squat number higher and higher and higher. From former ex inmate in Mississippi, who is now a bartender, I have heard that they do half their max reps each set, for push ups and squat, each set 15-30 minutes apart, all day, and when doing half their max reps feel easier than before, they go for a new max attempt, build their next training cycle (aka sets of half of their new max reps) based on their new max, and repeat this cycle indefinitely.
It's not rare to see 250 pounds or better hulking dudes who can bang out 20 pull ups and 100 push ups like it's cheescake, and majority of that bodyweight is hulking muscle, which also gives them beast stamina and cardio.
"Where there is the smell of garlic, there is Rome"
Italians gonna Italian lmao
Actually, Italian cuisine uses a lot less garlic than non Italians think and, most importantly, we do it smartly
There's a good video on pastagrammar about it
Also, garlic bread doesn't exist in Italy
@@iafozzac
I’ve always thought of garlic bread as more of a French thing, especially since it’s usually garlic _baguettes,_ at least here in Norway.
@@iafozzac i have seen several dishes that call for garlic and just as many that do not. but i will hand it to the ones that know what they are doing, they know how to use herbs and spices to make the dish pop and not overpower and less salt than many other regions do.
@@ragnkja true germay has garlic baguettes too! very good stuff...
@@iafozzac I do suppose that depends on the region, right? The dishes I had in the Emilia-Romagna region were quite garlicky, from what I remember, as were those in Rome (which I don't mind, as I LOVE garlic and always put tons of it in nearly every dish I make, whether it be Italian, Thai, Chinese, Indian or French). I don't know about the south though, visto che Sicilia e Napoli sono ancora sulla mia lista dei desideri.
If you made a channel just about history, I would be all over that! The way you talk is so comforting that I feel like I could learn anything from whatever you talk about.
I often have porridge for breakfast, so I would have this for breakfast too. Porridge is a very popular breakfast during the winter in the UK. We only have the 'full English breakfast' usually when we don't have to cook it ourselves, like when staying at a hotel.
Food fact; Both porridge and gruel are soups with a slight difference between the two.
Porridge -> more food than water.
Gruel -> More water than food.
On that note; if anyone has any idea what Firefly gruel is made of please let me know. I've been looking for a recipe since 2004 and have yet to find anything.
I know what you mean by more water than food in your gruel, i have had gruel in which it was basically a big bowl of soup with not much food in it, like a few scoops of rice and a trace amount of meat. It did not fill me up for long, my stomach was growling again in about 2 hours
Fireflies?
;)
"And pizza if you're on a pizza only diet."
I've never been more tempted by Hello Fresh.
This episode was especially enjoyable to me, since I once translated to Spanish a manga called "Bestiarius", which depicts with great artistic flair and fantasy liberties the combats of the titular Bestiarius (the gladiator which specialized in fighting wild beasts), and their lives and tribulations during the reign of Titus Flavius Domitianus. The plethora of cultural references, like the Ludus, the Lanista, and many more, was a delight (and a pain) to research in order to properly explain them for the reader.
As it happens with historically inspired stories like such, many liberties were taken (though Domitianus is properly assassinated at the end and succeeded by Nerva), and the Bestiari that compose the cast end up fighting many a mythological creature brought to the Colosseum for the games, including a British Wyvern, a Minotaur, a Behemoth, and even a Manticore, together with assortments of demi-humans like werewolves, elves, ghouls and goblins, to name a few. Fun read.
And there is even a gag in one chapter precisely about the porridge, which is cooked by one of the characters (a Minotaur), which reportedly tastes awful (but mainly, the characters are just tired of the damn mush).
Thank you, Max, this was a delightful stroll down the arena of my memories. You get your well deserved thumbs up 😉👍.
Reminds me of what we would say about military rations, especially after weeks in the field and eating the same damn shit day in and day out. You get tired of eating MREs, even though modern issuings have a lot more variety, very quickly if that's all your eating for weeks on end. Not helped by the fact that how palatable some are depends heavily on whether you have the time, or are simply allowed, to cook them with the FRH.
My school had the same thing. State champ choir, crap football team that got all the $$…. Also had an excellent swim team, not overlooked, but still under appreciated
“I dont know if i’d eat bowls of this everyday”
Me: looks down in shame at my bowl of oatmeal that i eat every day after the gym .
😂😂
I also eat oatmeal everyday. It's filling and good for you. No need to feel bad. 😊
They sound similar to our modern day gladiators, the sumo wrestlers, or rikishi as they are called in japanese. They live traditionally as they have done for hundreds of years, together in sumo stables where they train every day, and eat the same meal every day, chanko nabe, sometimes called a sumo hot pot. The highest ranked rikishi, the yokozuna, will also be given a sword that symbolize his samurai status. When the rikishi is no longer able to compete they will often take the role of teacher and train the new generation.
Very very true. I’m bummed it’s finally time for Hakuho to retire.
Chanko nabe isn't a specific dish, it's more a category. Like "ramen bowl". It can have a myriad of different ingredients and there's no fixed recipe
Please tell me the actual translation is not stables.
That chanko nabe is by far one of the greatest things in Japanese cuisine.
Chanko nabe is very healthy for a meal that's supposed to put weight, but the portion tho 😲
So many references to modern professional sport...like last but not the least the fact that ex-gladiators often became coaches and trainers of new gladiator-generation. And the fact that in the war they were actually not an elite group at all but the PR-value was huge...
"here's how you fatten up a gladiator"
"their flesh is a bit flabbier than pork"
"they pair well with fava beans"
So, uh, Galen definitely ate people, right?
Dude didn't know nearly enough about anatomy to be a cannibal.
@@angolin9352 yeah… he preferred things fresh, not out of a can.
...and a nice Chianti.
But how does it accentuate the flavor of the liver? That's what I'm hearing pairs best with fava beans. I just love fafafafafafava beans.
And a nice Falernian
What an adorable lion towering over that Lego Colosseum.
The amino acid profile of legumes and grains complement each other to help our body make the most protein.
All plants have all the essential amino acids but not necessarily in a good ratio.
Fun fact: the song that most people associate with the Circus is titled "Enter the Gladiator". I now want a music video for Gladiator set to that tune.
Interesting, I didn't know the author of this famous tune was Czech composer Julius Fučík. Another reason to be proud for my country.
@@JustSpectre Be proud of your country it razed you.
@@buckysgirl4945 Hopefully it raised you first
@@Cubstiti Nope I'm a proud American ninth generation military brat. I'm also a bit of a history and fantasy nerd, hence the handle.
For the record: the circular arena used in Gladiatorial combat is called a circus. The circus was also used for chariot and horse racing, staged battles, and monster chariot rallies (kidding). The association with the modern circus began with an English equestrian rider named Philip Astley, who started trick riding in a circular path in 1768 (his predecessors preferred straight lines) and filled the intermission periods between his performances with jugglers, clowns acrobats etc..... The first use of the word circus in this format was by another Englishman, Charles Dibdin, when he opened the Royal Circus in 1782, featuring acts similar to Astley's. The latter opened his own full circus in Paris the same year, calling it the Amphitheatre Anglais. These circuses were permanently moored to a single purpose built building, and the traveling circus with a canvas big top didn't debut until 1826.
You reminded me of the high school I went to. The football team was not that good and got what they wanted but the concert band was one of the best in the state and received very little in funding
I know it's not a part of the recipe but this would be amazing with some cube cut ham or a cube cut roasted pork
Being a gladiator wasn't great, but working the mines was much, MUCH worse. You had a slim chance of manumission as a gladiator. You had NO chance of manumission working the mines. And at least your death would be a lot faster as a gladiator. Miners had terrible working conditions and abusive masters. It was a slow, miserable death sentence.
With that out of the way, I love your channel. Food and history, presented by a very charming and intelligent person, what could be better? I also bought your cookbook and love it. Thank you for all you do. ❤
When the world stabilizes more I hope we get experiencing history. Where you explore other countries and the food scene there!! Keep up the good work!!
"Where there is the smell of garlic there is Rome" was probably used as a pejorative by the Gauls.
Also not gonna lie, I used to make big pots of this stuff to take with me on the road when I was still trucking. One Tupperware container was enough for a day, it was very healthy, but not tasty enough to eat when bored. I was probably the healthiest driver out there.
Add a little soy sauce, and/or hot sauce?
I’d love to see you do a Halloween inspired recipe! Maybe an old Pagan recipe for Samhain/Halloween/All Hallow’s Eve?
@@joltjolt5060 dude, no
I love how every depiction of gladiators in modern media is of huge chiselled body-builders but every ancient account is of flabby and flatulent men who never leave their room other than to work.
Truly, I have achieved the body of a gladiator!
To be fair, they should have muscles under the layer of fat, since they were training every day. Kind of like sumo wrestlers.
@@Boris_Belomor Or like professional wrestlers from the 80's on back. Not many were chiseled, or even showed much muscular definition, but those guys still trained/worked out all of the time. You had to just to be able to keep up for a 20-30 minute match without being gassed in the first few minutes. They were strong SOB's and you didn't want to mess with them outside of the ring.
@@Boris_Belomor Yeah, it's like in any "Worlds strongest man" contest they don't look chiselled, they look like someone shaved a bear and then decided to see how many carbs they could fit in it.
It's almost like Hollywood has been consistently lying to us about male perfection.
@@aidanfarnan4683 Nah, it started long before Hollywood. Have you seen ancient Greek and Roman statues? They also mostly admired the chiseled body-building type look.
@@aidanfarnan4683 😂😂😂😂 Brilliant description! You should write comedy.
Fava beans for anyone the slightest bit curious are called Broad beans in the UK
Dude the same thing happened to our chorus. Our high school set records for seasons long losing streaks yet out music programs won most of the time they went to competitions.
I would like to see a sub series that talks about what different armies in the world ate.
That would be a cool one to do with Emmy since she has that MRE series
Each army have some form of staple food. Taking potatoes to Europe allowed for mass armies. Here in Sweden we also have our traditional swedish pea soup made from remoisturised dried yellow peas typically with small cubes of pork and lots of custard. Thursday peasoup with pancakes for dessert become so popular with our soldiers that they took the traditional back to civilian life.
It would probably be different types of preserved foods because otherwise it would be whatever food they recently raided.
I would watch it.
Depending on how far back you want to go a lot of it was whatever they could carry and pillage. Different types of food preservation and wealth of the army helped, and more modern canned goods made war whole new type of horror. Now leaders could worry less about keeping soldiers fed & focus on new weapons and strategies.
As an aside, there is a Spam museum in Austin, Minnesota that has a lot of info about WWII and the benefits of canned meat. It's a strange and wonderful place.
The cat is like “why did you spend all that time on something that didn’t involve me?”
Sometimes I just make a huge pot of lentils, with a chopped onion and a couple cloves of garlic. Salt and pepper to taste. Some crusty, whole wheat bread, and yoghurt/creme fraiche on the side, and I have myself one of my favorite meals. This seems very similar -- I'll try to look for fava beans and barley next time I'm shopping.
We still make very similar kinds of porridges/stews out of chickpeas, beans and black eyed peas here in Cyprus as well.
I experienced one the most severe abdominal pains I've ever felt after eating a whole pot of lentils even though I grew up eating beans all the time. From then on, I treat them with a lot of respect
cooked fava beans smashed with olive oil, onions dry and fresh, dried tomato, cappari is delicious, also has a high % of protein. You can find this in many traditional restaurants in Greece, locally called just fava.
Seneca Letters are my favorite book. I read it from time to time countless times.
"this could get monotonous very quickly"
Me seeing at my mother who grew up in a small farmer family in my country eating plain beans with rice everyday of her life for more than 25 years: O.O
I really love simple foods like rice and beans!
Oh god, I just don't understand how people can do that. I get bored of eating the same thing super fast, can't eat the same dish (or even just similar ones) for more than 2 days in a row, and even _that_ is hard most of the time.
@@Serjo777 Have you lived alone and cooked everything yourself? Lazyness is a very powerful motivator. I can cook like 3 things and eat them in different combinations for 4 days no problem, it happens often. Like cooking a shitton of rice, bean chilli and sauteed veggies and just eating that everyday (with some different breakfast and snacks)
@@classypotato9255 I'd rather starve ._.
Its not bad eating. It's how it is cooked. The Indians live of rice and beans, and they have endless variations of such dishes.
Honestly, that sounds like it would be phenomenal with some olives, roasted peppers and herb oil. Adjust the salt levels, add some rosemary or tarragon, maybe roast it or pan-fry it so you get a little bit of color in there and enhance the flavors of the beans and barley? I'd eat that with some parsley or chopped greens on top in a hot second!
If you want the dish to have been possible in Roman times you’d have to leave out the peppers, but everything else was probably commonly done by farmers at the time.
@@ragnkja Point well made. With a little cursory digging it looks like sweeter peppers like bell and pimento didn't arrive in european countries until mid~late 1400's, but I'd be surprised if hot peppers from India weren't making their rounds in the BC's and early AD's from the spice trade. Though I don't know how well bird's eye chilis and the like would do in a dish like this. Maybe if you added them to the oil as well for a little bit of a kick?
@@DarkPatu Chili peppers are from the New World--South and Central America--hence only showed up in the Far East and Europe in the 1500's But black pepper was native to India, so it was certainly around before that.
@@DarkPatu Even though bird's eye chili is called thai chili, it was only breed in southeast asia in the XVIth century ^^
@@krankarvolund7771 Really? That's neat as heck, thanks for the history nugget!
When I saw Max's cat sitting right next to his lego Colosseum, I thought, man that's a demolition just waiting to happen.
This food is very interesting, because it represents probably the most common dish in human history (aside from bread). A combination of cheap grains, made even cheaper by not having to grind them, with some sort of legumes was very common throughout most of human history for being cheap and available and also for providing a good combination of proteins. Grains themselves do contain a lot of protein but not of the essential ones in sufficient quantities, while legumes can very well compensate for it by having the right amino-acids in abundance.
This combination of proteins in grains and legumes allowed people to survive even without access to meat or milk. In Europe people ate a lot of barley, rye, or oats with peas, lentils or beans, Chinese ate a lot of rice and millet with soy beans and native Americans ate corn with beans as well.
Thanks for your video and, by the way, this food is greatly improved by garum you introduced as well.
What you said about the beans and barley being just a base for other flavours made it click for me, because I do reenactment and we have a dish called pottage which is very similar. You basically eat pottage every day, but you put different herbs in it depending on what's in season and it changes the flavour quite a bit. The gladiators were probably doing the same, putting in whatever herbs or seasonings were available and cheap for the time of year and getting their variety from that. A little fresh lovage in the spring, some stewed fennel in the fall, maybe?
I love the fact that this show gives a history lesson along with a lesson how to make ancient foods
Preach, Max. My high school's marching band and drum line regularly took home championships for not just state, but the country as well. Who got all the funding? Our football team that barely kept up with the two neighboring towns.
Pffft please. Marching band got all kinds of special treatment compared to other sports and clubs because of their use at the football games.
i guarantee you your football team made the school money. i don't understand why people get so peeved about it. Sure you brought home state and national awards but did you generate any revenue?
@@landynstella5977 Outsider here: how does a not very successful football generate money? The whole idea of a school earning money from their sports Team is a bit alien to me. I figured sports teams _cost_ money, same as bands.
@@Julia-lk8jn booster clubs, donations, grants, fundraising, ticket sales, admission, concession, and apparel.
@@kevionrogers2605 🤯
How it works in my country: free to play, although parents may need to buy some equipment eg. shoes. Officials, referees etc. usually volunteers. If a team wants to travel far from home the students fundraise by holding raffles, sausage sizzles etc. - sometimes for more than a year if it’s an overseas trip. And the spectators will all be parents.
As for college sport, it’s just a way to unwind, keep fit and make friends - or an excuse to go to the pub after.
Having been through basic military training, I can tell you when you’re exercising that much, literally anything will taste good.
@@SimuLord lmao this recurring topic reminds me of a famous dutch book quote "I'm not saying grace for brown beans!" Said by a small poor farmersboy , totally done with the available menu.
Oh wow, now I see where the romanian bulz comes from. My grandmother used to make this(well the modern version of it) when I was a kid, I always regared it as a rural, traditional sort of dish.
This format is such a great idea, and this channel and that of Jon Townsend do it in an excellent way. You have a real knack for transitioning between the cooking and the historical information, all while keeping it light with the occasional joke. Keep it up!
And wishing Max and Jose every happiness as their wedding takes place next week. I'm sure many thousands will join me in these wishes for two lovely people.
Thank you, Alan!
Here here
@Sarafina Summers Not streaming the event from what was said on Ketchup with Max.
Fun fact: the word arena comes from the Colosseum, meaning sand. The sand covered the entire top level of the Colosseum's ground where the fights were performed.
Wow that’s cool, in Spanish the word arena still means sand
"CHEF! come here there is a Gladiator and he doesnt have puls"
"is he dead?"
"no but very hungry"
I hate you for making me laugh so hard at such a crap joke.
@@cousinjake7986 More of a carb joke.
Why this account didn't yet reach million subscribers? Historical food, recipes, and accurate historical background is the way to fill up our historical needs.
I like this video, and kudos to Tasting History on what have you done on Filipino's Adobo. Really appreciate it. 🤘
8:21 I see Consul Catus has been supervising the construction. Undoubtedly a great help, and is absolutely not considering napping inside once your back is turned.
I survived on this diet back when I was in Uni. Just made a huge batch then loaded the freezer up and microwaved 2 portions every day
History is fun, gladiators sound a lot like modern pro-wrestlers. A lot of performance art and suffering, and occasionally a Rock star.
yeah,, that is what I was thinking, Even the wrestlers bodies are softer, they don't usually look cut. I guess because they need to be flexible.
You mean they didn’t feed them cafeteria food… no mystery meat?
Love your show btws, left Disney a bit earlier than you but your doing so amazing here, I never miss an episode! 💕❤️ glad you didn’t stop!!!
Just want to thank you and encourage your decision to make this channel a full time endeavour. I've learnt a few new things today. I'm educated to degree level and always loved classical history, You'd make a fantastic teacher as I'm sure you know by now!
During the age of Roman Empire, gladiators feed themselves on puls, a kind of porridge made of emmer groats and barley with fava beans, which became a staple food being eaten.
And there's Machoke on it near him.
Gotta say, growing up with a Nonna who said she loved peasant food she grew up on, this isn't too far off of something she made. Not using Fava beans but cannolini beans. Lol
Gladiators used to drink a sort of energy drink made of vinegar, and the ashes of certain plants. Would be interesting to see you recreate that as well.
If you mean posca he did already.
Never heard of using ashes, but they did drink "switchel", diluted, spiced vinegar. (Think spent pickle juice.) When Jesus was given a sponge of "vinegar" on the Cross, that's most likely what it was; provided for the Roman soldiers there. N.B. Bread&butter pickle juice is tasty!
Roman gladiators drank an energy drink of vinegar and plant ash, according to an anthropological investigation of arena fighter's bones. Swiss and Austrian researchers examined bones from a 2nd century gladiator graveyard uncovered in 1993 in the ancient Roman city of Ephesos, Turkey.
@@kyloren3693 ya that's the posca
@@kyloren3693 Have you a link to that? How did they determine beverage ingredients, from skeletal remains? As I understand it, the Romans pickled many things; so pickle juice would have been readily available as was vinegar (spoiled wine).
Tuesday is my favorite day of the week because it means a new Tasting History!
And some Friday's too for Drinking History :D
September 28th was my birthday and I love the history about gladiators (and Rome/the colosseum). Awesome to see your video! Greetings from Germany
Galen lived to be 87...
That is damned impressive for someone living in the 2nd/3rd century.