Journey of the Journey Cake - Any Grain Will Do - 18th Century Cooking
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- Опубликовано: 19 янв 2020
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Samuel Johnson: "In England we wouldn't think of eating oats. We only feed them to Horses."
Boswell: "Well, maybe that's why in England you have better horses, and in Scotland we have better men".
This Yankee ate feed oats as a kid and still makes oat bars with honey and nuts . Me , horses and mules eat total whole grain and unprocessed oats .
Oh this is funny... my Australian cockatiel bird loved unshelled oats too. A winter feed. I like oats alot. Well this isn't a famine grain or bean Thankfully, everything can die from those literlly.
Oats are delicious.
Indeed!
Scotland was a hell-hole...That is how the act of Union happened, she was dirt poor.
This show gives me so much peace.
Love this comment. Thank your for watching!
My family and I know the same feeling.
@@rosemcguinn5301 I also agree. Watching this channel picks me up, and makes me feel better, with it's positive content. Hope you have a good week.
@@dwaynewladyka577 Same for you, friend. Hope to see you at Friday's live show!
It's amazing i wish i could join townsends.
I like to think of Townsends as a kind of 1700's Bob Ross. Love the history and enthusiasm for the subject!
1800s..
@@ceejsturr4828 That would be 19th century, you know? As in e.g. 1854; Crimean War...
yes!
I never thought about that but so true. I love these videos, they are full of history and so much fun.
Splash of Bob's Burgers in there as well.
When I was a poor kid back in 98, I used to make the same thing on the top of the woodstove my family found a way to put in our double-wide trailer. The food bank always gave us four so when I was 11 I thought of them as my own personal invention of a food product. Little kids have goofy minds.
In Poland such bread\cakes are called "podplomyki" - literally "underflames". My grandpa used to make them in his old stove for the horde of us, little rascals :) First he heated up the stove with firewood, then removed the coals with shovel, used wing of a goose to swipe the ash, then placed cakes on the hot grid and closed stove's doors. It smelled soooo good when podplomyki were almost done :) Sure, from the perspective of an adult it was nothing special taste-wise - but for kids it was a novelty :)
Compared to the horrible stuff I grew up eating in the States, that sounds like heaven!
I guess we made the same thing ourselves here in Russia those old days we have spent in the village far from civilisation 🙌
I’m sorry but as I read your lil comment I thought.....is this guy like 80 years old ?
A wing of a goose? Like, an actual goose wing? Or is there some kind of broom or something called that?
@@rachelghoul1835 Actual wing of a dead goose, used as a broom. Effective in tight spaces - like inside of a stove. You just need to be quick, or it becomes stinky affair ;-)
This whole series needs to be preserved in a museum
I make acorn bread, which has that wonderful density and delicious flavor that suits well in a bannock or journeybread. Some people seem to think it's too difficult to have been worth making, but I don't see it as being unworthy of the effort, especially if one had a stream nearby to do most of the work. A good oak can drop 2000 pounds of acorns in a mast year; at 3000 calories a pound, it's twice as worthwhile as white wheat. At the least, acorns make a good food in starvation years, because if the acorns are dried well and protected from rodents and grubs, they'll last for three or more years. Once again, they won't have been put into the cookbooks by the people who wrote the cookbooks, stigmatized as food for pigs (granted, an excellent use for them), but it seems likely to me that they would have made it into the diet of anyone who had access to acorns, including the people whose lives you replicate on your wonderful show.
The main challenge with acorn meal today is not in the preparation but in the sorting of good acorns from grub-infested ones. Back in the days of the passenger pigeon, acorns mostly went down bird-gullets, only a few left stray on the ground. There are curculio beetles that live in the soil beneath oaks, fly up to acorns in the spring, and lay their eggs inside; the grubs pop out of the acorns at the end of the season when the acorn falls, and then those grubs dig down into the earth to mature. But the passenger pigeons, as well as wild turkeys, ducks, geese, squirrels, and deer used to sweep up nearly every acorn before the grubs escaped from the inside. Today? Most acorns lay on the ground for a long time, and the curculio grubs have taken over.
We have four or five trees that we "groom" by removing every single acorn we can find beneath them, and within a few years the grubs were nearly gone, so now we have an excellent crop of acorns every year. But if you, Townsends folk, begin collecting acorns to make acorn flour, you'll likely run into a whole lot of grub-eaten ones. (Our groomed trees started out 70% or more grub-infested.) If you have an interest in trying this great food, I'd be happy to share more with you.
Thank you! Very interesting info!
Comments like this are why I internet.
I've heard good things of acorn flour, thank you for your post.
This is so interesting! How did you learn about this?
@@LL-et3yk In school as a kid in California, it was something we learned about as a major food of the Chumash Indians. After that, I always wanted to try to learn how to prepare acorns for food, but it wasn't until I moved to a neighborhood with a park full of enormous old oaks that I got a chance to learn more. From there, I learned by chasing down every question I became curious about, and since my mind is pretty actively curious about whatever my interest of the moment might be, I spent about a year intensively learning everything I could find in any book and Internet site that made any mention of oaks and acorns.
As a side note, we have so much fun with the acorn grubs when we collect acorns from un-groomed trees. Who know grubs could be cute? But they are, and one of these days I'll follow through on the notion I had of making a grub race-track (a very, very, very short race track) and placing penny-bets on the fastest grub.
So it's spending THAT much time fascinated with acorns, oak trees, the making of flour, and so on--enough time to take a side-trip into "grub racing"--that taught me what I know so far. There is always more to learn; I think I could spend a lifetime just learning about oak trees and the creatures that live in and on them.
As soon as we were done watching this, my husband ran to the kitchen and pulled out the oats and our mortar and pestle. The results were very tasty!
How did you wind up cooking it indoors? My first thought is a greased saucepan but the recipe doesn't require butter/oil.
@@Donteatacowman We have a big, flat griddle, and we did add a little butter, so perhaps not as authentic. But in his defense, he did grind the oats by hand!
@@Donteatacowman he used butter on the flat stone in the video so what your husband made is pretty authentic!
*The Man, the legend, the nutmeg*
A bit of lard went a very long way! Both for flavour and energy! And and if a man found some dried berries along a hedgerow in his travels, into the center of his bannock those'd go too!
Real meg nut, if ya know what I mean.
It never occurred to me johnnycake might have an etymology connected to another word like journey. makes so much sense
That was the first thing I thought of too when I saw the title! I just finished a great book on American Civil War solders' food and they all made "johnnycake" or something similar. I was going to research it but now I don't have to because of the excellent history lesson this video gave us :)
For me it was the fantastic guest character Haulus Hurlbutt on The Simpsons. Every joke you could make about a historian obsessed with the colonial period, all rolled into one fantastic performance, and _naturally_ he serves guests microwave johnnycakes.
Whenever I see something called "journey", the origin of journeyman makes me wonder whether it's from journey as in travel, or journeé as in daily: your "daily bread".
holy ding dang dong, I seriously NEVER noticed 'journey' has 'jour' in it.
This is like when you think you've made a clever pun and you realize it's just the same word in two different orthographies.
@@KairuHakubi They are pretty much the same word, just with two meanings at this point: I think 'jour' is the origin of 'journey' (and other words like 'sojourn'), but they've diverged over time.
Only you could make post-feudal poverty seem warm and comforting. Love you and your entire channel. God bless!
When I was a kid growing up in a relatively poor household these old time recipes found their way to our dinner table quite frequently. I realize now that these dishes are timeless. To be quite honest, you don't have to be wealthy to eat like a king!
When you're hungry, dense is good!
Twice over! Not only is dense a sign of a lot of calories that will register in your stomach as a good meal, but the length of time you're chewing on the thing makes it clear to your stomach and intestines that "food's coming!" so if you're prone to overeating (as we United Statesians are nowadays) it'll cut down on that thing where you keep eating after you've had enough.
paintedwings74 i don’t think they were concerned with overeating... having hunger signals satisfied might have been overall more satisfying though
@@heyborttheeditor1608 lol, true enough. I don't tend to make the distinction between "then" and "now" because these sorts of foods are a big part of my life, in the now and not as re-enactment. I make acorn flour and collect cattail pollen to make bread; tap box elders to make syrup; fish and trap for food and leather. My city apartment is sort of a mad-scientist lab where it's obvious I don't know what century I'm supposed to be living in.
AGree! I DON'T like that 'fluffy, soft, sweet' bread. I don't mind a dessert bread (like banana, etc. ) but for dinner, and hunger, these johnny cakes would do the trick!
Suggestion for another channel: Stories told by the fire.
Just a half-hour of someone reading a historical account or stories popular in the 18th century while sitting by that awesome fireplace.
With the 97th Pennsylvania Regimental string Band in the background.
I can't find it
@@17madman39 rmm413e Risen of the moon and Roddy McCorley they are civil war just a suggestion . This is on RUclips.
Half-hour segments going straight through the books by Joseph Plumb Martin, Catherine Parr Trail, Nicholas Cresswell, and the many other authors that have come up on this channel...that would be fun. Maybe get a trained reader if reading aloud is too intimidating.
Or singing a song, or reciting poetry, all from the era. Nothing like an old ballad at the fireside.
Back when dad and I used to tromp through the woods, we would make an even simpler version of this. The dough would be rolled thin and wound around a cleaned stick, which would be wedged into some stones so it baked over the fire. That way it required no stone or griddle. He called it "twist bannock," and he was taught the technique from his dad, who learned it from his granddad, who fought in the civil war and baked his bread that way.
Did the exact same thing , so delicious with butter and saskatoon berry jam. Mmmm great memory
We made that exact same thing as kids but the dough was made from water and Bisquick 😂
(And I can report that if you get bisquick in your hair it hardens into something approximating concrete - not easy to wash out in a stream…😅)
I'm imagining a man just solemnly chewing one of these on the streetside and the camera pans slightly left -- and there's John just devouring these journey cakes like it's the most delicious thing in the world while the man stares LOL. "MMPH, these are just WONDERFUL~!" I swear, this channel gives me life, thank you so much for yet another fascinating upload!!
These cakes might not have been entirely unleavened. Ellis's recipe says that the oatmeal and water "stand together twenty or more hours", which is long enough to start sourdough fermentation. This would have extended their shelf life.
Exactly what I was thinking.
Agreed, plus you may get some fun ambient wild yeast strains if left a bit longer. ( Similar to wild cheesemaking techniques)
I think you're right that they could have begun fermenting, but I'd bet this was more for flavor (and as you said, shelf-life) than leavening--you could put modern yeast in an oatcake and it still wouldn't really rise
Ben Dover Yes, because of the fermentation. It’s also why beer was an essential foodstuff of older civilizations.
esb82 I’ve also heard that wooden bowls used for sourdough mixing can harbor beneficial bacteria to promote fermentation.
I love your beautiful fireplace Jon
In Lapland, such cakes are made out of barley and called "rieska". They contain just flour, salt and water. Special thing was that water had to be cold, even icy, so that they are more fluffy.
Dr Johnson, when he wrote his dictionary, defined "Oats" as a grain normally given to horses, but in Scotland it sustains the population. Git. Strange now, how anything "gluten-free" is very expensive.
Family members and visitors alike testified that hoecakes were among George Washington's favorite foods. He invariably ate them at breakfast, covered with butter and honey, along with hot tea-a "temperate repast" enjoyed each morning.
Chef John of Food Wishes once presented a recipe for "flatbread". Basically he said to take whatever kind of flour you have - wheat, barley, corn, buckwheat, etc. Mix it with water to make a dough, let it stand a little bit, knead it, shape it into round flat pieces, and cook on a hot flat rock, or frying pan, or grill rack, until they're as cooked as you want them. And not only would these cakes be portable, but a traveler could have crumbled a jonnycake into a bucket of soup or stew to give it more body.
Did he add cayenne, while speaking in a sing-song fashion?
So many different cultures have unleavened flatbread recipes. I made some of plain flour last night to go with my supper. Thanks for sharing your “experiment”. I am going to try oatcakes, next. Good to know these kind of foods when looking in the pantry for something simple to make.👍👍🥰💕❤️
IF YOU ARE GOING TO USE A BAKING STONE AT HOME: Make sure that it's been heated before! If there's trapped water in it still and it doesn't have a way out, it WILL EXPLODE!
Don't use sandstone either, or sedimentary rocks in general.
good to know
Yup
Thanks for the good advice!
@misa smith I'll be waiting for the Netflix film adaptation.
Aye! Oatcakes and bannocks. A wee taste of the Auld Countrie.
Just about every Bushcraft video I watch from outside the US, they cook bannock or flour cakes over the fire. It seems only US people think it is "poor people" food. Every other country just figures it's quick and easy addition to the meal.I've seen nuts, berries, and a pantry full of other stuff added to this simple bread.
@@zettle2345 ORIGINAL American food was based on English recipes brought over by your Founding Father's. That's where your Apple pie came from. Apple pie was being eaten in England a long time before Jamestown, which was before The Mayflower.
This guy does get stuff muddled up sometimes, especially names and translations. Some of his sources didn't always get it right, because as with traditional OLD, OLD recipes, they were handed from mother to daughter. It's just that some Traditions started much earlier in history than others.
Scouts used to make large amounts of porridge oats, stirred with a "Skittle"(wooden stirring stick) add salt. Pour it into a kitchen drawer, leave to cool and set, then a slice would be cut, pocketed and eaten during the working day.
@@jenniferbolland3352 Spurtle rather than skittle is what I grew up with in Scotland.
"they can fit in your pocket"
"hey dude im hungry you wanna go grab something to eat?"
" nah im good " *i say as i pull a johnny cake out of my back pocket and begin gnawing at it*
Ravioli Ravioli, what's in the pocket-oli?
chasebh89 “what has it got in its pocketses?”
@@merindymorgenson3184 😁
Gimme some of your tots
is that a johnny cake in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
Fascinating history! I make something similar today that I call "oil cakes," difference being I fry them. It's a really fortifying way to fill up when you're poor, and a great way to make use of leftover fat.
I have a question?
If we don't know what such a journey cake is made of
Does it make it
John Dough?
smh
😂🤣😂🤣
Yeah, that was most definitely funny ^^
Pack your bags! You're hired!!!!!
The Simpsons were created for just such a moment.......
ruclips.net/video/OCmuATH2yzo/видео.html
My old man used to make something similar to these. RIP, Dad!
@Lone Caucasian Male Dad? Did you change your user name? I didn't know the afterlife had RUclips.
@Lone Caucasian Male Gotcha. I was confused for a bit because my father was also a lone Caucasian male, and a bit of a practical joker.
Glad you had the memories to enjoy of the time with your father I miss mine and he used to cook old-time recipes for me to
@@williamsample2631 Thanks William. He was born in 1917, so he had lots of "old time" recipes. Cheers!
@@civlyzed mine was born in 1926 lost him in 1989 he talks about recipes like this from the depression and during World War II when things were tight then we had some of them when things were tight at our house it's just in this day and age is glad to know somebody else appreciates their father
My grandma would make those when I was a really little kid in the 80s. She passes in 85 at the age of 81, God rest her sole. But she grew up in Pennsylvania on a farm. Alot of the recipes you show remind me of my grandma. Thank you for all your videos and your recipes. Iv made a few of them and they all came out good. My kids favorite was the fried chicken from eagland from I think the 1780s it was a while back but it was good. God bless you and your family and I can't wate till the next one!
My grandmother was born in 1903 and a lot of the foods shown on Townsends is close to what my grandmother cooked. She passed in 84 so most if her cooking I remember was from the 70's. She had a lot of Scots-Irish dishes that were simple yet divine.
@@karlt8233
My grandma was Walsh and French but Brittany France, my grandpa was born in 1912 and he was scott-Irish, my moms Maiden name is McClellan. When my grandma would make the Johnnie cakes we would have them with butter and strawberry jam, alot of the time with a poached egg with butter salt and pepper and cottage cheese. Bless your family and let our scott-Irish heritage pass to our kids and grand kids. Cheers my friend!
@@shanecarubbi7864 That sounds delicious, thank you for sharing your story
@@shanecarubbi7864 We called them Johnny cakes as well and we used butter and strawberry preserves or butter and honey with ours. If we had a fish fry my grandmother would cook the Johnny cakes instead of hush puppies. Lots of great childhood memories from something as simple as watching a food video on RUclips.
@@karlt8233
That's the same for me too. We would use honey as well it just depended I guess. I don't really remember what we would have with fish but it wasn't the Johnny cakes I think she would just do a bunch of potatoes in the oven with salt and garlic then fried in oil. That's one I'll have to ask my aunt's that are still around. We used to eat alot of different kinds of cheeses too on crakers with liverwurst. Or some time sardines with mustard on crackers. Her best stuff tho was always the different kinds of stews, or soups with sandwiches. Yum yum, we had alot of pickled meats and cured meats and things like that too. Good memorys for sure. It's amazing how food can take a person back to a different time.
Living in CT I've seen countless forgotten colonial home sites in the woods. And all the way up to the hills of NH where survival in the 1700's was tough to prosper in.
Seeing this little snipet of how these folks endured is always appreciated. I'd love to sit at that hearth and have a taste of colonial history.
Experimental archaeology is really the only way we can get to know what day-to-day life was like in any era. I love this stuff, keep it up!
In the recipe you showed on screen, it said that they would let the dough stand for twenty or more hours before being shaped. From my own experience baking, if you let dough from unbleached flour sit indoors over night in the morning you have natural yeast growing. While the bread might still be unleavened, that would give it another layer of flavor, and a little bit of rise after 20 hours.
However, if they are letting these ingredients sit so long together, and they are eating it as a staple food, might they have just added more ingredients to the bowl as it got low? If they left a little bit each time they added to the dough bowl, then they would very quickly be making a very simple sough dough, which while still dense can trap air and rise. Though wheat flour is better at holding the surface tension needed to trap such bubbles, it is not necessary. I have been making gluten free sour dough for a few years now, and make rolls sometimes by throwing the dough straight on a skillet.
What do you think about these ideas? I would love to hear your thoughts on them, and see if you test any of them.
I think you have never had a low bowl in your life.
@@faithsrvtrip8768 useless comment.
@Keina Draca excellent observation; I think that is likely to be true for a baker, or someone regularly making dough -- but for a traveler or a soldier, I can't imagine walking around with uncooked dough would be terribly convenient. So I'm inclined to think that such folk probably only made as much as they needed to, thereby unknowingly missing out on great pseudo-sourdough.
Keina Draca - definitely worth testing your ideas. As far as what they might have done in historic times, consider storage of the flour, vermin and time before it goes rancid. It'll get through winter ok in the silo, preserving the oils, but that's when the vermin would get at it. That's probably why they would bake 6 months to a year's worth at once - they could store it off the ground to keep it from rats and mice. But if they were able to preserve some flour for a time, then they might keep adding to the bowl for weeks at a time.
They wrote about the old trappers always keeping a batch of sour dough going all the time. Some of those cultures became famous and were passed down through the generations. Our ancestors were very smart about food, smarter than we are.
Admit it. You built that cabin to have a nifty new kitchen. If these were cooked on a stone that was used to cook bacon, it would be yummy. Eaten with bacon and stewed dried fruit, it would be a good hearty meal. Eggs? Hmmmm. Good breakfast ....
@Dennis Hink - Yes, and he has done a remarkable job too! He probably looks for ideas so he can get in there by that fire.
Lone Caucasian Male trust me we are glad to see you go. Heck, I’ll build for the cabin for you 😂😂
I just finished a book about solders' food in the American Civil War and this was a very common way for them to cook their johnnycakes in the field. The only cooking oil they had access to most of the time was drippings from their meat rations, so there were all sorts of creative ways they came up with to cook them. Simple, done out of necessity, but sounds delicious nonetheless :p
@Ellie5621 That is the eternal downside of open fires. You either choke to death on the smoke, or you freeze to death from airing it out.
And he's filming, so even if he was personally willing to, he can't let the smoke build up even a little. Poor man.
Ellie5621 Actually, the way the chimney and flue are constructed sets up a convection current in the place that ultimately draws heat out of the room and sends it up the chimney. Fires extract just about as much heat as they produce. It’s really only warm directly in front of the fire. You can even have a situation where the side of you facing the fire is warm, and the side facing away is cold. It’s a really inefficient way to heat a space.
10:36 rip journey cake * 2020 † 2020
I love how calm and chill this show is. Life is hectic enough as it is and it's nice to just settle down.
Dense works well in a saddle bag when you're on the move. Fried in animal fat or dredged in molasses are other options for that time period. Or, crumbled like hard tack in broth.
In the lower rungs of society, it might not have even been broth, but just bread and water turned into a porridge or mush, though I'm sure anyone capable of it would be quick to supplement it with anything else.
@@Agamemnon2 Cornmeal mush is alive and well in Appalachia, although much reduced in consumption overall.
I make a savory cornmeal mush for dinner sometimes- call it polenta and you serve it in a fancy restaurant, lol!
Traditional Irish Soda bread has a similar history to that of Journey cakes. People in rural Ireland during the 19th century couldn't afford yeasted bread so with the invention of baking soda, they started to bake their own breads on griddles like you did here. They would use any type of flour they could get their hands on and one of the popular variations was potato farls.
ChocolateCake What is farls?? 😐😐😐😐
Soda bread is my #1
Soda bread, wheaten bread and potato bread were all traditionally round and cut across into farls or fourths. All 3 are delicious in their own right. Potato bread was a way of bulking out the expensive flour with a cheap staple starch in the form of the humble potato.
All 3 breads are still common today and are commonly included in the Ulster Fry which has fried soda, potato bread, bacon, sausage and fried eggs. Other garnishes include mushrooms, black and white pudding and baked beans (if you must!)
Basically it’s a heart-attack on a plate!
But honestly, a warm toasted soda with butter is a thing of beauty. So many great recipes are born in poverty and invented out of necessity.
I love this channel.
My mother and maternal grandparents were from northern Maine. They made candy from potatoes. Very simple recipe with hot potatoes, powdered sugar, coconut and covered in melted chocolate. My mother made them from baked potatoes (we always ate the skins seperate) and not mashed potatoes (which will tend to be wet rather than dry).
Link: www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/maine-potato-candy/
www.thespruceeats.com/old-fashioned-maine-chocolate-covered-potato-1806414
www.almanac.com/recipe/needhams-potato-candy
newengland.com/today/food/needhams-potato-candy/
@@neil216 : I was watching a cooking show that showed a basic potato pancake. It was half potato and half flour. If flour was that expensive you can understand why they would mix it half / half.
I wonder if Jon or any of the team ever sleep in that cabin. It looks so cozy, I'd never want to leave.
Next to the fire, but you can still see his breath. Imagine living through a winter like that, without ever stepping into a truly warm room!
The origin of scones is in the Scottish oat-based version of this cake. A scone was originally a triangular slice taken out of a large bannock, which is why they're still sometimes made in triangle shape today. (But now more often from wheat flour than oatmeal.) In Scotland, "scone" and "bannock" are still sometimes interchangeable terms.
ChrisC its probably not quite as cold here, but in 60’s during the day, and in the 40’s at night here, and no indoor heating. We layer up clothes, have heavy blankets on the bed, use hot water bottles, and eagerly await the warmer weather! My mom said they didn’t have any central heating in Northern Minnesota, and her dad would sleep with the window open, so he didn’t get too hot! They had layers of clothes and she said she sometimes had frost on her eyelashes in the morning. In the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, I think it was, they talk about having to sweep snow off their blankets in the morning due to the drafty houses.
Would love it
It could also be that the fire just hasn't been going long enough to heat up the walls, he probably doesn't live in that cabin full-time. It has been my experience with structures like that, they can take days to really warm up, it can be worse when the walls are stone, but often stone buildings are nicer and have a wooden floor, which keeps the cold of the ground from sapping the heat as quickly. If the walls haven't warmed up, there's really nothing heating the air in the house itself (the air from the fire is going up the chimney, of course, and so it a huge percentage of the heat of the fire). The biggest thing you are fighting is sometimes the draft of such a large fireplace. If the only opening is a door completely on the other side of the house, the fire will pull cold, air all the way through the building.
Staffordshire Oatcakes, pancake size with bacon and mature cheddar cheese. Unbeatable (unless you add chestnut mushrooms!)
Sounds heaps better than plain bread. 0 taste.
Oh heavens yes, no bacon in mine though please, but chestnut mushrooms and a good English cheddar...
Sounds delicious!
Coincidentally, I have just eaten Staffordshire Oatcakes for breakfast! Yummy. I have just bought a batch from Booths. I still have Derbyshire Oatcakes in the freezer from the Real Bakewell Pudding Shop in Bakewell.
I really should make my own. Unlike the presentation, I do add yeast to the batter in order to produce bubbles for the holes.
Conversely I find crumpets impossible to make and regret buying the 'crumpet rings'. Luckily in the UK it is possible to buy sourdough crumpets.
Staffordshire oatcakes > Derbyshire oatcakes. The later is like rolling a mousemat 😂 Shame after moving I can't find any decent Staffordshire oatcakes :(
Really enjoyed this! I've read of these and never realized how close they are to the tortillas I helped make with the abuelas (grandmothers) and tias (aunts) when I lived in Texas. We'd spend a Saturday in Tia's kitchen making dough like this, rolling it out, and baking it on a stovetop griddle. I've kept such a griddle ever since, and people still ask about it after all the years I've lived in Michigan. These days I keep a modern square nonstick along with the old handy cast iron griddle. It's a very essential piece of equipment in my kitchen.
Kimberly Fleury I hear you. In my case I saw in those cakes our beloved Venezuelan arepas. If I’m not mistaken, they originally were made out of ground corn that had been
previously cooked. In the 20th century a precooked corn meal was developed, so today making arepas looks pretty much like the making of the journey bread.
Cool! I have been very curious about how arepas were made before store bought flour.
My mom still makes pancakes on a cast iron griddle.
The Scottish version made from oatmeal would be known as a "bannock", and a variation of the bannock brought over by Scottish settlers were one of the earliest influences on First Nations frybread.
To say I am basking in the serenity of this show in these trying times is an understatement; It gives a level of comfort much needed with a life that is currently upheaved.
I make these sometimes when I'm camping. I sometimes add some berries, nuts or even a small chunk of bacon or cheese, whatever I have lying around. I've even cooked them in the fire inside a bowl-shaped orange peel. Delicious.
Huh, good idea about the orange peel! That's what I cook mashed sweet-potatoes in. I'll have to try making bread in there!
Love these "regular folks" episodes. Well done
I was just about to go through your old videos to find something for my upcoming camping trip. This is perfect! We'll probably find a big rock to cook them on since we'll be packing in. I like to do some cooking out in the back country with real food since those freeze dried meals can get so pricey. It just goes to show that we can still get some great, useful information for our modern lives through historical documentation. As always, a big thanks to the Townsends team for bringing history to life for us all.
As a linguist, the different names for the same food are really fascinating to me. It's amazing how much words can evolve when the ideas are spread by word of mouth without necessarily being written down/spelled out.
Even with the fire, I could see your breath, Jon. I think you would like the cakes to keep your hands warm. Thanks for another peek back at what life was like in the 18 century.
Save your ash to make a mortar of and find some flat rocks to make a hearth top. Add lime and clay to it mix, should get very hard with time. Nice level surface for trivit and pan cooking . Google wood ash cement 👍 basically Roman cement .
John I've been watching your series since 2014. You have grown so much as a presenter and orator of American History and the work you do should be considered a National Treasure! Thank you for the effort you put into every episode! I'll be watching!
I remember the days before RUclips when there was just the History Channel which content is by far dwarfed by contributors/single creators like these. It’s amazing to see and we’re lucky to be alive in such a time of passion.
I'm going to make them with yeast today, I'm commenting now and will edit with my results.
EDIT:
I used a different flours and I placed them in a muffin tin and cooked at 350.
Each flour had a different amount of water, certain flours were a little bit more absorbent than others, the yeast made some of the flours rise, but there were some of the little doughs that were salty and didnt rise all that much. I used about the same amount of yeast for each dough and about a pinch of salt each.
Here is how I ranked them
Dark Buckwheat 4/5
White Rice Flour 1.5/5
Potato Flour 0/5
Black Bean Flour 1/5 (it could have been going rancid though, so not hard evaluation)
Light Buckwheat 1.5/5
Chickpea 2/5
Flour 4.5/5
Corn meal (with some flour) 4/5
Oat Bran (with some flour) 4/5
I ate them all without butter or anything, if any of them had butter, then they would be much better. If I were to do it differently next time, I might make a larger batch separated and rolled so that they are almost like Naan bread.
You could add spices to it like rosemary, black pepper, sage, thyme, cloves. I would recommend making a small batch to get acquainted, but I would make this again.
Thanks for the comparisons! I'm going to go make some with my acorn and lotus flours, and see how it tastes with the heavy and the sweet (respectively).
Thank you
Thanks for that beef steak pie recipe. I made for my wife's potluck. I used my 26" cast iron skillet and boy howdy it was THEE MOST TASTY DISH THERE. 40 pieces gone in about 15 minutes. I got one piece and OMG I made another after I got home and I ate nearly a pound sized pie piece. That recipe went into my Heirloom Recipes book.
The precooked corn meal used to make Columbian Aerapas works excellent for this style bread, and tastes fantastic. Aerapas are basically a South American version of this
The pure happiness you exhibit from making bread that doesn't have to be leavened is one of the reasons i still have faith in the world
I consider you a national hero for keeping these recipes alive and educating us all!
This is why I love this channel. Something to eat and a little bit of the story behind it.
I like to make pre-mixes of flour, salt, and spice to take with me when I go camping.
Feels great to hike in, get camp setup, get a fire going, and slap a couple of these on the cast iron skillet.
If you bring bullion cubes for chicken broth, or better yet, make broth from forest grouse right on the spot if they're in season and you were fortunate enough to get one with your .22 on the way in, and mix the cakes into the broth to get tasty meal. Don't look like much, but it hits the spot!
They had many names. For example the elfes called them "Lembas bread"
One small bite is enough to fill the stomache of a grown man
I can't find anyone else talking about this tbh because it's not a well known foodstuff today, but there's basically no doubt that this is Lembas bread (or perhaps oat-cakes which could even be something like granola bars for a sweeter version, but are effectively a variant on this anyway). FFS, apparently it's also referred to as way-bread, descended in one of his languages from journey-bread, how much closer do you want?
this is what i thought too. just add some honey before cooking and you get a sweet dense bread that fills you up but tastes good
More like Cram than Lembas.
ngl these look way better than the morning rounds you get at airports
Oh yes. I will no longer eat anything other than a banana or a carton of yogurt in an airport. If I need to travel again, I'll make up some of these journey cakes to slip in my purse.
I love the cabin cooking videos. Like one of the other commentators said, they give me a feeling of peace.
I loves these flat breads.
My family has been eating them since we hit hard times some years ago, although we use white flours or cornflour (I'd only recently learned people make flour from oats). We'd eat them with greens and beans, and if we were lucky to find some cheap meat, we'd cut the meat up and cook it in with the beans.
We're much better off now than before, but I still make them, because my family loves them. So cheap and simple to make, and it fills a hungry belly.
And they really do go with anything. Great for soppin' up any last bit of juices or sauce.
You can even add in a little bit of sugar if you're wanting something a little sweeter for dessert.
Recipe A:
Oats, salt & cumin & you have heavenly bread. Don't forget even this is a luxury item for some.
Recipe B:
Oats, banana or apple, cinnamon & you have heavenly cakes.
Optional:
(if you have cocoa you are God in the village ready to open oat restaurant 😂
Two item combos get you trough apocalypse 😉✌️
A history episode? Dude, I LOVE history. I remember making hardtack with my sped class one time. We were learning about the European explorers. I am not sure they completely understood this, but it really impacted me.
Happy new year! I'm just snowed in here in St. John's and thinking about making bread instead of hitting the store which opens for the first time in 4 days for a few hours tomorrow. You reminded me - I can make bread for me and my neighbours and just stay put til this State of Emergency is over.
Cheers!
Homemade bread in a winter storm sounds heavenly! Greetings from chilly Central Florida!
Ah, you've discovered a delicious perk of being snowed in! Greetings from Northeast Montana.
Fascinating! I love the history of the development of the Journey Cake here in North America. I can see how easily it could have come from the traditional Scottish oat bannocks.
Thank you Jon, this has been very interesting! I love the historical stuff like this! Thank you so much for sharing this here on RUclips!
Today's version of this is the RAMEN. Eaten by the poor and students alike. 😂
Hand querns and unleavened bread; sometimes your recipes seem less like they're from the 18th century and more like they're from the Iron Age. It really puts into perspective how much we've advanced in such a short amount of time.
If you can call it advancement, lol--I've been trying to get some of the processing tools needed to work with foraged foods, and it's damned near impossible! It's pretty sad that not only do most people not know how to grow their own food, but if they did manage to grow it, they might well not have the skill to process it into edible ingredients! And the tools, argh. Just getting a good flour mill for my acorn flour has been a real bugger, and I'm still keeping an eye out for a quality antique.
@@paintedwings74 Amazon has stone Mills but they are expensive. The Chinese still make and use them.
@@lisacastano1064, thanks, I'll have to check that out. Right now I've cobbled together a bunch of things like old coffee grinders or even pairs of pliers.
@@paintedwings74 try a hand crank meat grinder for the acorn's for the first grind before you dry them. Should be able to grind them with about any grinder after that
Nicholas G
Years ago I tried making English muffins and accidentally discovered how to make pita bread (the middle split open into a pocket).
"if you don't have any salt, you might use some _alum_ instead"
*throws bicycle frame into bowl*
LOL! I've been wondering how people used to get access to alum. I make alum for tanning hides, but I use common chemicals from the garden store and the hardware store to make my alum. Where on earth did they get it from back then?
@@paintedwings74 Yeah that's what I was wondering too.
Apparently, Alum can be found in nature in mineral form as a "hydrated double sulfate salt of aluminium" (Wiki), it kinda looks like a normal salt rock in pictures.
Hard to imagine it tastes good, though. "This needs more aluminium" isn't a phrase I've heard at the dinner table very often :)
@@paintedwings74 The ground. Well, originally... until they figured out how to make it from roasting shale and quenching the ash with urine, it was dug up evaporite from the middle east, same as you got your natron and such. That... didn't get used much for food though, that didn't come about until 1840-1860 and better ways of making 'pure' industrialized alum were in place.
But why? You pickle things with alum, it keeps things from getting soggy. That 1840's bit though, some dude figured out that alum forms acids at baking temperatures and used it alongside soda (e.g. baking soda) to make BAKING POWDER. Quick rising bread! Forms bubbles of CO2 when the dough's hot enough.
@@mfree80286, thanks, interesting! I just add an oak leaf or two to my pickles, the tannin does the job of keeping things crisp. Tannin in your leather, tannin in your food; alum in your leather, alum in your food. Astringency being the main point, I guess?
It's just interesting to think about how people would have come across all these rather odd evaporite chemicals and sorted out uses for them. Salt is easy to figure out--tastes good because our bodies crave the vitally necessary chemicals. But alum deposits? Sodium-carbonate deposits? Why?
I have a chunk of trona ore, which is used to make all the soda products; baking soda, baking powder, other compounds. My chunk comes from a mine in Wyoming or Montana (memory?), 1500 feet down, but there must be plenty of places where it's sitting on the surface. It would erode like mad, though, disappearing in the rain within a fraction of the time that limestone erodes away. I guess it would make people curious, since we're all very observant of our environments, whether those be human-made or natural.
Well, and then, I think about myself out walking over the ice with a shovel and an axe a few days ago, taking guesses at good spots to find muskrat runs beneath the ice of the pond, and people who saw me must have wondered if I was crazy. Nope; just playing. That's what playing is for--it makes weird stuff you don't know anything about turn into useful stuff you do know something about.
I could imagine someone mistaking trona for soapstone, trying to carve it into a dish, and putting something mildly acidic into it, then: Wow, what's this bubbling going on? And from there, what next? Nature's mysteries draw out the native genius of creatures who try to sort it all out.
The cabin is just incredible!
My Grandpa used to say "Johnny Cakes and Ice Cream, just a nickle 5"
To take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say.
My grandpa used to say
"I fought in NAM amd where the hell were you!"
Id always give the same answer
"Grandpa im 11"
To which hed say
"I quit school at 9 years old, to go to work and put food on the table!"
In Canada, trappers and First Nations would make a type of Bannock by mixing wheat flour, water and baking powder then making a long thin "snake" that they'd curl around a stick that would be placed over a fire like a cooking spit and rotated from time to time to cook evenly. I can't say how far back that method of preparation goes but at least to the early 1900's.
We have the same thing in New Zealand which we call Damper. It goes back to at least the early 1800s.
This guy is so sincere and wholesome. I love this.
I wonder if journey cakes have any connection with the medieval "trencher." My understanding is that it was a flat bread used as an edible plate; usually associated with feasts and often given to the poor as alms.
What do you think?
You're getting a really nice heap of ashes in your fireplace. Are you going to render the lye to make some soap?
NobodyWhatsoever
That would be fascinating!
I'd like to see that . I remember my mammy Belcher making soap. I've made it once . Plain old lye soap , cleans everything.
@@francisjohnson665
What fat did you use?
That cabin is awesome Jon, really love the cooking episodes being filmed there.
This is hands down the greatest cooking show I've ever watched, I love how I genuinely learn something new each episode!!
Went down the RUclips recommended rabbit hole and somehow ended up here. Kinda happy I did cuz these videos are really peaceful
I remember seeing a recipe book from Jacksonville Oregon. From a settlement. It involved a recipe of Trot cakes. It was from the deep southern New Orleans. Two versions included one was a burning of the flour mixture with animal fat, then cooked into John cake with iirc shaved bark that contains vanillin. and the other recipe was a basic trodden cake that had a barley or malted mash water added to it. These recipes were brought across the lands from pre Wells Fargo and gold Rush days. But were handed down recipes from at least 100 plus years prior. Back then this entire valley was a complete forest edge to edge.
10:36 NOOOooooo.....
I guarantee that back in the day it got plucked from the fire and eaten regardless!
A little ash adds flavor and cleans your teeth.
@SeriousName maybe it depends on what's been cooked in the ashes before lol
I love this entire thread 😅
Have you seen his ash cake video yet? Griddles are optional.
That was wonderful! Great stories while sitting around the fire, talking about food and life in the generations before us. Thank you, I needed this tonight. :)
This makes me think of my childhood. When I was little I used to make little pitas, just water salt and flour, bake them and put butter on them. Very delicious.
I am so thrilled to have discovered your channel! Thank you for what you are doing! This is making my day. I love cooking and i love history, and above all finding out how normal people used to live. Where am i going to find the time to watch all this! Thank you!
You relax me so much it really helps me sleep so much thank you
This is handy knowledge during these uncertain times. Thanks! I'm going to try and make some oatmeal quarantine cakes tomorrow. I'm trying to avoid going to the grocery store, but I have oatmeal on hand.
I lived in Virginia for 20+ years. Loved all of the area history. Moved to the Deep South a few years ago and miss being able to do a “history day trip”. Thanks for filling that gap.
That fire doesn't seem to be doing much to heat the cabin, I can see his breath.
He's talked about insulating it but then also mentioned that they might not do it this winter. Should make for an interesting episode in the future.
@Brian McCarrier If you've seen the "build" videos you'd understand why it is so cold. Most of the heat leaks right through the roof so it's almost like sitting next to a campfire in the open.
Fireplaces are notoriously inefficient. All the heat goes up the chimney.
Oh wow..i have heard of Johnny cakes! Now i know the story behind them..very cool! ...love the fireplace!
I started out using this video as a base for a simple bread for camping and added to it. Today I made more of my "Oat Bread", which I now ALWAYS have on hand in the 'frig: 2 cups oatmeal (the least expensive I could find, in the extra large, store brand cans), handful of sunflower seed, handful of flaxseed, cinnamon, a little Kosher salt ( any would do), dried blueberries, dried cranberries, mix, then soak it in apple juice or cider and allow to set thirty minutes. I then stir it up with a wooden spoon, and add more apple juice until sopping. Turn it out into a teflon pan, pat it smooth, and place into an oven (in my case a toaster over) @350F for 50 minutes. Take out, cool, and cut into six segments. Place into plastic bag after cool, set into 'frig. This, and a cup of hot tea, is breakfast three things a week. Sometimes an afternoon lunch, sometimes a late night meal. Out of the 'frig, forty-five seconds in the microwave . . . bingo! Bowl of improved oatmeal on demand. If I were making this for the trail, I would back off on the apple juice so that the bread was much drier, or add to the baking time. Healthy, convenient, fast, and sticks to the ribs.
One thing: Make sure you're always grabbin' the cinnamon and not the Cajun Seasonings. YUK! There's a mistake that can't be fixed.
I grew up on a ranch in s/e Arizona, we used to make things very similar to this over an open fire when we were away from our house working. We called it bannock or flat bread. Brings back some good memories. Thank you.
I love this channel, I get to taste history when I learn some new, old recipes.
Can you do a video on some Native dishes? I feel like that is always overlooked in US culinary history
Really gives some depth to phrases like "Man can not live on bread alone" or prisoners being fed "Bread and water".
So wonderful! All these programmes are just joyous!
Woohoo! Celiac friendly! 🖤🖤 my family and I will be making these awesome historical oat cakes on our next camping trip, we may try johnny cakes with corn meal* too!! This channel is the best!
traditionally, you would use corn meal and not corn flour
@@chaosknight73 thanks! That is what I meant to say, but I guess it came out flour. 🤣😂 thanks though, corn meal is a lot easier to find any way! 🎉
Masa harina (Mexican corn flour) is delicious. Try Teff flour, an African gf flour too! It's used for Ethiopian flatbread/journey bread. It has a slightly beer (?) Like flavor that grows on you!
@@healinggrounds19 oooo! Thanks for the tip!!
There's an interesting book called "The Bread of Dreams", that talks about bread and starvation in Europe during late middle ages and onwards. Very interesting. Some villages became completely incapable of doing anything because they cut their bread with marijuana.
@CB isme Who cares? (JK!) In times of famine people eat anything even partially edible including things they'd normally avoid which might induce illness. Even in good times there were many instances of things like ergot poisoning (usually from rye) which became much more common during famine. One of the most overlooked advantages of our modern world is the very few people starve to death anymore, as their plight will quickly and widely become known and assistance is relatively easy to arrange.
I work in a breakfast restaurant and we have one of the longest running grist mills in the US across the street, we make Johnny cakes with that grain, sugar, flour, salt and milk and cook it on a flat top for a very thin cake
You have put in so much effort in your videos, thank you. It’s pleasant watching this during my meals. Keep it simple and to the point. Ty.
My grandmother (from eastern KY) told me about johnny cakes! She made them for me when I was a kid, and I remember them being very hot and fluffy. She made them out of cornmeal, and I called her "Mamaw," like millions of other kids do.
That's just a sweet pancake. Southern name for them.
Oh and grandmother? I called mine Mamaw
@@cojones8518 had those as well we but my family in eastern Tennessee called sweet pancakes johnny cakes
My grandma was Mammie.