Bread and milk is my usual breakfast in the morning because it's easy and fast I work as a gardener and just as shown here breakfast was just to satisfy myself untill lunch I love your videos btw
I made a similar joke at work the other day. We all agreed. Especially when it comes to retail, and at a certain chain known for discount (we're a leased department, but still).
Remember the beer drunk at breakfast was "little beer", it has way less alcohol than today's light beer, it was a way to purify water. I'm going to guess it probably took many casks to get drunk.
Wonderful and informative. There is something comforting in connecting to the simplicity in the daily lives of those who came before us. Charming music as well, cheers!
This was strangely comforting. I only ever have black coffee, toast with peanut butter or oatmeal in the winter for breakfast. My ancestors were all farmers and miners. It’s nice to know I could have comfortably shared a breakfast with them.
Watered down breakfast beer dates to back when tap/well water was usually contaminated with bacteria or parasites, so it was safer to drink stuff with a little booze in it
@@psychedamike People did know that the water and stuff can be cleared of most bacteria and viruses by boiling it. They might not have understood how it worked, but putting alcohol into every beverage was not a thing in *most* places *most* of the time back then
@@SelenaJarvis-Jordan @remaguire just literally told you one definition. To them, oatmeal made using water is 'stirabout' (at least in Ireland) while if you instead use milk to make your oatmeal, you get a richer, higher protein version called 'porridge.' In many places the modern distinction seems to be less about ingredients and more about regional terms, and sometimes 'a porridge' seems to be used about any dish of boiled grain of some type, as in "in the Southern colonies, they eat often a porridge of corn meal." (Today most people in the Southeast would refer to this as 'grits,' which comes from the process of 'gritting' the corn -- grating it to remove the hull. Some modern grits are also treated with an alkaline solution but I don't know how far back that process goes. Jas. Townsend here uses both milk and water in his oats, by which we might joke that he's indecisive about the matter, at least from an Irish perspective!
@CaliforniaReefRat I know what grits are. I'm from Texas. I've heard of gruel but never had it. My only lesson in porridge was with 3 bears. I was confused with the both water and milk part I guess. Calling it oatmeal tells you straight up what is in it. Even when I add milk I don't call it porridge, it's still oatmeal to me. I guess I thought it was something different since that word is not in my food knowledge. My bad. Thanks for the lesson. I'll just look it up next time to not bother anyone
I am somehow surprised they did not mention or consume honey. It was still cheaper than cane sugar and was already popular and widely used by then and goes extremely well with oatmeal. Honey did not require special storage conditions. Honey cakes were popular since ancient Greeks and Roman times.
I would imagine that back then honey harvesting operations were no where near what they are today, so honey might not be available in regions where there are no beekeepers or people willing to harvest it. Bu t usually, most towns in the new world had access to oats, milk, sorghrum, molassas, since those were big trade items minus the milk.
@starsiegeRoks Indeed. I'm quite surprised about it since bee keeping is a practice that goes thousands of years back and was well known throughout the globe. Sugar was such a valuable commodity that I am surprised they never thought of doing the obvious. Maybe it also had to do with the specific texture or taste or even beliefs. As a last note its important to point out that most locals would harvest wild honey from forests which is still practiced in Russia and comes in large quantities as well. So it was readily available waiting to be picked.
@@g1998k to your point, id like to apply Occam's Razor (or Hanslens, I forget which one it is) Maybe alot of people in the new world were just scared of bees/didnt want to deal with it due to bee stings? You always see depictions in history of people getting swarmed by bees and referencing bee stings in literature, so we know that at least a portion of the population feels the same way alot of us do about bee stings lol.
My dad as a farmer had what I consider to be a working man’s breakfast most every day. Around 5am before going out to get the cows in for milking he would have a couple of sandwiches of bread and jam or peanut butter and a hot drink, then after finishing the dairy he would have a cereal like Weetbix or porridge and another hot drink. Very simple but enabled him to continue heavy work or activities through the morning until lunch. Sometimes morning tea break as well. Good show as always and very enjoyable, thanks
i think the main thing that is different betwen more historic diets and modern ones is 2-3 big meals vs a lot of snacking. historic diets were not eating 1000 calories then 8 hours later another 1k but 100-200 every few hours that would fend off hunger much better
I thought that might be too much carbs in the morning, then I remembered it's all going to be burned off anyways compared to someone who sits on a desk all day.
My father was the same. Fourth generation dairy farmer in Australia. Tea and toast before going out, after milking, probably cereal,.toast, more tea,.maybe eggs sometimes
As much as I love watching him make a single recipe for the whole video, I loved this rapid fire of historical excerpts so we could get a broader understanding of what everyone ate for breakfast. Key takeaway: Porridge.
They often mention beer at meals, even for breakfast. Did they have another beer with a very low alcohol content? Or they simply had just a little drink? Did it still make them fat?
I'm Turkish and I can confirm you about oatmeal, butter, eggs and cheese was pretty typical breakfast selections. In very busy days boiled milk and a little honey in it was my grandfather's breakfast. Also sometimes he was just smoking and having coffee if previous day he ate a lot. Usually he was having his coffee around noon after lunch with some chicken/ lamb and rice pilav and salty pickles. He was not drinking alcohol due to his religion but at night many people was drinking beer, wine or raki with a little meat and cheese as "meze". The Turkish breakfast promoted today only existed in high class as a way to show off and for common folk it was like that on important days like wedding, some friends gathering, soldier ceremony or some islamic feasts.
definitely! eggs and cheese and chay. and, even more traditionally, some people liked a nice plate of just made soup. I guess even now in Erzerum there are tiny locantas which open very very early for those who want to drop by and have their breakfast quickly before their working day starts. and there they serve a ram head and shank soup (kelle paça çorbası ), one of my favourites. heavy and nourishing, especially on a cold morning with snow
@@keithtorgersen9664 It's what's often known as an "acquired taste", if you like kinda footy tasting things like strong parmesan or blue cheeses it might be for you.
@LeoMidori, probably. I’ve only had this once, but I am one of the rare westerners that enjoys durian. Mind you, it was thawed from a frozen state, so the smell was diluted but I still liked it.
My grandfather would eat what he called "coffee soup" which was just a big mug of coffee with chunks of homemade bread torn up in it. That was his breakfast for years
Porridge and milk porridge are still one of the most popular breakfasts in Finland. It's done pretty much as you described but we also add a tiny bit of salt to the mix to make it taste so much better. A cut of butter on top of the porride (when it's done) makes it taste really good. Some add sugar on top of the porridge with the butter.
I tried karelian pastry once (pretty sure thats finnish?). Basically rice pudding. I thought it was weird to add salt until I tasted it. I loved it with the egg butter.
@@kellysouter4381You might find it even nicer cooked with milk or half water (to soak the oats for a few min)half milk then served with thick cream and and brown sugar 🙂 Honey is good too and your version is healthier!🤣
@@mindexpansionpuzzles I'd trade out the candy bar for a granola bar I'd nab from the mess deck before quarters, but the cigarette and energy drink are eternal.
One of my old highschool teacher long ago used to say to me. He would ask me if I had an m and m breakfast. The first time couple times I just kind of ignored him Nd then asked what he’s talking about Nd he said mt. dew and Marlboros which he was correct
Here in Chile since the 17th century working people had for breakfast what is called "Ulpo"which is milk/water with sugar thickened using toasted wheat flour, there are several references to this meal in historic books.
Una cosa que ya no he visto pero sí leí que se hacía era la harina tostada con sal disuelta en grasa, como una masa de galleta salada. Suena bien llenador pero no se ve rico. Igual usaban la harina tostada como chuño así pa engrosar sopas o estofados, cosa que ya rara vez se hace, a diferencia del ulpo que sobrevive hasta ahora.
That sounds similar to the cornflour custard my mother used to make, back when custard powder and surplus eggs were rich people food. Sweetened milk thickened with cornflour.
Here in Sweden, we typically eat cold things for breakfast, often heavy on carbs like cereals with milk or yoghurt, sandwiches or maybe oatmeal if you really want something warm. Growing up, I was made to believe that the English/US style breakfasts, with fried eggs and so on, were the height of decadence and luxury. Now that I live on my own, as an adult, I’ve found that I need a protein rich breakfast of eggs in some form or I simply won’t last until lunchtime.
@@jayeshrahulkovi9738 Sure if you drink a liter of milk in the morning you will get 30g of protein. If you like milk just have it with your meal there isn't anything wrong with it just not great if you only care about protein intake
I know this has been said before, but your videos have made me fall in love in not only the culinary side of history, but the military, industrial, trade and cultural sides too. You explain things so simply yet detailed and it’s amazing what you teach
That toast and water you mentioned is basically toasted steeped in hot water to make a sort of carbohydrate rich tea. It was used alot in hospitals and such well into the early 20th century as a food for patients who couldn't keep anything else down. I've made it before and its surprisingly good. It might be worth doing an episode on it for the channel
I just discovered this channel. I appreciate the history and the production value is top-notch. Feels like a TV show. Townsend is a great presenter and should do audio books.
I grew up in Vietnam and I grew up on sticky rice, so the idea of having oatmeal for breakfast, even though it feels weird, when I really think about it, it's similar to my little sack of sticky rice I used to have every breakfast. Sticky rice with a bit of pork floss (pork meat well seasoned, cooked until basically bone dry, then shredded and dried out even more to preserve), and a few slices of sausage with a dash of soy sauce is the go to breakfast here. Oat does not grow in South East Asia so it is not common, and imported oatmeal is super expensive so you'll only see it in fancy restaurants that serve woke healthy acai bowls or something. It's funny how the same thing is treated differently in different places.
Often times, expensive food is just peasant food from a different part of the world. It's peasants that figure out how to turn trash into gold in cooking. The rich have all the ingredients in the world and just mash them together in the most gross and expensive way possible.
Thank you for being here, and being you. My best friend passed a few years ago, and he would’ve liked this channel a lot as well. You remind me of him in the best of ways. Thanks for being authentic.
I grew up in Virginia, we had all sorts of things for breakfast depending on the time of year. I remember my grandmother, an Appalachian woman, would eat a wedge of homemade cornbread broken up into buttermilk for breakfast at times. The weirdest thing we would eat, to most outsiders, would be a basic Oyster Stew at breakfast. It was commonly served on Christmas Morning but that never stopped us from having it through out the year.
Yep my grandmother still eats cornbread soaked in buttermilk now I don't like buttermilk but I have tried it. also we are in the Appalachian mountains foothills to be exact.
I may add a slice of leftover honey ham to mine but the same for me. How do you have your tea? I like hot black tea with a splash of sweet cream only for my breakfast time. It's all about quick grab-and-go for me.
It’s wild how different cultures have similar meals… I’m American but was raised by my Mexican mom and having _atole_ for breakfast is common. She would either boil the oatmeal with milk or water along with some cinnamon sticks, sugar, cloves, nutmeg, vanilla…
On oldest aunt's farm in the 50s the first meal was fast and small and got uncle and cousins (lol, and visiting nieces) out to do the milking and early chores while she worked on the morning meal, which was huge and put on the table around 9 or 10. Same for the lunch which was a sandwich and fruit that could be taken out wherever the work was being done. Late afternoon was another big meal. Back outside to do the rest of the chores before the sun went down. End of the day 'meal' was generally a slab of pie or cobbler topped with cheese and it didn't take too long before everyone was upstairs in bed or asleep in their chairs!
The good life eh? I assume you're an American, so what's this thing about putting cheese on what you call pie? Sounds really strange here across the pond.
@@cleanerben9636 we have both dessert and savory pies here. I think our fruit pies would be your tarts. And a slice of cheddar cheese melted over a hot slice of apple pie is not to be missed.
I love that my daughter has made her family a homestead where oatmeal is made almost daily. She has an abundance of throw-ons and you never have to serve it the same way twice, unless it suits you.
I'm hypoglycemic and need protein with every meal. Right now I'm having my usual: oatmeal with peanut butter. It's a delightful concoction that can be flavored many ways. I typical use sugar, sometimes other things like nutella, syrup, even nutmeg. This time I'm trying cookie butter, and cooled and softened with mocha iced coffee. John's channel is always an inspiration. I need to try it with sack wine!
I'm hypoglycemic myself, I switched to a carnivore diet and it helped amazingly. My normal breakfast every work day is 5 eggs scrambled, maybe Greek yogurt as well.
@@FirstNameLastName-wt5to Yeah sounds fishy to me. I've seen a trend of people recommending carnivore diets on youtube and it's honestly kind of disturbing, basically keto but more extreme despite there being zero research showing any benefit to a carnivore diet in humans. These fad diets need to be taken with a LARGE grain of salt.
John that brings back a lot of memories. My grandfather's breakfast was a variation of the bread and milk breakfast. Ever since I knew him his breakfast was 1/2 of a Dolly Madison brand jelly roll, broken up and dropped into a mug of hot milk and eaten like cereal would be. Our family being Italian would have their big meal at lunch. Pasta or baked chicken, fried chicken, with polenta anda salad from the garden, pickled sweet bell peppers with garlic, olives in oil, scallions and radishes. Or my favorite, thick garlicky weisswurst with either boiled potatoes and parsley or on a large slice of Italian bread with butter and mustard. Supper for gramps would either be the second half of the jelly roll served as before or home made salami with bread or crackers with home made soup if grandma had made it or canned if not. A peeled apple for dessert while watching the six o clock news and then off to bed.
There is something comforting in the simplicity and warmth of oatmeal, especially on a cold winter's or fall's day. I like mixing maple syrup or honey into mine, and I use milk for it as well!
In Switzerland we eat Oatmeal rather for supper than for breakfast. The usual way is to prepare it with half water, half milk, a pinch of salt, and if you want to be fancy, add some vanilla to it. Serve with preserved fruit, like prune plums, pear or apples. Mix some cinnamon with sugar and add a sprinkle to the dish. A comfort food for winter time.
I like the new format 10-15 minutes per video is awesome. I'll still watch your longer format live videos too, but these fit nicely into my daily schedule.
My grandfather and uncle were miners. For breakfast they ate fried potatoes, fried eggs, sausages, cutlets, and soup. They had lunch in a deep mine and it consisted of a couple of sandwiches with coffee or tea.
Lots of great stuff here! From all the dairy maid and spring house management stuff I've been sifting through, quite often the "boiled milk" refers to new milk from the day before or so, that was boiled to keep it sweet. Milk that wasn't headed for cheese, and skimmed milk cheese, butter and cream making would also be boiled to keep it as sweet milk for a bit longer. This is the sort of observation Pasteur cottoned onto in about 100 years, but dairy maids and brewsters definitely had a clue that if you boiled liquids, and cooled them covered with boiled or vinegar soaked linen - they would stay sweet and not go sour. So boiled milk was a reference to this milk that had been boiled to keep over night - to drink before the dairy maids had done all their tough morning chores.
So.... they were pasteurizing (is that how you spell it? That was a suggestion) the milk before they knew what that was? Just another example of people just knowing what worked back in the day, even if they had no clue as to why
Yes ! Homemade broth is so filling. Since I come from a nearly self-suficient farming family, even though I now live in the city, I never throw any food away. And one of my favourite dish is still making soup with the leftover broth of my stews, some vegetables bits and the pieces of meat that are still around. The only new thing I add is usually barley, split pea or alphabet pasta, depending on the leftover ingredients. Not only is it delicious, I usually save a lot of money on the long term !
in our country people ate soup for breakfast a lot, although most of time just quick soups without broth. in our country was also thing corn "coffee" with milk and bread or some buns or so. my granny and especially great-grandmother used to eat it quite often...
It's always interesting getting these glimpses into the past and seeing how different things used to be, but how similar? We still are 100 200 years later and we can still so deeply relate with each other. It makes me wonder what things people will be able to relate to 100 200 years from now.
Happy Sunday! Watching this eating my first breakfast, coffee and toast. After I walk the dog on a winters day, second breakfast is oatmeal, but today in Townsends honor, I’ll have me some bacon or sausage and scrambled eggs. Thanks, Townsends! Wishing your and your fans a beautiful day. 🥰💕❤️👍👍
As someone from the UK. The thing that separates gruel from porridge is that gruel is thinner but it's also savoury. The fat or "drippings" from the last night's meal is added to the pot. Many of us in the north still enjoy lardy toast. Which is re-heating all of complex animal and vegetable remnants from a Sunday roast at the bottom of yesterday's roasting tin and dropping in bread that's gone hard over the weekend. It sounds gross but trust me... it's amazing!
I've randomly stumbled across your videos and I have to say they are an absolute gift to the world. I love not just learning the recipes but the stories and historical accuracies of how people lived. Thank you for everything you do!
For those interested in outmeal/porridge from the period in Scotland and northern England, where oats were more feasible to plant than wheat, there is a rather fun utensil called a spurtle that could sometime be almost as tall as an adult for mixing and grinder the oats as they cooked down in that lightly salted warted. It was made of harder soft woods (I know that sounds silly, but think of Beech or Cherry) and was typically quite deftly made by fairly comlicated lathing. Corse otmeal has a tendency to clump, which can be exacerbated by spoons and metal, or broken up by wood and very round ripling shapes. It tells one a lot about how important oats were in early modern Scotland and Northern England that so many homes had this very specialists utensil that was used pretty much every day. I wonder if the Spurtle made it's way out to North America, especially given the number of Scotish migrants to Nova Scotia, etc. Maybe someone knows.
Oats are a timeless staple. Nothing keeps me full and energised like oatmeal. I can seriously eat an entire takeaway pizza, half-pounder cheeseburger, large chicken fillet burger and hot wings (as I did recently lol), but not feel any more satiated than I would if I’d had a single bowl of oatmeal.
@@211inprogress Lol true. Just to clarify, the above certainly isn't a regular meal 😋 The day after actually feels sort of similar to a hangover when you're used to eating clean.
I once had two portions of oatmeal for breakfast (just as an experiment) and... it was fine, but it was a darn chore to eat because I didn't have any berries or nuts or anything to make it more interesting.
@@3DMegadoodoo yeah, I normally have one large bowl of it (with nuts, various seeds, unflavoured protein powder, cinnamon) and it feels like a chore by the time I'm at the halfway mark lol
I love these videos because they help me figure out how to eat enough to survive well enough on a serious budget. Im a college student and it’s nice to eat in ways that I know will give me enough energy and nutrition that are cheap and good enough to be tried and true through history
it's good to know that as a working woman, my daily breakfast of oatmeal is exactly what they were eating in the 18th century. I love that it is for the same reasons- it's cheap, it's fast, and in the winter it is nice and warm.
It's so funny that oeatmeal / porridge is basically a thing in every western country. In Germany we call it "Haferbrei" and I personally love it with a Banana squeezed in. In Germany the sister called "Grießbrei" is also very popular... that's semolina porridge and you traditionally eat it kinda sweet with cinnamon-sugar.
It's a thing everywhere that has grain! Even rice boiled into a pudding makes congee, which is basically just a rice porridge. Stir in an egg and ham for protein.
Oatmeal is my favorite food of all time. I have an entire pantry full of different brands and varieties that are all organic. Whole oat groats, Irish/steel cut, Scottish/stone ground steel cut, Old fashioned rolled, quick cooking, oat bran, and even cream of wheat, cream of rice and Malt-O-Meal (wheat & malted barley). I’m obsessed to say the very least. I didn’t know oatmeal was popular in the 18th century but it makes sense. Some things never change 😏
My grandmother had hot cereal almost every day of her life whether it be oatmeal, cream of wheat, cream of rice, or wheatena. I learned to like every one of them during the years we lived with her.
As a child, every morning before school, we had oatmeal with butter and brown sugar. On the weekends or in the summer when there was more time to cook, we had eggs and bacon and fried potatoes.❤️🐝🤗
I like reading the comments of other people's breakfasts or memories. One of my favorite breakfasts when I was a kid we had campers on the Ohio River and my family would make breakfast burritos on the fire pit my mom still makes them on occasion but not on an open fire. eggs sausage shredded potatoes fried up on a tortilla shell with cheese sour cream and salsa mmmmmmmm you don't know good until you've had one of my mom's breakfast burritos!! 🌯
@@thebandplayedon..6145blood sausages probably tastes a lot better than it sounds. Theres a Phillippino dish can Dinaguan. Its chopped beef thats been cooked in a pan then blood is poured over it and cooked until brown. It tastes like the best beef and brown gravy I have ever tasted.
@@jillhumphrys8073in Ireland we call it Black Pudding - far more appetising in sound than blood sausage! My sister lived in Canada for years and used to joke that whoever sells blood sausage needed to consider re-branding. Its delicious, by the way
@@thebandplayedon..6145 Perhaps you've never tried morcilla (Spanish blood sausage) before? Then again I agree it's not everyone's cup of tea. Myself I love our English black pudding, Spanish morcilla, and German or Austrian Blutwurst/Blunzen. If you can get over the psychological barrier it's very nice and highly nutritious.
It's pretty similar nowadays in the UK, few of us have time to eat a full cooked breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausages etc. every day, it's more a thing for weekends, or on holiday. Before work or school most people here have cereal, porridge or toast.
Is it weird that ever single time I make breakfast for breakfast or supper I gotta go watch one of towsends breakfast episode. Every single time, makes eating more pleasurable
My grandmother grew up on a big farm that had been in the family for many generations. They had a lot of farmhands and she told me that her mom did the cooking for everyone. Breakfast was oatmeal (with water) and homemade buttermilk. Her mom left pieces of butter in the buttermilk and the farmhands would complain if there were not enough in their cups. 😅 They took raw onions, homemade cheese, white bacon (Speck), dark bread and beer with them to the fields for lunch.
That lunch is what we'd call a Ploughman's Lunch in England: Heavy bread, cheese, onions, beer and some kind of cured meat. It's genuinely a fantastic meal
I was only in Ireland for a week, but I loved the "full Irish". Very tasty and so much that it filled me up until dinner. The soda bread was good too. I wasn't a big fan of the porridge/oatmeal that I had once though. Too milky and the oats were too fine for my taste.
You don't have to go that long ago. My Grandy love oatmeal with country ham and red-eye gravy. This is essentially oatmeal serve with a small slice of heavily salted ham and you deglaze the pan with a little bit of black coffee. It's a very simple breakfast, but very filling and it would carry you to lunch
Same with mine, except for coffee. She used any leftover meat from day before and fried them on the pan with butter or lard and onions before adding water and oatmeal. Made a damn good and filling breakfast.
Thank you. My great Grandfather, born in 1900, had home made biscuit w/ butter, a scrambled egg and one piece of bacon. Saturday, same thing with molasses. Sunday was Buckwheat pancakes (x2) w/ molasses. Coffee every day. God Bless and stay safe.
As a college student, I can confirm that my breakfast is stuck on the XVIII century. Speaking a bit of mediterranean/european diets. In Portugal, supposedly starting the in the late XVIII/early XIX century, an iconic "breakfast" dish became widespread amongst the poorer regions and people's tables nicknamed "Sopas de Cavalo Cansado" or, quite literally "Weary Horse Soup". It was essentially a Wine Porridge where people took wine, cornbread, an egg yolk and honey (the ingredients could be less, depending on the region) and mixed it all up to provide energy and "eagerness" to work throughout the day. The funniest aspect about this iconic dish is how long it survived in our culture and is, to this day, still part of the diet of plenty of older folks in the interior of Portugal or the Azores, it is quite the "delicacy" of those generations who truly were subject to hardship.
I grew up eating oatmeal for breakfast. I still enjoy in the winter, nice and thick with milk, sugar and cinnamon. Cream of Wheat is the wheat version, also very good.
I have had oatmeal almost every morning in my life. Just gotta find new ways to prepare it. Oatmeal served cold with milk and raisins. Oatmeal cooked in a pot with water, peanutbutter and cinnamon. Oatmeal cooked in a pot with water, a banana and cinnamon. I could go on
I love these types of breakfast spreads. There was a pub here in Houston that had been around many, many years and they served a spread called the Ploughman's Platter. This reminds me of that dish.
Although the first mention of a ploughman's lunch appears in print in the early 19th century and the basis for it goes back much further. The modern popularity & ingredients of it come from the British Milk Marketing Board who reinvented it & advertised it heavily as a way to sell more dairy (cheese) in the 1950's. 🧀🍞
Back in the 1960s , in the winter , i would regularly have Porridge with milk and Brown Sugar for Breakfast ! Very Cheap and Filling . We had a House Cow , so always had plenty of Raw , Fresh , full cream Milk to be had .
I always figured that breakfasts were mainly composed of things like bread, eggs and cured meats because they were long lasting foods you could safely store for a while without refrigeration, meaning they would already be available and ready to eat or close to it first thing in the morning. In that regard, learning that early breakfast also frequently included cheese and beer makes a lot of sense
Just reserved this video to let you know, I watched this earlier this year and ever since was inspired to have bread beer and cheese for my breakfast on my 30th birthday. Today is that day and I am so not disappointed. A nice strong cheddar and a strong red fox with an Amber ale. Thanks for inspiring. Don't panic about it's basic nature. I'm having a fillet steak, egg chips and foraged mushrooms for my dinner! Thank you sir.
Very educational. A type of porridge I enjoy is Cream of Wheat. Add some butter and some brown sugar and vanilla. Makes a hearty and filling breakfast.
i would like to take this time to thank my Grandmaw for spending the time to cook us eggs and bacon with a side of grits every morning we spent there when I was a kid. Rest in Peace Mamaw!
I had oatmeal for breakfast this morning but I added a banana, peanut butter, a pinch of salt and honey. Still holds up today, not to mention oatmeal is full of fiber and nutritious
I knew the poor ate oatmeal a lot but I had no idea rich people were eating it all the time as well. Thats crazy. Love learning about the history of food from this channel. Thank you for the great content.
In Ireland when I went to my uncles house in the summer, (early 1960s) breakfast was a slice of soda bread and a mug of tea. Cooked over a peat fire, with the kettle on a crook. Maybe sometimes with a fresh egg from the byre.
I was interested by the reference to a "peeled stick" at 7:10. An oatmeal stick or spurtle is a traditional Scottish tool used to stir oatmeal, soups, or other foods of that consistency. Perhaps it was more widespread in the 18th century, if this is an American recipe. But it appears that in the demonstration a wooden spoon was used instead.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
If you enjoyed the music in this video check out our new CD! www.townsends.us/products/safe-from-the-cold-cd-by-c-w-lewis
I did not enjoy it
@@goodstuff8156 i did
Ever considered a collaboration with Early American ?
Bread and milk is my usual breakfast in the morning because it's easy and fast
I work as a gardener and just as shown here breakfast was just to satisfy myself untill lunch
I love your videos btw
cd💀💀💀💀💀?????
Love that line at the end, "whether it's today or 300 years ago." We need to be reminded that people of the past were people just like us.
The oldest piece of written language we have, is a customer complaint of how the copper he purchased isn't the quality he was promised.
@@Alizudo A savvy customer or the first recorded Karen?
We may never know.
Yet we have delusions we are evolved as people compared to people a few generations ago, because our technology did
No. They were more resilient both mentally and physically compared to us.
@@Alizudoin other words: humans have always lied.
Apparently I need to drink more beer.
Beer for breakfast is awesome.
When the waters bad beer is the way....lol
I made a similar joke at work the other day. We all agreed. Especially when it comes to retail, and at a certain chain known for discount (we're a leased department, but still).
Remember the beer drunk at breakfast was "little beer", it has way less alcohol than today's light beer, it was a way to purify water. I'm going to guess it probably took many casks to get drunk.
Having some right now. Breakfast of champions.
Wonderful and informative. There is something comforting in connecting to the simplicity in the daily lives of those who came before us. Charming music as well, cheers!
“Why would peasants eat bread, cheese and beer for breakfast?”
My retort: “why wouldn’t you??” lol sounds like a great breakfast to me.
Bread and cheese is one of the best quick foods I’ve ever had
When you can't be sure that the water is fit to drink, beer is the better (and healthier) choice.
Eating better than I do every day 😅
"Bread and cheese" is literally just grilled cheese, an S-tier breakfast.
@@discordlexia2429 Or it could just be a slice of bread and a piece of cheese, in fact I think it probably was most of the time.
This was strangely comforting. I only ever have black coffee, toast with peanut butter or oatmeal in the winter for breakfast. My ancestors were all farmers and miners. It’s nice to know I could have comfortably shared a breakfast with them.
Did your ancestors have access to peanut butter and coffee? Very fortunate werent they...
@@calumashton5157 Yes they were.
@@LillibitOfHeredid u continue ur family legacy. R u a farmer. R u married to a farmer etc. Kids farming?
@@KD400_ Are you using a T9 keypad or just somehow in too big of a hurry to use proper words?
@@LillibitOfHere I'm on a phone. Why? R u farming urself that was my main question. If u don't want to answer it then ok whatever
We really need to make breakfast beers a thing again
Watered down breakfast beer dates to back when tap/well water was usually contaminated with bacteria or parasites, so it was safer to drink stuff with a little booze in it
Amen 🙏🏾
@@psychedamike People did know that the water and stuff can be cleared of most bacteria and viruses by boiling it. They might not have understood how it worked, but putting alcohol into every beverage was not a thing in *most* places *most* of the time back then
I’m on it…
@@SirEurosohn there was also times when vinegar was put in water to decontaminate it.
In Ireland, oatmeal made with water used to be called "stirabout". With milk, porridge.
Sorry, I'm from the USA: What does porridge mean? I can look it up if it's too much trouble. Thanks
@@SelenaJarvis-Jordan It’s just oatmeal
@@SelenaJarvis-Jordan @remaguire just literally told you one definition. To them, oatmeal made using water is 'stirabout' (at least in Ireland) while if you instead use milk to make your oatmeal, you get a richer, higher protein version called 'porridge.'
In many places the modern distinction seems to be less about ingredients and more about regional terms, and sometimes 'a porridge' seems to be used about any dish of boiled grain of some type, as in "in the Southern colonies, they eat often a porridge of corn meal." (Today most people in the Southeast would refer to this as 'grits,' which comes from the process of 'gritting' the corn -- grating it to remove the hull. Some modern grits are also treated with an alkaline solution but I don't know how far back that process goes.
Jas. Townsend here uses both milk and water in his oats, by which we might joke that he's indecisive about the matter, at least from an Irish perspective!
@bengaliinplatforms1268 that's what I thought but I wasn't sure. Thank you for answering me
@CaliforniaReefRat I know what grits are. I'm from Texas. I've heard of gruel but never had it. My only lesson in porridge was with 3 bears. I was confused with the both water and milk part I guess. Calling it oatmeal tells you straight up what is in it. Even when I add milk I don't call it porridge, it's still oatmeal to me. I guess I thought it was something different since that word is not in my food knowledge. My bad. Thanks for the lesson. I'll just look it up next time to not bother anyone
Every word he says about the name of the food, just makes me hungry. Milk, bread, bacon, eggs.. Lord have mercy.
how come no gruel?🤤
So, words and phrases like, "Instant," artifical flavoring," "processed cheese product," "developed by NASA," doesnt get the tummy rumblin'? 🤣
Indeed. Coffee is all that's missing from that list 😋
That thumbnail!! 🤤🤤🤤
@@Clint52279I'd kill for some developed by nasa porrige
I am somehow surprised they did not mention or consume honey. It was still cheaper than cane sugar and was already popular and widely used by then and goes extremely well with oatmeal. Honey did not require special storage conditions. Honey cakes were popular since ancient Greeks and Roman times.
I would imagine that back then honey harvesting operations were no where near what they are today, so honey might not be available in regions where there are no beekeepers or people willing to harvest it.
Bu t usually, most towns in the new world had access to oats, milk, sorghrum, molassas, since those were big trade items minus the milk.
@starsiegeRoks Indeed. I'm quite surprised about it since bee keeping is a practice that goes thousands of years back and was well known throughout the globe. Sugar was such a valuable commodity that I am surprised they never thought of doing the obvious. Maybe it also had to do with the specific texture or taste or even beliefs. As a last note its important to point out that most locals would harvest wild honey from forests which is still practiced in Russia and comes in large quantities as well. So it was readily available waiting to be picked.
@@g1998k to your point, id like to apply Occam's Razor (or Hanslens, I forget which one it is)
Maybe alot of people in the new world were just scared of bees/didnt want to deal with it due to bee stings? You always see depictions in history of people getting swarmed by bees and referencing bee stings in literature, so we know that at least a portion of the population feels the same way alot of us do about bee stings lol.
My dad as a farmer had what I consider to be a working man’s breakfast most every day. Around 5am before going out to get the cows in for milking he would have a couple of sandwiches of bread and jam or peanut butter and a hot drink, then after finishing the dairy he would have a cereal like Weetbix or porridge and another hot drink. Very simple but enabled him to continue heavy work or activities through the morning until lunch. Sometimes morning tea break as well. Good show as always and very enjoyable, thanks
Your dad was jacked
i think the main thing that is different betwen more historic diets and modern ones is 2-3 big meals vs a lot of snacking. historic diets were not eating 1000 calories then 8 hours later another 1k but 100-200 every few hours that would fend off hunger much better
I thought that might be too much carbs in the morning, then I remembered it's all going to be burned off anyways compared to someone who sits on a desk all day.
My father was the same. Fourth generation dairy farmer in Australia. Tea and toast before going out, after milking, probably cereal,.toast, more tea,.maybe eggs sometimes
I'm happy God gave you the dad you have. ❤
As much as I love watching him make a single recipe for the whole video, I loved this rapid fire of historical excerpts so we could get a broader understanding of what everyone ate for breakfast. Key takeaway: Porridge.
They often mention beer at meals, even for breakfast. Did they have another beer with a very low alcohol content? Or they simply had just a little drink? Did it still make them fat?
It made them fatter for sure, but without it, they'd be underweight. Beer was an essential cheap calorie @@Red_Devil_2011
I'm Turkish and I can confirm you about oatmeal, butter, eggs and cheese was pretty typical breakfast selections. In very busy days boiled milk and a little honey in it was my grandfather's breakfast. Also sometimes he was just smoking and having coffee if previous day he ate a lot. Usually he was having his coffee around noon after lunch with some chicken/ lamb and rice pilav and salty pickles. He was not drinking alcohol due to his religion but at night many people was drinking beer, wine or raki with a little meat and cheese as "meze". The Turkish breakfast promoted today only existed in high class as a way to show off and for common folk it was like that on important days like wedding, some friends gathering, soldier ceremony or some islamic feasts.
definitely! eggs and cheese and chay. and, even more traditionally, some people liked a nice plate of just made soup. I guess even now in Erzerum there are tiny locantas which open very very early for those who want to drop by and have their breakfast quickly before their working day starts. and there they serve a ram head and shank soup (kelle paça çorbası ), one of my favourites. heavy and nourishing, especially on a cold morning with snow
I worked with a turkish man who made his own raki. So strong lol!😅
@@stephenw2045 %45 percent. Just like a whiskey tbh.
@@imflyingoverclouds
Really? This stuff tastes very strong. I can drink whiskey neat but this seemed like a different world!
@@stephenw2045 Yes because it is made from grapes and at least 2 times distilled. pretty strong taste because of "anise".
Biscuits and gravy. Love eggs and sausage, but as a southerner, Biscuits and gravy is a gift
And not out of the can!
Facts!
Grits, heavy on the butter and cheddar cheese. YUM!!
@@onemercilessming1342 Fried grits is SO good.
Nah, full English is better.
When I was a child in Japan, a good breakfast is natto on rice and miso soup. Bacon and egg would be a great addition though.
@neonaofumi5572, so far I’ve not heard great things about natto, but since you say it’s good it makes me interested in tasting it for myself.
@@keithtorgersen9664 It's what's often known as an "acquired taste", if you like kinda footy tasting things like strong parmesan or blue cheeses it might be for you.
@LeoMidori, probably. I’ve only had this once, but I am one of the rare westerners that enjoys durian. Mind you, it was thawed from a frozen state, so the smell was diluted but I still liked it.
It probably has something to do with modern store-bought natto, but until someone mentioned several years ago I didn't know it had a smell.
@@LeoMidori It's was more a texture thing for me, its so sticky & stringy. But yeah the taste does take some getting used to.
My grandfather would eat what he called "coffee soup" which was just a big mug of coffee with chunks of homemade bread torn up in it. That was his breakfast for years
I eat that usually too. Sometimes for dinner.
I often have oatmeal for breakfast. Filling and easy to cook. Some things don't change with time.
Nothing wrong with some oatmeal in the morning !
@@MakeMoney-zh7uc yep. keeps you going until lunch time.
Tell that to people 15,000 years ago.
Same here. With blueberries, walnuts, and a dash of salt.
I dont know why people hate oatmeal for breakfast. Ive had it almost every morning for 20 years
Porridge and milk porridge are still one of the most popular breakfasts in Finland. It's done pretty much as you described but we also add a tiny bit of salt to the mix to make it taste so much better. A cut of butter on top of the porride (when it's done) makes it taste really good. Some add sugar on top of the porridge with the butter.
Thats exactly how I do my porridge too! Nice and simple, fills you up and generally pretty tasty. Good to see its a fairly universal way of making it!
In Australia we omit the butter but add milk and honey, having boiled it in water
I tried karelian pastry once (pretty sure thats finnish?). Basically rice pudding. I thought it was weird to add salt until I tasted it. I loved it with the egg butter.
@@ellehan3003 Yep, it's finnish. And tastes really good.
@@kellysouter4381You might find it even nicer cooked with milk or half water (to soak the oats for a few min)half milk then served with thick cream and and brown sugar 🙂 Honey is good too and your version is healthier!🤣
"just this for breakfast" it's 2024 and I've been living off cigarettes and coffee for breakfast for years.
Haha, me too!
Townsend has a kind, gentle positivity that I aspire to replicate in my daily life.
Now the working man’s breakfast is two energy drinks, a cigarette, and maybe a vending machine bear claw.
So not much has changed.
That was my breakfast on the Reagan, minus the cigarette and substitute the bearclaw for a candy bar.
Coffee monster, egg, cheese and sausage breakfast sandwich 👍
@@mindexpansionpuzzles I'd trade out the candy bar for a granola bar I'd nab from the mess deck before quarters, but the cigarette and energy drink are eternal.
One of my old highschool teacher long ago used to say to me. He would ask me if I had an m and m breakfast. The first time couple times I just kind of ignored him Nd then asked what he’s talking about Nd he said mt. dew and Marlboros which he was correct
replace the cig with a zyn and dnt forget the tornados
Here in Chile since the 17th century working people had for breakfast what is called "Ulpo"which is milk/water with sugar thickened using toasted wheat flour, there are several references to this meal in historic books.
Una cosa que ya no he visto pero sí leí que se hacía era la harina tostada con sal disuelta en grasa, como una masa de galleta salada.
Suena bien llenador pero no se ve rico.
Igual usaban la harina tostada como chuño así pa engrosar sopas o estofados, cosa que ya rara vez se hace, a diferencia del ulpo que sobrevive hasta ahora.
That sounds similar to the cornflour custard my mother used to make, back when custard powder and surplus eggs were rich people food. Sweetened milk thickened with cornflour.
Que? 😂
Really interesting! Thanks for sharing.
This is just seriously one of the best and most wholesome channels on RUclips and Townsends is a Godsend. Cheers. :')
So glad this channel popped back up onto my random night late feed... love these videos
Here in Sweden, we typically eat cold things for breakfast, often heavy on carbs like cereals with milk or yoghurt, sandwiches or maybe oatmeal if you really want something warm. Growing up, I was made to believe that the English/US style breakfasts, with fried eggs and so on, were the height of decadence and luxury. Now that I live on my own, as an adult, I’ve found that I need a protein rich breakfast of eggs in some form or I simply won’t last until lunchtime.
Milk is protein rich right ?
@@jayeshrahulkovi9738 not really no, not compared to eggs or meat.
@@jayeshrahulkovi9738 Sure if you drink a liter of milk in the morning you will get 30g of protein. If you like milk just have it with your meal there isn't anything wrong with it just not great if you only care about protein intake
I make overnight oats with greek yogurt and it sustains me pretty well. I work a desk job though.
Egg on top of a piece of toast has been a staple for my morning routine. I'll give up a lot of meats before I give up eggs haha.
It's just such a good concept. One meal to get you through to the next meal, depending on what you have to do for the day. Food for thought.
LITERAL food for thought lmao
This Channel is a treasure. Hello from the Philippines!
I know this has been said before, but your videos have made me fall in love in not only the culinary side of history, but the military, industrial, trade and cultural sides too.
You explain things so simply yet detailed and it’s amazing what you teach
That toast and water you mentioned is basically toasted steeped in hot water to make a sort of carbohydrate rich tea. It was used alot in hospitals and such well into the early 20th century as a food for patients who couldn't keep anything else down. I've made it before and its surprisingly good. It might be worth doing an episode on it for the channel
I just discovered this channel. I appreciate the history and the production value is top-notch. Feels like a TV show. Townsend is a great presenter and should do audio books.
I grew up in Vietnam and I grew up on sticky rice, so the idea of having oatmeal for breakfast, even though it feels weird, when I really think about it, it's similar to my little sack of sticky rice I used to have every breakfast.
Sticky rice with a bit of pork floss (pork meat well seasoned, cooked until basically bone dry, then shredded and dried out even more to preserve), and a few slices of sausage with a dash of soy sauce is the go to breakfast here.
Oat does not grow in South East Asia so it is not common, and imported oatmeal is super expensive so you'll only see it in fancy restaurants that serve woke healthy acai bowls or something. It's funny how the same thing is treated differently in different places.
When in the hell did Acai bowls become woke??? Lmaooooo
@@billybased64 they always were??? 💀
@@billybased64it was about 2022 . I got the acaii bowl memo late maybe it actually happened in 2021 but yeah I miss those
Often times, expensive food is just peasant food from a different part of the world. It's peasants that figure out how to turn trash into gold in cooking. The rich have all the ingredients in the world and just mash them together in the most gross and expensive way possible.
@@billybased64reject acai bowls, embrace masculinity.
Thank you for being here, and being you. My best friend passed a few years ago, and he would’ve liked this channel a lot as well. You remind me of him in the best of ways. Thanks for being authentic.
These videos are always interesting, and have gotten me through some rough times. Thanks!
I grew up in Virginia, we had all sorts of things for breakfast depending on the time of year. I remember my grandmother, an Appalachian woman, would eat a wedge of homemade cornbread broken up into buttermilk for breakfast at times. The weirdest thing we would eat, to most outsiders, would be a basic Oyster Stew at breakfast. It was commonly served on Christmas Morning but that never stopped us from having it through out the year.
Yep my grandmother still eats cornbread soaked in buttermilk now I don't like buttermilk but I have tried it. also we are in the Appalachian mountains foothills to be exact.
Oysters,lobsters and salmon used to be poor folks food.
I literally eat bread and cheese for breakfast most days (including right now). Big cup of tea, chunk of bread, and some cheese.
Same.
Its quick and good.
But i upgraded the cheese with slice of ham. I deserve a lite of luxurious life
I may add a slice of leftover honey ham to mine but the same for me. How do you have your tea? I like hot black tea with a splash of sweet cream only for my breakfast time. It's all about quick grab-and-go for me.
I replace the tea with coffee, and make a little sandwich of whole wheat toast, hard cheddar and a slice of ham. That's a darn good breakfast.
@@SelenaJarvis-JordanI do my tea totally black, nothing added, personally.
Add beer ,to make sure you get all your vitamins and minerals
It’s wild how different cultures have similar meals… I’m American but was raised by my Mexican mom and having _atole_ for breakfast is common. She would either boil the oatmeal with milk or water along with some cinnamon sticks, sugar, cloves, nutmeg, vanilla…
Bro Atole is the bomb, makes oatmeal seem like a treat !
Como Mexico no hay dos!
@@JRG333 it is! Perfect for a cold day
@@3balam3 estoy de acuerdo :)
Bread is criminally underrated, top food
Depends which bread. Brown bread is great food. But white bread lacks all the healthy stuff.
Fr whoever invented bread was COOKIN’
@@Emerson-l9sblessings from God amiright 😂
@@Emerson-l9sno they were baking
Wheat belly.
On oldest aunt's farm in the 50s the first meal was fast and small and got uncle and cousins (lol, and visiting nieces) out to do the milking and early chores while she worked on the morning meal, which was huge and put on the table around 9 or 10. Same for the lunch which was a sandwich and fruit that could be taken out wherever the work was being done. Late afternoon was another big meal. Back outside to do the rest of the chores before the sun went down. End of the day 'meal' was generally a slab of pie or cobbler topped with cheese and it didn't take too long before everyone was upstairs in bed or asleep in their chairs!
Sounds ideal to me!
The good life eh? I assume you're an American, so what's this thing about putting cheese on what you call pie? Sounds really strange here across the pond.
@@cleanerben9636 we have both dessert and savory pies here. I think our fruit pies would be your tarts. And a slice of cheddar cheese melted over a hot slice of apple pie is not to be missed.
5 meals a day and lots of activity , great to keep a high metabolism looks like your aunt was ahead of the curve
That is a great deal of food for a day! I am a farm gal and in all my 68 years no one ate like this! Yikes! 😱
One of the best channels on You Tube. This is something I would have found on PBS as a child but with much better production....BRAVO!!
Just found this channel and I can already tell, there’s about to be some binging to unfold
I love that my daughter has made her family a homestead where oatmeal is made almost daily. She has an abundance of throw-ons and you never have to serve it the same way twice, unless it suits you.
I'd love to hear even part of her list of throw-ons to get my creative juices flowing. My kids love oatmeal and I'd really enjoy some suggestions.
Oatmeal throw-on sounds fantastic for cheap yet flavourful variety.
Pumpkin, chocolate (add cocoa), apple (cook in apple juice) or even a savory version with grated cheese and chives. Just use your imagination.
I'm hypoglycemic and need protein with every meal. Right now I'm having my usual: oatmeal with peanut butter. It's a delightful concoction that can be flavored many ways. I typical use sugar, sometimes other things like nutella, syrup, even nutmeg. This time I'm trying cookie butter, and cooled and softened with mocha iced coffee. John's channel is always an inspiration. I need to try it with sack wine!
I'm hypoglycemic myself, I switched to a carnivore diet and it helped amazingly. My normal breakfast every work day is 5 eggs scrambled, maybe Greek yogurt as well.
If you’re hypoglycemic, those foods are only making it worse. If it was recommended by a doctor or nutritionist, you need to get a second opinion.
Be careful with the nutmeg. The more you use the more you can feel drunk but it does require quite a bit to happen. True fact!
Sounds like my usual breakfast! Fellow hypoglycemic here. Also my between meal snacks are carefully planned so I don't crash. 😊
@@FirstNameLastName-wt5to Yeah sounds fishy to me. I've seen a trend of people recommending carnivore diets on youtube and it's honestly kind of disturbing, basically keto but more extreme despite there being zero research showing any benefit to a carnivore diet in humans. These fad diets need to be taken with a LARGE grain of salt.
John that brings back a lot of memories. My grandfather's breakfast was a variation of the bread and milk breakfast. Ever since I knew him his breakfast was 1/2 of a Dolly Madison brand jelly roll, broken up and dropped into a mug of hot milk and eaten like cereal would be. Our family being Italian would have their big meal at lunch. Pasta or baked chicken, fried chicken, with polenta anda salad from the garden, pickled sweet bell peppers with garlic, olives in oil, scallions and radishes. Or my favorite, thick garlicky weisswurst with either boiled potatoes and parsley or on a large slice of Italian bread with butter and mustard. Supper for gramps would either be the second half of the jelly roll served as before or home made salami with bread or crackers with home made soup if grandma had made it or canned if not. A peeled apple for dessert while watching the six o clock news and then off to bed.
0:43 Bruh, I would empty that plate.
I get that at IHOP.
You know he was looking forward to this one all week
3:05; lol, half a pint of strong beer before or during work on the farm?! heck yah! also, seems dangerous too.
There is something comforting in the simplicity and warmth of oatmeal, especially on a cold winter's or fall's day. I like mixing maple syrup or honey into mine, and I use milk for it as well!
In Switzerland we eat Oatmeal rather for supper than for breakfast. The usual way is to prepare it with half water, half milk, a pinch of salt, and if you want to be fancy, add some vanilla to it. Serve with preserved fruit, like prune plums, pear or apples. Mix some cinnamon with sugar and add a sprinkle to the dish. A comfort food for winter time.
Sounds delightful!!!
Such a snob
Finland, literally breakfast as you described. Plus butter.
@@zoobie2000 mans a snob for having some dried fruit with his porridge? hahah grow up you melt
I like the new format 10-15 minutes per video is awesome. I'll still watch your longer format live videos too, but these fit nicely into my daily schedule.
My grandfather and uncle were miners. For breakfast they ate fried potatoes, fried eggs, sausages, cutlets, and soup. They had lunch in a deep mine and it consisted of a couple of sandwiches with coffee or tea.
Lots of great stuff here!
From all the dairy maid and spring house management stuff I've been sifting through, quite often the "boiled milk" refers to new milk from the day before or so, that was boiled to keep it sweet.
Milk that wasn't headed for cheese, and skimmed milk cheese, butter and cream making would also be boiled to keep it as sweet milk for a bit longer.
This is the sort of observation Pasteur cottoned onto in about 100 years, but dairy maids and brewsters definitely had a clue that if you boiled liquids, and cooled them covered with boiled or vinegar soaked linen - they would stay sweet and not go sour.
So boiled milk was a reference to this milk that had been boiled to keep over night - to drink before the dairy maids had done all their tough morning chores.
So.... they were pasteurizing (is that how you spell it? That was a suggestion) the milk before they knew what that was? Just another example of people just knowing what worked back in the day, even if they had no clue as to why
i love this channel so much. it just has a super relaxing vibe and i'm always learning something.
Beef broth for breakfast was a thing back then too. Good stuff.
Broths or vegetable soup made with broth are my go to’s now on a morning with an upset stomach
Yes ! Homemade broth is so filling. Since I come from a nearly self-suficient farming family, even though I now live in the city, I never throw any food away. And one of my favourite dish is still making soup with the leftover broth of my stews, some vegetables bits and the pieces of meat that are still around. The only new thing I add is usually barley, split pea or alphabet pasta, depending on the leftover ingredients. Not only is it delicious, I usually save a lot of money on the long term !
in our country people ate soup for breakfast a lot, although most of time just quick soups without broth. in our country was also thing corn "coffee" with milk and bread or some buns or so. my granny and especially great-grandmother used to eat it quite often...
It's always interesting getting these glimpses into the past and seeing how different things used to be, but how similar? We still are 100 200 years later and we can still so deeply relate with each other.
It makes me wonder what things people will be able to relate to 100 200 years from now.
eating microchips and space paste.
Eating green chips made from humans
Honestly i think this might be my favorite channel on RUclips. It's got everything in videos like these.
Happy Sunday! Watching this eating my first breakfast, coffee and toast. After I walk the dog on a winters day, second breakfast is oatmeal, but today in Townsends honor, I’ll have me some bacon or sausage and scrambled eggs. Thanks, Townsends! Wishing your and your fans a beautiful day. 🥰💕❤️👍👍
As someone from the UK. The thing that separates gruel from porridge is that gruel is thinner but it's also savoury. The fat or "drippings" from the last night's meal is added to the pot. Many of us in the north still enjoy lardy toast. Which is re-heating all of complex animal and vegetable remnants from a Sunday roast at the bottom of yesterday's roasting tin and dropping in bread that's gone hard over the weekend. It sounds gross but trust me... it's amazing!
I always wondered what the difference between gruel and porridge was and now I know!
Gruel is also usually water-based, whereas porridge is milk-based
My grandma once said all they had to eat one time for breakfast was lard, onions and bread, so they ate that as a sandwich.
Lard on bread is mighty delicious
I always appreciate your wholesome content
I've randomly stumbled across your videos and I have to say they are an absolute gift to the world. I love not just learning the recipes but the stories and historical accuracies of how people lived.
Thank you for everything you do!
I will now call my modern oatmeal, "Hasty Pudding". :)
Make haste! Before young Miss Goldilocks eats it!
Actually, I think hasty pudding is mentioned in Yankee Doodle.
This channel popped up on my recommendations and boy, what a delight. This is really cool!
For those interested in outmeal/porridge from the period in Scotland and northern England, where oats were more feasible to plant than wheat, there is a rather fun utensil called a spurtle that could sometime be almost as tall as an adult for mixing and grinder the oats as they cooked down in that lightly salted warted. It was made of harder soft woods (I know that sounds silly, but think of Beech or Cherry) and was typically quite deftly made by fairly comlicated lathing. Corse otmeal has a tendency to clump, which can be exacerbated by spoons and metal, or broken up by wood and very round ripling shapes. It tells one a lot about how important oats were in early modern Scotland and Northern England that so many homes had this very specialists utensil that was used pretty much every day. I wonder if the Spurtle made it's way out to North America, especially given the number of Scotish migrants to Nova Scotia, etc. Maybe someone knows.
The water used to boil corn tastes like popcorn afterwards, which makes it a really nice broth ingredient.
Fantastic, you guys are hitting them out of the park. Thank you all for all your hard work and diligence in 18 century history.!!!
Ironically, Townsends only eats protein cubes from the year 3000 when he's off camera.
Oats are a timeless staple. Nothing keeps me full and energised like oatmeal. I can seriously eat an entire takeaway pizza, half-pounder cheeseburger, large chicken fillet burger and hot wings (as I did recently lol), but not feel any more satiated than I would if I’d had a single bowl of oatmeal.
There's no point eating All that stuff if you only need One bowl of oatmeal. You can save money and prevent a heart attack. 👍
@@211inprogress Lol true. Just to clarify, the above certainly isn't a regular meal 😋 The day after actually feels sort of similar to a hangover when you're used to eating clean.
@@BaresEatBeats 😆👍
I once had two portions of oatmeal for breakfast (just as an experiment) and... it was fine, but it was a darn chore to eat because I didn't have any berries or nuts or anything to make it more interesting.
@@3DMegadoodoo yeah, I normally have one large bowl of it (with nuts, various seeds, unflavoured protein powder, cinnamon) and it feels like a chore by the time I'm at the halfway mark lol
I love these videos because they help me figure out how to eat enough to survive well enough on a serious budget. Im a college student and it’s nice to eat in ways that I know will give me enough energy and nutrition that are cheap and good enough to be tried and true through history
it's good to know that as a working woman, my daily breakfast of oatmeal is exactly what they were eating in the 18th century. I love that it is for the same reasons- it's cheap, it's fast, and in the winter it is nice and warm.
Dont compare urself with them. It depends on what ur job is. Back then they barely had food to eat
@@KD400_what are you talking about?
it also has great nutrition. Lots of protein and micronutrients.
@@KD400_wtf are you talking about 💀
My comment was simple. Stop being ignorant
It's so funny that oeatmeal / porridge is basically a thing in every western country. In Germany we call it "Haferbrei" and I personally love it with a Banana squeezed in. In Germany the sister called "Grießbrei" is also very popular... that's semolina porridge and you traditionally eat it kinda sweet with cinnamon-sugar.
It's a thing everywhere that has grain! Even rice boiled into a pudding makes congee, which is basically just a rice porridge. Stir in an egg and ham for protein.
Don't forget milk rice!
I remember semolina back in the 70's un Australia. I haven't seen it in years.
Oatmeal is my favorite food of all time. I have an entire pantry full of different brands and varieties that are all organic. Whole oat groats, Irish/steel cut, Scottish/stone ground steel cut, Old fashioned rolled, quick cooking, oat bran, and even cream of wheat, cream of rice and Malt-O-Meal (wheat & malted barley). I’m obsessed to say the very least.
I didn’t know oatmeal was popular in the 18th century but it makes sense. Some things never change 😏
My grandmother had hot cereal almost every day of her life whether it be oatmeal, cream of wheat, cream of rice, or wheatena. I learned to like every one of them during the years we lived with her.
As a child, every morning before school, we had oatmeal with butter and brown sugar. On the weekends or in the summer when there was more time to cook, we had eggs and bacon and fried potatoes.❤️🐝🤗
I like reading the comments of other people's breakfasts or memories. One of my favorite breakfasts when I was a kid we had campers on the Ohio River and my family would make breakfast burritos on the fire pit my mom still makes them on occasion but not on an open fire. eggs sausage shredded potatoes fried up on a tortilla shell with cheese sour cream and salsa mmmmmmmm you don't know good until you've had one of my mom's breakfast burritos!! 🌯
Being a student in spain get up at 6 in the morning my landlord lady made me breakfast everyday luke warm blood sausage. Best of times
Interesting.... see, personally, I would take that as a sign it was time to start new apartment hunting.... 😉
@@thebandplayedon..6145blood sausages probably tastes a lot better than it sounds. Theres a Phillippino dish can Dinaguan. Its chopped beef thats been cooked in a pan then blood is poured over it and cooked until brown. It tastes like the best beef and brown gravy I have ever tasted.
@@thebandplayedon..6145 see now that would have upsett Esmeralda. And i had no ambition to end up inside the luke warm blood sausage.
@@jillhumphrys8073in Ireland we call it Black Pudding - far more appetising in sound than blood sausage! My sister lived in Canada for years and used to joke that whoever sells blood sausage needed to consider re-branding. Its delicious, by the way
@@thebandplayedon..6145 Perhaps you've never tried morcilla (Spanish blood sausage) before? Then again I agree it's not everyone's cup of tea. Myself I love our English black pudding, Spanish morcilla, and German or Austrian Blutwurst/Blunzen. If you can get over the psychological barrier it's very nice and highly nutritious.
It's pretty similar nowadays in the UK, few of us have time to eat a full cooked breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausages etc. every day, it's more a thing for weekends, or on holiday. Before work or school most people here have cereal, porridge or toast.
Is it weird that ever single time I make breakfast for breakfast or supper I gotta go watch one of towsends breakfast episode. Every single time, makes eating more pleasurable
My grandmother grew up on a big farm that had been in the family for many generations. They had a lot of farmhands and she told me that her mom did the cooking for everyone. Breakfast was oatmeal (with water) and homemade buttermilk. Her mom left pieces of butter in the buttermilk and the farmhands would complain if there were not enough in their cups. 😅 They took raw onions, homemade cheese, white bacon (Speck), dark bread and beer with them to the fields for lunch.
That lunch is what we'd call a Ploughman's Lunch in England: Heavy bread, cheese, onions, beer and some kind of cured meat. It's genuinely a fantastic meal
When I went to Ireland, I ate so many Irish breakfasts. Hands down, second best breakfast on the planet. So far
Out of curiosity what was the best breakfast in your opinion? :)
I was only in Ireland for a week, but I loved the "full Irish". Very tasty and so much that it filled me up until dinner. The soda bread was good too.
I wasn't a big fan of the porridge/oatmeal that I had once though. Too milky and the oats were too fine for my taste.
Best would be Scottish breakfast.
Nothing like black pudding and Scottish sausage. Ok, wash it down with Irish coffee.
Are you saying you would eat a leprechauns breakfast?
Huh
i love this channel
You don't have to go that long ago. My Grandy love oatmeal with country ham and red-eye gravy. This is essentially oatmeal serve with a small slice of heavily salted ham and you deglaze the pan with a little bit of black coffee. It's a very simple breakfast, but very filling and it would carry you to lunch
The price of ham has gotten so expensive lately though 😩
Same with mine, except for coffee. She used any leftover meat from day before and fried them on the pan with butter or lard and onions before adding water and oatmeal. Made a damn good and filling breakfast.
@nunyabusiness3786 any liquid will work to deglaze the pan.
Thank you. My great Grandfather, born in 1900, had home made biscuit w/ butter, a scrambled egg and one piece of bacon. Saturday, same thing with molasses. Sunday was Buckwheat pancakes (x2) w/ molasses. Coffee every day. God Bless and stay safe.
As a college student, I can confirm that my breakfast is stuck on the XVIII century.
Speaking a bit of mediterranean/european diets. In Portugal, supposedly starting the in the late XVIII/early XIX century, an iconic "breakfast" dish became widespread amongst the poorer regions and people's tables nicknamed "Sopas de Cavalo Cansado" or, quite literally "Weary Horse Soup". It was essentially a Wine Porridge where people took wine, cornbread, an egg yolk and honey (the ingredients could be less, depending on the region) and mixed it all up to provide energy and "eagerness" to work throughout the day. The funniest aspect about this iconic dish is how long it survived in our culture and is, to this day, still part of the diet of plenty of older folks in the interior of Portugal or the Azores, it is quite the "delicacy" of those generations who truly were subject to hardship.
I grew up eating oatmeal for breakfast. I still enjoy in the winter, nice and thick with milk, sugar and cinnamon. Cream of Wheat is the wheat version, also very good.
Oatmeal made a good breakfast once in a while. I doubt Jon would continue smiling if he had to breakfast on this day after day.
fr, i have oatmeal every three weeks or so, since im on a diet and it's pretty filling, truthfully it's such a drag to eat sometimes
I have had oatmeal almost every morning in my life. Just gotta find new ways to prepare it.
Oatmeal served cold with milk and raisins.
Oatmeal cooked in a pot with water, peanutbutter and cinnamon.
Oatmeal cooked in a pot with water, a banana and cinnamon.
I could go on
I eat it almost everyday for work , and just like anything it gets boring. But I would be lying if it wasn't so convenient, easy and filling.
I eat oatmeal every day for years now. But it’s not like it was 200 years ago.
Lol, I was thinking the same thing.
I only needed to see the thumbnail to like this video. Breakfast food is the king of all foods.
I love these types of breakfast spreads. There was a pub here in Houston that had been around many, many years and they served a spread called the Ploughman's Platter. This reminds me of that dish.
Although the first mention of a ploughman's lunch appears in print in the early 19th century and the basis for it goes back much further. The modern popularity & ingredients of it come from the British Milk Marketing Board who reinvented it & advertised it heavily as a way to sell more dairy (cheese) in the 1950's. 🧀🍞
In England you get Ploughman’s lunch in pubs(used to happen more in the past),that’s interesting it made it’s way to Texas!
Bread, cheese and beer sounds like the perfect way to start a day!
Back in the 1960s , in the winter , i would regularly have Porridge with milk and Brown Sugar for Breakfast !
Very Cheap and Filling . We had a House Cow , so always had plenty of Raw , Fresh , full cream Milk to be had .
Oatmeal is great for breakfast, especially in cooler weather. It warms you right up. This was awesome. Cheers!
I always figured that breakfasts were mainly composed of things like bread, eggs and cured meats because they were long lasting foods you could safely store for a while without refrigeration, meaning they would already be available and ready to eat or close to it first thing in the morning. In that regard, learning that early breakfast also frequently included cheese and beer makes a lot of sense
Just reserved this video to let you know, I watched this earlier this year and ever since was inspired to have bread beer and cheese for my breakfast on my 30th birthday. Today is that day and I am so not disappointed. A nice strong cheddar and a strong red fox with an Amber ale. Thanks for inspiring. Don't panic about it's basic nature. I'm having a fillet steak, egg chips and foraged mushrooms for my dinner! Thank you sir.
Very educational. A type of porridge I enjoy is Cream of Wheat. Add some butter and some brown sugar and vanilla. Makes a hearty and filling breakfast.
Loved cream of wheat, with buttered toast as a child!
i would like to take this time to thank my Grandmaw for spending the time to cook us eggs and bacon with a side of grits every morning we spent there when I was a kid. Rest in Peace Mamaw!
What a wonderful lady
Tried the pint of beer with bread (Challah technically) and cheese breakfast. A good start for the day.
I had oatmeal for breakfast this morning but I added a banana, peanut butter, a pinch of salt and honey. Still holds up today, not to mention oatmeal is full of fiber and nutritious
My breakfast outside of summer is poached egg on toast (homemade bread) so I'm basically eating halfway between regular food and food-with-guests. 😄
These videos from this channel carry some type of awesome historical content. I’m so glad I subscribed!
I knew the poor ate oatmeal a lot but I had no idea rich people were eating it all the time as well. Thats crazy. Love learning about the history of food from this channel. Thank you for the great content.
If we time travel back, George Washington is having a breakfast of leftover pizza that Jon made for him.
In Ireland when I went to my uncles house in the summer, (early 1960s) breakfast was a slice of soda bread and a mug of tea.
Cooked over a peat fire, with the kettle on a crook. Maybe sometimes with a fresh egg from the byre.
I was interested by the reference to a "peeled stick" at 7:10. An oatmeal stick or spurtle is a traditional Scottish tool used to stir oatmeal, soups, or other foods of that consistency. Perhaps it was more widespread in the 18th century, if this is an American recipe. But it appears that in the demonstration a wooden spoon was used instead.