We Still Eat This All The Time - Strange Food Preservation From 1739 - 18th Century Cooking
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- Potted Meats were the answer to canning before canning existed. It’s so interesting to dig into cookbooks of the past to see how folks were making perishable foods last. Take a look at this strange food preservation technique as we pot beef on 18th Century Cooking
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On my 75 year old husband’s adoption records it said he liked potted meat. We had a good giggle over that. Thank you for your channel.
How sweet of you to adopt a 75-year-old husband!
@@ericv00🤣🤣🤣
That is adorable, thank you for sharing
A man of culture
Cheap date.
this channel is keeping entire nutmeg orchards financially stable.
oi that’s my comment you dog
For a long time, it's what kept Dutch colonialism alive and thriving
ok this comment is getting old. try something original
@@Paperbutton9boohoo
@@Paperbutton9I agree. I have seen it multiple times. It was clever the first time, but it is getting stale.
Saltpeter (or similar nitrates) also had a secondary effect. It prevented the growth of botulism. It required incredibly tiny amounts of the nitrate, but was quite effective in preventing the growth of botulism bacteria in anaerobic, non-acidic conditions.
It was also used in the production of gun powder.
Came to comments to say this.
Seems weird he didn’t know this with how much meat cooking and preserving they do…?
Still used today in deli meats.
That's what i was thinking about. This process give best conditions for Clostridium botulinum to develop and raise its toxin to a deadly level. Never do that ! Botulism kill. This is for historical purpose, no for health and safety. Clostridium botulinum kill so many of our ancestor, no joke.
First, it is easier to kill the bacteria rather than neutralize its toxin (toxin resist in the stomach acid, bacteria not), nearly impossible to neutralize the toxin without carbonizing the meat. So fresh meat !
Second, avoid room temperature + anaerobic condition. One of the two ok, both not. If both conditions are unavoidable, put sodium nitrite/nitrate with you salt to ferment properly your fresh meat and really master what you are doing (learn well before and check in lab your firsts trials).
Third, from fresh and clean meat, the best processes to avoid Clostridium botulinum infection is t°≥ 120°c during 10 minutes / 15% NaCl (+ nitrate/nitrite if needed) / min 2% of acetic, lactic, citric, etc acid. Every other method didn't persist because botulism kill.
Nowadays, preserved meats have sodium nitrite (which prevents botulism) added directly, rather than adding saltpeter (sodium nitrate) and letting bacteria convert it into sodium nitrite.
Now I understand why classic European liver pate recipes are done the way they are! A French liver pate even today will involve all the components seen here--cooking the liver, turning it into a paste and mixing it with butter and spices, even using alcohol (usually cognac)--and finally topping it with a layer of butter. Originally I thought these steps were done just because it's delicious, but it now makes sense that these are relics of older methods of food preparation.
Saltpeter (potassium nitrate) is not for the color, it is to provide a source of nitrates to preserve the meat. It has been replace by sodium nitrite in most cases, but potassium nitrate is still used in many forms of charcuterie. The red color is a byproduct of the curing process. This is the same reason why celery powder is used, which is often erroneously and misleadingly labelled "uncured" meat, even though it is actually chemically cured in exactly the same way as if refined nitrates and nitrites were added. Celery is naturally high in these compounds.
Nitrites and salt(cure #1) are used when cure time is less than 30 days usually for cold and hot smoked meats and is safe to taste after 12 hours.
Nitrate & nitrite(cure #2) combo is for cures greater than 30 days such as for air cured sausages and hams.
Over time nitrates convert to nitrites. Then nitrites convert to nitric oxide(Gas) in 8-12 hours.
Nitric oxide(Gas) is what cures the meat. It bonds to a protein in the meat called myoglobin preventing it from oxidizing and so keeping it pink.
Thank you for commenting this, more people need to know the truth about ‘uncured’ meat products.
He was saying that sodium nitrite is for color, and replaced potassium nitrate. He is 100% correct. It also causes heart murmurs, arrhythmias, and heart attacks.
I interpret "take off the top" as removing the now clarified butter that has solidified, take the meat out of the liquid and recombine it with that butter, as well as more fresh butter.
It seems to me that the recipe wants to use enough butter that a layer of clarified butter naturally forms on top of the pots instead of pouring it after the fact. This will mean that impurities from the air can not get to the content after it's cooled and no longer sterile
I can see that adding the meat into the butter and heating it will remove more air than adding the meat into the pot alone with a layer of butter. If you add the warm meat and butter combo into a storage pot and add a little more clarified butter to the top while its still warm would really assure the seal.
My grandma told me that when she was a child ... 1912... Her family would cook sausage patties and layer those in lard to keep them over winter after a hog butchering. I am sure this was kept cool or cold in their uninsulated woodstove heated farm house, but it always amazed me.
This is still done whete I live. Cook a lot of pig meat and preserve it in hardened pig fat.
They used to do this in Germany with fried sausages as well.
Potting fried sausages in lard or suet is still used to this day in Eastern Europe.
They were kept in a crock which is cooler and then put in a very cool place, like a cellar.
My Grandfather talks about this sometimes, and they were doing it in the 40's in Texas. Neat to see the amount of folks who do this.
Mace and nutmeg doesn't merely go together. Mace really is what nutmegs wear around themselves while inside of the fruit.
Wish I could get some. Went to several stores and had to show them what it is and so far no one called me back on mace/macis.
I suppose next time I go to a bigger city they just pull a bag from under the counter like they did before with pine nuts and sodium chloride.
I'm from the Caribbean and so have seen this for real... I'm not sure many people would understand what you are explaining!
Didn't know that.
So mace is the husk around the nut, kinda like what you see with a pecan?
@@kimberlym5988 it's kinda like red lace around the nutmeg
In France, this is still popular with many types of meats made to pâtés.
Rillettes
It's crazy how innovative people have been over time.
To be fair, it's either adapt or die. Hunger is a great motivator lol
Necessity breeds innovation.
It's not surprising we find so many preservation methods. Those who didn't have preservation were more likely to die.. creating a form of survivors bias.
The sad thing is people have lost these techniques. One reason I love this channel.
true but then again it was either do that or die honestly, today we have the option, thankfully
if you weren't you flippin' DIED
People tend to think people years ago were basically cavemen.
Old beer was smart of them. It wouldve had a higher ph farther helping preserve the meat. Its crazy to know how they figured this all out.
Its all thanks to wanting to try something new, and paying attention. The beer was likely originally from not wanting it to go to waste or enjoying the flavor, and then noticing they stayed good longer than normal. Most scientific discoveries are more someone going "huh that's odd..." than the "Eureka!" moments people think of. And cooking is just chemistry you can *usually* eat lol.
Trial and error.
It's crazy to know that you think it's crazy that they would've known this back then and crazy that you even know this now!¡
Beer is acidic, hence it has a _low_ pH. The pH of beer typically falls between 4 and 5.
@johnopalko5223 yes an using stale beer it would be lower closer to 2-3 depending on how old.
Potted meats and potted shrimp are still local delicacies in parts of the UK, especially in parts of England.
Thank you as ever for such a wonderfully informative video 🥰
I love deviled ham, which is potted meat. And I love my sardines.
Definitely. One of the best things I've ever eaten was some potted crab that my friend's family made in Dorset, UK. It was about 35 years ago and I can still remember the taste.
@@stevedoolan1540 I would have liked to see that process!
@@angrytater2456 I don't remember, other than boiling the crabs down at first. I do remember that we let it cool then immediately ate it, rather than eating it preserved - it smelled so incredibly good!
Yes, Morecambe Bay potted shrimp are superb.
This is still done in France you find many types of paté and terrine and even rillettes in every supermarkets
As he shows in the video, it is still done here too. They never stopped doing it.
Goose rillettes are a particular treat.
The technique is not so different from Confit, either. If the meat has enough fat of its own, use it.
I remember I did this years ago using your old potted meat episode, though I believe I used fish and the results were very tasty. It’s a shame this sort of thing isn’t more common nowadays, and I’m glad you’ve made a new video so that newer fans who maybe aren’t deep diving your back catalogue will be exposed to this spread.
It seems impractical bc butter is expensive and also I think a lot of people are afraid of foodborne illnesses. It's cool that you did it tho and that it came out good
Potted meats are too dodgy and dangerous for people to make unless they have to
My grandmother here in Quebec used to make something similar. Instead of using a small pot, though, she would put the meat mixture into a loaf pan then cover it up with lard. We would eat this on toast morning, noon or night. We could go through one of those loafs in two days, although families were larger then.
Rillettes? Or perhaps a pate?
Something like cretons I imagine
Here, in SW France, they would submerge the meat (often duck or pork) in melted fat, which woyld then congeal and keep for a year or more. There were beautiful enameled pots specially made for that purpose. Older people (80 or mre} from rural communities often say that they remember meats were preserved that way when they were children. Love your channel.
It doesn't just have to be butter; both my grandmother's used kegs to store sausage, whole squirrels, or quails in lard, whole chunks of pork in lard, or beef in tallow.
Lard is better, but you can not become it so easily today, than butter.
@@mirkokrizan214 there should be stores nearby where you can get whole tubs of lard you just gotta hunt for it a bit
The old folks in my family did the same and thankfully taught me how
@@windy1439I can find tubs of lard easily where I live. The problem is it's all hydrogenated with bht and bha added. The only unadulterated lard I can find is online and it's pricey.
Any fat that is a solid at room temperature would work.
I hope we'll see a Tasting History/Townsends-Crossover one day
John already said he’d attack Tasting History for what they did to his wife
@@oliverhopkins8074 what the hell happened????
@@oliverhopkins8074what lol
.
omg yes that would be amazing
I feel kind of badly. Many years ago there was an eccentric old man down the block and he was very clearly a hoarder but he was so kind and when he would cook and I’d walk by he’d invite myself and my partner in for a taste, it was traditional southern stuff like ham hocks in gravy over rice. He gave me a couple of cans of potted meat and I was baffled, I’d never heard of that before. Didn’t try it, I was super wary of it, I didn’t really eat out of cans to begin with and I tried to avoid meat when possible (though when someone offers me something I never say no because I appreciate the gesture). Years later I find this channel and the original potted meat recipes and everyone in the comments has all these fantastic ideas of using it, not just digging into it or spreading it on toast (which also sounds great since I now love pate, my taste buds have evolved and I’m a lot less picky about what I eat). It’s awesome and I love this channel but I also love all the people chipping in from other corners of the world and contributions their experiences and recipes. I just love that an 18th century cooking channel set in the US could be such an international glue. Thank you to all the commenters and thanks to the Townsend and Sons, Co!
In Quebec we have creton which is even more like the original than the canned stuff. It has barely changed in 200 years very common food stuff here
Hi! Just a note to help clarify something. “Take off the top when cold” would refer to removing and separating the cold collagen layer (which forms during cooling ) beneath the clarified butter. The butter is reserved and returned later in the process.
Is that a pun? "Help clarify something".....and clarified butter.
@@GnomeInPlaid yeah, fayevines really popped off the top on their cold open.
@@GnomeInPlaid
Clarified butter is butter with the residual water and milk solids removed. It's also called 'ghee'.
You basically simmer the butter for a while on low heat, periodically removing the foam from the top, until all the water us evaporated and the milk solids have gathered in little clumps at the bottom. At this point, the molten butter will have turned from soft yellow and opaque to a clear, golden liquid. That's why it's called 'claryfying'. Clarified butter keeps for much longer and you can heat it to higher temperatures without it starting to smoke.
...clarify something! Clever. You made me smile, thank you.
@@raraavis7782 I came here to say this. It doesn't spoil and you can keep it in a cool pantry. Best to use unsalted.
Those little store-bought cans of potted meat have always been a long standing "depression" food for me to have for my lunch. I always wondered about that paper covering and I didn't expect the answer to that question to be here of all places.
They have just recently ditched the paper wrapper on the cans. Replacing it with a regular glued on label like other canned goods. I hate that because it's what I used to use to keep the lid in the empty can afterwards so no one needed to worry about slicing their hand on the lid when pushing trash down in the trash can.
The paper packaging was a nice touch
Best part of making clarified butter is the tasty milk solids.
You think a piece of bread or roll and butter, is good?
Try the leftover milk solids after clarifying butter on a piece of toast.
I wondered if it had any use. Thx for posting. Now I know!
Actual interesting thought. Will try. Thanks unsensitive, this was sensitive.
Something much better for you to try, it's called kaymak in E.Europe. Take whole raw milk and cook it. Take the milk fat that forms on top, add some salt and try it after a few days.
I mean I'm not gonna just try that without some context tbf
Because it sounds like eating spaff
Here in the South Eastern united States, deviled or potted meats are still commonly available; However, from my experience, typically enjoyed by those with at least a few decades of tough times and hard riding.
I grew up in Alabama. My brothers always liked potted meat sandwiches growing up, but I didn't have the palate for it.
We used to call it "spotted meat" because it was unappetizing. 😆
@@wtk6069 A literal laugh out loud. (But it still eats just fine. Sorry that you don't care for it.)
Deviled ham sandwich: A piece of white bread, half a smear of deviled ham, half a smear of mayo, drizzle of mustard, fold, enjoy.
Also pb and mayo sandwiches - delicious.
(Not from the south but came to find out the latter is a great depression era sandwich)
There is something similar in China, in which pork belly is submerged in lard. The difference is that this lard submerged pork can be stored up to several months and usually made in large quantities.
It seems complicated, but like most of your recipes, one can get the ingredients from even a small-town grocery.
a general rule with things that seem complicated: break them down into individual steps, mini-goals that need to be accomplished. It is a huge task to undergo overall if you plan to eat after it was sitting at room temperature for weeks. But making sure you understand each step and knowing where you might have made a mistake will help greatly in understanding why it is still or isn't still good to eat. Everybody makes mistakes and surely back then they would have had experience with how things should smell like or what should it taste like.
These old techniques are likely to be necessary in the near future…. Glad though to have a good pressure cooker.
Is it complicated?
It's just a slow roast with basic spices, pounded with and then topped with butter. Where's the hard part?
It’s the exotic stuff, like nutmeg, that John gets literally livid if you don’t include
Romanian here. We do something here. Its caller Garnița but we do it with pork fat. You basically render the pork fat with the meat. Mean can also be smoked and it’s absolutely fabulous!
We do make it in large pots and we keep it somewhere cool.
And yes, by May-June you should have eaten it or else...
Idk what it is about this channel, but I instantly get good mood vibes ❤
It's virtually apolitical and void of modern contemporaries. At least that's my thoughts on why I love this channel so much.
@@TingTingalingy makes complete sense! He also has a calm demeanor 😊
The background music, love it.
@@robertgt1858 absolutely!
Saltpeter (or nitrites in general) inhibits botulism bacteria hence why it is used in sausages still
Underwood started canning around 1820, so he would have been very familiar with potted meats. They also have canned beef today.
In Brazil we have something called "carne na lata" (meat in tin). Meat, mainly pork, is cubed
and slowly fried in refined pork lard, until it's completely cooked. The meat is then put in tin cans, submerged in hot lard and the cans are sealed. Some boiled the cans.
It is shelf stable for weeks to months while sealed. Months to years if boiled!
I'm worried that this channel will make me think I want to live in the late 18th century when I know I wouldn't do well.
It's dangerous, isn't it lol? Then I remember I dont even cope well camping without full shower facilities, and that I have the practical skills of a dead pigeon 🙃
Fortunately it’s not optional. Not that I’ve tried it 😒
With a nightly dinner at Jon's house I could maybe manage it.
@@Ater_Draco How dead? just checking you're not over spoiled to be potted and preserved
@@IndecentLouie LMFAO 😂
The more I learn about the 18th century from this channel, the more I think that they would consider us to be technologically advanced morons. “What do you mean you don’t know how to pot fish?”
"Because when we want potted fish, we can have it brought to us from the other side of the world in a matter of days." Economy of scale and globalization FTW!
I originally posted a reply in which I pointed out that there is nothing particularly strange about that, because it is normal for people to learn those skills that are useful to them, and knowing how to pot fish is not very useful today. And while I do think there is some truth to that, I have thought better of it, because something occurred to me recently. My mother knew how to cook and how to sew and knit. She learned those skills, primarily at least, from her mother, who learned them from her mother, who I can only assume learned from _her_ mother, in a chain of skill transmission that probably in some form goes back to prehistoric times, not only in my family but in most families all over the world. My mother, however, like many if not most women of her generation, did not pass those skills on to her own daughter. My mother did not seem concerned to teach my sister how to do any of those things, and my sister never took the initiative to ask her or to try to learn. And an entire generation of young and now middle-aged women today do not have those skills. Potting meat may not be a very practical skill anymore, but knowing how to cook dinner for your family and how to mend a pair of pants are still very useful skills, but they have been lost, because our society decided, quite frivolously, in my view, to break a chain of transmission that certainly went back a long time, and possibly to the earliest days of the human race. That makes me very sad.
My mom knew how to sew and knit, and attempted to pass those onto me. And believe me, I gave them a fair shot. But I honestly don't have the patience for sewing, unless I'm simply cross-stitching a transferred embroidery pattern onto dish towels. Knitting really doesn't rocket my creative jets, either. Crocheting is also a nope.
Now jewelry making and its various methods of adding all kinds of "shinies" to a piece? Heck yeah! Pottery? I've been stewing that in my mental cauldron since high school, but have yet to have the proper space for a wheel and kilns. Cooking/baking? Candlemaking? Bring it! I think I love these crafts and arts because they have one thing in common: fire! (Hint -- I'm an Aries, a Fire sign) Yes, jewelry making can involve fire, especially when making one's own pendants and beads from glass or metal clays that are fired in tabletop kilns. And then there's other types of metalsmithing to do. 😁😁🔥🔥 I think if it wasn't such a big health risk with my asthma, I would even give blacksmithing a try. Jewelry making is more manageable. 😅
"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them." (Alfred North Whitehead)
@@FrikInCasualModeyou’re high or a shill if you think globalism is good.
New Townsends video? Sunday morning made. 😊
This is art, beginning to end! I love his sensibility “we’d keep it in the refrigerator and not for any length of time” ❤😂
I'm not sure if someone already mentioned this, but the use of potassium nitrate or sodium nitrate not only preserves the color of the meat, but also inhibits the growth of bad bacteria like botulism by interfering with the oxidation of fats and proteins in meat. That's why it stays red/pink!
Nitrates are also is highly carcinogenic
I make pork confit, and then rillets with some regularity, and it is delicious and joyful. Highly recommend. I use the oven, but the same process in a Dutch oven would be easy.
It's great when using duck as well. And the significant amount of fat that's rendered from a slow roasted duck is a perfect substitute for the clarified butter at the top.
As student of history and a history educator, I love the work you do showing the day to day living of the 18th Century "everyman;" how would a "pioneer" on the frontier most likely handle the slaughtering of a pig, what parts would be cooked immediately, what would be "preserved" and what preservation techniques would they have likely used, I have a feeling you may have already covered this and if so could you reference the video?
Organ meats first; skeletal preserve.
The important part is that zero meat is above the surface, as that is where the spoilage occurs. The meat must be totally submerged beneath the FAT.
Potted beef is absolutely delicious and generally only available from the local butcher in the UK. The French have rillettes which is generally pork with a layer of pork fat and that is HEAVENLY. Whenever I make chicken liver pate I always seal it with a layer of butter but I generally eat it long before this method of preservation is really necessary
I've seen lard sealed meat before, but clarified butter is new to me. Very good video!
I've essentially made this, but with duck and some different spices. I always used the rendered fat from the roasted duck to seal it in the jars.
I wonder why I haven't heard much about this food from media depicting the 18th century.
It seems like it would be a very important practice for sustaining protein during the Winter months and yet it's strangely absent.
The movie _Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows_ references a specific location's potted shrimp as being one of Mycroft Holmes' favorite treats.
It's a very brief mention but its there
John, I know it's just mid summer. But I know winter comes faster than you think on the ol' homestead, I would love to see your prior Thanksgiving or Christmas multiple episode theme cooking vids done in the CABIN! Basically cook what you can for the holidays with what you have in a more rustic environment than even your normal kitchen. "HOLIDAYS IN THE CABIN"?...Something like that?
John rejects your nonsense and destroys your nutmeg
It would be fun to see you "put up" (forget if that is exactly the term, or maybe my Grandmother just called it that, anyhoo) a few of these items using the period preservation methods you've featured and then re-visit and eat them months, in some cases a year or more later? I'd be fascinated to see what the potted meats are like after several months at room temp, same goes for the standing crust pies you've featured. Don't get me wrong, I love both videos, but it sure would be fun to do a taste taste after some time has elapsed and get your reactions.
Paté is basically the same thing except mostly made with puréed liver/organ meats (and seasonings of course) then sealed by a layer of animal fat and/or naturally-expressed gelatin on top, typically served cold to spread on baguette or country-bread toast.
Most famous example is Foie Gras, in which the top layer is the settled duck fat (and remarkably similar in texture and richness to butter.)
Likewise Duck-confit is duck leg that's roasted or fried after marinading in liquid duck fat.
Don’t forget rillettes
Your comment about duck confit is a little incomplete and might confuse people.
Confit is the process of slow cooking in fat with the intention of preserving and tenderizing meat. There is no marinating in the process, and it doesn't have to be duck or leg.
You can eat it as is, or as you mentioned, it's common to crisp it up afterwards.
Just wanted to fill in the gaps 👍
@@skilletborne I was referring to the cold storage of the legs in duck fat after being cooked but prior to being reheated/prepared to order, though I did take poetic license with “marinate” there so I get how that’s distracting.
When placing the dutch oven on the coals removed from the fire, how long do the coals typically hold their heat? Is it necessary to get more coals from the fire to replenish those that were initially placed?
This video and hunting season about to open up- I feel inspired to try potting up some cuts that would suit the 3 hour cook, or make savory liver paté
This recipe and technique is very similar to a a terrine where one might use either cooked duck or venison with the rendered fat from the foul or animal poured into the mold with the meat packed in. Then it is weighted and refrigerated. Low fat venison may be supplemented with beef fat.
I use to eat that deviled ham from the grocery store. I recently started eating it again and I spread on crackers. I’m not sure what the spices are in it but it is delicious.!!
Mainly reminds me of being a kid because my dad used to eat it 😊
and you have a direct connection with that, through your dad! that is so cool, no matter how horrible it May taste today.
I remember eating ketchup sandwiches, and my sister eating peas directly from the can. on a regular basis because we were hungry.
Good Times.
My dad and I love deviled ham sandwiches (You get a single slice of white bread, smear half with deviled ham and the other half with mayo. Add a layer of mustard over the ham, fold, and enjoy).
He also showed me peanut butter and mayo sandwiches as a kid
@@Your-Least-Favorite-Stranger we used to do the half sandwich thing all the time as well. I haven’t heard of peanut butter and mayonnaise, but I’m willing to give it a try. That’s great memories you have.
@tonyabsoluteam3456 people like you who make backhanded comments disguised as pleasant interaction are unfortunate.
In France, "rillettes" are cooked this way. They are most often pork, but there are also duck. It is delicious!
Oh, thank you for reminding me, I wanted to clarify some butter and make popcorn with it. That is basically what Theater popcorn is.
It has been about 15+ years since I was last in boy Scouts. It has been even longer since I last thought about a cast iron dutch oven.
Good show.
Been watching this educational channel for four years. Thank you!!!
Hi Friends 👋
I love this channel so much. Every upload is family friendly and extremely informative. Please, never stop, John and crew.
As far as I understand it "old beer" refers to strong beer rather than stale beer. On account of it taking longer to finish fermentation due to the higher starting gravity, as opposed to a "young beer" or "small beer" which would finish fermentation quickly.
Would "old ale" be the same? "Albert and the Lion", on YT, mentions a place that sells "old ale and sandwiches", I now suspect he was saying the ale was good, the sandwiches, not so much... "Albert's Return" is a hoot, too!
@@Pygar2 Yes, thats right. Old ale/beer is stronger and richer than other beers. So a sign advertising old ale and sandwiches would be advertising that they sell hearty, strong beer which would be sweet and calorific.
Unfortunately, as you say, the same would not be said about the sandwiches!
I love that you’re revisiting some of your earlier topics
Love this channel. 🙏🏻 Wouldn't "take off the top" refer to the cold cap of fat from the pot? Once butter and beef fat is cold it would be a gelatinous mass needing to be removed. Then you shred, season and sterilize once more, this time capping with pure ghee as the permanent cap for storage.
This is ...... unblievalby detailed. You sir should get an award for this video!!
I am glad that i found this channel one day. The videos are so enjoyable.
In Turkey they still do this, using mutton fat instead of butter. They basically cook the shredded meat (lamb/mutton or beef) down in its own fat. They don't pound it into a paste. Traditionally it would be put up in clay pots but nowadays they might just as likely use plastic water bottles with the tops cut off.
This channel is too cool. I love that you are preserving and reviving this information. I don't even eat meat and I'm watching! I do love to cook though.
I think it would be really great to sit down and eat the food and talk about some more history. It always catches me off guard how quickly these videos end once you've tasted the finished product. However, great video as always.
My great grandma did this with meat and sausage and it lasted months. She used hog lard also.
Great to see a revisiting of another old classic. In addition to spreads, potted beef is also a great substitute for pemmican in things like Rousseau. Be sure to include some of the clarified butter top to replace the suet already baked into pemmican.
I was just thinking about this technique for my alternate history novel! 😻
So much cool info to learn in this video! Thank you.
They used to make preserves like jam by pouring parrafin wax over the top in the jar to create a seal from the air. Same type of technique.
My mom use to can and make jams and jellies…. I remember the wax on top of jams she made as well as canned vegetables
This is such a fantastic channel. I do so much preserving but it's all relatively contemporary (my channel is quite new though I've been canning my whole life) and this is so great to see more of the "origin story" of food preservation.
Using a dutch oven outdoors is easier if you put it in a 7 1/2 or 8-gallon metal tub from Tractor Supply. Reflects heat, blocks wind, never seems to get hot enough to damage the metal of the tub... saves fuel and time!
Well this is interesting, even my parents did this when I was a kid (except in our area we use lard and not butter) I remember digging out baked liver and meat pieces from lard. (It was less of a potting but storing baked meat and organs in the tub of lard)
Thank you for creating & sharing this! BTW my first impulse with this was, I'd go for pig lard instead of clarified butter.
I would use lard too. I've never heard of using clarified butter until now.
I’ve seen a similar preservation technique for whole chicken in French cooking. I believe they use duck fat rather than butter.
Underwood chicken spread is a favorite. I keep it in my pantry. 😊
I love dropping through the Townsends time portal. Thank you
Oh my, we do this all the time with some charcuteries in France, especially "Rillettes" 😁 Same preservation technique for fresh homemade basil Pesto or other pasta sauces: cover generously with olive oil ❤
I love how proud Jon was when he said the proper spices are....and nutmeg was in that list. ❤😆
Great recipe, all the work that used to go into making food that we forget about now days. I used to have potted meat from the store to eat as a kid on bread because it was cheap. It is no longer that cheap sadly. Might splurge and buy a can or two, just so I can be reminded of how blessed I am now.
This is very similar to something that we still consume and its commercially available in Spain; carne en manteca (meat in lard). It can be pork meat or liver and in plain lard our spiced with paprika (manteca colored, red lard).
It was prepared during pig slaughter season to preserve the surplus of meat together with Spanish ham, salami (salchichón) and chorizo.
Thanks for another excellent video
Potted cheese or potted mushroom paste are my favorites. Very good picnic/road trip food.
I love devilled ham, mixed with mayo and stuffed into small tomatoes (large cherry tomatoes or small roma or plum tomatoes). I discovered the recipe for it in an old cookbook, for an appetizer and made it a few times. It's soo good!
Also, please mention botulism poisoning when you're talking about these "preservation" methods! It's so important that people today realize that a lot of these methods are NOT safe for shelf storage - they never were, we just know more because of lab testing today. The sodium nitrite (SN) is there to help prevent botulism. If there's even one c botulinum spore in one of those pots, without the inclusion of the SN, you could have a real problem!
Hey John. Love your content and have been watching these videos for the past 4 years I think now. Had a question, could you do a video on Rum. I was reading a book on how Rum is a New World (America, the Caribbean and South America) Invention, and how it was the drink of choice from the working class New England Sailor or dock worker to the rich Barbadian plantation owner, and so on. I know that from the time that Rum was created there were several types of Rum: English, Spanish, French and less common, Dutch. Spanish and English rum are made the exact same way except the British used Pot Stills and the Spanish used Column stills. I read something along the lines that most Rum distilleries in the English Colonies were in New England and that the average American drank about 3 1/2 gallons of Rum a year. I'd love to see a video as to why rum was a crucial drink for the time, given how popular it was.
I grew up eating potted meat from the grocery store and remember thinking it was quite tasty. I never knew the history behind it. Thank you! This was so interesting!
The Joy of Cooking has a deviled ham recipe. I make it with leftover ham from Christmas dinner, then have it on New Year's Eve with cream cheese on potato rolls (also from Joy of Cooking). It keeps pretty well too, the spices seem to help with that.
Very nice as always
Thank you for the video. It´s a very refreshing content the one I find in your channel.
I use a Dutch oven a lot and it's something I couldn't do without, alond with my skillet and griddle. I use cast iron more than my expensive stainless steel pans.
I can almost taste it. It looks great, and this is good info for potential/likely future needs.
Found the prepper
@@oliverhopkins8074 that or inflation is just kicking in again.
Even as an enthusiastic Spam-eater, potted meats are off my radar, but the concept reminds me of shito! It's spiced, cooked meats, made shelf-stable by a thick layer of oil on the top and eaten as a condiment in Ghana. I made it once after reading about it from various West African food blogs and seems like a condiment alive and well in contemporary times. Rather than a meat paste, the meat is fried to a crisp... though I might've over done it hahaha I believe it also had cloves and anise, as well as dried fish/shrimp.
Hi ya'll from Barb.from Newport Tennessee
THIS is why I love buying unhomogenised milk - the cream forms a plug EVEN THOUGh it contains milk solids, it STILL keeps longer in the fridge. Not months obviously but days longer!
The reason why all these recipes use _clarified_ butter is because the milk solids in butter will go bad, ruining the preservation aspect of the whole thing, as was even mentioned in the video. Cream is a whole ton of milk solids. It's not really going to last much longer that the milk itself.
If you don't want to go through the steps of clarifying butter yourself or just like using clarified butter a lot, Indian recipes use it a lot and it's called Ghee. If you have an Indian foods market or maybe just the ethnic aisle of a grocery store, just look for Ghee. I actually can find it as Costco where I'm at. It's a really good "oil" to use for more hearty dishes or to make a really quick and tasty spread.
Really love your channel. Do you perhaps have a list of books ( ie old cookbooks etc) you can recommend for a little library?
Here are some of our top suggestions
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This series is so fascinating. Cheers!
This is the channel I go to when I want to feel grounded and happy
In France this kidn of preservation is still around and pretty common, and some products that once were made as preserves like that are now sold refrigerated without the layer of clean fat on top because we liked the product a lot even though the preservation technique didn't make much sense anymore
I still do something like this today. When I have left over tomato paste I pour in olive oil into the jar and rotate it until the top surface is covered. Then I put it in the fridge. Helps keep it good much longer with the oil layer. I will do it with fat that solifies going forward. Will probably last even longer.
That Underwood Chicken Spread is my go to for sandwiches its just about the only canned meat i'll eat.
When you said it was basically pot roast pureed, it made me wonder if you could initially cook it down with carrots, onions and potatoes added in. Don't know how that would store but if it could be preserved it would be a full meal in a pot! 😃
I would not try that without asking someone who has done it. Protein, fat, and spices will behave differently than a starch in a preserve.
I love this channel. I’m planning retirement in the Philippines and to live in the province or hillbilly country of Mindanao. In other words, iffy electric power, eating what we grow or raise etc. I grow tubers of various sorts, coconuts, bananas, mangos etc. Nutmeg is one of those intercrops that I want. It produces three things, a fleshy fruit, the nut and a red skin or mace. The pigs will eat the fruit or we will make something with it. As always, thanks. I need to learn Dutch oven baking. We cook mostly with wood. They like gas but it is expensive.