r/TastingHistory

It turned out great! It shocked me how invisible the vinegar taste is.

We had a thunderstorm pass through so I’m glad this was my choice for today instead of trying to grill. There’s definitely a learning curve for me but it’s all good since we’ll be making this again.

I used whole milk instead of the water and dry milk. I used way too much cornmeal and could not get the dough to the edges of the pan. I didn’t buy enough cheese but thankfully had some pre shredded cheddar. We did option for the hamburger which is good since I was so wrong about how much cheese to buy.

Even with all that it was a hit. My brother loves the “crust” and mentioned making just that part of the recipe to gnosh.

Tonight I made the sloppy joe recipe from Max’s favorites list. My husband made fun of me and said I should’ve just bought a can of Manwich. Then he tasted it. His eyes rolled back in his head; he moaned; took another bite and declared me queen of the kitchen.

It’s not a pretty picture but the taste is everything and the cheap buns per Max’s recommendation make it complete. Tomorrow we make school pizza. Happy Fourth, everyone!

Shout out to New Zealand's Hard to find bookshop!

In order: Baby Ruth Cookies, Paprika Hendl, and French Onion soup.

The Baby Ruth cookies were pretty good, and came out alright. My mother was a big fan.

The Paprika Hendl… absolutely amazing. I’d hesitate to call it my favorite food because it feels like recency bias… but it’s definitely fighting for that spot. I used thin cut breasts for the chicken meat, and it worked out just fine. I also doubled the sauce part because I like some extra sauce. The galuska dumplings were good, but I didn’t have a maker for them or even a cheese grater, so I just had to wing it with a teaspoon.

The French Onion soup was very good. Surprisingly easy recipe, I thought making it would be harder than it actually was. I ended up taking a bowl to my grandmother who really enjoyed it.

This recipe comes from a 17th-century culinary manuscript that belongs to the archival legacy of the Radziwiłł family, one of the most prominent noble and ducal houses of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Here is the historical context behind this specific text:

- The Source Document: It is an authentic record from a magnate's courtly kitchen ledger (most likely from the Radziwiłł estates in Nesvizh or Kėdainiai). In the 17th century, wealthy noble houses maintained their own private manuscript recipe books, where court chefs recorded dishes for grand banquets.

- The Context of "Culinary Illusion":The instruction to make the sauce taste "in the manner of artichokes" (*sapor na kszałt do karczochów*) is the key to understanding this dish. In 17th-century Poland, artichokes were an incredibly luxurious, exotic vegetable imported from Western Europe and grown only in the private botanical gardens of the wealthiest elite. This recipe represents a highly popular trend in old Polish cuisine known as culinary illusion. Chefs would take a common, widely available local vegetable—in this case, fresh cucumbers—and use elaborate stuffings, spices (like imported ginger and mace), and specific cooking techniques to alter its texture and flavor, making it mimic a rare, expensive delicacy.

The recipe (I tried to translate it using historical English, but since I'm not a native speaker I used some help of AI with that so please take it easy):

Take fresh Cowcumbers and pill them, and let them be parboyled; then slit them in the length, and take out the pith. Then take grated white bread, and mingle it with the yolkes of raw egges, a little butter, ginger, pepper, mace, and salt as much as is sufficient, and fill the Cowcumbers therewith. Then binde them fast with thred and boyle them; then make a sawce after the manner of Artichocks, and take away the thred, and let them boyle a little space therein.

It was originally written in cookbook written for house Radziwiłł titled Moda bardzo dobra smażenia różnych konfektów i innych słodkości, a także przyrządzania wszelakich potraw, pieczenia chleba i inne sekrety gospodarskie i kuchenne”, english "A very good Way of boiling all Sorts of Confections and other Sweet-meats, as also of dressing all Manner of Dishes, baking of Bread, and other Secrets of House-wifery and the Kitchen." Those titles were wild not gonna lie.

Oryginal recipe is in time period polish:

Obłupić ogórki świeże i na pół uwarzyć, potym rozkrajać wzdłuż, wyjąć środki i natrzeć chleba białego, dać żółtek od jaja, trochę masła i imbieru, pieprzu, kwiatu, soli co trzeba i nałożyć to do tych ogórków. Potym nicią związać i uwarzyć, i uczynić sapor na kształt do karczochów, i odjąć te nici, i z tem trochę przywarzyć.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/06/30/roasting-whole-oxen/

There are few stereotypes about medieval food as persistent as the ‘roast beast’, and like most good stereotypes, it has a bit of truth to it. Being able to serve up an entire roast boar or ox displayed wealth and mastery of resources in a way not many other dishes could. That is why it was a traditional part of many public festivities, most notably the imperial coronations at Frankfurt. Franz de Rontzier’s 1598 Kunstbuch records instructions for going over the top, presenting an entire roast menagerie. This was, after all, Renaissance Germany where playing with food was mandatory and doing weird, outlandish things for status was Tuesday.

Of many roast dishes, and first of a roast ox

I. You scald (brend) an entire ox in water as you scald a pig and leave the head on. You tie the legs together with bast inwards (bent upwards at the knee joint?). Then you cut open the ox underneath the belly or halfway up and gut it, but so that the chest and the Ißbein (shins?) are not cut. Then you stick it in a spit and sew it shut again with bast or with a small rope (einer kleinen Linien). But the spit is made this way: You forge an iron rod that reaches four or five feet (Schuh) beyond the ox on either side. Then you add handles (Wellen) on both sides to turn the ox with. You also make holes through the spit so that the ox can be attached with other, smaller spits in order to roast it properly. Then you lay it on firedogs (Bratböck) that must also be made specifically for this purpose and fixed in the ground. Then you make two large fires on both sides, or you build a wall as high as a man is tall and make a fire (only) on one side. After it has roasted for an hour, three, or four, you are to slice (score?) the skin thinly and then stick it with the following animals and birds such as a lamb, suckling piglets, calves, geese, ducks, chickens or capons, hares, rabbits, and small birds. These latter birds are stuck altogether on small skewers and distributed all over the ox, stuck all around. When the ox is to be stuck (gespicket, ‘larded’) like this, you place it on a wooden table and the things you intend to stick it with is put into a wooden trough (Molden) and stick it between the ribs. You also break some of the ribs that way. But you must affix the large items you want to stick it with to the belly or on top of the back, and also on the hindquarter. But the small things are stuck on little skewers. In addition, you must have two large copper or iron frying pans and long-handled ladles that it is basted with. You also make a table with handles and wheels (Rullen) underneath on which you lay the roast ox and bring it to the table. You serve it on two tinned copper frying pans that must also be made specifically for this purpose, and when you take it off the table again, you you put it back on the aforementioned table and carry it away etc.

But if you do not want to bring it to the table, you serve it to everyone (gibt man ihn zum besten) and attach fools’ maces to it so the common servants can quarrel over it etc.

2 In the same way, you can also arrange and roast a deer or another piece of game.

Of an entire roast pig

I. You scald (brend) a pig in water, gut it, sprinkle the insides with ginger, pepper, and salt, and sew it shut again. But you leave on the trotters (Ißbein), chest and head and bend the feet upwards as you do with a suckling pig. Then you stick it on a spit, set it over half a fire, and after it has roasted for two hours, you stick it with the following birds such as geese, ducks, capons, chickens, pigeons, partridges, hazel grouse, pheasants, turkeys, and others as well as hares, suckling pigs, and other small animals. You also make sausages out of one pig and hang many of them off of it. You have an especially large pan made for this, have it tinned, and bring it to the table on that.

The beginning is not terribly surprising: you need a solid spit. Roasting an entire ox weighing several hundred kilos would have called for task-specific hardware. The ox itself is gutted and sewn up again, the legs fixed – I think pulled up against the torso to prevent them burning – and once it is affixed to the purpose-build spit and secured with skewers, it is roasted for a lengthy period. No doubt there was a specific skill to basting it that is not mentioned here.

The second step is just weird, though. Once it is nearly done, the ox is ‘larded’ (the word spicken means exactly that though it can also be read more figuratively as sticking something with pointy objects). Numerous smaller animals are inserted under its skin or affixed to it with skewers. At this point, it is possible they were uncooked and would be roasted in position on the ox, preventing the outside from burning or drying out too much while the inner part cooked through. The visual effect must have been striking, a hydra-headed beast slowly roasting over a big fire, staring at you with its many eyes.

Serving these to respectable company must have called for some pomp and ceremony as well as, if we can trust our ever practical-minded writer, a wheeled platform, but in many cases, the roast ox was intended as a gift to the spectators. To that end, de Rontzier suggests providing toy weapons for them to fight over it. Making hungry people fight over food was a popular spectator sport in much of Early Modern Europe, most famously in Naples, where people travelled long distances to see the enormous food fights. But clearly, similar entertainment could be had in Wolfenbüttel.

I bought this book that I think Max would love if he covered another 20th century recipe in the future! As the name suggests, it has recipes from a bunch of famous restaurants around the US. It’s pretty interesting. There’s a lot of cool recipes but I think the Tower Suite section is one of the coolest. It reminds me of Mad Men.

Let me know if anyone’s curious about a specific page. I’m hoping to scan and upload this book online since it’s a bit expensive and I want others to enjoy it. :D

EDIT: Nevermind! I was wrong, sorry!

I am 99% sure that this is not Max's:

https://www.youtube.com/@TastingHistorywithMaxTopVideos

This needs to be reported. putting in my own report now, wanted to get a post up first in case the channel becomes invisible to me after I report it.

When Max says something’s the best recipe yet I feel compelled to make it. This is the first time anything bread related has come out good for me.

The smell is heavenly! The buns are so light and spongy! The taste is amazing and the spices are “just right”. I devoured one and immediately wanted another. I totally get the reason max kept eating. I’d queue up for these!

That being said, the mincemeat tarts are still my favorite recipe so far. The joy they have brought my dad and my father-in-law could have something to do with it. Neither had had mincemeat since they were young men still living at home.

it took a lot longer to cook and never rose properly :(