Story. I was on a vacation at disney world with my friend and she got sick. And so we spent the entire vacation in our hotel room watching the Great British bake off. And i became enamored with it. And i had never cooked or baked anything before, but i loved that show so much that i decided to teach myself how to bake everything that they were baking. And so over the next couple of years, i did just that. And thats how i got into baking and thats how i got into the history of food, because they used to talk about the history of food on the show. What made you put this up on youtube . Your experimentation, a friend at work. So i would bring in my my creations to my coworkers and let them try them. But they had to listen to a lecture on history at the same time. And one of my coworkers said, hey, you should put this up on youtube. And so i did. And it worked out. How many subscribers do you have now . I think i just passed 1. 7 million. When and how did history become a part of your cooking show history . It was really actually the beginning of it. Ive been a fan of history since i can remember, since i was a little boy, just listening to my grandfather, his stories, which to me was history. And so it really food for me was a way to explore history and its a way to kind of put myself in the shoes of people who lived in the past getting to eat what they might have eaten. So history is the crux of the show. And then food is is just kind of the way i present it with George Washington recognized as what we eat today. I think many, many things. Yes, but definitely not in their current form. You know, food was definitely simpler. There were we have so many more influences from International Cuisine now and so many other ingredients that just werent available. But then there were a lot of ingredients then that were more popular. They used to put nutmeg in everything during the late 18th century here in the u. S. , we dont use that very often anymore. But so there are there are similarities, but there are a lot of differences as well. Well, what was the purpose of nutmeg . It was just a flavor that was that was very popular. Flavors kind of come and go in popularity throughout throughout the ages. For most of the last hundred years, salt and pepper have been the spices of choice. Thats whats on a table when you go to arrest runt. But thats not always been the case. In the past, it was nutmeg or for a long time it was sugar. If you were wealthy, you would just have sugar on the table, different spices come and go and that changes even now in different parts of the world. Youre not going to find those spices on a table, say, in japan, itll be something else. So its its always evolving. How were you able to find some of these ancient recipes and how far back do they go in tasting history . So the oldest recipe that that ive found comes from about 4000 years ago, from the yale babylonian tablets, and theyre literally cuneiform tablets that have some very early recipes, probably the earliest recipes that we have, most of the recipes that i find are simply from old cookbook books, old texts and whatnot that ive found on, you know, a lot of museums and libraries have put their works up online. So i can just go through and and find whatever i need. But then there are some that come from poems or or stories or diary entries and those are always a little bit more difficult to find, but theyre often the more interesting ones because they are not written as recipes. So there is a little bit more detective work on my end that i have to or get to do now. Are some of these recipes included in tasting history . Some of these ancient recipes . Absolutely. So the book goes through the last 4000 years. They start in babylon, they go through ancient egypt and greece and rome, through Medieval Europe to ancient china and the middle east. All the way up through about the 19 teens. So lets go back to that 4000 year old recipe. What was it . And were you able to recreate it . I was so there are a number of recipes in in those texts. The ones that i did were a tool, which is a beet stew that has some lamb in it, and then a lamb stew that is is more focused on the lamb. And it has some milk and then rice, not two, which are like protoc through tines that give it a bit of a texture and a crunch. And i recreated both. The thing is, with that, that old of a recipe, there are words in it that have no trends lation. Scholars cant really agree theyre their best guess. But thats it. So there are always some holes and and you just have to kind of be okay with that and make the best version that you can. Did you ever have trouble finding some of the ingredients that you needed for these older recipes . Absolutely. Some, unfortunately, simply dont exist anymore. And if they do exist, theyre changed ingredients have just changed over the last hundreds and definitely thousands of years and then some are just difficult to find, like the sheep that should be used in those old recipes is fat tail sheep, which those are still around, but theyre very difficult to find, especially in southern california. So i had to use regular sheep, sheep meat, which was fine. But yes, sometimes its impossible, sometimes its just so different. For that i have to be okay using a more modern version. But the point of the book really is to let people make these at home. So i never want it to be too difficult to to find something. I always give you an alternative that you can use. So youve done some modern updates to these recipes in a sense, absolutely. You know, i started the channel when i was during lockdown, so i was in my my condo and didnt have a lot of access to to anything that wasnt at the corner store. So i made the show to be dishes that you can make in your kitchen, that you can get most of the ingredients. But once in a while ill throw in an ingredient that is just too interesting to to not try to use. And so sometimes you have to go on to under the internet to find those. But thats part of the fun as well. Max miller were there some recipes where you just got started and couldnt finish because the taste just didnt appeal to your modern sensibility at ease, or you just couldnt find the right ingredients, you know, when it comes to the tastes, thats part of the fun of the show. Those recipes that ended up not being very good didnt make it into the cookbook, of course. But on the show, i go all the way. And even if its a terrible tasting dish, i still taste it because its the history then that becomes so important. But ill be quite honest in the show and say, you know, dont make this this is this is definitely a dish that has become extinct for a reason. Well, Florence Nightingale appears in tasting history. Whats the connection . Yeah. So i. I do a recipe for a Bread Pudding that was served during the civil war in hospitals on the union side. And that recipe comes from originally a recipe that was used during the crimean war and would have been served in the hospitals that Florence Nightingale worked in. And its its very interesting because its not like Bread Pudding. We know today its more like a steamed pudding, which are still popular in england. And its its just interesting to see how the foods that were being served to those who were wounded were quite different than to the people who were actually doing the fighting. It was it was kind of like if youre going to the hospital, youll at least get to typically eat better. So that was the one upside of being wounded, i suppose. Did you find that there are times in history where short cuts were made because they had to be, such as during wartime . Absolutely. Lately ive been doing a lot of rationing videos during world war one and World War Two and before that, of course, rationing was always an issue. And so you would have to to deal with, you know, not having access to ingredients. The sugar beet actually in general came about during the 19th century when sugar wasnt being imported to mainland europe because the english had blocked hated it from napoleon. And so they developed sugar from the sugar beet to to get sweetness into their food. Well, we cant talk about the history of food without talking about rome, would we recognize some of the ancient rome foods that they ate . Yes, there are some that are are not to changed. There are some early forms of french toast and omelets, but one thing that is extreme only different is many of the recipes that we could even kind of recognize. Guys use some very different ingredients that we would never, ever use, like garum, which is a fermented fish sauce that was used in almost everything, even their desserts would sometimes have this fermented fish sauce, which just lends a very complex and a bit of a saltiness to their food. But its not something that we typically would would use today. Who was rufus estes . Rufus estes was a man. He was born into slavery. And after the civil war, he began learning how to cook. And he worked his way, all the way up to being the the head chef for the pullman car company, which were very, very fancy train cars for the elite of america. And he really created a cuisine that was used in those train cars for for decades afterward. And he became one of the the top Celebrity Chefs in america. His story is absolutely fascinating. And his his cuisine is interesting because its a its kind of a combination of the foods that he grew up eating along with the foods of the very wealthy and the elite, kind of combined together. And its wonderful, wonderful foods. Max miller, over this span of history that youve looked at, have there been some consistent ingredients or consistent foods that are still eaten today . Yeah, its usually the easiest ones to to grow, the easiest ones to get onions and garlic and oils of any kind, you know, really those basic ingredients, they just appear all over the world and and all throughout cuisine in general. But one of the things that is always appearing in different forms is spices. Every civilization in has always wanted some sort of spice to to kind of flavor these foods. And while those spices have changed, obviously the the desire to get them even some of them are very laborious to to produce. Its everyone loves spices in some way or another throughout history. What about breads and grains . Absolutely. I mean, bread is the staple of most diets, honestly, in in some way, shape or form and the way that its made as it really changed all that much, youve got flatbreads and youve got risen breads or leavened breads and yeast, salt, flour and water. Thats all thats in most of them. And there are just so many types of bread throughout history, but just with those four ingredients, its Pretty Amazing how many variations weve come up with those few ingredients. Max miller when you look at this history, what about culture and religion playing a role in the development of recipes . Religion and i mean food is culture. Thats thats just a definite you can you can track the way that people have my graded throughout the world based on the foods that they have brought with them and intermingled and how its changed as theyve met with other cultures. Sometimes its not so friendly, but when it comes to religion, food has always been such an important part of peoples lives. I think that we dont really appreciate it the way that people used to because of the the amount of time and labor that went into getting food that it has always been a part of religion because food was truly life and even one of the earliest recipes and i say recipes for beer, its its actually for a its a hymn tune in casey who was the goddess of beer and its from ancient sumeria and its just a list of what you do to make this earthly form of beer and it was considered a sacred drink, but it was also a drink that you could drink every day. So their intertwined and always happened. Whats the connection, if there is one, between pretzels and monks . So pretzels have a lot of stories that grew up around their creation and nobody really knows how they were created. But many of the original stories say that they were created by monks. Some say that they were created to mimic the the shape of crossing your arms against your chest when you were in prayer. Others say that they were created by monks during a siege of vienna when the Ottoman Turks were coming in. And they they ended up making these pretzels down in the basement as they heard the turks burrowing underneath the city walls. But theyre always connected with monks. And if you go back to medieval art, the pretzel is often shown on the table during the last supper, which it definitely didnt exist at that time, but it did exist in the medieval version of the last supper. So you often have different saints and jesus and pretzels side by side. Well, max miller, youre appearing on c span. So we. Cant go too long without talking about politics. First lady lucy hays makes an appearance in tasting history. Yes, lemonade said lucy. She probably didnt call herself that, but many people did. Probably in a in a little bit of a, you know, not nice manner. But she was a teetotaler and was part of the Prohibition Movement years before prohibition went into effect. But part of that temperance movement. And so she promoted lemonade as a way to get people to stop drinking alcohol. Instead, they could have lemonade and so she and Rutherford Hayes made lemonade very often in the white house. Its unclear how onboard he was with this, but she was she seemed to be in charge when it came to the beverages at the white house. And so she got the nickname lemonade lucy. And on the opposite end of the spectrum was the london gin craze. Yes, very opposite end of the spectrum. So the london gin craze was a period in the 18th century when so much gin was being consumed by the population in london, pints of gin a day per person that they they essentially had to ban it. There were more gin outlet outs in london than there are businesses in london today. It was really, really a crazy time because much of the gin was adulterated. And so it had things like arsenic and and different ingredients in it that could kill you. And it became such a problem that the the government actually had to step in and kind of push people away from gin. And instead got them into beer. Max miller another recipe you have in tasting history is the soul cake. What is that . Yes. So . So cakes are really one of the early forms of trick or treating. People would go around on all souls day, which is just after halloween, and sing to their neighbors, asking for these little cakes that would often have a cross on them or other symbolism. And it was a way to it was basically, you give me these little soul cakes and i will pray for for your loved ones who have passed on. And it was the early form of trick or treating, obviously. Now we go for candy and its more of a fun thing. But in the early days, it was it was rather serious and but still a lot of fun. Whos your coauthor and vote queen and for coins . She is. Shes absolutely fantastic. So when it comes to actually recipe writing, there is an art to it. There is an art to getting what i do in the kitchen to be replicated by someone who is just reading those words on a page. And its a skill that i and many cooks just dont possess. So and does have that skill and so she took my rambles things and formatted them in a way that will actually let you make things in the kitchen. And of course, we have to remember the role of more read in this book and your youtube success. Yes. So maureen is the one who got sick on our vacation and kept me in the hotel room while we were at disney world and watched the Great British bake off. So shes the one who i credit for giving me my passion for baking, even though it was just by watching a tv show. Shes also the one that in those early episodes i would think about when i was writing my scripts and talking to the camera was this is how i would tell my friend maureen about whatever i was baking that day, what did you learn in the writing of this book and looking at the history . If you had to put it in a sentence or two, what did you learn. To . Contradictory things. One is that our tastes have changed wildly in many ways. Theyve become much more sophisticated. We just have access to so many more ingredients and tastes, and our cuisine is more varied today than any time in the past. On the other hand, we havent changed that much. Our passion for food, our attention to what food means to the cultural significance of having fancy food on the table and being able to take people out to to nice restaurants instead. Back then, it was having the food at your house, but it was a way to impress people. We havent changed all that much. So too contradictory things. Max miller is the author of this book tasting history explore the past through 4000 years of recipes. We appreciate your being on book
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