The Grim Life Of A Victorian Baker | Victorian Bakers | Absolute History
Vložit
- čas přidán 4. 09. 2024
- Four modern bakers bake their way through the era that gave us modern baking as we know it - the reign of Queen Victoria. Experts Alex Langlands and Annie Gray join them to tell the incredible story of our daily bread.
The journey begins in 1837, when bread was the mainstay of most diets and bakers were at the heart of every community. A rural bake house has been kitted out exactly as it would have been in the 1830s. The bakers must get to grips with centuries-old methods of breadmaking and that means doing absolutely everything by hand.
It's like Netflix for history... Sign up to History Hit, the world's best history documentary service and get 50% off using the code 'AbsoluteHistory' bit.ly/3vn5cSH
This channel is part of the History Hit Network. Any queries please contact: owned-enquiries@littledotstudios.com
📺 It's like Netflix for history... Sign up to History Hit, the world's best history documentary service and get 50% off using the code 'AbsoluteHistory' bit.ly/3vn5cSH
⁹⁹⁹and and
999⁹9999⁹9⁹9⁹⁹⁹
⁹and and and and friend friend 99
😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅
@angelinacoleman1019 😊😅😅😅
My grandmother taught me to make scones in a wood oven without a thermometer. She would throw some flour into the oven and count. She knew by how long the floor took to turn different shades of brown how hot her oven was. Hot enough for pork crackling to cool enough for merengue. Also different woods burnt at different temperatures.
I'm guessing it takes a fair amount of expertise. We have a wood oven in much need of repair in my home in addition to the standard oven. After using it a few times, I started to twig to a few things but I think it would take a lifetime/constant use to get it right
The simpler test to teach (though possibly not as precise) is to put your hand in the oven (in the air obviously not touching any surfaces) and count how many seconds you can stand to leave it there. This can be calibrated against a modern oven with an actual thermostat.
I learned to bake bread in a wood-fired oven. After grinding the wheat with a hand turned burr grinder. There were advantages to being the ‘hippies in the woods’.
That is SO cool!
@@ElizabethJones-pv3sj while care taking a 97yr old lady, she taught me that when we baked bread in her wood oven. Bread 1st, then the roast beef, and ending with fruit dessert. She was amazing!
Whenever i feel my housework is too much, i watch history documentaries and feel MUCH MUCH BETTER. We have it so much better
I remember watching a PBS series called "Victorian House." After seeing the insanely labor intensive nightmare that simply doing the laundry was back then, I literally wanted to kiss my washer and dryer. 💋😂😂😂
Love history ♥❤💙💕
But so much dumber
LOL I haven't even watched the video yet and I know the answer, it was HARD.
Absolutely right.
For me as a german it's interesting how they talk about things like bread not having its own taste and different blends - because in germany good bread and buns still have a unique taste in every region. Each region in germany puts different proportions of grains (hardly anyone eats pure wheat bread all the time) and different types of seeds and sometimes herbs or spices in their bread. Pure wheat is something used in cake, cookies, white baguette, toast and pastries. Bread on the other hand rarely consists of less than 2 types of grains. Having sunflower seeds and many other types of seeds in it, even baking with beer or soup instead of water is very common.
Fellow German here, and I absolutely agree with you, unfortunately our supermarket bread often misses the deep flavour nowadays!
I also lived in England for some time and I for sure missed german bread. I sometimes went quite a long way to Aldi there just because they had "german bread" (yes, that was the name), regular Schwarzbrot slices, simple, but oh so good😃
I’m Puerto Rican . We miss the breads made in the local bakeries back home. And even some of the cakes can have a very distinct flavors and textures in different parts of the island. Walmart recently began selling a bread that is very similar to the one islanders miss…….it’s ok, but it is a far cry from the real thing. Temperatures and elevation something to breads. Anywho……it’s all yummy .
Germans are champion bakers
I had a great aunt named Catharina 😊. She was my grandma Carrie’s sister. Their parents were first generation Americans and THEIR parents came here from Germany. I’m about half German if you combine both sides 😊❤
I've have imported bread different grained bread it was all very different. Now the taste of general American bread is bland and light.
It's kinda nice to see Alex in a supportive role this time, advising others.
He definitely picked up a thing or two during adventures with Ruth and Peter.
He has a PhD in medieval history and archaeology from the University of Winchester. I don’t think he needed to “learn anything” from them, he just has his own personality. Ruth and Peter are actually far less formally educated than Alex is. And he’s a professor at the University of Swansea…
What do you mean? Context, please
@@niffernurse Having a PhD doesn't make you a good program host. There's plenty for everyone to learn.
Definitely agree. Seems like he learned how to be more personable. Especially in front of the cameras. Though you can't beat Ruth.
Yes, agreed! I love mister Alex with peter and ruth. make me learn and laugh at the same time. 😆😅
The episode with the adulterated flour was so sad. They had no passion left because they knew that type of bread ate away at people's spines and killed people. It was awful to watch their experience but I think they will have more pride in their own baking afterwards.
I feel really sad for them that their souls were crushed on seeing the adulterated bread and how they felt being subjected to the inhumane conditions at the time.
Let’s all give thanks to our ancestors for their determination to survive and their continued desire to further their bloodline during hard times.
too true! real survivors.
That's the same exact thing I just told my young son because I'm in a tough financial situation where I'm about to get a second but part time job and go to a food bank or two. I'm never to proud and have no shame to accept help like that when it becomes necessary to do so.
And enjoy their food 😁
So sad we're allowing it to be squandered.
@@guymorris6596 Honestly, I cooked better food with food bank ingredients than I ever did when I had "better" choices!
It's actually kind of beautiful that the man from Smith's got to experience how his family started his shop and got to be them for a short time. I have a feeling that he took his lessons back to the modern world with him and is including them in his shop in one way or another.
I have to laugh.
As an Australian many people travelled to Australia from Britain for stealing a loaf of bread.
Long Live The Loaf of Bread.
I refuse to be the one to ruin your 69 upvotes, ma’am! ;)
i cant ruin your 169 likes
@@themoon5898
Ahhh boo, I am just seeing your comment 10 hours after you posted it, and the OP has 170 upvotes now. 😢
Haha.
@@anti-ethniccleansing465 damn a true disappointment
Artful Dodger got there for silver snuffbox and lamented how lame that was. Still nowhere as lame as a bread thievery.
That is exactly how my grandparents made bread in their farm in France until the late 60's when they started buying bread. We used the same wood trough that they use in this documentary but it was a least twice's long as it was the main table when not in use. I remember not liking it because you could not put your legs under the table and had to seat sort of sideways. Sourdough bread will last a week !
You wished... what a world. Thank god we know better
@@dagmarvandoren9364 I feel pity for you living in your little negative world. I can't understand why you want to write such inane comments when being positive and uplifting could actually make you feel better. If you want to keep referring to someone's historic memories you might want to research your own.
I noticed that with my home made sourdough, it seems to keep forever without molding.
@@lauriesfarm sourbread is disgusting, it lasts long because its starts out revolting.
Sourdough starter makes rough grains rise better.
20 Stone flower bag is the equivalent of 280 pounds for my American viewers. Them bakers back in the day must’ve been jacked.
😟
127kg bag for rest of the world
In illustrations of the day it usually showed those bags lifted by two people at a time, and now I see why o.o
thank you so much for converting it for us Americans! ♥
holy crud, that's more than I weigh! Those guys (and gals) must have been so strong!
This makes me miss my grandmother so much. She let 4 year old me stand on the table I now own and punch down the dough in the bowls I now mix in.
"The Victorian Era was home to so much progress and elegance"
*slowly removing beer froth with wooden spoon*
lol. No matter how they try to show it otherwise, victorian era was just disgusting and horrible most of the time.
@@jkjk8 🎯
And class discrimination and slavery, and
I am lucky enough that my family managed to keep its ancestral house, built out of rocks collected from the nearby fields by my great great grandfather, about 200 years ago. And we still have a functioning wood oven, where bread used to be made. It was last fired in 1998, for my grandmother's 90th birthday, and we made a few loaves of bread in it. We have all the paraphernalia, the wooden tools to get the loaves out, the woven linen-lined baskets where the dough rested and rose, and the huge "maie", the wooden trough where the dough was prepared and kneaded... The maie still sees daily use, as we have turned it into a (very unpractical !) food storage unit. And yes, it is big enough to be a coffin !
Thank you for sharing. ❤️
Make more bread in it?
Probably the best pizza oven in the district😉
Is your Granpas house in ireland or Uk? Sounds a amazing.
@@nancyfoote2647 no, I'm French. The house is in a very small hamlet, in rural France.
This a definitely humbling experience for me to watch. Being a baker myself, this would be an experience I would talk about for a lifetime.
Thank you. 💗
@@mairarodriguez1525 ,your welcome
As a child, I was used to "store bought" bread - tasteless, white, full of air, and I remember totally not understanding the phrase, "Man shall not live by bread alone", as I reacted, "Of course, bread is terrible, what's your point ?" Only as a young adult, able to travel to Paris, and later, making my own bread, the light finally came on. Great episode.
I grew up in 70s and all we had was pre-sliced white bread in plastic. What a revelation to discover artisanal bakeries
@@Elleoaqua I grew up in the 70's and ate the white sliced bread too, but thank the Good Lord above that my mother and father were raised on small family farms in Southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia, during the depression...mom made homemade bread and rolls from her grandmother's recipe. OMG...I can still taste it today. Luckily my older sisters learned from our mother and my daughter has learned from her grandmother...so it's a treat when they make during special occasions.
@@SMichaelDeHart lucky!!
Toast bread?
I never found the store bought bread to be tasteless. Even the store brand white bread has a lot of flavor to me. Not as much as the far more expensive loaves from a good bakery, but still plenty of flavor. Of course that bread couldn't be called bread in Europe as it is so full of sugar and oil to make it shelf stable that it would be classified as a cake most likely.
I stumbled across this video and I happen to be trying my hand at baking no-knead bread right now. It's been in the oven for 20 minutes and I'm really hoping it turns out. I'm amazed at how fine a process bread was for the Victorians when I can literally just throw some stuff together for fun and experiment because there is no chance I'm going to starve if it fails. Edit: My bread came out wonderfully, and made the lamb stew and stewed apples I ate with it so much more filling. People really do underestimate the quality of a good whole-grain - or at least partial whole-grain - bread in making the expensive ingredients stretch.
The height of the dough troughs and work tables certainly gives us an idea of how much taller people are today than 150 years ago.
Good observation
Keen eye!
Yes! And that is why in those very old houses you bump your head all the time.
Yes - I noticed how they had to bend over so far to work the flour. Makes my back ache watching.
Yes and no. I'm not denying that heights have changed (idk, my impression is that evidence supports that), but also it's better ergonomics to have a lower work surface when doing hard physical work that involves a lot of pressing down and/or forward, especially if you're also twisting a lot/exerting sideways pressures too. It's far better to drop your center a couple inches and spread your stance and use your legs to shift your bodyweight around, than it is to have something right in front of you and just wreck your arms and hands forcing the work with no bodyweight in it (and probably have your shoulders up near your ears half the time anyway thus messing up your neck).
Source: Medical massage therapist for several years. Have done a lot of physical work on tables that were set low enough that me-before-massage-school would have never understood it either lol. The people in this video were indeed generally bending with their backs, unfortunately, which is a terrible choice, they should have bent their knees instead (but people tend not to because it can kinda look silly if you're not doing massage or martial arts).
Did anyone else think of Mrs. Crocombe when they saw the title
Yeah not much of this would be making top table lol
Mrs Crocombe wouldn't allow most of these recipes near her kitchen.
Really - a bit disappointed.
Well, the woman that presents this program is the same that writes Mr Crocombe's historical dialogues and research
Yes!
It's literally 12mn and I could not sleep. Thank you, Absolute History. I have something worth to burn the midnight oil with.
Where are you from? Its almost 1pm here
Quarter past midnight here 22 hours later, so I am guessing you are somewhere near Australia 💗🌵
I'm from Asia
Your "12mn" really sells it
"12mn"
It looks so rewarding the be a Victorian Baker. You are responsible for the lives of the community. The more nutrition in the bread the better production the community will have. Food is the backbone of life. You need energy to function.
Pro TIp : Use leftover Dough and seal the oven door with it . Not only will it keep heat in but will show you when the bread is done .
What type of oven do you have?😆😂
Something my great grandparents would had said 🤣
@@aza4632 I wish i had one now, im going back decades . I started making bread then moved onto pastries, donuts both cake and yeast . Then i moved onto other things . One of Many experiences im glad to have had during my life .
I've eaten many things cooked in similar ovens and nothing today can beat the flavour of food cooked in wood ovens !!!
@@angelaberni8873 Thats another reason i dont use a bbq, i prefer to cook on an open fire .. Nothing beats a good steak cooked with the soft touch of Flames :)
@@angelaberni8873 that tandoori flavour 👌🏼
My grama was a Baker before and during the revolution. She'd walk to the other side of the city at 4am to start the day's baking. Even at 80, she was the strongest woman I have ever known. So many hardships and hard work. Two jobs and then raising children through the depression and working hard all day... illness, TB, and all kinds of other issues. She was an amazing woman. The best Baker and cook, I've ever known as well. I miss her. She even passed away without an utter of disdain or show of pain. Such strong women back then.
Nanny baked pies during the depression. Her pie crust is something I still can’t match today.
Wonderful!! Thank you for pointing out that bread was among the many foods deliberately adulterated in “simpler, more natural” times!
I’m chuckling at all the different things they haven’t figured out what they have gotten themselves into. Not laughing AT the people, laughing at the difference. As a home baker I’m learning a great deal!
In the gambia, a lot of the bread at the local level at least, is still pretty much made this way.
You have the head Baker and then a few apprentices/ junior bakers.
Everything is mixed and molded by hand.
The oven is heated by wood and the Baker does know his oven and how to control the temperature without a thermometer.
I think that these bakers could go there and learn from people who are actually still working very close to this way and learn a lot from them.
That is really awesome. 🍞🥐🥖🫓🥨🥯💖❤💕💜🧡
My Maori ancestors in the south island New Zealand grew and milled wheat for export, supplying the British empire. It's pretty cool to think that what my ancestors grew might of ended up in one of these traditional bakehouses.
That's...not something to be proud about.
@@RedDragon770 While I agree about the implications, my statement was about acknowledging innovation and adaption. Considering my ancestors didn't have access to manufacturing technology prior to European colonization, they had a massive learning curve. They took the idea of mechanism and ran with it. Today there are many Maori engineers, mechanics, and farmers, by occupation/sector: labourers make up 19% of the total Maori population, followed by professional occupations at 18%.
@@LauraTeAhoWhite dont listen to that bore ofc its cool
But probably not back to the British Isles per se. After the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, availability of cheap high gluten Canadian and American wheat made it cheaper to import American wheat and mill flour to say Dublin than to mill the same in the Irish countryside and haul it the 100km up to Dublin, even by canal. This made many mills in the Irish Midlands redundant by the Victorian era.
I’ve been to NZ many times with work and I must say you Kiwis are some of the most laid back people I’ve ever met. I had the pleasure of working off and on with a Maori engineer who was so welcoming! Got to visit his home and family for family get togethers and I was welcomed like a long lost cousin. 30 years later I wish I could get back there again.
My maternal great grandmother cooked and baked with a wood stove all her life. BEST BAKED BREAD EVER. She passed when I was 8 years old in 1969. Good memories.
My mother was born in 1952 (here in south Texas), and she remembers helping a great aunt make homemade cottage cheese as a child.
I love watching them all individually looking at the kitchen tools for the first time.
I could imagine seeing a group of Victorian bakers doing the same thing if they were plopped in a present day kitchen!
Eastern European here, my mother made bread, egg noodles for soup, when we came to the USA, 54 years ago now, we would go to local farms where we would have a pig butchered. She would grind the meat herself and use the (thoroughly cleaned)intestines as the sausage casings.
This is still done in butcher shops in Germany. Nothing goes to waste.
And besides the french people make a kind of sausage called Andouille from intestines. It has a very distict smell and flavour.
I am so happy to see Alex still working.
In 2016 anyway. :) I wonder what they're all up to in 2021.
@@celticlass8573 this isnt made in 2021?
@@tamiwithani Nope it's a BBC series from 2016. :)
He has a PhD…I’m sure he’s doing just fine, given that he’s a professor at the University of Swansea.
Bread is so amazing, the softness, the smells, the Butter On it OMG, the deliciousness !
Your comment just made me hungry lol
Bread 💜
Et la baguette ? Sortie du four, avec du beurre breton et de la confiture de fraise ? Avec un chocolat chaud. Like my Gran did...
I love these living history shows! I'm happy to see Alex hosting this. He's awesome! 😁
Have you seen Tales of the Green Valley ? 20 secondes of Alex topless...
I'm an avid home baker with a side of real education in it, and I clicked on this episode so damn fast.
I used to be a baker (until they automated it) so im watching this to see how much they do right, and ofc Wrong :) I learned how to bake Using an oven of this type so i can say i Do have experience with these , So now ill watch and see and possibly have a laugh
@@fetus2280 Is baking in a wood oven something you get used to, almost like an art form, and does each oven differ fairly significantly?
@@fetus2280 Ive been sitting here half screaming at everything they've done wrong. Not using the secondary lower furnace to moderate the temp of the cooking oven, not using pearl-ash as a leavener, which had been around for over half a century at this point. Super wet, shaggy dough. Crammings...are dried bran mash...meant to be boiled into a dumpling or oatmeal. Bran is NOT chaff.
and what do they mean farmers and rural people ate next to nothing but bread? uhh...no. farmers grew gardens for their own use, and large plots of stuff to sell, even back then. the CITY poor ate bread and little else.
I've been ranting to friends for the several hours it's taken to get thru it
@@MsZoedog66 They are all different . You have to learn the tools youre using .So many variables can factor into things like Temps, be it the stone or brick used to the amount of wood it takes to heat it up and so on . Cheers
Me too
This was beautiful to watch. My ancestors are from Africa, but looking through various cultures always leaves me speechless. Having to eat basically animal food to survive... the way it hit the bakers made me feel it too.
People forget every cultural has grown and when humanity finally connected, things became easier to survive. :/ sadly, most people want divide again.
In the town I grew up in , Clarksburg WV, was a very large amount of Italians. We started the Italian Heritage Festival many years ago. My Aunt and Uncle we're the children of the Italian immigrants that came over from Italy. I was very steeped in the Italian ways, which I absolutely loved. They built an outside oven and baked Italian bread for the people coming to the festival!
Wow! I am sure they love you ❤
This weekend I was at a Korean Bakery and everything was amazing. I feel like the Koreans and Japanese having started taking a new foot hold in the baking world. Maybe with the help of social media? But the flavors and texture are totally different from the European styles. I still prefer my hearty chewy dense and super grainy bread, but once in a while a very soft fluffy fiber free bread is good.
Their baking traditions are different because bread products have always been more of a novelty in asian countries. Cloud like, whimsical, and fun is what Asian wheat products are all about! It was all about survival and tradition in European countries.
@@be.A.b bread has been made for thousands of years in China and other parts of Asia.
We loved in Korea for 4 years and LOVED the bakeries! I’ve been in the US for 4 years and miss the food (and the prices) so much.
@@pavementpounder7502 and they still suck at it
@@pavementpounder7502 It definitely was! but they had different grains they could live on cheaply (noodles and rice as opposed to bread alone). Most cultures everywhere have bread of some sort but the main foodstuff is different. Like think of how in the Americas it's corn flour (Masa) based so it's more around the tortilla and then there's even more cultures I don't know about...
I love the Victorian period! Shows like this, Time Crashers, Victorian Farm, and Turn Back Time are my absolute favourite things to watch on CZcams. Thank you so much for posting!
What an incredible documentary! It feels very grounding to understand some of the hardships our ancestors faced, makes us appreciate the very basics of food and its role as sustenance.
ahhhh Annie Gray!! And Alex! oh two excellent historians I'm so excited for this
I don't think people are not as strong today (circa 31:00). I think people just suffered great disablities from doing the stuff. They just didn't complain because there weren't any laws to protect them, no union to represent them, and no government that cared about their health & life.
i.e. Just because there's not a cure for birthing pain doesn't mean women don't give birth.
We know from literature at the time, that fires were rekindled from ashes from a kitchen fire that was fed by peat moss from bogs. Shovel of ashes were carried to the different fireplaces of the house. It is doubtful a fire would be allowed to go completely out at a bakery.
Always remember: We are all 15 missed meals away from complete anarchy.
To that I say go and watch a few Ice Age Farmer videos.... What begins in the USA is finished in the UK...
Wasn't it the Nazis who counted every ounce a human needs to merely survive?
@@maryshaffer8474 Where did you hear that made-up nonsense from? The History Channel?
Fifteen consecutive meals or just...
9 meals away from anarchy....
Thanks for posting this . I started baking sourdough about 15 years ago and can tell you even with all the modern equipment baking in any volume is a lot of work, but also very satisfying once you master it.
I can’t imagine the work and pain that what the bakers way back then had to endure.
“ Give us this day our daily bread”
I remember learning about baking in a "cooling" oven for many hours to make a thick and dark crust bread, but for the normal baking, the glowing timbers would have been left in a corner of the oven to continue to produce heat.
Yes, also called a 'falling' oven.
As a French person and de facto bread expert (!!), I love the two guys with their family/artisan bakeries. Thats what I grew up with!!!
While I love history, who'd have thought that the history of baking would be so interesting?
It is a science for sure.
One of the greatest books I ever read, put of about 10,000was the page turner, 5000 Years of Bread.......riveting
It’s 3 in the morning and I’m stuck watching this lovely program. Forget sleep 💤 I’m learning how to bake bread the Victorian way
Way to go. Join the crowd
"Moving a Victorian sack even a short distance was never easy, because the standard weight was 20 stone. Victorian bakers were supposedly capable of carrying these single handedly."
Oh to be a young farmhand meeting regularly with wheat deliveries for the local baker's son, pretending not to notice his naughty gaze.
First thoughts of Wesley from The Princess Bride
😂😈
20 stone = 127 kgs = 280 lbs. I do doubt the "single hand" claim ;)
@@juliajs1752 It's all about techniq and doing the same thing every single day. That make you a beast.
The second part of your comment is the best thing I’ve read all day 😂
I make my own bread without measuring anything.. sometimes loaves can be a bit "stodgy" but even then when toasted, it's sooo good I can barely make enough to have some leftovers after my family has eaten them right out of the oven. I recently started making little breads in cupcake tins and those are just as yummy.
I don't measure either. It's all by feel and how it looks. Never lasts longer than to days lol
@@austyn5004Exactly.. bread has such good basic ingredients it's hard to go completely wrong... even if it turns out flat like a cracker it's is a great tasting cracker. =)
Half expected to see Ruth sneaking around a corner grinning like a mad hatter
The chicken feed reminded me of acorn breads used for hard times in America. Doesn't taste good but it will keep you from dying.
They could’ve measured the oven temperature with some flour... that’s an old method the bakers in Germany used even centuries ago, I don’t know whether it’s been common in England but I guess it was.
It was. 🙂
I loved the moment when Alex said “tasting history”. I’m not sorry at all that I’m a Max Miller fan.
Ha me too!!!!🤭
Me as well!!
Max Miller crew represent!
He says it several times. I had to smile, thinking of seeing Max participating! Lol.
Same, now all I hear is his awesome intro song
I don't think they struggled as much as this back in the day. 😆 Seeings how they did it constantly, I'm sure they didn't get that winded. The women had alot of upper body strength.
They'd have been able to do it, yes, but the aches and pains would have caught up with them. If you were born in a world where there was no alternative to hard work, you got strong, or you died. But that kind of daily, 24/7 workload from birth took it's toll.
@@maxdecphoenix Kind of explains why their life expectancy was 39.5 years.
@@davidbennett9691 the poor life expectancy had more to do with medical ignorance than hard labor. The real issue with historical medicine and therapy wasn't that people didn't have access to healers it was that most remedies were based in complete ignorance and typically made situations worse.
@@davidbennett9691 It certainly took its toll, but probably didn't shorten life expectancy all that much. Yeah, aches and pains and stiffness sucks, but no one dies from it.
@@davidbennett9691 the short life expectancy was also from a lot of people simply not making it out of childhood.
I read somewhere that if you were able to make it past 16, you could also live to old age easily.
(This also with what other people have already said about medicine at the time)
Bird feed is delicious! In Mexico (in Valle de Bravo) we have Atole de Alpiste. Atole is a Mexican hot beverage that comes from times before Colón, and it is made in different flavours, including Alpiste (bird feed), which is the one I love the most!
I live in NZ & as a baker you’re always learning. It takes a life time. I was so intrigued by this video especially about the chicken feed. Having been to Europe ie. France, Spain, etc I was amazed at the different breads and wonderful food you can eat. How can I complain having to work 9 to 12hrs a day. 4 or 5 days per week, getting time off blah blah blah.
Watching the bakers enjoy this experience as much as I enjoyed watching it is so very heartwarming.
If only I could find the complete series! It's all so fascinating! I can spend a whole day just watching these!
You guys weren't kidding with this. You not only made them bake like the old times, you made them dress the part while doing it.
I love learning about how we prepared food.
Having lifted heavy objects at work, I can tell you it’s more about the technique you use lifting things like that.
What a lovely documentary. I am from the continent and in my country all the farmhouses baked their own bread. My grandmother used to have a big farmhouse and a mill. Even my mother remembers to bake bread.
Good to know the kids at my elementary school knew so much about the ancient bundles of sticks
This was so interesting. Baking then, as now, was all about familiarty and feel. My great grandma was a pastry chef at the turn of the 20th century. She worked in hotels, private schools and bakeries. She taught my grandmother the "feel" of proper bread, crust, and sweet cake making. This was passed down to my mother and eventually to me. It is an essential part of being a great baker.
This is the stuff that makes you want to dive into all those historical sites and libraries. Archives and old manors. Well done
Finally, my primal desire to eat massive quantities of white bread is explained! This was so interesting, and I much prefer this cooperative teamwork style of historical show to similar ones set up in a competitive format. P.S. Is there really anyone who thinks of Victorian England as a lovely, bucolic time and place?
Soy de Argentina, en muchas regiones de mi pais todavía se sigue horneando el pan en hornos con leña, amasando a mano, no muy diferente de la época colonial, todo esto no nos resulta extraño, por supuesto también hay panaderías modernas, pero se valora mucho lo hecho de manera tradicional, espero nunca se pierda.
totalmente de acuerdo
Creo que, en muchos países de todos modos, somos muy rápidos en abandonar la tradición y la historia por lo 'nuevo y mejor', que a menudo no es nuevo ni mejor en absoluto. Es triste y una gran manera de perder las lecciones que podemos aprender del pasado.
Good to see Alex again.
I love how the modern bakers declared with surprise how delicious their Victorian bread tastes!💜
I LOVE & cherish this channel. History is so important and we should all take the time to watch, read, listen and learn from these preserved stories.
Thank you for these recreations, I am so grateful.
This is my heritage and I will preserve & pass down to my own child.
I was born & live in Usa, but these are my roots, my ancestors.
I’d move here in a heartbeat if I could get my husband to make the move. Such rich history and I love everything about the culture, weather and people.
Let us take time to appreciate the hard work and dedication of our ancestors.
Thank you so much Absolute History. This is so refreshing and so grateful to learn British history. 🙏🏽
The yeast thing kida threw me Would of expected them to just home grow a starter? and if not once they got the yeast from the brewery couldn't they just keep feeding it to make more?
I wondered the same thing
Maybe back in the day they used to do that? I would think if they were trying to use every thing they’ve got, they would continue to grow it...but I’m not sure honestly.
I suppose there would be a frequent supply of fresh stuff from the brewers, so why not use it?
@@lilymarinovic1644 well, they emphasized how pricey it was to buy (which I admit was surprising to me)
There are wild yeast that could be starter as well. Definitely an art. My mother wild ferments because the organism for it is already on vegetables so she just has to make sure they outgrow the bad.
We've gotten so used to semi-dwarf wheat varieties that it's a shock to see how tall the heirloom varieties are. The amount of biomass taken up in straw, the susceptibility to lofting, and the smaller heads must have cut into profit margins substantially.
Fantastic history channel. Thank you for bringing this kind of material to CZcams!
I went to Bath once and had a Sally Lund bun. I ordered a bun with some kind of salted beef and honey mustard sauce on top. It was delicious. That place has been a bakery since Roman times and it was amazing to go there for one meal and take in the living history!
How come nobody commented on the huge size of the loaves of bread in the photograph of the Victorian Bakery with the lady standing in front of the shop wearing a white apron? Those loaves are absolutely mammoth.
Another wonderful series by Absolute History ....
I’m excited to watch each era unfold 🥖
"by" absolute history?
he missed the part where he ads plaster of paris and aluminum to make the bread heavy and white.
It will proably be in future episodes.
Eh hidden killers reference eh
They didn’t talk about how bakers in London would add plaster of Paris, alum, and chalk to increase profit margins.
@Susan Kerr it doesn’t contain chalk but can have a chalky flavor. The FDA would not allow such an ingredient in food, but I can see where people think some yogurts taste like it does.
I think they mention it in the next video
I used to wonder how bread was baked before commercial yeast. Then I discovered sourdough culture and bread and I can't imagine how I _ever_ stomached the stuff shops produce today under the name of bread.
Its crazy because my grandmother still uses this type off oven, that uses wood and still uses wet yeast. Very lucky to still see it as it used to be done years ago
Very interesting. I am very happy I live in this century. I was thinking about the old copper boiler and how they managed to wash the clothes. Life was very hard back then.
Yeah ...I would be crying every day to do all those work back then ...oh nooooo
Heck life was very hard in my Mom's day! She was born in 1936 and was raised on a rural farm in New Hampshire for the first 12 years of her life. The stories she tells makes me realize how lucky I was. Now when I tell my niece my stories about growing up in the 70's and 80's without cell phones and computers she can't imagine how difficult I had it. It's all relative I guess.
When he threw a cup of water in the oven, I cringed, of course you never do that with a wood fired oven. It will crack the stone and duh!!! Make the oven not hot enough
And me :) but there were many cringe moments tbh
I came looking for someone who might mention that. The young Baker also knew it was a big mistake. The older man was not a team player, over riding the group. It's why the bread failed. On the whole I love these series.
@@marjoriejohnston3038ah. I understand
The word _lady_ comes from _hladig,_ "loaf-giver", because it was the woman of the house who made the bread.
Interesting
woooo alex! i always love watching how food evolved through the years cause it honestly reflects the times, hope to see more!
Was there a follow up episode to this where they moved into the industrial era? Really enjoy watching these. So fascinating.
Looks to me like this episode is the first of a series.....it was just released today.
There are 4 episodes including a Christmas special episode. New episodes on Fridays. Episode 2 is the 1870s during the Industrial Revolution. Episode 3 moves to 1900.
What hasn't changed: the poor girl baker constantly being cut-off or basically ignored by guys with mutton chops.
They're talking about eating chicken feed back in the day, but I very much remember hearing about mean people eating cat food for the same reason (this was like in the early 2000s though), and then even clay in other countries... Poverty may have changed, but it's definitely not gone anywhere.
my swedish farmer ancestors knew famine times and they would eat bread made from tree bark
During the depression in Texas, the Black folk ate a clay with minerals.....my Mother's family was poor, she is 94, and she says she cannot imagine how the black folks survived😭
@@anaussie8830 During and after both WWs people in Germany used to make bread from wood shavings, bark, acorns, potato peels.
Literally everything that filled the stomach and could be digested halfways.
This was no joke. Thank you bakers.
I have been making my own bread for over 20 years now Ok I use a bread making machine but it is so much better than shop stuff. I tried different combos but wow so much better this series is great thank you.
ANY video with Dr. Annie Gray at the helm is bound to be great, but, this one is BEYOND that.. it's absolutely fantastic!!
I LOVE the kind of bread that the second undercooked batch was - very light colored & doughy soft. My mom makes biscuits & I prefer them with no tan color on them after baked. My mom has a really hard time taking them out of the oven early for me.
42:52 its seriously emotional to see him get to make that statement, how people have suffered back then .. ..
My husband was out of work for 2 years. The really dense bread was something I made a lot of.
@Kori Emerson
I'm sorry to hear that. Did the pandemic cause your husband to get laid off? People who work in customer service or in public education tended to get shafted and have to get on unemployment.
A fascinating demonstration.... the type of thing you find on the internet where any subject may be covered.
"My sweat is dripping in the dough". 😳🤮 Lol. Hey, I couldn't have done this. Hat's off to you!
This was way before modern germ theory, so just imagine: these people bathed maybe once a week, usually just rinsing off their hands and faces with some water every now and then throughout the day. Soap was mostly used for clothing, not for cleaning up yourself. They didn’t wash their hands before mixing and kneading their dough. They wouldn’t have had an issue putting dough on unwashed tables, mostly just scraped off from the day before, maybe rinsed with water if you’re lucky.
Granted most harmful germs would be killed off in the oven, but still. Not a very hygienic era.
Just a bit of extra salt in the dough! A bit of a gross story, but my mom worked at McDonalds for a short time (like 2 weeks before I encouraged her to start classes with our community college) and she told me how it was so hot in the back she would sweat buckets. She asked someone about it getting in the food and their exact response was that someone would get saltier fries. So it really hasn't gone away, it's just not advertised.
That even normal in modern bakeries.
Just think of your own hands when you're treating your food(a salad by instance) there is also sweat on your palms. A smaller amount perhaps, but nevertheless!
Being overly hygienic is making us so suseptible to bacteria and viruses nowadays.
Our immune system isn't trained anymore to fight illnesses. And sometimes it therefore turn upon ourselves, making us allergic.
The British are the very best, the Queen . . . and King! at making these kind of shows!! Thank you, thank you!!!!!
Excellent! Historical and an eyes opener when it comes to social classes and true poverty and inequalities. Thank you for sharing!
This is the kind of documentary I wish were more common! Nich history is so cool❤
The knowledge that our ancestors had is something shot of extraordinary, this sort of documentary could be made in pretty much any field of work, and I would guarantee it would be educational and amazing❤😊
I sometimes go up to 5-7 days without food, but I am Very I'll. I feel horrible for those who worked so hard and were So Hungry 😭😢
RIP DEAREST ones🎈❤⚘
I think Alex Langlands was happy to be the guide this time, instead of spending a year in another era, such as the Tudor,, Victorian, and Edwardian Farm series. Well done, everyone!
(1:16 - 1:20)
Woman: "This is potassium aluminum sulfate."
Man 1: "Doesn't that cause brain damage."
Man 2: *Processed to sniff if without hesitation *
edit:
XD - (I meant to say "proceeds" to sniff...Also Just realized the woman sniffed it too)!
*THX * @Kinky
LMFAO!
? did you mean "Proceeded"? .....processed doesn't make any sense at all...although Simon Fraser thinks it's hilarious! hahaha!
@@kinkle_Z No I meant to say "proceeds" without the "ed" at the end XD. Thx4catching that error!
They were a second too late lmao, they already sniffed it even before the man finished saying brain damage 😂💀
Just noticed that you edited your message to address the typo but you didn’t correct it lol