Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 2 Sept 2025Large, gingery loaf of bread
City/Region: England
Time Period: 1857In order to make expensive wheat flour go further, Victorian bakers added things to it of varying edibility. While potato, corn, and pea flour were used, so was ground up plaster of paris, chalk dust, and a powder called alum. Alum made the flour very white, but is also toxic in large quantities.
This loaf, made only with wholesome, edible ingredients, would have been on the fancier side of a bakery’s offerings with the addition of lots and lots of powdered ginger. This bread really surprised me, as it tastes like a normal loaf of bread at first, but then the heat and the flavor of the ginger comes through afterwards.
Ginger Loaf, or Rolls.
Mix intimately two ounces of good powdered ginger, — called in the shops prepared ginger, — and a little salt, with two pounds of flour, and make it into a firm but perfectly light dough with German or brewer’s yeast, [and 1 pint milk] in the usual manner; [to rise one hour or until quite light: to be kneaded down and left again to rise until light]. Bake it either in one loaf, or divide it into six or eight small ones.
The proportion of ginger can be much increased if desired; but the bread should not then be habitually eaten for a long continuance, as the excess of any stimulating condiment is often in many ways injurious.
— The English Bread-Book by Eliza Acton, 1857
March 3, 2026
The Deadly Job of a Victorian Baker
February 24, 2026
What did Prisoners eat at Folsom in 1925? – Lamb Curry & Beans
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 26 Aug 2025Lamb curry with onions and carrots served with white bread and plain pinto beans
City/Region: Folsom, California
Time Period: 1916-1933Folsom Prison is infamous, but the food doesn’t sound like it was all that bad, though there was plenty of watery gruel made from the water salt pork had been soaked in, and if you were in solitary confinement, you got a diet of bread and water with beans every third day. Meals weren’t all terrible, though. A 1925 menu show foods like Hamburger Steak with Brown Gravy, Split Pea Soup, and Lamb Curry & Rice, which is what we’re making here.
In the 1920s, a lot of the cooks were using military manuals, so that is where the base of this recipe comes from, along with a list of ingredients from a commissary report from 1933.
It’s actually quite good, though I would add as much as double the amount of curry powder as was specified in the historical recipe. The beans are a little plain, but that’s to be expected.
382. Beef, curry (for 60 men).
Ingredients used:
20 pounds beef.
1 1/2 ounces curry powder.
Cut the beef into 1-inch cubes and place in a bake pan; cover with beef stock or water; season with salt, pepper, and curry powder. When nearly done, thicken slightly with a flour batter. Serve hot.— Manual for Army Cooks, 1916
LAMB CURRIE and RICE
1160 pounds Mutton
830 ” Rice
300 ” Onions
400 ” Carrots
1 bottle Curry
— Commissary report from Folsom Prison, February 1, 1933
February 17, 2026
Eating in Japan During World War 2
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 19 Aug 2025Fried sweet potato paste on top of roasted seaweed with a soy glaze and brown rice
City/Region: Japan
Time Period: December 1942Contrary to the government’s promises, the availability of food declined in Japan as World War 2 went on. Journal entries from 1945 highlight just how bad things had gotten. People were unable to get ahold of staples like rice, soy sauce, miso, and fuel for cooking fires, and many were scavenging for anything to eat.
This recipe comes from a few years earlier when things were tight, but not quite so dire. While it doesn’t exactly taste like grilled eel, it is quite good. There’s a nice crispiness to it (more so before the glazing and grilling), and the glaze is delicious. It kind of reminds me of the breading that you might get on some katsu.
Kabayaki of Sweet Potato
Ingredients for 5 servings
100 monme sweet potatoes
2 tablespoons wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
15 sheets of roasted seaweed
Grate the sweet potatoes with a grater and grind. Mix in the flour and salt. Spread the mixture onto the roasted nori to a thickness of about 1/2 cm. Fry them in oil until golden brown. Separately, make a soy sauce glaze in the ratio of 3 parts soy sauce to 2 parts sugar. Dip in the glaze and grill them. Repeat this twice, brushing with sauce each time. On the third, use only the sauce without grilling.— Fujin no Tomo (The Woman’s Friend), December 1942
February 11, 2026
The “True” History of Key Lime Pie: Florida or New York?
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 12 Aug 2025Key lime pie in a graham cracker crust with meringue, garnished with lime zest and lime peel
City/Region: Key West, Florida
Time Period: April 14, 1933Yet another example of a dish with multiple origin stories, the key lime pie was perhaps invented in Key West in 1875 by Aunt Sally, the possible cook or family member of William Joseph Curry, Florida’s first millionaire, when she observed Cuban sponge collectors making a cream of lime juice, condensed milk, and egg yolk. Or maybe it was a spin on Borden’s (the makers of Eagle brand condensed milk) Magic Lemon Pie, created in New York City in 1931.
Either way, this recipe from 1933, one of the first using a graham cracker crust, is delicious. The filling is smooth, but firms up well, and the lime flavor really stands out without being too tart.
Tropical Lime Pie
Mix thoroughly:
1 can condensed milk,
1/4 cup evaporated milk,
3 egg yellows,
1-3 lime juice, strained.
Butter 9-inch pie tin heavily. Sprinkle graham cracker crumbs about one-fourth inch thick for crust, pressing crumbs well up on sides of pan. Pour in uncooked custard and cover with meringue, using three egg whites and three scant tablespoons of sugar. Brown in moderate oven and allow to set for one hour before serving. Serves six.— Mrs. Mabel McClanahan, Key West Florida, in The Miami Herald, April 14, 1933
February 3, 2026
The Killer Pigs of the Middle Ages
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 5 Aug 2025Sliced roasted pork loin with jus
City/Region: England
Time Period: 1390Pigs were an important source of food in the Middle Ages. They didn’t take up a lot of space, had lots of babies, and ate pretty much anything, so despite their smell and bouts of violence (sometimes ending in murder), they were commonly found throughout Europe.
This English recipe, which uses black pepper, coriander seed, caraway seed, and wine, all expensive ingredients that had to come from far away, wouldn’t have been for the common folk. Today, these ingredients are readily found at the grocery store, and this is a delicious roast that is perfect for those just getting into medieval cooking. As with a lot of historical recipes, there are no quantities given, so feel free to adjust the amounts of any of the spices to suit your taste.
Cormarye.
Take Coriander, Caraway small ground, Powder of Pepper and garlic ground in red wine, muddle all this together and salt it, take loins of Pork raw and flay off the skin, and prick it well with a knife and lay it in the sauce, roast thereof what thou wilt, & keep that that falleth therefrom in the roasting and seeth it in a little pot with fair broth, & serve it forth with the roast anon.
— The Forme of Cury, 1390
January 27, 2026
Did People in the Middle Ages Drink Water?
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 1 Aug 2025A brew of barley, licorice, figs, and sugar
City/Region: France
Time Period: 1393The myth persists that everyone was drunk in the Middle Ages because no one drank water, only alcohol. While many people preferred to drink ale, wine, or mead, people drank water all the time. Having a source of fresh, clean water was the basis of the location of many cities and towns.
Clean water isn’t just an issue of the past, either. Today, 1 in 10 people don’t have access to clean water. For the month of August, I’m joining thousands of creators across the internet to form Team Water with the goal of raising $40 million to supply 2 million people with clean water which will flow for decades. You can support Team Water by donating at teamwater.org, or by watching and sharing the episode for this recipe. I’ll be donating all of the ad revenue from this video to Team Water!
This sweet tisane is an herbal tea made with barley, licorice root, figs, and sugar. I really enjoyed it, even though the flavor of the licorice and figs didn’t come through. It kind of reminds me of the milk after you’ve eaten a bowl of Raisin Bran, which I like.
Sweet tisane.
Take some water and boil it, then for each septier of water add one generous bowl of barley — it does not matter if it is all hulled — and two parisis’ worth of licorice; item, also figs. Boil until the barley bursts, then strain through two or three pieces of linen, and put plenty of rock sugar in each goblet. The barley that remains can be fed to poultry to fatten them.
— Le Ménagier de Paris, 1393
January 20, 2026
Feeding the Great Mongol Khan
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 29 Jul 2025Mastic stew with black rice, spices, and lamb, garnished with cilantro
City/Region: Mongol Empire | China
Time Period: 1330The grandson of Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan doubled the size of the largest land empire the world had ever known by conquering China. We actually know quite a bit about the foods that fueled his empire-expanding efforts. Shortly after his death, Yinshàn zhèngyào, or The Proper and Necessary Things for the Emperor’s Food and Drink, was written, and its recipes include ingredients from across Kublai Khan’s vast empire.
The mastic in this stew is a resin from the mastic tree in the Mediterranean, and it has a bitterness along with cedar or pine notes. I really like it in sweet things, but there is no sugar in this dish. The stew is aromatic and smells of cardamom and cinnamon, but they don’t come through in the flavor. The bitterness of the mastic and the lamb dominate the dish, but Kublai Khan was eating this dish to invigorate his chi, so maybe the flavor didn’t matter as much.
I used black rice, or forbidden rice, so named because supposedly it was only eaten by the emperor and his court for much of Chinese history, and it makes the stew a deep purple. You can use long grain white or brown rice, which will make for a lighter colored dish.
Nourishes, warms the middle and grants chi. Leg of mutton, five tsaoko cardamoms, 2 ch’ien cinnamon, one half sheng chickpeas, mash and remove the skins. Boil the ingredients together to make a soup, strain it. Cut up the meat and set aside. Add 2 ho of cooked chickpeas, 1 sheng of aromatic rice, 1 ch’ien of mastic. Mix well with a little salt. Add chopped meat and cilantro.
— Yinshàn zhèngyào by Hu Sihui, 1330
January 13, 2026
The History of SPAM
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 22 Jul 2025Sliced SPAM layered with cream cheese filling, sliced and served with potato salad and tomatoes
City/Region: United States of America
Time Period: 1951SPAM. The iconic canned meat product. Beloved by some, reviled by others, SPAM was buoyed by a very successful marketing blitz by the Hormel company starting in the 1930s. There were radio and magazine ads, The Hormel Girls (a singing group), and recipes.
I’m not the biggest fan of SPAM, and this recipe turned out way too salty for me. If you want to make the historical recipe, go ahead and follow it, but I would personally opt for the reduced sodium SPAM and cut out the salt in the cream cheese mixture. If you like SPAM, definitely try this out! It’s super flavorful, but it’s just not to my taste.
Tender, pure-pork SPAM joins with a zesty cream cheese mixture for memorable eating. Serve for supper or lunch — or as a noteworthy appetizer.
SPAM ‘n’ Cheese Ribbon Loaf
Cut in 8 slices……1 whole SPAM
Mix together……1 (3-oz.) package cream cheese (softened with a little milk)
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. grated onion
1 tbsp. minced parsley
1/4 tsp. salt
Spread between……slices of SPAM
Chill……4 hours (or longer; overnight if desired). Slice and serve. Good with deviled eggs or potato salad.Economical all-meat buy! No bone, no waste. SPAM is all meat … juicy pork shoulder and mild, tender ham, with Hormel’s unequalled seasonings.
— Hormel advertisement, 1951
January 6, 2026
Typhoid Mary’s Deadly Ice Cream
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 15 Jul 2025Fresh peach ice cream frozen in a mold garnished with sliced peaches and peach puree
City/Region: United States of America
Time Period: 1877Mary Mallon, born in 1869, was a cook for wealthy families, but she’s better known for being the first person found to be an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever. While most food was cooked to a temperature that kills the typhoid-causing bacteria, the families that employed Mary loved her peach ice cream.
While ice cream that has eggs in it is cooked, and there’s no way to know what kind Mary made, I opted for a recipe from the time for American style ice cream that has no eggs and isn’t cooked. Whichever ice cream base Mary used, she put cut up fresh peaches into it, which certainly could have carried the bacteria.
Gruesome inspiration for this recipe aside, the ice cream is really good. There’s a ton of fresh peach flavor, and you can make it as sweet or not as you like. The slices of peach inside the ice cream were very cold and kind of froze my mouth, so you could try cutting them up into smaller pieces to avoid the brain freeze I got.
Peach Ice-Cream
Mix a quart of cream with a cupful of sugar and four tablespoons of sherry. Add four cupfuls of peaches mashed fine and sweetened to taste, and freeze.
— Everyday Desserts by Olive Green (Myrtle Reed), 1911
January 1, 2026
New Year’s Good Luck “Pasta Fazool” (Pasta e Fagioli) – Food Wishes
Food Wishes
Published 31 Dec 2019Scientists will tell you that there’s no way eating pork, beans, and/or greens at the beginning of a new year can bring you good luck and great fortune; but our lab-coated, left-brained friends are missing one very important fact: People who think they’re lucky, are lucky.
For a fully formatted, printable, written recipe, follow this link: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/277…
You can also find more of Chef John’s content on Allrecipes: http://allrecipes.com/recipes/16791/e…
December 29, 2025
What Are Sugar Plums? How to make real Victorian sugar plums
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 10 Dec 2024Purple, green, yellow, red, blue, and white hard candies with cherry centers
City/Region: United States of America
Time Period: 1865Sugar plums go hand-in-hand with Christmas, but what exactly are they? There are recipes out there for a confection made of dried fruit and nuts that’s rolled into balls, but true Victorian sugar plums were a kind of candy made up of layers of hardened sugar syrup and gum arabic surrounding a fruit or nut core. They were pretty much the same thing as Jordan almonds.
You won’t find many recipes for them in Victorian-era cookbooks because no one really made them at home. The specialized equipment and labor involved meant that most people bought them from a confectioner, and I can see why.
Making these was a three-day endeavor for me, and I had to get a panning machine attachment for my stand mixer, and gum arabic, which I surprisingly didn’t already have in my pantry. They’re a nice sweet treat, but really more trouble than they’re worth to make at home.
Cherry Sugar-Plums. Set preserved cherries on a sieve in the stove. When they are partly dry, mix them with pounded sugar, and rub them over a sieve; dry them again, and proceed as with barberry sugar-plums.
Barberry Sugar-Plums. Take perfectly ripe barberries, stem them, dry them in a stove, and add the gum and sugar in the swinging basin. To accomplish this, after being heated in the stove, give them a coating of one part sugar, and one part gum arabic; and, when thoroughly moistened, powder with sifted sugar. Dry the coating in a stove; add a second on the next day, so as to completely cover the fruit; then thicken, and finish like the verdun sugar-plums. The fruit must be coated away from the fire. They are colored like the rose sugar-plums, and pearled like the lemon.
— The Art of Confectionery, 1865
December 23, 2025
Christmas Cookies – You Suck at Cooking (episode 120)
You Suck At Cooking
Published 23 Dec 2020This sugar cookie recipe is super easy, just like things that aren’t difficult. They also have something in common with Christmas cookies: you can find them both on planet earth, which is the fifth largest planet in our solar system.
1/2 pound softened butter
1 cup of sugar
cream them together with your gyrowangucopterlatorThen add:
1 jangled egg
3 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
then rejangle with your handheld copterwanglerIn another bowl sift together:
3 cups all purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon saltthen dump the baking snow onto your butter cloud and recopterize with your dough typhoon but feel free to fold it together with your spatulator first to avoid a dust storm
At this point you should have dough but if you doughn’t then add another tablespoon of milk until you have dough (and if you have goo try adding some more wheat dust)
lay the dough down to sleep on plastic wrap (one folded sheet) then throw it in the
temperature reducer for an hour or twothen remove it from the heat remover and if it’s really cold let it warm up a bit, otherwise start
pressing and rolling it out until it’s 1/4 inch thick unless you’re not making cookiesthen just do your thing, you know, making shapes and whatnot and bake them for 12 minutes on 350
If you want to make icing take 1 cup of powdered sugar and add a couple teaspoons of corn syrup and a couple teaspoons of water … you can add more corn syrup and less water or just keep adding corn syrup, it’s really up to you. I did one where all I added was maple syrup and that was interesting although you can barely taste the maple over the powdered sugar, but what I learned from this is holy cow does corn syrup ever taste good. As an adult I’ve been in this mentality that corn syrup is the worst and why would you ever eat that and I tasted it for the first time in years and it was like eating caramel for the first time. I think I chugged that stuff when I was a kid and wanted candy because it’s liquid candy. Anyway, what I’m saying is I recommend corn syrup. Even though it comes from corn, which is not recommended.
December 22, 2025
The Great Eggnog Riot at West Point Military Academy
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 6 Dec 2024Boozy, creamy eggnog with foam and nutmeg on top
City/Region: United States of America
Time Period: 1887At West Point in 1826, with alcohol prohibited on campus, students smuggled in large quantities of booze to make eggnog for a secret party on Christmas Eve. Drunkenness led to a riot that involved firearms, swords, broken windows, and barricades.
If you’ve never made homemade eggnog, I highly recommend it. It’s creamy, boozy, and so much more delicious than what you buy at the store. Is it good enough to start a riot over? I’ll leave that judgement up to you.
I have an allergy to raw egg whites, so in the video I used 12 egg whites worth of reconstituted dry aquafaba instead, and it worked great.
Egg Nog
Beat the yolks of twelve eggs very light, stir in as much white sugar as they will dissolve, pour in gradually one glass of brandy to cook the egg, one glass of old whiskey, one grated nutmeg, and three pints of rich milk. Beat the whites to a froth and stir in last.
— The White House Cook Book, 1887
December 20, 2025
Christmas During the Great Depression
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 17 Dec 2024Gelatinous Christmas pudding with chocolate, nuts, dried fruit, and whipped cream
City/Region: United States of America
Time Period: 1931During the Great Depression, making Christmas festive was more important than ever. Homemade gifts, cards, and decorations defined the season when money was tight for everyone. Many people who lived through the Great Depression recalled that no matter what, Christmas dinner was special.
This recipe from 1931 comes from a radio program hosted by the fictional character Aunt Sammy, who was supposedly the wife of Uncle Sam. I’m not quite sure how this Christmas pudding was much less expensive than a traditional boiled pudding, but it’s an interesting change nonetheless. I like the flavors of the chocolate and fruit coming through, though I do wish the texture was a little smoother.
There are twelve ingredients. Quite a lot to write down but I’ll go slowly.
2 tablespoons of granulated gelatin
1 cup of cold water
1 pint of milk
1 cup of sugar
1 and 1/2 squares of chocolate
1 cup of seeded raisins
3/4 of a cup of dates
1/2 cup of nuts
1/2 cup of currants, and
3 egg whitesThat’s a long list. I’ll go over it again while you check. (Repeat)
To make this pudding, first soften the gelatin in the cold water for ten minutes. While the gelatin is soaking, melt the chocolate with part of the sugar. When it is melted, add a little of the milk, just enough to make a smooth paste. Put the rest of the milk in the upper part of the double boiler. When the milk is hot, add to it the melted chocolate. Then the sugar and salt. And, finally, the soaked gelatin. Stir the mixture. Then remove it from the fire. Set it away to grow cold. When it begins to thicken, add the vanilla, the fruit, and the chopped nut meats. Then fold in the beaten egg whites.
Now turn the mixture into a wet pudding mold decorated with whole nut meats and raisins. Set the mold in the refrigerator or other cold place, to chill. When the pudding is cold and firm, and it is time for serving at dinner, turn it out on a pudding plate or platter. Garnish it with sprigs of holly. A wreath of holly springs around the edge and one stuck in the top makes it look like a real Christmas pudding.
Serve the pudding with whipped cream, sweetened and flavored with vanilla, or with a currant jelly sauce.
— Aunt Sammy, December 1931
December 15, 2025
How to Eat Like an Ancient Stoic
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 8 Jul 2025Lentil soup with leeks, coriander seeds, and herbs
City/Region: Greece | Rome
Time Period: 3rd Century B.C.E. | 1st CenturyThe ancient stoics were all about being happy with what you’ve got. If one could learn to take pleasure in eating simple foods like lentil soup and barley bread (usually eaten by the poorest members of society), then they would have more happiness than if they constantly craved luxurious food. Granted, most of these philosophers were wealthy, so they didn’t actually have to live like the very poor.
The ancient Greek stoic philosopher Zeno of Citium was known for carrying around lentil soup in a clay pot, and that was probably just lentils boiled in water. This recipe, adapted from ancient Rome’s Apicius from a few centuries later, is a little fancier, but still rather simple and uses ingredients that would have been available to Zeno. Despite its simplicity, it’s surprisingly delicious with a hint of sweetness, oniony leek, and the cooling effect of the mint.
Boil the lentils; when skimmed, put in leeks and green cilantro. Pound coriander-seed, pennyroyal, silphium, mint, and rue, moisten with vinegar, add honey, blend with garum, vinegar, and defrutum. Pour over the lentils, add oil, serve.
— Apicius, de re coquinaria, 1st Century
