Category: Historic Recipes

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Food History Historic Recipes

How to Make Pemmican – A Native American Survival Food

graphic showing a bison head, sliced bison meat, powdered dried meat and pemmican bars

Have you had bison meat before? I recently tried it for the first time when I learned how to make bison pemmican.

What Is Pemmican?

Pemmican is a Native American survival food that is high-energy, high-calorie, but low-volume. Native Americans used a variety of meat to make pemmican including bison, deer, moose, elk, and salmon. For the Plains Indians who lived on the vast grasslands between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains in today’s United States and Canada, bison was a primary source of meat.

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Food History Historic Recipes Videos

Pemmican – Survival Food That Sparked War | Video

Our latest YouTube video about Pemmican and a brief history of the war it sparked.

We recently visited a bison farm and purchased meat to make pemmican. Pemmican is Native American survival food that sparked a war among fur trade companies. It is a high-calorie but low-volume which makes it the perfect food for hunting and traveling. Native Americans used to make pemmican with a variety of game meat including bison, deer, moose, elk, or salmon. The meat is first dried and ground into powder and mixed with rendered animal fat and bone marrow. For my recipe, I use lean bison meat and beef tallow. This is my first time exploring Native American cuisine. Please join me in this Wild West culinary adventure!

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Food History Historic Recipes

How to Cook a Whole Chicken in Clay and a Brief History of Pao(炮)

Páo (炮) in Chinese means to wrap the meat in plant leaves (like lotus leaves, banana leaves, and reed) then paste clay all around it and bake it over a fire. When it is done, remove the clay crust and cut up the meat before serve. 炮 is an interesting character. The left part indicates fire. And the right part means bag, also means to cover or enclose something in material. Together they vividly depict the essence of the cooking technique.

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Festivals & Holidays Food History Historic Recipes

How to Make Zongzi with Sweet Red Bean Filling (红豆沙粽子) | Trying Mom’s Family Recipe

Zongzi are rice dumplings wrapped in reed, bamboo, or banana leaves. Eating Zongzi is a popular tradition for the Duanwu festival in China. This year I couldn’t go back to China due to the Pandemic, so I asked my mother to teach me how to make her sweet Zongzi recipe over the phone. In today’s video, I will share this delicious recipe and a bite of history with you.

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Festivals & Holidays Food History Historic Recipes

Zongzi with Sweet Red Bean Filling (红豆沙粽子) Recipe

Fresh zongzi with sweet red bean filling

Duanwu Festival (端午节) is just around the corner. It is a traditional festival in China, also called the Dragon Boat Festival or the Zongzi Festival. It falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month on the Chinese calendar. This year, it is on June 26th.

Making and eating Zongzi is one of the traditions my family observes for the Duanwu Festival. What are Zongzi? Zongzi are glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves. They are cooked by boiling or steaming and served either hot or cold. Zongzi were initially used to worship ancestors and gods and later became a festival food. Depending on regions, Zongzi can be sweet or savory, steamed or boiled, in a pyramid or a cone shape. Each family has its recipes passed down verbally or in writing.

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Food History Historic Recipes Videos

The History of Ice Cream – Episode 2 | Video

How to Make Frederick Nutt’s 1789 Parmesan Cheese Ice Cream Recipe

In this episode we make and taste test a 230 year old Parmesan Ice Cream Recipe from Frederick Nutt’s book The Complete Confectioner published in 1789. The recipe only requires four ingredients: eggs, simply syrup, heavy cream, and freshly grated parmesan cheese. It tastes very smooth, sweet and slightly savory.

Substitute cane sugar syrup with maple syrup or non-sugar syrup if you are on a paleo or keto diet.

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Food History Historic Recipes

200-Year-Old Parmesan Cheese Ice Cream Recipe

I stumbled upon this fantastic Parmesan Cheese Ice Cream recipe, while I was researching the history of ice cream. This recipe comes from the The Complete Confectioner cookbook written by Frederick Nutt. It was first published in 1789. Nutt was a professional confectioner in London. He was an apprentice to a well-known Italian confectioner Domenico Negri, owner of “Pot& Pineapple” at London’s Berkley-Square, one of the first shops to popularize ice cream in England. 

An illustrated advertisement for D. Negri's confectionery shop at the Pineapple in Berkeley Square of London.
An illustrated advertisement for D. Negri’s confectionery shop at the Pineapple in Berkeley Square of London.
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