History, or myth? Sometimes,
the two can get kind of intertwined and it's
hard to tell the difference. And today's bake is inspired by
one of those stories from history that
scholars just can't really agree on.
Did this really happen or is it completely apocryphal?
Well luckily, I am not a professional historian,
so I don't need to worry if it's real
or not
It's a good story! Plus, with Netflix releasing
the fourth season of The Last Kingdom it seemed like a good time to cover
king Alfred and his cakes
Alfred, the great king of Wessex, at his lowest point
Brought even lower by burning some cakes
So that's what we're making today. Anglo-Saxon
oat cakes. This time on Tasting History.
This is my favorite period in English history
maybe my favorite period in all of history. It's the Anglo-Saxon era
and it goes from 449 AD to an abrupt
halt in 1066 AD, though we could actually get into
why maybe it's not so abrupt
but ehhh it's too much for today. Anyway, it's fascinating
tons of warring kingdoms all
smashed onto one part of the island, with Scots
coming at you from above, and the Welsh coming at you from the side,
and then vikings coming at you from every-which-way
and you couldn't go two steps without tripping over the
relics of some saint! They were absolutely everywhere!
In fact, if you weren't made a saint, clearly you have
done something wrong. Now we have a lot of information about this time
period, but there are also some huge gaps
Most of what we know comes from either the writings of
The Venerable Bede or from the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, neither of which gave much to recipes
or food in general
So the recipe for today's oat cakes is actually
an amalgam of several different traditions
around Britain. The Anglo-Saxons didn't write anything down
But, people have been making oat cakes, or
honey cakes, or ash cakes, kind of all the same thing,
for hundreds of years. They still do it in many parts
of Britain. So you've got your very dense,
uniform, hockey-puck-type
oat cakes from Scotland. In parts of Wales
and the midlands you've got something that's more akin to a crepe
It's actually hung up after it's done baking.
And then you've got what we're making today, which is more popular in the
south of England and is a little more...
husky, shall we say
It's perfect for crumbling up into a dish of cream and
having for breakfast. So all I'm saying is
if you watch this and you're like "That's not how you make an oat cake!"
Well, yeah it is and yeah it isn't, but just
have fun and relax! So, here we go
What you'll need is 250g of oats,
1/2 c. or 46g of oat flour
You can also use regular flour if that's what you have. 1.5 Sticks or 170g Butter, melted.
1.5 Sticks or 170g Butter, melted.
50g of dried fruit, chopped.
Now probably best would be dried apples,
dried cherries, maybe plums, but they didn't have any of that
in the stores so I used
dried apricots, which would be
available in England in Kent mostly.
They were brought over by the Romans
but they were very hard to grow, so they were rare.
6 tablespoons (126 grams of honey),
1/2 teaspoon of salt, and than an optional teaspoon
of cinnamon. The woman in the story that we're talking about today
wouldn't have actually had cinnamon, probably, but
its good, so there it is. So add
the oats, the dried fruit, the cinnamon if you're using it
and the salt to a medium bowl, and mix together.
Than add in the honey and mix that in.
Than mix in the butter. Once everything is fully incorporated
add in the oat flour. Now you can actually
add in the oat flour earlier if you want but if you're using
regular flour you'll need to wait until the last
step otherwise they get really chewy as you work the dough.
Than with your hand form small patties.
Like a little hamburger about 3 inches wide.
And set them either on a plate or a lined
baking sheet. Now it's going to depend
on how you cook these. You can either bake them in the oven
and that's why you have the lined baking sheet, or
you can do as the Anglo Saxons would've done
and either cook them on a skillet or straight on
to the hot ashes. Now lets take a look at why
that might not be as easy as it sounds. Frankly
it doesn't even sound easy.
In 878, 13 years after the great heathen
army had come to what is now England,
3 of the 4 kingdoms had fallen under Danish control.
The great heathen army was a viking army, it was really
the first big army to come and say "hey we're not just
here to raid, we're here to stay". And
they were mostly Danes, but they were also some other
Scandinavians tossed in. Only the kingdom of
Wessex remained standing and its king Alfred was holed up
in his fortress in Chippenham for the winter. It was
the night of January 6th, or epiphany.
And the Anglo Saxons were probably partying.
The Danes led by Guthrum, who was not a Christian
and didn't really care if it was epiphany decided that it was
a good time to finish those Saxons off. He attacked
Alfred when he was least expecting it and Alfred
and a few of his followers were forced to
flee into the Somerset marshes. So
something you need to know about King Alfred, not always a
a fighter. Sometimes, but not always. What he was,
was a thinker. Notoriously so.
So the story goes that Alfred while he was
you know in the marshes with his men decided to go out
thinking one day and he happened upon a swineherd's
house, and only the wife was at home.
He knocked on the door, and he was a little chilly
and the swineherds wife was like "oh, of course, come on in. Make yourself at home.
Oh, but if you could i'm just doing something
in the other room, could you watch these cakes? And just
flip them when they're ready. " He says oh ok, sure.
Well, Alfred thinker that he was got
to thinking. And lost track of the cakes.
And they started to burn. And the woman
comes in from the other room, probably smelling the burning cakes and says
"you dolt, you idiot. What are you doing? You're letting my cakes
burn. You know, I'm sure that you'll pay close attention when it's time to eat."
And Alfred, you know, berated
but humbled, said I'm very sorry.
And that's the end of the story.
Kind of a weird story right? So as I said
history, or myth?
We dunno. The story wasn't even written down until 100 years
after Alfred had died. But whether it actually happened or not
it doesn't really matter because what we get is some
insight into the Anglo Saxon mind. Which
isn't that really what history is for? Before
Alfred, kings in England (or what would become England), were
supposed to be strong, warrior type men.
Manly men who would've
told the swineherd "shut you're trap, or else i'll slap you upside the head.":