So the dish gruel kind of gets a bad rap, partly I think because of its name.
GRUEL. But I figure it can't be all that bad after all Oliver Twist asked
"Please sir, I want some more."
So I figured iId give it a go and make my own 19th century bowl of gruel.
So thank you to Trade for sponsoring this video as we make gruel
this time on Tasting History.
So recently I did a video about the third class food served aboard the Titanic,
and I mentioned how one of the dishes that they had for supper was gruel and frankly people were
aghast because gruel has a terrible reputation and some of that bad reputation may be a little
bit deserved but not all of it. See gruel could run the gamut from quite flavorful versions
made with spices and herbs and meat down to the watery gruel of the Victorian workhouse.
And even 'Krusty Brand Imitation Gruel, nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.'
So I've decided to make a recipe that's sort of in the middle and not just because it has brandy.
The recipe is from John Mullard's 1804 cookbook 'The Art of Cookery Made Easy and Refined'
and I can't help but think that his title was kind of cashing in on the best-selling cookbook of the time
'The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy' by Hannah Glass.
I guess it's like how after Twilight came out every movie for like five years was about vampires
so it's like that but with 18th century cookbooks.
"Oatmeal Pottage, or gruel. Mix together three tablespoonfuls of oatmeal, a very little salt,
and a quart of water; put it over a fire and let it boil gently for half an hour.
Then skim and strain it, add to it an ounce of fresh butter, some loaf sugar, a little brandy and grated nutmeg.
Then boil it again five minutes, mix it till very smooth, and let it be of a moderate consistence."
So as you can see while it's gruel it's not that far off from what you might have for breakfast today,
minus the brandy, and usually I forego the brandy for my breakfast,
and instead have a nice cup of coffee from today's sponsor Trade.
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and with your coffee in hand let's get making some gruel.
So for this recipe what you'll need is: 3 tablespoons of Scottish or steel cut oatmeal, a pinch of salt,
1 quart or 1 liter of water, 2 tablespoons or 28 grams of unsalted butter, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 2 tablespoons of brandy,
and both of those ingredients are really to taste as is the 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg.
So first add the oatmeal and the salt to the water, then set it over medium heat and bring to a gentle boil.
Let it boil for 30 minutes and then per the recipe skim off the scum that is sure to form on top of the gruel.
Gruel scum, that can't do much for the dish's reputation.
Also gruel scum sounds like it could actually be a character from a Dickens novel.
Obadiah Gruelscum.
Anyway, skim off anything that isn't oats.
Then mix in the butter and add the sugar, brandy, and nutmeg. Stir until the butter is melted in,
and then set it back over the flame for another five minutes or until it's as thick as you like it.
And while it thickens make sure you're Subscribed to Tasting History, and make sure to ring that notification bell
for when it is wrong that calls the orphans to their breakfast of gruel.
So gruel can really apply to a whole array of dishes. The word likely comes from the Frankish word 'grut'
meaning coarse meal and that is essentially all it is.
Grain that hasn't been fully ground into flour mixed with some sort of liquid.
The most common grains are barley or oats but some are made with hemp, millet, corn, rice, or even acorns.
The Saxon bruet, an almond version of which I made when I first started the channel
is essentially a gruel, as are the congee dishes in and around China,
and the pulse that was common in ancient Rome. Honestly gruel is probably one of the
oldest dishes that humans ever made but it didn't get its name gruel until around the Middle Ages.
There are several types of gruel that crop up in a number of medieval manuscripts.
The two most common being 'drawyn grwel' which is made with some grain, parsley, sage, and beef,
and then gruelle a-forsydde, or reinforced gruel.
This was basically oatmeal with eggs, pork meat, pork rinds, and then covered with saffron.
Now both of those are definitely on the fancier end of the gruel gamut
because most people would have had a simpler gruel or porridge of just the grain and either water,
or maybe some ale or almond milk on a good day.
And that form of the dish was made partly as a way to save money.
See in much of Medieval Europe you were not allowed to grind your own grain.
You had to take it to the miller, my ancestors, and pay them to grind it a portion of which would also go to the Lord of the Manor.
Though with gruel you could just give your grain a little mash with your mortar and pestle, and nobody would be the wiser.
You could also turn it into a form of bread without the need of an oven,
because ovens were also usually communal and charged a fee.
So you could cook the gruel in a pot on your hearth and then cover it, and let it dry out
to become a sort of energy bar. Later in history in many Scottish households they actually had a dedicated porridge drawer.
Kinds want a snack with their Sunny Delight?
Any good mom will send them to the porridge drawer.
Though if you let it sit in just the right circumstances it can actually start to ferment and will become an early form of beer.
Now these types of gruel stuck around for several centuries though the meat eventually
was replaced with more sweet ingredients. One recipe from 1669 calls for oats to be boiled until
"it rise in a great ebullition, in great galloping waves."
And ebullition is my word of the day and it refers to the action of boiling.
The gruel was then mixed with cream, nutmeg, sugar, butter, rose water, and egg, and a bit of white wine.
He also suggests rosemary or currants being added but
these fancy gruels were not to last. By the mid 18th century cookbooks that had recipes for plum gruel for the healthy among us.
Also had recipes for what was usually called water gruel for the more sickly set.
In Jane Austen's novel 'Emma' the valetudinarian or what we would call today a hypochondriac,
Mr. Woodhouse espouses the health giving properties of gruel."
My poor dear Isabella- how tired you must be after your journey!
You must go to bed early, my dear- and I recommend a little gruel to you before you go-
My dear Emma, suppose we all have a little gruel- a basin of nice smooth gruel, thin but not too thin."
Though Mr. Woodhouse's infirmity seems to be rather psychosomatic unlike that of poor Giles Collins
from the now forgotten nursery rhyme of the same name.
"His mother she made some water-gruel, and stirred it round with a spoon;
Giles Collins he ate up his water-gruel, and died before it was
and died before 'twas noon, noon. And died before 'twas noon."
Old nursery rhymes are really, really dark. Also the boy's death
so soon after eating gruel couldn't have done much for its reputation.
So gruel's association with the invalid, a term we don't really use today, was definitely not good PR for the dish
but in the 19th century its reputation would be tarnished pretty much irreparably.
Now it had long been associated with the poor but the link would be set in stone with that most
infamous of Victorian institutions, the workhouse.
And the workhouses England were an interesting place.
Originally they were designed as a place of refuge for those most destitute of paupers,
but the conditions inside were often little better than those on the streets.
That said you were not forced to go into the workhouse, rather you had to apply. You would go before the board of guardians to plead your case,
and then if you were accepted you would be put to work as the name suggests but you would also get a place to sleep and food.
Though Dickens writes that it often was not enough food to really live on.
Writing in Oliver Twist about a meeting of the board of the workhouse he says
"...they established the rule, that all poor people should have the alternative
of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or buy a quick one out of it.
With this view, they contracted with the waterworks to lay on an unlimited supply of water,
and with a corn factory to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal; and issues three meals of thin gruel a day,
with an onion twice a week, and half a roll on Sundays."
And while he definitely took some literary license it wasn't all that much
because in the British Farmers Magazine from 1849 they lay out the workhouse inmates diet, and they did call them inmates,
and they lay it beside that of prison inmates.
"Workhouse Fare: Breakfast, eight ounces bread and a pint and a half of broth gruel or milk.
Prison Diet: Breakfast, one pint of cocoa sweetened with three quarter ounces of molasses or sugar, and six ounces of bread."
The prisoners get cocoa and sugar and for dinner they tended to get a lot more meat and potatoes than did their workhouse counterparts.
The author of the article was actually writing to protest the diet of the prisoners being made better.
as this "would operate as a direct premium to crime."
And he says that something that has happened in the past and will surely happen again is
is "insubordination in the workhouse for the purpose of being committed to prison,
as the preferable place of confinement."
So don't make the workhouse food better, just keep the prison food worse.
That was his solution. Though it seems that many workhouses especially those outside of London had much better fare,
and actually the the people in the workhouses ate pretty well,
and it was just those with poor rations that gave the whole lot a bad name, and a bad name they had as did gruel.
See in 1852 the term actually became synonymous with really hard work, grueling work.
Though in the century previous the term to get one's gruel meant to receive a punishment so
maybe the association with hard work is actually an improvement.
Now in the US workhouses, while they did exist, did not have the same connection to gruel as they did in England,
and so the dish remained mostly known for its remedial properties. in 1860 the opelusa's
In 1860 'The Opelousas Courier' in Louisiana published an advertisement for
"Sanitary Gruel... This truly hygienic composition is a 'natural' preparation of a pleasant taste-
so much so that it is used as a 'relish' by those in good health and an infallible remedy in case of sickness."
Really not sure why they had to use quotation marks around the word natural.
That's not very reassuring, but they did claim that it would help with all manner of stomach issues
and even "The most obstinate constipation yields to the daily use of the Invigorating Gruel."
So keep that in mind as we take our gruel off the stove.
And here we are 19th century gruel.
Now it was really, really watery but in that last five minutes it started to kind of thicken up so now it's like
just like a very thin oatmeal or porridge. I mean and really that's that's what it is.
It's the other ingredients that that make it rather different from what we typically eat today.
Here we go.
Hm!
Hmm!
Well that's- well that's mighty fine.
So the first thing that hits you is the nutmeg.
Boom. But then you get the brandy but you only get the flavor of the brandy
without any of the burn like it doesn't it doesn't seem like it's alcoholic
but you get the wonderful flavor of that brandy that kind dark flavor.
Also the consistency is really nice.
It's very, very smooth because we use that Scottish oatmeal
rather than rolled oats. They wouldn't have used rolled oats, use Scottish oatmeal or steel-cut oatmeal.
So yeah I could see why Oliver Twist would maybe want some more of this,
though I'm guessing he didn't have almost any of the ingredients and his was a lot more watered down
but still after a long day at the workhouse I would want more gruel too.
So go make yourself a bowl of gruel, follow me on Instagram @tastinghistorywithmaxmiller and I will see you next time
on Tasting History. I'm actually going to finish this gruel. I never thought I would say that.
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