With Halloween just around the corner it's a good time to make sure that you
are prepared to fend off anything that might go bump in the night,
and for vampires that means loads of garlic.
So I'll be making a 16th century Transylvanian recipe for
beef with garlic harvester sauce.
So thank you to Wondrium for sponsoring this video as we learn why Dracula hates garlic,
this time on Tasting History.
So today's recipe comes from 1580 and was written by the master chef
at the court of the prince of Transylvania and the way that he writes it is very conversational like he's just talking to someone
and he's always going back and referencing other recipes and it can get kind of confusing
if you just read one recipe in and of itself. So this is a bit of a mashup of a few of the recipes:
"Beef with garlic harvester sauce. Prepare the meat like I told you. Put parsley roots, leaves and onions into it.
What we call harvest sauce, as I said, is that you beat six or seven eggs in vinegar and start whipping it;
peel the garlic clove by clove, break it well add it to the eggs and vinegar.
Then pour the meat's juices into it. Break it well with the blanching stick after adding the liquid,
be careful to keep it from shrinking."
So the real question is what does he mean by prepare the meat
like I told you because earlier in the book he says that he's going to tell you how to cook beef
and then just says "After you wake up, pray to God, wash yourself, then wash your pot.
If you want to cook beef, wash your pot thrice, salt it twice or thrice, not more."
Really? That's all you're going to give us? Okay.
Well we know he uses a pot and salt,
and based on some other things that he mentions I think this is going to be like a pot roast.
He also gives a bit of advice that I think applies to me.
"If you're an old man and can't stand, sit down on a chair in the kitchen."
Gladly. Also if you want to check out this cookbook yourself
Glenn Gorsuch who was instrumental in having it translated has been generous enough to put the entire thing online
for free, so I will put a link to that in the description.
So for this recipe what you'll need is: a three and a half to four pound, or about one and three quarter kilogram boneless chuck roast,
two teaspoons of coarse salt divided, two teaspoons of black pepper.
Two, two teaspoons! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Sorry I couldn't help myself.
Two tablespoons are thirty milliliters of olive oil,
three cups or 700 milliliters of water.
So it seems that the recipe calls for water but if you wanted to use beef broth or add in a little bit of wine,
you wouldn't be wrong to do so.
Two cups or 300 grams of parsley root or parsnips, diced.
Parsley root and parsnips look exactly alike and they taste similar.
Not exactly, but it is really hard to find parsley root because that's- it's a different
type of parsley than we typically grow here at least in the US,
so go with parsnips if you can't find parsley root.
A half cup or 15 grams of torn parsley leaves, and one large onion chopped.
Then for the sauce you'll need six medium eggs, a half cup or 120 milliliters of white wine vinegar,
a half teaspoon of black pepper,
and one small head of garlic or about two tablespoons peeled and crushed.
Now it's that last ingredient the garlic that inspired me to talk about vampires today because
it used to be a thing to do was to stuff the mouths and other orifices of the dead
to stop them from becoming the undead, and before they used garlic it seems that rocks did the trick.
Something I learned from today's sponsor, Wondrium.
Wondrium is the bigger and broader version of The Great Courses Plus which I have talked about before on this channel.
Wondrium has greatly expanded their library offering more wonderful educational experiences than ever before,
which is great for when i'm researching new episodes.
I'm always learning something new from watching things on Wondrium.
This week I came across their video on vampire skeletons
from Ireland to Romania there have been skeletons found with evidence of rocks or nails
being used to stuff the mouths or weigh down the bodies of the dead so that they can't rise up.
And William of Malmesbury tells of the witch of Berkeley who was so worried about being
brought back to life as one of the undead that when she did die she made sure that she would
have her body wrapped in a stag skin and then put into a stone coffin and wrapped three times with chains.
But William says it didn't work because the devil just came right into the church,
tore the chains asunder and took her away.
"Her pitiable cries were heard for nearly the space of four miles."
If only they'd used garlic.
So if you want to keep learning awesome stuff like this
make sure to visit Wondrium.com/tastinghistory or visit the link in the description to start your free trial today.
Now I better work on this sauce before the undead start creeping around my condo.
So first wash and dry your roast, then rub it down with one of the teaspoons of salt and the pepper.
Now often when you buy a roast it's already trust but if it's not then you'll want to tie some twine
around it a couple times just to help it hold its shape.
Then heat two tablespoons of olive oil in the dutch oven or a large pot on the stove over medium-high heat.
Once the oil is shimmering set the roast in the pot and brown on all sides 8-10 minutes.
Then remove the roast and set it on a plate.
Now add the parsley root or parsnips, the parsley leaves, the onion and the remaining salt into the pot,
and cook until the onions are nice and tender about 8 to 10 minutes.
Also if it looks too dry then go ahead and add a bit more olive oil.
Then pour in the water to deglaze the pot making sure to scrape down any brown bits on the bottom and sides of the pot.
Then add the roast back into the pot along with any juice that has come off of it and make sure that the liquid comes
at least halfway up the side of the roast. Add a bit more if needed.
Then let it come to a simmer. Once it does cover the pot and set it in the oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit or 150 Celsius
for about three and a half hours.
Now while that cooks and before we make the Transylvanian garlic harvester sauce one has to wonder why do vampires hate garlic so much.
Hmm.
"Garlics, though used by the French, are better adapted to the uses of medicine than cookery."
Now while Ms. Amelia Simmons author of one of America's first cookbooks should have known better
than to disparage the culinary uses of garlic, she was right to tout its medicinal uses
because garlic has been used for medicine for millennia.
The ancient Egyptian Eber's papyrus promotes garlic's use in treating and preventing
the stings and bites of snakes, scorpions, wasps and blood suckers of all ilks.
So it's not a huge leap to think if garlic works on the little bloodsuckers
it'll work on the big blood suckers too.
In the writings of numerous medical texts of ancient Greece and Rome garlic seems to treat nearly every malady imaginable
including infections and diseases of the blood.
What's more throughout history and in cultures all over the world
garlic has been used to ward off all manner of evil which is somewhat ironic seeing as one of the
origin stories of garlic's rather sulfurous odor claims that the plant sprung up from the first
left footprint that Satan left as he moseyed out of the Garden of Eden.
The right footprint gave us onions.
Now when exactly all of these theories about garlic's powers became associated with vampires,
we don't exactly know but it probably happened in Southeastern Europe
and the origin of the specific vampiric characteristics of the blood-sucking undead is also unknown but likely
stem from the symptoms of several diseases that ravage the area for centuries.
There's porphyria which causes the sufferer to have pale skin, light sensitivity
and complaints that the sun causes severe pain. And I'm starting to think that maybe I have porphyria.
Though my dentist hasn't said anything and those suffering from the disease often exhibit a receding of the gums and the lips,
leading to a fang-like appearance.
And many patients complained of a sensitivity to sulfurous foods like garlic which I think I'm safe because I freaking love this stuff.
Another disease that ravaged the area and often triggered vampire panic was the plague
and along with herbs garlic was thought to ward off the disease. So a connection seems inevitable.
But for my money the disease that seems most vampire-like has to be rabies.
Both vampires and werewolves likely have origins in this scourge which is spread by biting.
The sufferer often froths a bloody foam from the mouth and behaves in an erratic and violent manner.
And they develop a heightened sense of smell making things like garlic all the more repulsive.
And the two animals most associated with the disease were dogs hence werewolves and bats, vampires.
It was a bat that gave Meredith rabies in The Office.
She did not turn into a vampire though, but if you are worried that you might turn into a vampire
after being bitten by a bat you can just eat a lot of garlic, and if you don't want to eat it
then it seems you could just kind of hang it about the place.
For example even today in Romania Saint Andrew is revered as the country's patron saint,
as well as the patron saint of wolves and the man responsible for bringing garlic to the country.
And so on November 30th the Feast Day of Saint Andrew and Romania's version of Halloween,
the way to ward off the spirits demons and vampires endemic to the holiday
was to hang garlic from your windows and doors. Hang it in your barn and even spread it on your livestock.
They also have a tradition known as the guarding of the garlic where the young people of the town
would bring garlic to the center of town, put it in a pot and then dance around it
and then have the matriarch of the village watch over it all night.
And while the holiday seems to be when the vampires are most active, the practice of hanging garlic should work all year round.
That's actually what Dr. Van Helsing did to protect Lucy in Bram Stoker's Dracula,
though in the book instead of cloves of garlic it was actually garlic flowers that he hung about the room,
and made into a necklace to put around Lucy's neck.
"....To ensure that every whiff of air thatmight get in would be laden with the garlic smell."
Unfortunately for Lucy nobody seemed to tell her mom of the plan and so her mother comes in and is like
'ah this place stinks. Smells like garlic here.'
Takes all the garlic, throws it out opens the window to let some fresh air in, which
*SPOILER ALERT*
also lets Dracula in who kills Lucy.
So Van Helsing fills her coffin with garlic but no dice.
She still rises up becoming one of the undead and so they have to stake her through the heart,
cut off her head and for good measure stuff some more garlic into her mouth.
Now much of the vampire lore that we have around today actually comes from the book 'Dracula',
but much of what Bram Stoker got came from actual
practices in Romania that were documented in the 19th century by Emily Gerrard in
'The Land Beyond the Forest: Facts Figures and Fancies from Transylvania'
"In very obstinate cases of vampirism it is recommended to cut off the head,
and replace it in the coffin with the mouth filled with garlic."
Though it wasn't just vampires that were deterred by garlic but
"In bringing in the corn a few heads of garlic bound up in the first sheaf will keep off witches...
Garlic put in the money bag will prevent the witches from getting at it."
Pickpocketing witches, the scourge of our times. <|:)
Now she details more about the Nosferatu or the vampires of Transylvania
including letting us know that there are actually two types of vampire.
There's the undead vampire which we know and love, and they're made by being bitten by another vampire,
but then there's also the living vampire whose creation is
maybe a little less threatening to our modern sensibilities.
"The living vampire is generally the illegitimate offspring of two illegitimate persons."
Well land's sake somebody must alert the church elders.
The book is also instrumental in helping you detect if there is a vampire amongst you because
they are masters of disguise,
and the first thing to do is check to see if it's been raining lately
and if not then "Killing a frog is sometimes effectual in bringing on rain; but if this also fails in the desired effect,
then the evil must evidently be of deeper nature and is to be attributed to a vampire,
who must be sought out and destroyed."
I'm thinking Los Angeles is filled with vampires because it never rains here.
We do have a lot of talent agents and they're bloodsuckers.
Now I know what you're saying, this is all old superstition confined to books and movies and tv shows,
but allow me to offer a bit more contemporary evidence for the use of garlic against vampires.
In the 1970s Harry Senn, a folklorist, was told that even at that time in Romania
handing out garlic at a church service and seeing who did and did not eat it
was a good way to detect if there was a vampire in the congregation.
And in 2012, less than a decade ago, garlic sales skyrocketed
in a small Serbian town after the town council warned everyone that they should hang garlic from their doors and windows.
"We have also reminded them to put a Holy cross in every room in the house."
The precaution was due to the collapse of an old shack that had been the home of the 19th century vampire Sava Savanovic.
The destruction of the house was thought to leave Sava Savanovic homeless and so
he would be wandering about looking for alternative accommodations.
Now did the people actually believe that this was a real threat,
or was it all a bit of fun a little tongue-in-cheek,
I don't know. What I do know is that with all of the garlic in the sauce that I am about to make
I should be safe just in case Sava Savanovic comes prowling around Burbank.
So you'll know your meat is cooked when you can insert a fork or a knife into the meat and twist with very little resistance.
Then take the pot out of the oven carefully removing the roast and letting it rest on a platter.
Now to make the sauce go ahead and whisk the eggs and then whisk in the vinegar until smooth.
Then add in the garlic and the pepper and whisk to combine.
Then take a cup or so of the broth that the roast was cooked in, and very slowly add it into the eggs
whisking vigorously the entire time so that you temper the eggs and they don't curdle,
or what the author calls shrinking.
Now it's kind of unclear here what to do next with the sauce.
If it's ready now or if you have to heat it because he warns to not let it boil and
if it's not being heated then I don't see why that would need a warning.
So for my money put the sauce in the saucepan and set it over low heat to slowly warm while you whisk.
This will thicken the sauce over the next couple minutes, just make sure not to let it boil or it will curdle.
And here we are, 16th century Transylvanian beef with garlic harvester sauce.
It smells so good, you can smell the garlic most definitely and then there's a bit of a tang to the to the vinegar,
but the other aromas from the meat and everything- it's just smells really, really good.
Let's give it a shot.
The meat is so tender it just falls apart.
It's so good, it's so flavorful even with just the water. I didn't use broth or or wine. You can but
it doesn't need it. It has plenty of flavor and
the garlic sauce it is strong. You don't need very much, just a little bit on top
and it just lifts it up. It is garlicky,
if you don't like garlic you're not gonna like the sauce but it is
absolutely delicious and it's a really smooth sauce which for this time period is odd because
they're just coming off of thickening sauces with like bread crumbs and so they tend to be kind of lumpy,
but this isn't it's. It's so smooth. It's almost like a modern day sauce.
[Lets] try a parsnip.
Honestly- hm. I was going to say you could also use just like a turnip.
It's a little bit different but you could also just use a turnip.
So of all of the savory dishes, the entrees that I've made here on the channel I think this might be my favorite ever. It's-
absolutely wonderful so I encourage you to make it.
I also encourage you to Like this video and to click the link in the description for your free trial of Wondrium.
Also for more Halloween content, last year I did an excellent episode, if I do say so myself, on Soul Cakes,
and the history of trick-or-treating so I'll put a link up here and it should be the next video that pops up if you just keep watching,
so I'll see you over there on Tasting History.