Hi everyone, welcome to Tasting History. I'm your host Max Miller, and frankly
it's a little weird out there right now. We are experiencing what it's called
social distancing, so kind of locked up in here for a while.
Stocked up on food, stocked up on toilet paper, stocked up on baking supplies so
that's good. With everything that's going on I was kind of put in mind of the
Black Death, a five-year period in the mid 14th century where 25 to 40% of the
population of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa was wiped out, yeah.
Social distancing actually worked at that time period, but most people didn't
do it because they didn't know how disease was spread. Germ theory was like
600 years away, but they did have cures available. Not cures that worked but
cures that they thought worked. So today we're gonna make one of those supposed
cures, apple muse. Doesn't actually cure anything, but it tastes mighty fine.
I'll also look at the system that guided people to think that apple muse, or
applesauce, and other foods could actually cure the plague.
So before I depress you with the death of a third of medieval Europe, make sure
to hit that Like button, subscribe, tap the notification bell and hunker down
for Tasting History.
"To our great grief the plague carried off such a vast multitude of people that
nobody could be found who would bear the corpses to the grave. Men and women
carried their own children on their shoulders to the church, and threw them
into a common pit. From these pits such an appalling stench was given off that
scarcely anyone dared even to walk beside the cemeteries." In this atmosphere
I suppose you'd be willing to try pretty much anything that might cure the plague
even if it was just an apple, and that's what some people thought would work. So
today we're gonna make apple amuse. Similar to an applesauce but a little
bit different. Now there are lots of medieval apple muse recipes, some that
include suet and beef broth, others cod liver but with toilet paper being
rationed as it is I've opted for a 15th century English recipe that includes
almond milk, and honey. For this Apple muse you will need two apples, one cup of
unsweetened almond milk. Now if you want to make your own almond milk I'll leave
a link in the description to where I walk you through the steps just leave
out the sugar because that's a sweetened version, and you don't want sweetened for
this. It's gonna be sweet enough. 2 to 4 tablespoons of honey depending on how
sweet you want it. One cup or two slices of grated breadm now that's basically
toasted bread that has been crumbled up as fine as you can. Don't use regular
commercial bread crumbs though, it makes it real goopy and frankly it's not
period. 1 teaspoon of sandalwood powder. I also have a link in the description to
where you can buy some of that because it's not so easy to find. A pinch of
saffron, and a pinch of salt. Now I've listed all of the ingredients along with
the recipes ( both medieval and modern) in the description down below, and the links
that I mentioned before. First fill a small saucepan about halfway full with
water and set it to boiling. While that heats, peel your apples,
core your apples, slice your apples and hit that Like button. Then put the apples
into the boiling water, and let them simmer for about 10 minutes or until
they soften. Once you can stab them with a knife with no resistance remove the
pot from the heat and drain the water. Now at this point you have to mash the
apples. They don't mash terribly easily so go ahead, and use a blender or if you
have a lot of time because of social distancing you can just use a mortar and
pestle like I did, but it takes a lot of time. Next put the mashed apples back
into the saucepan, and add in your almond milk, your honey, the grated bread or
bread crumbs, the sandalwood, the saffron, and the salt then put the heat to medium
and simmer for about 7 minutes while it thickens.
Now while the sweet sweet aroma of apple fills my house let's take a look at how
the apple could have ever been thought to cure the bubonic plague. Let me start
with a joke only 1300s kids will get this, the bubonic plague! No? Too soon?
Well if you don't like that kind of humor how about these humors, blood,
phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Yes, these four bodily fluids, the humors, were
thought to control everything about your body in the Middle Ages. It was a theory
based on the writings of Hippocrates and Gale, and corresponded with the four
elements: earth, wind, and fire, and water if he had ever learned to sing. It was
the dominant theory in the Middle Ages, and wasn't even challenged until 1543
and wasn't definitively defeated until 1858. 1858! So what exactly did these
humors have to do with the plague? Well if you were sick with the plague, or
anything at all it was thought to be due to an imbalance in your humors, and
frankly everything could throw these things out of whack, the weather, the
seasons, the alignment of the planets, and the stars. So with all of these forces
tugging at your humors, how did medieval doctors know which one was out of
balance? Well one way would be your mood. If you had too much blood
you'd be sanguine so it would be time for a bloodletting, a few leeches will
temper that and cure optimism you little scamp. Too much
phlegm, and you're going to be phlegmatic, unemotionally calm. An excess of black
bile would make you melancholic, and too much yellow bile would make you
choleric. So if you were feeling just a little bit irritable, it wasn't because
you were going to die in a few days and were in extreme pain the entire
time. No, it was because you had a too much
yellow bile. So what does all this have to do with apples? Well one way to get
your humors back in line was through food, and food fell into four categories:
hot, cold, wet and dry, but from there it got really really complicated because
all of the foods were on a degree system, going from first to fourth. First being
the weakest, fourth being the strongest. case in point: cinnamon was hot in the
second degree, and dry in the first degree. Now if you had a headache or
maybe just a bad day, great take some cinnamon, but this is the
plague people. We need some fourth degree foods: mustard! Mustard was hot in the
fourth degree, and dry in the fourth degree.
Who needs antibiotics when you've got mustard, but with the Black Plague you
usually had temperature, and a lack of thirst sounds like it's time for some
cold wet food, and I'm not talking Friskies, I'm talking apples. Now to be
fair apples are wet in the third degree, and cold in the second, not the strongest,
but if you want wet in the fourth degree you have to take mercury, and I'm not
gonna do that. For cold in the fourth degree you need opium, and while that
sure would be nice if you had the plague, but governments always looking over my
shoulder so I'm sticking to apples. Now once your apple muse has simmered and
thickened, remove it from the heat and dish it up. So let's give it a taste,
mmm. That's really nice, very honey-y, not so much appley-y. Now not all cures for the
plague were this delicious. In fact some of them were downright disgusting or
just weird so next time we'll delve into some of the more interesting treatments
for the Black Death, but don't worry we will make something delicious, candied
horseradish which was a hot and dry food and while that may sound a little weird
I promise you it's nothing in comparison with the alternatives. We'll discuss so
make sure to hit that Like button. subscribe, tap the notification bell, and
join me next time on Tasting HIstory.