Have you ever visited Medieval Times the restaurant? Now I love that place, it has
everything I want. It has jousting, hawking, little paper crowns, everything.
But then my dinner comes, I see there's tomato soup and corn. Both New World
ingredients that just would not have been period, but you know what I'm like
okay no one else is saying anything so I'm not gonna be THAT guy, but then I get
my plate, and it's made of pewter. It's not a period trencher, a piece of bread all
food goes on to soak up the juices. It's a pewter plate, and I just lose it. I stand
up, I flip the table, virgin pina coladas and Diet Coke everywhere, and I'm
asked to never return to the castle in Buena Park California. But I calm down, I
come home, pour myself a glass of wine, and make my own medieval trencher bread. This
time in Tasting History.
Now there were all sorts of bread made during the Middle Ages.
You had your pain de mans which was your fine white bread the most expensive, and
then you had your horse bread which was essentially made for horses. It was made
of ground-up peas and old beans and whatever you can sweep up off the floor.
Then there was a bread called torte and it was just above the horse bread. It was
made of unbolted flour, basically the whole grain of barley, or oat, or spelt,
or any of those really expensive flours that you'd get at Whole Foods today, it
was the junk back then. And that was the bread that was usually used to make
trenchers. Now unfortunately because baking bread was just so ubiquitous back
in the day they didn't bother to write down any recipes, so we have to rely on
later recipes from the Renaissance and the work of excellent culinary
historians to have a guess at what medieval bread was like. So with that
caveat out there let's go ahead and make a loaf of torte for this recipe. You'll
need 250 grams of whole wheat flour, preferably stone ground, and 250 grams of
any other flour. I'm using 125 grams of dark rye, and 125 of oat flour. Then add
two and a half teaspoons or one packet of dry yeast. Now I know what you're
going to say "Max, dry yeast was not available in the Middle Ages, and I know,
but what they would have used is leaveners - were either old dough which
is sourdough which takes a long time to make, and I have some but I don't want to
waste it on bread that you're actually not going to eat, or ale barm which is
very hard to find and very expensive. So I'm using active dry yeast,
but I promise Scouts honor (I think this is how we used to do it) I will make
loaves with both ale barm, and old dough or sourdough in the future and they will be
delicious. So be on the lookout for that. Now the only other ingredient that
you'll need is two cups of warm water. What you won't need is salt. Salt was
very expensive in the Middle Ages, and they weren't going to waste it on bread
that you weren't gonna eat, so go ahead and add your water into the flour and
begin to knead now because of the types of flour that we're using the kneading
process takes forever. I mean it always takes a long time, but this is really
tough so go ahead and use a stand mixer. I'm not gonna judge you, just like you
didn't judge me for using the dry yeast right now. Usually you knead the bread
until you get the window pane, you know you take up a little piece of dough
until you can kind of see the light through it. This is probably never going
to get there, and that's okay because we actually want it to stay dense we don't
want a huge rise from this bread. So once the dough has worked enough that it's
not completely falling apart, put it into a lightly oiled bowl and let it sit for
about an hour. During that time it will rise, but it's not going to double in
size. It'll just get puffy on top and that's good enough now. While you wait
for the dough to rise it's the perfect time to smash that Like button, and I
will teach you a little bit about the history of medieval trenchers. Trencher
comes from the old French word "tranchir" meaning to slice, because that's
essentially what it is. It's just a slice of bread that you're gonna put food onto
to let it soak up the juices then once you're done you can feed it to the dogs,
or to the peasant. How'd you do?Whichever is faster, but the history of trenchers
goes back way before the Middle Ages. Even in Virgil's "Aeneid", Aeneas is told
the prophecy "Never shall you build your promised city until the injury you did
us by this slaughter has brought you to a hunger so cruel that you gnaw your
very tables." Later after a rather meager feast he realized the prophecy had come
true when he saw his men eating their own trenchers. You don't eat trenchers
unless you're a dog, or a peasant. Oh there you go bringing class into the game. Now unless
you were a king, or an earl or something like that you didn't have an oven at
your house. So how did you make the bread for your trenchers, or the bread that
you're going to eat? Sometimes people went to communal ovens
often called the Kings Oven but more often than not like today you'd get your
bread from a baker, and there were a lot of bakers, and that created competition,
and they didn't like competition. So in 1266 the bakers of Coventry got
together, and petitioned King Henry III to create what was essentially the
OPEC of bread. It was called the Assize of Bread and Ale it was a set of laws that
remained virtually unchanged for 600 years until the Bread Acts of 1822 and
1836. Now the assize set the price of a loaf of wastel, essentially the price
of bread stayed the same no matter what the price of wheat was, what changed was
the size of the loaf. For example when a quarter of wheat is sold at twelve pence
than Wastel bread of a farthing, white and well-baked shall weigh six pounds
and sixteen shillings. But when the same quarter of wheat is sold at eighteen
pence than a loaf should weigh three pounds a shilling. Now you'll notice
that because people didn't usually carry around a standard set of weights they
used coins as both the unit of worth and the unit of weight. It's really confusing,
it'd be like saying that this bottle of wine costs 22 dollars six nickels and a
penny but it needs to weigh 14 quarters three dimes and seven nickels. Really
makes you appreciate standard weights and measurements doesn't it. Now like I
said the bread is not going to double in size, but after about an hour maybe an
hour and a half depending on how warm it is where you are, go ahead and dump the
dough out onto your work surface and knock out the air then shape it into a
round loaf. Now again the dough is not going to stretch like a normal dough so
make sure you don't tear it as you form your loaf. Then cover the loaf and let it
rise for another 20 minutes while you preheat the oven to 450 degrees
Fahrenheit with a baking sheet already inside. Once
the loaf is puffed up a bit, score the top with either a cross or a star and
pop it into the oven for about 10 minutes at 450. Then drop the temperature
to 375 for another 20 minutes until the loaf is baked
through. And there we have it a loaf of bread ready to make into trenchers. Not
so fast, you actually have to wait three days or so because the loaf has to get
stale. Then you'll slice it and that is your
trencher bread now all of the ingredients and the recipe are listed in
the description down below as well as links to some of the flowers I used. If
you end up making your own loaf, leave me a comment down below and let me know how
it goes. Also if you have any recipes in mind
that you want me to try out I'm always looking for suggestions so make sure to
Like. Subscribe if you haven't already and I will see you next time on Tasting
History.