- You almost wouldn't be surprised if like
something suddenly swam by, you know?
(gentle music)
Hello, and welcome back to "Edible History,"
the show that brings to life the culinary creations
of past generations.
Today, we're in for a brewed awakening,
as we explore the history behind the making of mead.
When I hear mead, I think of old kings and queens,
toasting and drinking something out of goblets,
with huge turkey legs in hand.
But, what is the meading of mead?
To find out, I'm talking with Julia Skinner,
a food historian, author, and fermentation specialist.
Hey, Julia, thanks for being here.
So today we're gonna be talking about making mead.
How far back does mead making go?
- Some texts say it goes back as far as 30,000 years.
We see mead across Eurasia and later in Africa as well.
So we have a record from seventh-century BCE in China.
We have Viking legends that tell us about mead,
and we've got Celtic legends that tell us about mead.
The Scottish were drinking this a lot.
It was their daily mead.
And that is why they say that Scottish highland warriors
were so formidable.
It's because they were drinking all the stuff
that was like a protein drink,
and so they were just like, oh, super strong.
- How did know that what they were drinking
wasn't gonna poison them?
- The early people that were trying all of this
were probably very, very brave.
Our bodies adapted to metabolize alcohol,
what, like two million years ago or something?
We knew alcohol existed.
We just weren't making it intentionally.
- So can you tell us a bit about the recipes
we'll be making today?
- So the first one that we're making
is Pliny the Elder's mead.
It's from 77 CE, from Rome.
It's the oldest known written recipe that we have for mead.
There is another one called A Receipt for Meathe
from 1669 from a man named Sir Kenelm Digby.
Very fancy name.
This has medicinal herbs in it.
It has parsley and fennel,
and then it also has cloves in it.
- Thank you so much for offering your wisdom,
your expertise, your guidance.
Now it's time to satisfy our need for mead.
(upbeat music)
We're actually going to be making two recipes.
One from 77 CE, Ancient Rome.
Now, this recipe only has two ingredients,
which is why we're making two recipes.
"For this, it is recommended that
"rainwater should be stored for five years."
Since we live in California,
we don't really have that much rainwater laying around,
let alone rainwater that's been stored for five years.
So, to fill this,
we're gonna go ahead and use a nice distilled water.
First things first, let's boil nine cups of water.
Now that our water is almost at a boil,
it's time to add our honey.
Ooh, this is three cups of pure raw honey.
The recipe calls for one part honey to three parts water.
So if you're making your own version at home,
that's how it works.
Well, we've blended our honey and water,
and now it's time to store.
Pliny says, "Keep the mixture in the sun for 40 days
"after the rising of the Dog Star."
Basically, the recipe is saying,
leave it for 40 days out in the hot, hot sun.
Or, "others pour it off after nine days"
and then cork it up.
So we're going for the nine-day method.
And that's it.
Now it's time to pour and store.
Dee dee.
(burbling)
Why did that happen?
(upbeat music)
Wow.
And that's the easy one.
I'm gonna seal the deal.
Here we go.
Wipe off any little bits.
We've got our mead.
Whoo, hot and sealed and ready to go.
Do we have a place I can store this for nine days?
(festive music)
(upbeat music)
Our next recipe comes from England in 1669.
It is A Receipt for Meathe.
This recipe of course has water and honey,
but it also calls for parsley, fennel, cloves,
and the addition of ale yeast.
We'll get to that.
First things first, let's add our honey to water.
Wow, that's a lot of honey.
I bet honey is the mead of bees.
Nutritious, delicious,
and maybe they're all slightly buzzed.
(cymbal crash)
(applause)
Next, we turn up the heat and bring it all to a boil.
All right, that looks pretty well mixed together.
So we're gonna leave it to boil
and now prepare our vegetables.
(gentle music)
So here, can you see this?
Right?
Look at that little parsley.
Wow, just your standard, regular parsley, huh?
Oh my god.
That's the part we're gonna be using.
So we're gonna shave it, slice it, and set it aside.
Now since we're going off the assumption
they didn't have proper peelers,
we're gonna be using a spoon
to gently coax the skin off the parsley.
So now that we've successfully peeled our parsley,
we're gonna slice off the top and bottom
and then cut them on a little bit of a bias.
All right.
Now that we've prepped the last of my parsley,
it's time to filet our fennel.
(gentle music)
So this is fennel.
To cut our fennel, we'll be chopping off the tops.
Hui!
Then, we're gonna cut down the center.
From here, we're gonna slice out the heart of the fennel.
Slice, slice.
Plop, uh-oh.
Mm, that smells like licorice.
If celery and licorice had a baby, it would be fennel.
And from here, we're gonna make some pretty thin slices
to maximize our fennel flavor.
Once we've finished up our fennel,
it'll be time to add it to our mead.
I gotta say, I hope these flavors aren't too mead-iocre.
(cymbal crash)
(applause)
(gentle music)
Now that we've finished with our fennel,
it's time to add it to our hot little pot of mead.
It's like we're making a weird sweet soup.
As you can tell,
there's a lot of scum on the surface of this mead.
Our honey is pretty raw, pretty natural, pretty organic.
So naturally, it looks gross.
The recipe says next to skim it very well.
So we want to get as much of this scum
off the top as we can.
All right.
We've skimmed off the last of our scum.
There's a lot.
So we're gonna put it aside and never think about it again.
All right, so we're gonna take this little brew baby
off the heat, set it aside, and let it cool for about a day.
Night night.
(upbeat music)
So now that our brew baby has had a day to rest,
it's time to add the last of the ingredients.
The recipe says to do "a very few cloves,
"pounded and put in a linen cloth."
I'm gonna take the interpretation of "very few"
to mean three?
One, two, three.
We're gonna take our cloves, put them in the center,
and then pound them, using the flat side of our mallet.
I've been looking forward to this all day.
(pounding)
Aw.
It went by so fast.
Next, we're going to create a small linen satchel
to put our cloves in our brew.
We pinch these up, we pinch these up,
then we pinch these up.
You can make a satchel any way it pleases ya,
just as long as it works.
And voila.
Then we just plop it into our brew.
Ooh, look at that scum-free beauty.
Wow, it really smells like vaguely fermenting honey.
Must be working.
Next, to add to the fermentation,
we'll be using a new good barm, a.k.a. ale yeast.
Hoo!
I gotta tell ya.
Hah, that ale yeast combined with the already
fragrant scent of the, this is a,
it's a bit of a stinky process, isn't it?
We're gonna give it a mix,
but it's not going to incorporate completely.
That's okay.
Next it's time to store our brew in this cute little pot.
Bits and all.
Now if you're wondering when I'm gonna take out
all the chunky bits, surprise, I'm not.
We're using a really wide-mouthed vessel
because all of these just slowly fermenting parts
are what makes the flavor so good?
We're almost at the bottom of our bucket here.
I'm just gonna pour off the last little bit of it.
Lord knows we want to save all of this
good, good vinegar juice.
Yum.
And finally, the recipe says,
"And within a fortnight, it will be ready to drink.
"But if it stay longer, it will be the better."
So don't be too finicky about time.
Don't make much abrew about nothing.
(cymbal crash)
Time to go meet your brew brother.
No.
Ooh, you're heavy.
Not that I'm trying to compare you two.
That would be unhealthy.
(gentle music)
One fortnight later, we're back.
Our brew babies have had some time to rest
and do their dirty, dirty magic.
So we're gonna start with Pliny's mead
because it's the most simple, you know?
So let's start simple.
First, we're gonna open it.
Hmm?
Maybe we'll take a little sniff, you know,
see what we're in for.
Hmm.
If honey was a foot.
We're gonna be using our funnel and bottling our mead.
Nice.
One bottle of Pliny's mead, good to go.
Next.
This one.
Let's open her up.
Oh.
Oh, it has this certain sour ripeness to it
I wasn't quite expecting.
It's definitely thicker as a liquid
than I thought it would be.
This doesn't look like something I'd want to put in my body.
We've got our Pliny's, we've got our meathe,
and now it's time to see which of these is the least bad.
(uplifting music)
I'm gonna go ahead and guess the Pliny's
will be better because it's simpler.
This is the Pliny's.
Ooh.
Yep, strong fragrance of honey.
And now for the meathe.
You know, I've never even had mead.
Maybe I'll love it.
Maybe I will think it's great.
Let's go, Hannah.
Yummy, yum, yum.
This will make me strong like a Scottish warrior.
You know, it's just very sweet.
I actually can see how it might get better with time.
Look, I like honey.
I don't drink it.
But if, as a drinking honey, sure, it's great.
Let's not forget, this recipe is from 77 CE,
so frankly, to be able to taste it at all,
that's really cool.
Our meathe comes from about 1600 years later,
so it's probably been improved upon.
Bottoms up.
(beeps)
You know, it very much tastes like, um...
Sorry, I'm still recovering.
You ever go out, have one too many sugary drinks,
head home, and then they all come back?
Yeah.
After that, I could drink Pliny's all day.
I definitely don't necessarily think I'm a mead person.
Remember that time we had the duck-fat french fries?
That was great.
And now we're here.
Both meads have a very like fortifying quality
in that I feel really in touch with my body right now.
You know, like hoo!
Yike, yeah.
I definitely see how drinking this would make you be like,
ahh, ahh!
Thank you for watching arguably one of our most memorable
episodes of "My Drunk Kitchen."
(alarm blaring)
I feel like this stuff makes you feel drunk.
And that's a wrap on season two of "Edible History."
Thank you so much for watching.
If you've loved watching "Edible History,"
make sure you share all across your social media
and let us know what you want to see in season three.
Bye.
(upbeat music)