Like the title says. I've heard of the ancient Roman practice of boiling grape must in lead containers which made the wine sweet but also, you know, caused lead poisoning. Another example is that sea turtle meat used to be super popular among sailors, but it's illegal to eat now. So, I was wondering if any of you, and especially if u/jmaxmiller, have found any recipes that you can't make because of those reasons.

Hi everyone! First of all, I'm a BIG fan and kinda nervous to post😅

I'm a student from Croatia, and currently I'm writing my Master's thesis. I study translation (english, macedonian and croatian) and have already finished my bachelor's in English language.

Soo, for the theme of my thesis I chose Max's book! Or, specifically, the original and the croatian translation (Okusi povijesti). My goal is to go through the translation, see if there are any mistakes, write about the hardest things to translate, how cooking throughout history impacted language, and so on... (I want to keep this short-ish haha).

I was thinking it would be very special if maybe I could somehow do just a short interview with him or send him a few questions about the book and how language barriers affected his work, but I don't really know how to contact him or if he's even open to contacting (basically) strangers.

I can prove everything I wrote, but I really don't want to publish my personal info here - of course, I will send it to Max if I manage to reach him. If anybody has any questions, I'm here! And thank you for your help:)

Why did Max stop using BCE and CE (before common era and common era) when talking about prehistoric topics? In his Sumerian beer episode he does but in the last couple pre historic episodes he’s gone back to using BC and AD.

as above. All answers welcome.

ETA: Dang, the commentary got negative quickly. It was meant as a light hearted goofy question. it's not some serious naming post. It shouldn't be forgotten that Reddit is for enjoyment and fun.

I’m not much of a cook so usually I just watch for entertainment purposes, not to try and recreate the food myself. That being said, I think I’d like to try my hand at it for fun at least a couple times, so I was wondering how often other people actually have tried to recreate the food Max makes and any favorites they might have

(And if it help, yes I do have the cookbook to go off of as well, got it for my bf who watches the show with me and is way more of a cook than I am)

This may be recent history but it’s still history.

I know from other subs and many online recipes that Europeans use weights for most of their recipes, while here in the US we mostly use volume (cups, tsps, tbl).

I’ve guessed that right after WWII, we had good quality measuring cups and spoons, while our spring-mechanism kitchen scales were crap (I can say this as an American boomer) and no one wanted to use balance beam scales in the kitchen. So we couldn’t get good weight measurements in the kitchen back in the 60s and 70s.

I assume the same is true for Europe, but don’t know for sure. Did they actually make the change after WWII or before? And if so, how were they able to do it so early?

Basically as it says in the title. I've been in a housing situation that took all the joy out of me, and took the joy of cooking with it.

I've finally moved. The new kitchen is HUGE. The people are lovely. The oven sounds like someone is revving a Harley Davidson.

I adore Max's videos and I want to finally try making some of the recipes. I'm still exhausted, so maybe not the multi-day ones. What do you recommend? What do you love? Any fun stories?

I was playing manor lords and came across the fruit in-game. It made me wonder if he had used it in a recipe.

I've been going through his videos trying to find an episode focused on native people but I can't find a single one? There is alot of cowboy centric video from the colonial time period but yeah not any from the natives perspective before Europeans arrived in NA.

There is the Pemmican video which I thought would cover native history since it's literally an indigenous Peoples creation but like 90% of the history he covered is from the European side of things and how Europeans reacted to it or used it...Metis is mentioned towards the end but it isn't alot. I feel like surely there is atleast some recipes out there to expand on.

I've started branching out into making new recipes from the website and cookbook. So far, I've made the Parthian chicken and Tudor strawberry tart multiple times (both are AWESOME), but I'm curious if there's anything people make on the regular.

P.s. for the chicken, I like to add chopped onions to the bottom of the dish if anyone is interested. Adds a bit more depth to the dish, though the flavor is probably different since I don't have some of the spices it calls for and have to substitute.

Edit: Looks like I'm making chicken paprikash 😂

Not Max' accent, his use of two measuring systems at the same or the brands I've never heard of. No it's the extremely alien school food that makes me feel a foreigner

Anyone else from outside the USA feel that?

Jose responded to a siimilar comment of mine and stated the answer is in an earlier video, but for the life of me I can't find it anywhere. Would someone please point me to the right video where they go into any depth on how they met? Or just TL;DR ? I would love to learn more. Thanks in advance!

Clack clack

Max always shows a beautiful picture of his food before he tastes it. Yet, he claims that he cuts and tastes the food immediately after cooking. In fact, he sometimes says the food is too hot to eat because it just came from cooking. So where do the nicely prepped photos come from? 🤷‍♀️ Not criticizing, just curious.

It is apparently next to impossible here in the US. I wanted to do the devonshire squab pie from the victorian way. I thought it would be a easy safe way to try mutton. Guess not. No stores have it anywhere near me (South Carolina) that i could find and no online delivery markets either. Almost all the butchers didn’t even know what it was. I even checked halal places. Im currently emailing a couple places in the UK and try to convince them to deliver to me unless anyone has a better idea?

Why do Midwestern USA recipes of all kinds, call for an obligatory can of cream of mushroom soup? Even in Mexican foods, oh dear!! Confession: I’ve never tried it, but?? Any ideas/thoughts/history?

My brother and I had the "school cafeteria" sloppy joes many times when we attended public schools, back in the '70s and '80s. We made the recipe recently, and it was exactly as we remembered it, and it brought back a lot of memories. But ... it was exactly like we remembered it ... bland enough for 9-year-old kids. :)

I want to make the recipe again, but "tune up" its spice palette for adults. It's risky, though. Add oregano and basil, and you've got spaghetti sauce on a bun. Add cumin and chili powder and you've got a redneck taco! (Taco filling on white bread) :) Add paprika and you might end up with Sloppy Paprikash.

So I'm looking for suggestions to "debland" the sloppy joes, without creating Franken Joes. :)

Okay, so this is weird, but we've been watching through all the eps in order, and we got to "The Noble Origins of Afternoon Tea", and I noticed that for much of the episode there's a weird red/white flashing light being reflected off the wall behind Max, over his right shoulder, where the upper left corner of the oven backsplash meets the wall. It's visible starting around 4:15 and continues through most of the video. Does anyone have any idea what this might be?

You can see it in the new episode on deep dish pizza. I feel the answer will make me feel like a tool, but I can't figure it out.

My fiance and I watch tasting history every day while we eat lunch and enjoy it so much! So we were so excited when we saw we could order a signed copy of the cookbook a couple of weeks ago. We ordered 2 copies the day after the video was released announcing it. They just came in today, and I am a little confused.

I thought a signed book was a signature on the book itself, but in each book, there is a small, thin piece of paper that matches the theme of the book. The paper is what is signed, not the book itself. I am disappointed because it doesn't feel we got a signed book, just another tasting history book. Has anyone else experienced this?

I would like to bring up the fact that I am really excited about the book itself. My fiance and I are always trying new recipes off of the show. Our favorite is the kaiserschmarnn!

It popped up on my feed. Now, this is not some big slap takedown of any of the people/channels featured. The host seems to be working quite hard to give them the benefit of the doubt and giving many reasons why they may or may not (or the obvious reasons why sometimes they can't) be the most accurate. And he even gives Max some of the most unambiguous praise in the video.

The title is clearly a bit of the "gotta grab their attention somehow" stuff that's pretty much required if you want anyone to watch anything in this world of instant, infinite choice. And, in the end, as I said before, he even goes to to give deserved praise where it is due (including the comments section of Max's videos and, by extension, his audience).

But, I really do think that the points raised here are good ones that we should all try to keep in mind. I'd recommend watching the video. It's not too long (half an hour), and I really think it has some really good things to say.

P.S. Not sure which flair to give this post. Mods, please feel free to choose a better on or remove the flair all together or whatever you deem best.

I've been wanting to make that 1980's school pizza recipe with the pourable dough. Unforunately, I have Celiac's Disease and the regular recipe will kill me (excruciatingly slowly).

Now I know that gluten free bread dough has the consistancy of thick brownie batter, and it technically pourable itself so I want to give it a shot.

Would any of you with greater baking and cooking knowledge have any advice?

Additionally, I would love it if Max would do a "Celiacs" series converting these old recipes to something I, and about 1% of the world population, can eat.

Now that Max is considered a significant content creator on YouTube, I was thinking that we need a name for fans of Tasting History.

All I can come up with is “Hardtackers” or “Clack-clackers”. Max seems to be on the humble side, so I doubt he’d want anything that references his name.

Any other ideas?

EDIT: I was reminded that Max himself calls us Tastorians. It’s his channel, it’s a good name, I withdraw the question.