One of my favorite YouTube channels is Tasting History with Max Miller. Each video features a different historical recipe, how to make it, Max’s thoughts on how it turns out, and a history segment centered around an ingredient, the era, a specific event… it depends on the recipe!
The mrouzia episode, for instance, stars the origins of the tagine as a cooking vessel. This one in particular imparts so much secondhand excitement, because Max went to Morocco recently and got to explore the culture himself, and you can definitely tell!
That said, all of his episodes are witty and passionate and a joy to watch. Another favorite is Byzantine Honey Fritters, which is mostly about Byzantine food culture, but also features one of my favorite fun facts ever: “[S]ince the majority of Constantinople’s water supply came from far off, they had to do some pretty fancy engineering in order to keep the city watered should the city ever be besieged. And the city was besieged… thirty-four times.” Talk about a smart investment!
Now those both sound fantastic, but not every recipe turns out that well. Like Ancient Roman Jellyfish. The food did not seem pleasant, but the history segment featured the Black Banquet, which I found fascinating!
While I especially loved these three, there are years of videos to choose from, and a Tasting History cookbook if you want to try some recipes yourself. (Side note: the cookbook is organized by parts of the world and then chronologically, which makes so much sense, I love it!) Regardless, if you’re a fan of food, history, and/or food history, I highly recommend giving this channel a shot!
