Happy New Year!

A crossover with a foraging expert would be interesting - you do a lot of interesting recipes from the fancier kitchens at the time, but I know that poor people disproportionately relied on foraged food, pretty weird food, and simple food. I remember eating poke salad and (unsprayed!) dandelion salad in the 00s as a kid, as my grandmother lived through the Depression. I know a lot of these recipes are probably harder to find, as widespread literacy among poor people is a <200-year-old phenomenon, and people didn't think to write down the peasant food recipes.

I found an interesting cookbook - What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking. It was authored in 1881 by a formerly enslaved woman, Abby Fisher, who lived in San Francisco. She made pickles that were very popular among SF's elite at the time, and this book contains a few recipes for pickles. But most interestingly, the whole book is a transcription of Mrs. Fisher's instructions - she couldn't read or write. Which is also to say, the whole book's contents were just stored in her memory for decades! This was a pretty jarring reality for a lot of formerly enslaved people in America. But this book also is one of the first well-known and widely-published cookbooks by an African-American. You can read the book here: https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbc0001.2018gen23680/?sp=1&st=slideshow#slide-13 The most unusual recipes - I can't even guess how they might taste or look - are: #74 - Sweet Cucumber Mangoes (it seems to be a pickle stuffed with cabbage?) #81 - Pepper Mangoes (again, not seeing any mango, but it seems to be a whole pickled stuffed bell pepper?), and #86 - Sweet Watermelon Rind Pickles (this is a trendy recipe now, but back in the day it required putting watermelon rind in salt for a week????)

Honestly, I don't need special anythings for being a patron. I'm just happy to help you keep making videos!

Juti A Winchester

You seem to have a vast repertoire of Biblical references. Could you perhaps do an episode on Biblical foods? I know that this is a very expansive topic, so it could even become a series.

Yes, I would especially like to see an episode on barley sugar!

Maybe also more lesser known indigenous foods from other countries like the kakanin of the Philippines

I would love to see more candy through history

I would also like to see an episode on marzipan!

Happy New Year! I like the idea of presenting your bloopers, mistakes, or dislikes. Maybe incorporated at the end of each video, after credits. In terms of types of food, I'd love to see more non-European dishes (the Middle East - halva!!, India, Caribbean).

You could do a series on "Last Meals"... For instance, the morning of his resignation, rumor has it that Nixon had a breakfast of cottage cheese and pineapple, a popular diet food at the time. If you wanted to do a President's Day thing, you could get some interesting stories from Presidential plates (JFKs love of Beef Wellington, for instance). You could do a deconstruction series, too, based on the spread of agricultural technology in the Columbian Exchange; pick a dish from a country around the world and trace how it got all its ingredients. Then, of course, there's lots of options for the potato/tomato line in Europe...

More depth into the recipes?

I think bloopers or "failure" videos would be great for patrons to see. I'll continue to support you whether recipes work out or not! When things don't work out, we all learn something new =)

Would love to see something interactive. I live the happy hours. Maybe some sort of Patron bake-off?

Jeri Spence

Hi, Max. Reflecting on your request, I was pondering what it is that I love so much about The Great British Bakeoff. It occurred to me that a big part of it is the fact that I could see the failures of the bakers, as well as their successes. It makes them so relatable, and being there through their ups and downs, the triumphs and tragedies that go into making a baker, helps to draw you into their lives and their world.Drawing a parrell to Tasting History, I realize now that some of my favorite tidbits are the trail and errors that you go through, and especially when youo fail. Don't be afraid to show us your m istakes! Wheather in the form of outtakes or simply when something goes awry in the kitchen, don't mask it; exploit it!. You have a special gift for turning lemons into hilarious Emmy-worthy lemonade.

I love your Drinking History segments!

Happy New Year! I think it would be great to see a video about vegetarianism (not sure what dish would go along with this). Maybe some kind of medieval salad too since there is so much variety here. A video about chicken tikka masala might be interesting too.

More cats.

SUTTON TAGGART

Happy New year! I would love to see some shorter videos if possible, maybe some really short recipes or fun facts along with your usual content. :)

For the main videos, I don’t want to see too much change in style. I like how they are; that’s why I patr[e]onize the channel. Behind the scenes are fun, but not as a replacement for the normal. In terms of content I would quite like to see “sets” of videos that go together, perhaps one on a main course and a second (not necessarily the next video produced) that would be a corresponding dessert, so that we could see how a whole meal would come together at a particular point in history. For the historical element, what I would love to see are more “the rise and fall of [ingredient]” tales: rosewater, rue, sylphium (I loved that episode!) etc. Or perhaps some “first” recipes: what was the first tomato dish in Italy, the first potato recipe in Britain, and so on with the histories of ingredients that were introduced from the New World but have become staples in the Old World.

Bob Dowling

For Patrons: Early access is always a welcome perk. How about posting the recipe and ingredient list here as a patron perk?

Happy New Year to you Jose and the kitties!!! Definitely interested in any "behind the scenes" type things lots have mentioned. Even just little snippets would be a nice treat!