The Poor Farmer's Feast

Poor Feast Playlist youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4e4wpjna1vzn_D5t7tBC4Q…

As a poor farmer, I approve of this video and this feast!

As a farmer's daughter, I can tell you that this sort of menu is eternal! It's exactly how a family farm would have been (should be?) run, I believe. Don't forget the herbs that the farmer's wife would almost always have growing by her kitchen door, and in the borders of the big garden, perhaps grown from little packets of seed brought from her home far away. I love that ceramic tabletop butter churn, I've never seen one like that before! Thanks for another great look at our ancestors' way of life. (That plate looks delicious, btw!)

My grandfather was born in 1870 and my dad was born in 1923. They farmed in southern West Virginia plowing 13 acres with a mile. They raised goats,cows,pigs,chickens,and ducks. Grandpa blacksmithed and did woodwork on the side. My dad said their days started at 4am and lasted until after dark. They did their homework and read the bible by oil lamp,as well as turning the animals out to feed and water in the mornin

My grandmother grew up on a peanut farm, their house was a cabin with tree bark for siding and a dirt floor. 8 mouths to feed, I imagine they ate anything and everything they could get ahold of and this just makes me think of what a good meal would have looked like for her

I live in a small town and we are SURROUNDED by farms. During certain times of year you can smell onions when you drive out of town and I love it!

As so many have already commented a meal like this was still a feast for a farmer in the 1900s, especially after the two World Wars and the Depression.

Best channel to throw onto your TV and just binge for 4 hours. Why yes, I'd love to learn how to make fricasse the same way people did in the 1700s

I love your stories about your childhood. My grandparents on both sides were excellent gardeners, but when I was a kid in the 80s, younger people weren't really picking up those skills. I've heard it said that when an old man dies, a library burns to the ground. All 4 of my grandparents have passed away now. Here's to the mysteries of coconut cakes and zinnias as tall as a fence.

That actually looks pretty good! After all his hard work, the poor farmer does enjoy a feast worthy for him.

Many of those in my parents’ generation went through the Great Depression, they went through WWII and needed a Victory garden to stretch things. My parents taught me to garden and I have a small garden in my backyard so I can relate. I enjoyed this video very much. Thanks!

Looks great! And yes, easy for us modern day folk to glamourise a bucolic setting if we haven't worked on a farm. I did for a season and quickly discovered, I might keep a garden, but that does NOT make me a farmer. I'm grateful for those who are called and persevere to do so. Edited to add: it was a small farm ~35 acres, so much of the work was done by hand.

My neighbor and I got hay delivered a couple days ago. The hay farmer is also our mailman. He works constantly delivering mail - can't get a day off even when he's sick because they're short-handed. And at nights and on the weekends he produces hay. This year has been very dry, and he's had 1/2 the yield he'd normally have. My neighbor is a cop. He works 3 jobs, and when he gets home, he's tending to the cattle he raises and sells to market.

That genuinely looks delicious. My grandfather was a coal miner by day but ran his own farm in the evening and after retirement, just like your dad and many others. My dad grew up helping with that farm and when he got an office job he put up a large garden in his backyard to work in the evenings. He's planting a much smaller garden now in his retirement and though my yard is too small for a garden I have raised planters on my porch where I grow tomatoes and peppers. It's not enough to sustain our family but produce allowed to ripen on the vine in the sun tastes so much better than produce that was picked prematurely to survive shipping to your location. Though I'm forever grateful for the food chain that can get all kinds of produce to my location all year round.

I grew up in farm country. Many of my classmates were from farms. We had cornfields for neighbors on two sides, used to watch people riding horses down the gravel road in front of our house. We got our milk from a farm up the road, came in big gallon jars. We put it in the fridge to let the cream rise to the top. Eggs were pretty fresh, too, sometimes we got them still warm.

Mr Townsend is a rare, classic type of gentleman whose sadly dying out in the modern world. Seeing such old-school traditional charm is quite refreshing

I wonder if butter was discovered carrying cream in a vessel on a long bumpy journey. Suspecting it went bad, the expression of the first man eating it would have been priceless.😅

My husbands family came from a small scottish island once a year on the day of the sailing regatta on the neighbouring larger island the boat would leave the main island of our archepeligo at 6am folks from the main island would take the chance for it was a long sail day meaning the boat would drop folk of at the small island then stay at the larger island till the regatta was over load everyone on board and head to the small island to collect us and head back. This was a big day and just like your farmers feast the food was based around a hen, probably one past lay or a young male who would not make a good cockrell. It was boiled whole in a big pot with vegetables from the yard then it would be taken out and browned in the coal oven. If you were lucky there would be some barley to bulk up the soup. The hen would be allowed to cool and served with boiled potatoes carrots and peas from the garden and skirlie made withonion and pinhead oatmeal cooked in the fat skimmed from the top of the soup. Since it was a special day there would be some cream( usually kept for butter and cheese making) would be poured over some tinned fruit. This was still how it was done when i moved as a young bride from the city in the1980s.

I'm originally from a very large farm in Alberta. My parents were on a farm in the Great Depression. My grandparents had farms, and raising a family at that time was very trying, but they endured. These days, many people take farmers for granted. Without farmers, we don't eat. A single weather event can destroy crops. Thanks for sharing this. The dish looks great. Cheers!

I always go back to the writing of Laura Ingalls Wilder. She showed both the poor farmer's life and table (her childhood) and a rich farmer's life and table (her husband's childhood).