The Working Man's Seafood

The Working Man’s Seafood sometimes feels like a moving target. As soon as you have it locked down, you find the same ingredients on very high and very low tables as well. Seafood was fueling the colonists and the economy in the 18th century. This video is some of what we’ve discovered so far.

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[WastedTalent-]

Many years ago, a friend of mine worked in a boatyard on the Maine coast. To save money for college, he lived on a boat and ate what he caught. He'd set his traps, go to work, come "home" and cook what was in the traps. He said he ate so much lobster and crab that he couldn't eat it for well over 10 years after. He did go to college and is now a marine biology professor.

[usapatriot]

Really like the "Working Man" series on the weekend. Very informative and enjoyable to watch!

[mmthomas]

I grew up on the Gulf Coast with a father who was an attorney. When he did work for people on the bayou, they paid him in seafood: shrimp, crab, crawdads, and big croaker sacks of oysters. When those were delivered, it was a party!

[coffeelover]

Even with refrigerators and freezers, I think learning how to preserve most foods the old fashioned way is important to learn. Never know when there's a power outage, the fridge/freezer breaking down, SHTF, or you have more food than you can easily store.

[jamesellsworth]

Ryan, it is fine to see your work featured on the Townsends channel. You did the cod fillets perfectly: crispy breading and a flaky, yet moist interior! The entire episode was nicely produced and edited: kudos to that crew. I have cured salmon into gravlax with satisfactory success. My various ancestors were from families that came very early to New England. They included merchants and fishermen. At one point, a father and son were lost at sea while out fishing using a larger ship with a crew. Many families could tell the same tale (lost at sea.) As a child, my Mom periodically used Mary Anne brand salted cod that came in a wooden box. Even when rinsed a bit, the product was still salty. Mom made milk gravy and poured the cod and gravy over mashed or plain boiled and smashed potato to make a tastier use of the salt.

[johncave]

My son is taught almost nothing about history at his school. Especially American history. My wife and I have a lot of fun studying history with him at home. Your uploads are an important part of his (and ours too) education. Thank you, Townsend.

[mokspr]

My mother grew up in a small fishing village in Nova Scotia and she always said that you could tell the social status of a family by the sandwiches the kids brought to school: mutton for the shop owners children, jam for the "middle class" kids and lobster for the poorer kids. Just boiled lobster on plain dry bread, no butter, no mayo.

[SyRose]

I am a Mongolian, a country that's extremely far from any sea. Nowadays there's imported seafood, but even then, it is NOT a popular option.

[ulfricthorsson]

I grew up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and every year for my birthday, we'd go out for lobster dinner. What we paid to get a full meal, the grocery stores charge for just a tail here in Texas

[woodelfproductions]

I love seeing all the comments from people all over the world on these videos. Food cultures might vary, but they're also great ways to bring people together regardless of nationality as people talk and share. Food is one of the great unifers.

[OhnoesJG]

This is the most wholesome channel on YouTube. If you are feeling low, just watch a couple of Townsends videos and your mood will lift. There is just such a cozy vibe to this that is unparalleled anywhere else on the platform.

[stpyramids]

My understanding is that when you hear stories about lobsters and crabs being seen as a poverty food (prisoners protesting being fed lobster, etc.) the significant context is that these would have been bigger, tougher lobsters that wouldn't be marketable today, in addition to likely being overcooked and underseasoned. Something more akin to the infamous stewed crab that everybody hated.

[j.r.f]

Being from Maine, shellfish was a regular weeknight meal. Lobster was (and still is when compared to other meats) cheap, and shellfish was common. Having fish such as bluefish, flounder, or haddock was a treat. I suppose I never really noticed it wasn’t normal in other parts of the country and took it for granted when I was growing up.

[joshschneider]

also this is the definition of a scottish kipper

A kipper is a whole herring, a small, oily fish, that has been split in a butterfly fashion from tail to head along the dorsal ridge, gutted, salted or pickled, and cold-smoked over smouldering wood chips (typically oak).

[dwaynewladyka]

Cod was a very big thing in Newfoundland and Labrador, in Canada, long ago. It sustained so many people. It still is important. In other parts of Canada, such as Atlantic Canada, and British Columbia, salmon is very abundant, and was important for Native peoples. Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, in Canada, have many freshwater lakes, and fishing was very important for people in these parts of Canada. It is an abundant source of food, year round. Fish was also used for barter, in exchange for other foods, in North America, long ago. I have heard of different preserving methods for fish, and different methods of preparing fish. Cedar planked salmon is very good. Also, I recall hearing about pemmican made from fish, but I've never see it done. This is a very informative series. Cheers!

[Kjellbot]

salted herring was a huge part of the swedish working man's and farmer's diet for quite a long time. the herring trade was hugely important and the fattest catch made for excellent pickled herring for the rich man's table, which lives on in modern sweden. home-made pickled herring is a fundamental part of christmas and midsummer festivities. i've made my own recipe where i season it with orange zest, toasted sichuan pepper, black peppercorns and thinly sliced yellow onion. it's perfect on buttered hard bread. seafood is so important yet so ravaged and neglected. soon we won't have any left. it's a tragedy on multiple levels. a decent man would be driven to despair and madness over less

[sevenproxies]

In Sweden there's tons of traditional dishes based on various kinds of preserved fish.

Salted, dried, smoked, brine pickled and then last but not least: the notorious fermented herring (Surströmming).

I'll admit that I avoid the last one. It's a very acquired taste to say the least.

[roostermbakb]

This is my absolute favorite history channel on YouTube. I keep the mushroom ketchup in my house always nowdays and my wife and I love it.

[ruariniall]

They wouldn't have boiled just the lobster tail. Theyd have plunged the whole thing, live, into a pot of boiling water, as we do in Maine today. The head has quite a bit of edible meat and the tamallay - the green paste inside the body is edible as well. They wouldn't have wastes it.

[smellyfella]

During the time of the 13 colonies the Royal Navy had precedence over the supply of limes and lemons---to stock it's ships to ward of scurvy for it's sailors---grown in Britan's Caribbean colonies and anything left over was imported into it's North American colonies seasonally and they were expensive, especially in it's most Northen 13 Colonies; lemons and limes on a working class man's plate would have been seen very rarely.