Food That Built New York

[@MsLeenite]

Thank you, Jon and Ryan. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York in the 1950's and 1960's, in the neighborhood called East New York. Brooklyn (Breuklein) is full of old Dutch names, as are other parts of New York. "My" library was across New Lots Avenue from an old Dutch Reformed church, whose cemetery contained many old, eroded gravestones. There were still some farms out in the undeveloped area beyond Linden Boulevard, next to Jamaica Bay, owned by old Dutch families. I could even visit a few cows kept in a small barn on a lot near New Lots and Van Siclen Avenues; I liked to look at them through a hole in the fence. To a little city girl like me, they were as exotic as zebras. I even liked the smell, which reminded me of the elephant house at Prospect Park Zoo. In our neighborhood, at that time, people still did most of their shopping in small local stores. There were wonderful bakeries, butcher shops, and fruit & vegetable stores. Most of the food we ate was fresh. You could still have home delivery of milk and other dairy items. Delicatessens and "appetizing" stores provided cold cuts, smoked and pickled meats, fish and salads, nuts and dried fruit, and imported canned food and fancy treats from Europe and the Middle East. You might not have expected the Middle Eastern items, but Jewish neighborhoods in New York were made up of both the Ashkenazy of Europe and the Sephardic peoples of Spain and North Africa. The imported treats served to comfort the homesick, recently arrived immigrants and give the American-born a taste of the Old Country. In grade school, we were taught a lot about the history of Brooklyn, New York City and New York State, beginning with the Dutch and English settlers, and going on to the various waves of immigration from different parts of the world. We went on class trips by subway into lower Manhattan, and visited Wall Street, Trinity Church and Fraunce's Tavern. Our teachers didn't flinch from speaking plainly about the evils of $l@very, and the importance of integration. They tried to give us a sense of continuity with the past, which could transcend the great differences in our ethnic backgrounds, and help us see ourselves as all part of one great nation, wherever our ancestors came from, and whenever they got here. We were given a sense of cooperation and forward momentum. It seems to me that modern American children do not receive this great gift, but instead are encouraged to see themselves as isolated units striving and struggling for a piece of a finite amount of pie. Sorry, I seem to have gone off on a variety of tangents from my original intention to talk about how I learned as a schoolgirl about the Dutch settlers in New York.

[@bogtrottername7001]

I enjoyed you tangent !

[@Lucius1958]

*'It seems to me that modern American children... are encouraged to see themselves as isolated units striving and struggling for a piece of a finite amount of pie.'* Welcome to the new regime. Its mottos: _Ex Uno Plurima_ - out of one, many. _Divide et impera_ - divide and conquer _Oderint dum metuant_ - let them hate me, as long as they fear me. Sorry to get political; but this is where we are right now. :-(

[@angelicap2736]

I enjoyed your tangent as well😊

[@JKwakulla]

Thank you for this.

[@dhanashrimatondkar3008]

Thank you very much for sharing your memories and thoughts in such a genuine manner! I absolutely loved reading your comment and would in fact love to hear more ... I grew up in India and know the very basic about American history, so this video as well as the comment helped me learn new facts

[@christychristina292]

I loved this episode- my Great Grandma was a Van Tassell from Tarrytown NY [later known as Sleepy Hollow]- Washington Irving stayed with the Van Tassels there and based his Legend Of Sleepy Hollow character Katrina Van Tassel on the real life Van Tassells [my family]. Dutch cooking is the best comfort food. Thanks for this very enjoyable channel!

[@Lugnut_93]

Didja grow up eating krout, taters, & sausage too? A hot bowl of Pea soup slaps this time of year. They call it Snert now, but I don't remember the 20 syllable word my Oma calls it, lol.

[@pilates68]

An interesting little tid bit of Dutch language has lasted for centuries amongst New Yorkers. I grew up in NY in the 1970’s and everyone, whether they were Irish or, Italian, Jewish, Polish etc always called the front steps of our homes the “stoop “. I don’t believe that is the case in the mid west or the south, but where we lived it was the front “stoop”. Years ago watching a KZbin video about historical Dutch homes in the Netherlands, the tour guide said “these steps to the front door we call the stoop “. And I thought so did we in the NY area of America.

[@MsLeenite]

So did we, in Brooklyn. My friends and I sat on the stoop to play with our dolls. We also played "stoop ball" with a pink rubber ball that we bounced off the steps and caught.

[@Tinky1rs]

it might just be an old english word that has gotten in disuse, as stoop is a legit word from what I can find. The Dutch word "stoep" (also called bordes, from French) refers to the steps in front of highdoor houses, but also the sidewalk.

[@KeriNic46]

I didn’t know that’s why we call them that. Thanks for sharing that tidbit.

[@gavinrolls1054]

​@@Tinky1rsno, it's definitely dutch

[@EvilThunderB0lt]

@@Tinky1rs The stoop is the threshold between steps and a sidewalk. It does not mean the sidewalk itself.

[@verarichmond4465]

As someone who has never been able to eat modern cole slaw because I am alergic to mayo, I was excited to see a slaw recipe that doesn't have mayo in it and that I could actually eat. Thank you. I will be trying this cole slaw recipe.

[@andythenerd3527]

As someone who works with dutch history in central New York, Thank you so much for this video. Even here in NY, the state's Dutch roots are not as well known as they should be.

[@bostonrailfan2427]

he botched things badly though, he only focused on New Amsterdam and ignored that the entire future state if New York was Dutch there was nothing tiny about the place, yet he called it tiny

[@festerallday]

The area I grew up in has a lot of Dutch speakers and bloodlines. My great grandparents are from Westmoreland and sangerfield

[@roberttalada5196]

Where in Central NY? Anywhere near Elmira / Corning?

[@floydblandston108]

Boonville here!

[@johnbrown1860]

​@bostonrailfan2427 he talks a bit about Albany too. Also when the English captured the colony there were all of 10,000 Dutch people in the entire colony. His point about "tiny" is that it's a pretty small origin for traditions and food ways that have impacted the entire modern US.

[@kdolo1887]

The Dutch are probably why we call cookies cookies rather than biscuits.

[@stankmcdankton6204]

They are. The dutch word for it is "koekje", which is pronounced almost identically.

[@Viigan]

... and which means "little cake", as -je is the Dutch diminutive suffix.

[@ericv00]

What savages!

[@Joemantler]

God bless them! Cookies are great, and biscuits are great, and the thought of calling them the same thing for all eternity is just _WRONG!_

[@Joemantler]

@@Toxicpoolofreekingmascul-lj4yd *Post of the day!*

[@jamesdoyle5405]

Martin Van Buren the eigth President was from New York. English was his second language. Originally he was a Dutch speaker.

[@KairuHakubi]

Tell you what I'd instantly feel a lot more confident voting for a guy with sideburns like that if he ran today.

[@Home_with-Mr.penguin]

Cool

[@BlackWolfLeon]

Martin van Buren, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt are all from Dutch decent.

[@jamesdoyle5405]

@BlackWolfLeon True but I was referring to how deeply the Dutch culture ran at that time in New York that the language was still being used.

[@aarons3014]

I think this format is excellent. Please make more videos like this. Almost a call and response from Jon to Ryan.

[@jamesellsworth9673]

I spent a lot of my professional life in Albany, NY at the end of the 20th Century. The Van Rensselaers, the Schuylers and so on still were socially and politically significant. They had been allowed to keep their extensive manors by the British. Substantial Dutch merchant families still traded in Albany and New York City.

[@delrosario7453]

Cabbage needs to be massaged with salt for it to release its own juices. This step can make a big difference in coleslaw’s texture and flavor.

[@sangredelic]

I do that with onions. With cabbage I marinate it in mustard. Time to try both!

[@delrosario7453]

@@Toxicpoolofreekingmascul-lj4yd True except that sauerkraut is left to ferment for 2-3 weeks and the coleslaw has more ingredients which can be enjoyed immediately

[@emreyurtseven23]

Quick historical fact: this "Northwest Passage" Henry Hudson(and many others) was seeking to discover in 1600s was fully traversed by ships finally in early 1900s. The guy had no chance to begin with.

[@bostonrailfan2427]

he and everyone else tried and failed because they didn’t know anything about the terrain nor ice flows nor weather conditions…it was just sailing blindly north and west for 300 years

[@Vespuchian]

The Boothia Peninsula and Somerset Island sitting like a thousand kilometer middle finger to exploration was certainly a damper on making the trip. I think there was a wonky plan in the 50s/60s of _nuking_ a canal through the narrow bit in the middle.

[@kingofthings7929]

A lotta people died trying to find the passage too, ex: the Franklin Expedition in 1845

[@PeterT-i1w]

Don't forget donuts. Mr Burns in the Simpsons refused them because he doesn't eat "ethnic food".

[@michaelwarenycia7588]

I remember that on the Simpsons, but never understood it till now

[@Delicious_J]

Donuts (and waffles, though these were also common alehouse/pub fare too) have been sold at English markets and faires for many centuries, since the start of the medieval era, however the dutch may have had a significant influence on modern american donuts in particular

[@nicholas209]

Anyone interested in learning more about New Amsterdam should definitely check out The Island at the Center of the World, a wonderfully written book covering the founding period of the city and especially the struggle between the Governor Peter Stuyvesant (who Stuy town and Bed-Stuy are named after) and Adrian van der Donck (who Yonkers is indirectly named after). It also covers a lot of other cool stuff like the Swedish colony mentioned in the video and the search for the Northwest Passage. One last random fun fact; the word "boss" comes from Dutch via New York.

[@raraavis7782]

That sounds like a fascinating read. Thanks for the recommendation!

[@rdreher7380]

I was recently reading van der Donck's "A Description of New Netherlands," with an introduction by Thomas O'Donnell that goes over some of the history of the colony and biography of van der Donck, including his run in with the tyrannical Stuyvesant. One thing I took away from it is that we should have more things named after van der Donck and fewer named after Stuyvesant. Hahaha.

[@dirtisbetterthandiamonds]

Thank you! Stuyvesant tried to have my ancestor imprisoned for not following orders of killing natives. Would love to learn more!

[@lsh3rd]

@@dirtisbetterthandiamonds That's pretty interesting as Stuyvesant once appointed my ninth great grandfather, Casperus Steynmets (sometimes spelled Steinmets), as sheriff in about 1661. It does make me wonder if he was involved in this exchange!! In this thread when Stuyvesant was mentioned, I could not help but recognize the name and re-visited why I recognized it.

[@lsh3rd]

@nicholas209 thanks for the book recommendation, I was able to purchase a copy viewable on my Kindle. I'll have some time next week to read, so I'm looking forward to it.

[@Tidebo1]

As someone who is interested in 17th-18th Dutch cooking, I can confirm, lemon is everywhere. They loved that stuff. Another extremely popular side dish was Azia, now more commonly known as Achar. This was an asian pickle they got from Indonesia. In the southern US they have something called Ats Jaar, which are absolutely related.

[@donnaj9964]

I think of the Pennsylvania Dutch (or Deutsch if you will) with their seven sweets and seven sours; it definitely seems related to me.

[@festerallday]

Have you ever tried Speedy Sauce? It's a relatively modern thing but definitely NY Dutch

[@demrandom]

Ah right, in the Netherlands that's now called Atjar and you can buy it in every supermarket.

[@Tidebo1]

@@demrandom yup, the very same stuff, except not as sweet and with mustard seeds as an important ingredient. It's been in cookbooks since at least the mid 1700s, even though most Dutch people will think it only arrived here after ww2.

[@donnaj9964]

@@Tidebo1 Okay; now I'm really curious! Does anybody have a line on a recipe? Thanks in advance?

[@andybiz4273]

I live in upstate New York and work in Albany and the Dutch references and influence are still around.

[@festerallday]

I'm from Utica area. There is vinegar and citrus in everything. Speedy Sauce is my favorite

[@roberttalada5196]

@@festeralldayI love Chicken Speedies, I didn’t realize it was a regional thing till I moved down south and nobody knew what a speedie was

[@jimbob3332]

Is that where you get the term steamed hams?

[@margomoore4527]

I came for the recipes; I’m staying for the history. I had some good US history teachers, but I don’t recall hearing anything about the Swedish colonists vs the Dutch vs the Massachusetts colony. So cool!

[@Norbrookc]

So many of the towns in that area still carry Dutch names. Any town with "kill" as a suffix is from the Dutch word for "stream" or "river." Lots of families and the important historical figures are also descended from the Dutch, including one US President.

[@benn454]

Martin Van Buren

[@roberttalada5196]

Catskill

[@rdreher7380]

By the way you say "that area" it sounds like you're not from New York yourself, hahaha. For me, I don't think of towns named with "kill," I think of all the rivers those towns are named after, and more. Normans Kill, Basher Kill, Alplaus Kill, Plotter Kill, Beaver Kill, you go hiking in New York all your life and you get to know a lot of kills. It's fun also to mention that even place names of Native origin, such as Schenectady, will often show in their spelling that they were first written by the Dutch, not the English.

[@Norbrookc]

@@rdreher7380 Actually, I am from New York, and actually live in the state right now.

[@demrandom]

an archaic one, mind you. modern dutch people would not recognise it as such.

[@mixedhairless]

I think I will watch a Townsends video every day in 2025 instead any news program.

[@dwaynewladyka577]

This is a very fascinating piece of information on the history of New York City. My maternal, great grandparents came to New York City, from Czechoslovakia in 1900, and were married there that same year. They lived there for a little while, before they came to Canada. My maternal grandfather came to Ellis Island in 1914, from Poland, before going to Chicago to live and work, before he came to Canada. Cheers!

[@renaissanceweeb]

It's not just the Dutch golden age but it's the coldest period of the little ice age! Global temperatures are dropping and demand for warm clothes is higher than ever. The Dutch are rich, industrious, and looking to compete with Russia, who dominates the fur market. New Amsterdam is founded especially to acquire beaver fur from the Lenape and manufacture it into warm clothes.

[@lsh3rd]

My ninth great grandfather, Casparus Steynmets, was skilled at communicating with the natives in this quest for fur trade!

[@davidcox3076]

We sometimes forget how much impact the fur trade had on the exploration and development of the US and Canada. The Dutch really cashed in.

[@gus473]

​@@davidcox3076It brought my wife's family to the outpost that eventually grew to be Montreal. (The Metis branch goes back farther, of course....) (⁠◠⁠‿⁠◕⁠)

[@christophertaylor9100]

Basically everything that made the English powerful and rich was stolen from or learned from the Dutch. They did all that economic stuff first!

[@dirtisbetterthandiamonds]

Jon, I have watched you for several years now. I felt like you were showing me "home". I am a cattle rancher and baker who recently found out I am a direct descendant of Commander Jochim Pietersen Kuyter of Fort Amsterdam who came on the armed ship the Fire of Troy! I am finding out that even after 373 years, we are still so much the same in our farming and entrepreneurship. He was killed for freeing slaves and protecting the local Indians from Peter Stuyvesant and some others who wanted to eliminate the natives, and was on council The Twelve Men. He owned 31-35 Stone Street as well as a 400 acre farm on Long Island. Sorry for the information dump but I am absolutely STOKED about all of this!!

[@Lydia-b9f]

Screenshotting these recipes for later. It's interesting, I am originally from a place with a Dutch name in this region but never knew about the culinary or cultural influences beyond NYC trade. The effort to flatten everything into British-->Oversimplified American has obscured so much. It's always so nice to get more granular history, and history that looks like it tastes good, too.

[@douglasharveyii]

Agree! I have lived in upstate NY the majority of my life... in towns like Halfmoon (named after Hudson's ship) and Gansevoort. There are plenty of Dutch named cities and towns, but hardly anything about the food!

[@austinbell4685]

Almost 200 years after this Martin Van Buren became president, a native Dutch speaker who only learned English in school. He is to date the only US president to have spoken a language other than English as his native language

[@roberttalada5196]

There are still Pennsylvania Dutch speakers around here. And in Louisiana there are many French speakers.

[@guyfaux3978]

MvB probably sounded like an Afrikaner.

[@racer3886]

I believe he was also the first president who was a U.S. citizen from birth. As all the previous president's were born British subjects

[@Tinky1rs]

@@roberttalada5196 I am quite sure the Pennsylvania Dutch do not speak Dutch. I think it's more like an older dialect of German. The usage of Dutch/Diets/Duits/Deutsch all got quite confusing during the centuries. In Dutch we call them them (literally translated) Pennsylvania-German.

[@austinbell4685]

@ Yeah, they came to North America before the German language was strictly standardized. I think they spoke a dialect of North German which basically no longer exists these days

[@nwabejohnson]

The apple egg fritter is very reminiscent of a contemporary cake called the 'Schoenelapperstaart', or shoe shiner's cake, sometimes also known as Schoenelapperspudding, or shoe shiner's pudding. The 'rusk' mentioned in the recipe is not usually old stale bread, but rather a very airy, twice baked bread called 'beschuit'. The etymological link to 'biscuit' is obvious, and beschuit is still a staple of Dutch cuisine to this day.

[@kirtcobijn6200]

Dutchie here, this was a great episode to me! I would love to see more about influences from other cultures and countries, like the swedes you mentioned.

[@GrandMa-hm5mb]

In Albany, NY, The Crailo Historic House gives a lesson on Dutch "cookies." The word "cookie" meant "little cakes" and was a way to test the leavening on small cakes before risking costly amounts of flour.

[@Home_with-Mr.penguin]

The bakers must have sold them to not waste food. And people liked them.

[@FadeDance]

These are made with such heart and expertise. Truly some of the best content out there. So much of KZbin has taken a bad turn many years ago, and here we are watching this get better and better and show that this was always a wonderful format to present content.

[@_B_K_]

If you like those type of meatballs... my wife found this recipe many years ago that uses grape jelly and the meatballs with that stuff in them taste amazing.

[@richardprescott6322]

Have you thought of doing an episode on the various historical insults used between the English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish and then onto the Spanish, Italians, Germans, and especially the French and vice versa? The origins 0f the insult?

[@amberinthebox4462]

UR CHANNEL GREW SO MUCH SINCE I LAST SAW IT. THATS AMAZING. my adhd self tends to forget about channels i luke then bump back into them and get to binge watch. Such fun

[@redrackham6812]

This was great. Thanks for finally doing a video about New York food at this time. You should do another of your time-traveler-preparing-a-version-of-modern-cuisine-for-a-founding-father videos, but this time for one of the founders from New York, like John Jay or Alexander Hamilton. What would they think of what New Yorkers are eating today?

[@Melissa0774]

I'd love to see what it would've actually been like to live in Manhattan back then. I wish somebody would make a 3D virtual reality walkthrough experience, where you could see a recreation of it. I bet when virtual reality becomes more popular, in coming years, things like that are going to become very common.

[@lsh3rd]

I think this is possible as there are hand sketches of what things looked like. It is certainly possible to virtualize them. Most of the streets that existed then still survive to this day!

[@Melissa0774]

@@lsh3rd I've always thought Manhattan was one of the weirdest places, not only in the U.S, but in the world. It's like someone said, let's take this one teeny little island over here, and have a contest to see how many people and how much stuff we can possibly fit into it before there's absolutely not an inch of space left.

[@paulbrandon5735]

Another great video. Your food themed productions are always my favorites. Your Apple pancake looks somewhat like my Indiana grandmas “ Apple Betty” . She added brown sugar sometimes, and probably not that many eggs always, but it was a carryover from her mother’s series of cookbooks that she started writing in Huntington County in the 1880s. Many of your 17th century dishes are pretty similar to dishes used in rural Indiana homes a few centuries later. My mom’s family were some of those earliest inhabitants of New Amsterdam, the Swaims. My many times over great grandfather was the first governor of Staten Island, if Ancestry and my family history are to be believed. As an old man, my happiest memories as a child revolved around my great grandfather ( born 1862) and his daughter ( born 1887) telling me family stories of earliest years of Indiana . It was only later, as an adult, that I would learn of the much older histories of my families. Food, cooking and food preservation were major parts of all of that. 😮

[@wayneantoniazzi2706]

And don't forget, in the 17th Century before the British invasion New Amsterdam also included the west bank of the Hudson River that became New Jersey. The Dutch influence was strong in Northern New Jersey and would remain so well into the 19th Century.

[@Hi_I_am_Ed]

I really like this series. A combination of the two types of videos I enjoy on this channel, smashed together. Good stuff.

[@patriciamorgan6545]

To think that today's southern biscuits have their Dutch origins around Long Island!😯🤯 The history of food is fascinating!

[@Viigan]

4:55 As for "I wouldn't have thought that was Dutch": It's right there in the name. Dutch "koolsla" (pronounced "kohl-slah") means "cabbage salad".

[@octacle_]

it's frankly amazing how much changing the spelling of something affects how it's perceived

[@thedeadpoolwhochuckles.6852]

I thought it Cole's Law.

[@Robobagpiper]

@2:03 One of the things the Dutch *did* lose was the right to use patronyms - the English required them to adopt surnames for legal purposes, so a number of uniquely American names were coined here among the Dutch and other ethnicities (like Frisians) who were living in New Amsterdam, Wyckoff being one of them.

[@gfgoalie28]

Grew up north of Albany and have lived in NYC for the last 12 years plus I love coleslaw- this is my kinda vid!!! It’s also been great to see Ryan’s personality flourish on camera over the last few years. He’s become a wonderful cohost to Jon!

[@trainman5323]

Tappen ‘Zee’ area of the Hudson and many more hold overs.

[@lacouerfairy]

Greetings from Upstate NY! Thanks for the shoutout!

[@BJHinman]

Growing up in the Hudson Valley in the 60’s this video hit close to home. Bedankt!

[@Silverstiletto]

I like this format of video. Talking about the history of an area and adding in some food. Good job.

[@olddawgdreaming5715]

Thanks for sharing with us, great history lesson and some fantastic dishes prepared with the Dutch influence. Keep up the great recipes and videos. Fred.

[@politicsuncensored5617]

My first duty station out off "A" school in 1977 was the Brooklyn, Navy Yard. For a kid out of south it was a great big fun world being in NYC for 18 months. Trying so many different foods was a big adventure, plus all the sports teams.

[@haraldbredsdorff2699]

We have something very similar, in Scandinavia today. Red cabbage and sour cabbage. The cabbage is finely sliced and slowly cooked with caraway and cumin seeds, apple, vinegar, sugar, salt and butter. Not fermented, unlike sauerkraut. We mostly eat it with sheep.

[@lorriewatson7423]

As a descendant of the Pennsylvania Dutch, I really appreciate this episode. I have fond memories of my great grandma's traditional biscuits, cookies and homemade bread!

[@johnnyjolijt2]

AI sure loves reacting to KZbin videos. Anyhow, nice to see an American cooking Dutch food.

[@todmills]

It was thanks to this channel that I was curious when a video about the history of nutmeg popped up in suggested videos. I learned that Manhattan was part of the deal between the Brits and the Dutch with one of the tiny Banda Islands because of the nutmeg industry.

[@charles-y2z6c]

1:11 what you see on that map sitting between the settlements and wild area is called Wall Street today. Back then they did trading there for things beside stocks and bonds

[@antjecasarez5059]

Potassium carbonate is still used in Germany, primarily for making gingerbread. Coleslaw is quite common in Central and Northern Europe. I grew up in East Germany, where coleslaw and sauerkraut, both of which are high in vitamin C, helped us endure the long winters when fresh fruit was hard to come by.

[@floydblandston108]

The Hudson river is tidal all the way to Albany, which helped its namesake Captain reach inland as far as he did.

[@rdreher7380]

Wrong, all the way up to Troy! Historically it was tidal all the way to Cohoes Falls, but now the Federal Dam stops it at Troy. Minor correction aside, I love this fact about the Hudson River, thanks for bringing it up! Have you heard about how many of the native names for the river translate to "The river that flows both ways," referring to its tides? In "A Description of the New Netherlands" by Adriaen van der Donck, a primary source on the Dutch colonial period, there's a passage about a time when whales came up the river and one died and washed up by Cohoes Falls. It's rotting body could be smelled from miles away!

[@floydblandston108]

@@rdreher7380 - I didn't mention Troy because I didn't think that many of John's non- New York viewers would recognize the former 'Collar City' of America. 😉

[@mikeinva8563]

The Op.Den Dykes were my ancestors who lived on Long Island in the mid 1600's. After being taken over by the British the family spread across all of the US.

[@dirtisbetterthandiamonds]

Your family and mine were neighbors! So cool!

[@matthewc4590]

Ryan, if you enjoy the citrus for brightness; then also consider a small handful of french herbs to finish your dishes (Parsley, mint, & oregano. Freshly chopped together in equal parts). You can add it to sauces and/or use it as a garnish. Please post your grandmother's (or another close family member's) best recipe someday!

[@norbertnagy4570]

I have just found this week a cookbook from hungary from the 1698 print its interesting they like to use lemon too I haven't had the time to look throw every recipe jet just random picks but many of them has lemon in them so tit might be just a time period thing

[@andrewwebb917]

Lemon is a miracle food! Those who eat it never seem to get scurvy!

[@TheWarthogRunGame]

great video! I love the crossover ones where you get multiple hosts

[@sststr]

I did an audiobook recording on my channel of "Manna-Hatin: The History of New York" published in 1929, which covers all that early Dutch settlement stuff better than I recall ever seeing in a school text book. Although they do completely ignore the issue of slavery in the Dutch colony, but they aren't shy about talking about the relationships the Dutch had with the natives, both good and bad.

[@MARKE911]

A wonderful history lesson that I enjoyed watching. I look forward to trying these meatball and apple recipe.

[@AdenMcIsaac]

It was also the Dutch in New York that introduced Santa Claus into American culture.

[@lsh3rd]

Wonderful!! My 9th great grandfather immigrated to New Netherland in 1631. I was just in the Netherlands last week, so this is all very interesting to me.

[@dirtisbetterthandiamonds]

Same! Was he on the ship the Fire of Troy?

[@lsh3rd]

@@dirtisbetterthandiamonds in my research, I do not know the name of a ship.

[@warman31]

New York plays a big part in the history of beer in the New World. One thing that stood out to settlers were all of the hops growing wild throughout the state. New York would be the hop capital of the world for a long time. Dating back to the 17th century, beer brewed in New York was demanded all around the world. There's even evidence of the British in India and Africa requesting it be shipped to them. In more modern beer history, Albany, New York was home of one of the first craft beer breweries east of the Mississippi following the end of prohibition. Jim Koch of Boston Brewing (Samuel Adam's), and Larry Bell of Bell's Brewing are just two of the many apprentices Bill Newman, the owner of that brewery. You would not have one of the most successful beer brands in the country if it wasn't for Albany.

[@DariaAmato-wz2xg]

Sadly neighborhood bakeries like butcher shops are going away in NY because of supermarkets. So quality baked goods and meats are next to impossible to find

[@roberttalada5196]

Interesting, a new butcher shop just opened during the pandemic on our market street selling locally butchered beef etc. called “The Butcher’s Son“ they also make very good burgers

[@nova3752]

America never had good baked goods

[@koololdster]

Swedesboro, NJ. Lots of old houses from 200 years ago. It's still there and has a fabulous butcher if you're ever in the area.

[@oz-mckinnen]

It's interesting to see all of these vistas into the past where foods, cuisine and traditions bear aspects of history in more detail than any chronicler's written book could convey.

[@martykitson3442]

Wow, i had no idea, thanks John and Ryan

[@TheGranolaForce]

This is fascinating, thank you!

[@Cheryworld]

always fun and interesting. Going to put lemon peel into meatballs. Also, Washington Irvings books are fantastic

[@margaretcopeland5029]

This is not you purview but for people who like some fiction with some pretty nice historical references, I recommend Eliot Pattison's "Bone Rattler" series. It is especially interesting with the northeast tribes. He does have references to New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, pre-revolution.

[@mgoddard23]

There’s still a lot of visible Dutch history here in NYC, at least on Staten Island. The neighborhood I live in is Dutch for “New Village” (there’s also Old Town - in English, that one got Anglicized for some reason) and most of the waterways surrounding the island are Anglicized versions of their original Dutch names.

[@madmh6421]

Well done! I like this format a lot!

[@vitazizka]

I’m Czech and the final sweet dish is also traditional in our country. It’s called "žemlovka"!

[@Lucius1958]

One detail about the transfer of American colonies from the Dutch to the English: in exchange for New Amsterdam, the Dutch got the former English post of Batavia in the East Indies. This was the basis for Dutch control of Indonesia, well into the 20th century. (Culinarily speaking, at least they got rijstaffel and ketjap out of it...)

[@isatq2133]

“To find the hand of franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea!”

[@laerwen]

I love me some Stan Rogers.

[@Tam.I.am.]

The Dutch also got an island in Indonesia where nutmeg was grown, and where they'd already wiped out most the local population. Every Dutch person I've met is beautiful, just like most the English I've met are beautiful, but I sure don't like the historical Europeans.

[@bloodwrage]

19:11 almost had it haha Great vid!

[@PandaBear62573]

I live in NYC, specifically Staten Island which gets its name from the Dutch, so does Brooklyn. The Dutch influence is heavily felt. I live in the neighborhood New Dorp, Dorp meaning village in Dutch. There is also a neighborhood called Old Town, which existed before New Dorp. And about a mile away is the neighborhood of Great Kills, kills meaning streams. So Great Kills means many streams. You will find many waterways with Kill in it. The waterway that separates Staten Island from NJ is the Arthur Kill. The Vanderbilt family is from Staten Island and buried here too. Van-Der-Bilt is a Dutch name. In Brooklyn there is a neighborhood called New Utrecht. Utrecht is the name of a city in the Netherlands. The well known high school Stuyvesant is named after is named after the last Dutch colonial governor of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant (Sty-ve-sant). He is buried in the East Village at St. Mark's Church.

[@nova3752]

Yikes. Staten island? You're basically New Jersey. Sorry you're from the worst borough

[@Tinky1rs]

kill must be an old word, as it doesn't ring any bells for me. Stuyvesant sounds like stuivend zand, meaning something like blown-up sand. de Bilt is a place in the Netherlands as well.

[@glenesis]

​@@Tinky1rsVery interesting. Long Island is a huge sandbar.

[@rdreher7380]

@@Tinky1rs Are you speaking as someone from the Netherlands? The New York word "kill" to mean a creek or river is from Dutch "kil." I've never been to the Netherlands, but just from googling I can tell there are bodies of water called "kil" there, such as Kil van Hurwenen or Dordtsche Kil. Stuyvesant would be Stuivezand in Modern Dutch spelling, and indeed means Stuifzand, which is called "drift sand" in English. Modern Dutch spelling starts in the early 19th century, and spelling before that could look quite different. One of those difference is the use of Z instead of S, where a historical /s/ sound became a /z/ sound. Before that, Dutch was often more like English or German where Z-sounds are often written with an S: Was, is, housing / seches, sieben, Diesel. Another change was the preference for instead of . Next, you have earlier spellings like which reflects pronunciation instead of modern Standard which reflects phonology/etymology. These three changes show why the famous tyrannical governor of the New Netherlands was known as "Petrus Stuyvesant" and not "Pieter Stuivezand."

[@Tinky1rs]

@@rdreher7380 yeah I'm Dutch, born and raised. I've never heard of kil in that sense. Apparently it's more common in the southern Netherlands and Flanders, and I'm not from there. Kil in my book just means cold and wet (about weather) or cold and distant (about people). Nowadays I know kil as a geul or watergeul or vaargeul.

[@determineddi2044]

Thanks for a great video about my home state.

[@angelicap2736]

Alright so i had to watch it twice, so much information at 3 in the morning!😊

[@albinoorca]

Jon will probably appreciate this bit of history: New York was traded to to British for a small island where Nutmeg could be grown, in the Banda islands

[@truthseeker9688]

I love this channel...and learn a lot!

[@JS-xs5hq]

Irving used to write on the stories told by the old dutch wives, giving insight to his reverence for the history of European settlement and traditional ways of that period. Two significantly different cultures the colonial Dutch and the English. Explore colonial Williamsburg, Va and then visit New Castle, Delaware.

[@patriciahowellcassity767]

Thank you ❤

[@Devboul]

Great video ! So much information 😊

[@peterrex8191]

I was sitting on a stoop in Coney Island in Brooklyn watching this.. later my friend from Harlem who is a big Yankee fan…is coming with me to Flushing for some cookies…hee hee,,

[@Understandingthetimes3]

I love this channel

[@rdreher7380]

As someone who lives and grew up in the Albany area, for the first time while watching one of your videos I was like, "yeah, yeah I know this history." Your introduction to Dutch NY was very "introductory," and it's not often I feel frustrated for lack of depth in your videos, lol. Jokes aside, it's kind of a pity that you had to go over the basics of the Dutch colonial history of New York, but outside of New York itself the history is really little known, isn't it. Some fun bits I want to add to the Dutch colonial history: In New York we have many places named after Peter Stuyvesant, who was an important governor of New Netherlands. However, if you know your history, you know that Stuyvesant was a real tyrant, so despised that many New Netherlanders were relieved with the British takeover because it meant the end of Stuyvesant's oppression. We really should have places named after Adriaen van der Donck, instead of Stuyvesant. I was recently reading "A Description of the New Netherlands" by van der Donck, with an introduction by Thomas O'Donnell that goes over the history leading up to the writing of this book. I'm sure you folks at Townsends are at least familiar with that source, and I think you might have brought it up before. What I learned from it is that van der Donck was a much more admirable figure from that time period, a kind of Dutch Ben Franklin, who became a voice of opposition against Stuyvesant and was ruined for it. We do have at least one place named after him though: His nickname was "the gentleman" as he was a highly learned man, the only lawyer in the colony. In Dutch, this was "Jonkheer" which sounds like "Yonker." Yonkers, NY is the sight of what was once his estate. I'm so glad you brought up Christmas and the importance of New York's Dutch influence in how Christmas evolved and flourished in America. I love telling people about how Washington Irving adapted the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas, or St. Nicholas, turning him into an elf named Santa Claus. From Irving we get other writers evolving and elaborating Santa, such as Clement Moore writing "A Visit from St. Nicholas," first published in the Troy Sentinel in upstate NY, and eventually Santa Claus becomes the Christmas gift-giver we know him as today, and Christmas a time for cookies and family and child-like wonder, that even the New Englanders couldn't hate. So much of New York's uniqueness is in these Dutch connections. Across the river from Albany is Rensselaer, named for the van Rensselaer family. We call rivers "kills" from a Dutch word for creek: Catskill, Normans Kill, Alplaus Kill, Plotter Kill, Basher Kill, Beaver Kill, Cobleskill, Peekskill... The Dutch influence is even felt in the way Indian place names have come down to us via Dutch: Schenectady is from Mohawk but that spelling is very Dutch influenced. In New York, when I was in school, we only get emphasized our Dutch history in the 4th grade, where we focus on our state's history rather than the whole nation. That's also the year we get the Eire Canal drilled into us, and the only time we really get to learn about the Native history in any depth, especially the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois. So many kids though just forget about this stuff, as the rest of our education doesn't do anything to make history feel as near to us as it really is. In the 5th grade, and then in the 9th grade, we are taught how the cost of the French and Indian War was what caused British Parliament to levy taxes on the colonies, but do we learn about the events of the Schenectady Massacre that unfolded right in our hometown? We have a mural in our post office that depicts that history, but no school teacher ever told me about it. There's all sorts of ways you can connect to the vastness of time right outside your own front door. Where schooling fails though, you guys shine, always bringing history to life!

[@rebeccachambers419]

This was a very interesting video!!!

[@BrainStewification]

Dutch is still in the way New Yorkers speak for sure. As a native of NYC who still lives in the area, so many phrases and place names come from Dutch terms, and while the exact pronunciation shifts as all languages do, some speech patterns differ greatly from surrounding areas because of that Dutch influence.

[@victoriahortus]

Superb show 😊

[@catloafstudy]

Really interesting stuff!

[@leedoss6905]

I don't know what the deal is but I've found myself reinventing some of these recipes without knowing they've been done before. I just think that sounds like it might be good and make it The meatballs were spot on. I use a ton of the old spices like nutmeg in all manner of foods. Heating up some cabbage onion celery potato soup as we speak. Water. Pinch of turmeric. Nutmeg. Knorr chicken bullion powder. Black pepper. Bacon. Onion. Celery. Potatoes. Green cabbage. Butter. That's it

[@Lugnut_93]

My Oma "naturalized" to the USA from Holland after WW2 (she survived the "Hunger Winter"). Even back in the 30s & 40s (the way she still eats today). Buttermilk, milk, bread, butter, & cheese are eaten on the daily. Pickles & Slaws are several times a week. So fascinating the history of food & humankind. Edit: Rusk!! Omg, I didn't know how old that word is. A "Rusk" nowadays is a very toasted slice of circular toast you buy in a sleeve. Just imagine if Panko was a biscuit cut halfways

[@richardprescott6322]

Thankfully us Brits - roast beafs, sorted the cheese heads out in the end. Who would ever imagine making cheese in a ball shape and wrapping it into a red or yellow wax - lunatics! What's wrong with making a cheese, storing it in a cave and filling it with mould and making delicious tangy Stilton.? As in England 😂 I am obviously taking the p out out of my Dutch friends

[@dereinzigwahreRichi]

The coleslaw you're making there is basically a "Krautsalat" as it's called in german, though caroway seed is almost always added, which greatly helps to digest the raw cabbage. It gets better when you let it rest up to a few days, it might even start to ferment a little then. I'd imagine something like that to be known in the Netherlands as well. Fun fact: in Germany the Krautsalat is an essential part to a Döner or Dürüm Kebap, which both is an invention made in Germany, at least in its modern form. When the Krautsalat mixes with the white sauce you almost get a coleslaw in there. ;⁠-⁠)

[@y6cd3sdzHs1g]

That's interesting, they made a crock pot sauerkraut video years ago, and that produced something like what you're describing. It was very different from the modern processed kraut that you can get from the store-or at least those from American stores

[@dereinzigwahreRichi]

@y6cd3sdzHs1g I instantly believe that it's not like the one in the american stores... ;⁠-⁠) Yes, it's a bit like Sauerkraut before it's fermented. Sauerkraut basically is layers of shredded cabbage and salt in a pot or barrel, pressed down by some weight and left for lacto-fermantion. You can buy that in some german supermarkets fresh from the barrel.

[@dongatello6969]

Big ups to Townsends

[@reyersbrusoe2576]

Thank you so much for pronouncing Albany correctly!!!

[@rdreher7380]

As someone from the capital region myself, I know exactly how you feel!

[@burneraccount900]

another fantastic video, you guys are great

[@oldbarnmenagerie2783]

Good morning ❤

[@BluJean6692]

Lots of love from NYC! Been watching for years but my City/State doesn't come up often lol

[@smahlt]

This is my kind of coleslaw tbh. I don't really like mayonnaise and by extension, mayo-based coleslaw, but every time I've had coleslaw made without mayo, I loved it.