Eats History

This salsa was being made nearly 200 years ago, and it looks and tastes shockingly familiar to our modern tomato salsa.

This is an authentic Mexican salsa recipe from 1831, pulled straight from El Cocinero Mexicano, one of the first cookbooks ever published in Mexico after independence. Long before blenders, bottled sauces, or restaurant menus, this is how salsa was actually made: tomatoes roasted over heat, peeled and crushed by hand, mixed with chiles, raw onion, vinegar instead of lime, a touch of oil, oregano, and finished with sliced avocado.

What surprised me most is how little has changed. The technique is slower. The texture is more rustic. But the flavor is unmistakably salsa. Bright, balanced, and grounded in the ingredients themselves rather than intensity or excess.
I recreated this recipe exactly as it would have been made in the early 19th century and wrote up the full history and method on the site.

👉 Full recipe here: eatshistory.com/authentic-mexican-salsa-recipe.../

11 hours ago (edited) | [YT] | 523

Eats History

There are certain foods that instantly take you back to being a kid, and for me, Watergate Salad is one of them.

I remember seeing this pale green bowl show up at family gatherings, holidays, and potlucks, usually tucked between the deviled eggs and whatever casserole someone’s aunt brought. I didn’t know what it was called back then, and I definitely didn’t know why it was green. I just knew it was cold, fluffy, sweet, and somehow always gone by the end of the night. It felt less like a recipe and more like a tradition.

As I got older, I realized Watergate Salad is a perfect snapshot of mid-20th-century American food culture. It comes out of the era of “dessert salads,” when whipped toppings, canned fruit, marshmallows, and instant mixes ruled the kitchen. Pistachio pudding mix hit the market in the 1970s, and a simple pistachio-pineapple dessert took off almost overnight. Around the same time, the Watergate scandal dominated headlines, and somewhere along the way, the name stuck. The dish itself is sweet and innocent, but it ended up forever tied to one of the most infamous political moments in U.S. history.

That contrast is what makes it so fascinating to me. It’s nostalgic, a little strange, unapologetically American, and deeply tied to memory. Whether you grew up eating it or you’re seeing it for the first time, Watergate Salad tells a story about convenience, culture, and the way food sneaks into our lives without us even noticing.

I recreated the original Watergate Salad recipe and wrote up the full history behind it on the site.

👉 Full recipe here: eatshistory.com/the-original-watergate-salad-recip…

If this was part of your childhood too, I’d love to hear where you remember it from.
— Donnie

2 days ago | [YT] | 830

Eats History

Could you eat like a Swashbuckling 17th Century Pirate for the entire day?

Full Recipe: eatshistory.com/how-to-eat-like-a-pirate-what.../

The romantic image of pirate feasts stacked with roast meat and overflowing rum barrels is mostly fiction. In reality, pirates ate almost exactly what most British sailors ate during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Their diet mirrored that of British naval and merchant crews, shaped by logistics rather than pleasure. Food needed to survive heat, humidity, long storage, and months without resupply.
Written evidence from the period consistently reinforces this.

Naval provisioning records from the late 1600s show rations dominated by ship’s biscuit, dried peas, and salted meat. William Dampier, writing in A New Voyage Round the World in 1697, describes pirate life as nutritionally repetitive, with food valued for durability rather than enjoyment. Pirates did not eat differently because they were pirates. They ate differently only when circumstance allowed.

One interesting exception was salamagundi. This was not everyday food, but was a celebration dish. A cold, assembled meal made from whatever ingredients were available after a successful capture or landfall.

The structure of salamagundi appears clearly in pirate-era writing. By the early eighteenth century, English dictionaries defined salmagundi as a medley or hotchpotch, reflecting its culinary and cultural meaning.

So, how did it taste?

In reality, pirates spent roughly ninety percent of their time eating biscuits and porridge. This recreated day represents a rare feast rather than daily life. The pease porridge genuinely surprised me. Paired with salt pork, it had a deep, satisfying flavor. Simple, but effective. Salamagundi felt like a salad’s older, more rustic cousin. Bright, salty, and communal.

The sea biscuits were outright unpleasant. Even soaked, they were dry, dense, and joyless. There is no romance there. Only endurance.

Taken as a whole, this full day of pirate eating earns a 5.7/10. Not terrible.

Occasionally enjoyable. Mostly repetitive. Historically honest.

4 days ago | [YT] | 821

Eats History

Coming soon...

4 days ago | [YT] | 580

Eats History

Officially kicking off recipe testing for my hardcover cookbook, Ancient Roman Recipes (set to release in early 2027).

Have quite a busy month ahead of me but extremely excited to perfect these 2,000-year-old recipes! Let’s get cookin

5 days ago | [YT] | 717

Eats History

Would You Try Renaissance Pasta for a Pope?

In 1570, the most powerful kitchens in Europe were not royal courts, but the Vatican. At the center of that world stood Bartolomeo Scappi, personal chef to the pope, whose cookbook Opera gives us a rare look at what elite Renaissance food actually looked like.

This chicken and bone marrow pasta was not comfort food. It was intellectual cuisine. Finely chopped capon enriched with custardy bone marrow, ricotta, saffron, rosewater, sugar, and imported spices, all wrapped in thin handmade pasta. Sweet and savory lived side by side, because refinement meant balance, not restraint. Even the pasta shape was different from what we know today, closer to large ravioli than modern tortellini, designed to showcase the filling rather than the fold.

What makes this dish truly striking is its cost. When you translate Renaissance prices into modern terms using wages and purchasing power, a single serving of this pasta would represent roughly $1,500–$3,000 in today’s money. Saffron, spices, sugar, and capon were global luxury goods. Serving this dish was a statement of power, education, and access, not excess.

This is what eating at the height of the Renaissance actually looked like. Thoughtful, layered, symbolic, and deeply intentional.

Full recipe and historical breakdown on the blog:

eatshistory.com/luxury-renaissance-pasta-recipe...…

#history #pasta

6 days ago | [YT] | 570

Eats History

The favorite dish of the man who conquered Constantinople wasn’t decadent. It was strategic.

Full Recipe: eatshistory.com/mutancana-recipe-the-favorite.../

When Sultan Mehmed II breached the walls of Constantinople in 1453, he didn’t just change history. He cemented the Ottoman Empire as a world power. And his tastes at the table reflected that same mindset.

One dish closely associated with Mehmed’s reign is mutancana. A lamb stew built on balance. Meat for strength. Dried fruit for preservation. Honey and vinegar for a controlled sweet-and-sour edge. Light spice, not excess. This wasn’t indulgence. It was food that could feed a court, sustain campaigns, and still feel worthy of an emperor.

Ottoman cuisine prized harmony over heaviness. Mutancana shows that perfectly. It’s rich without being overwhelming, refined without being fragile. A dish designed for an empire on the move.

History isn’t just written in battles and walls.
Sometimes it’s written in what kept conquerors fed.

1 week ago | [YT] | 857

Eats History

Marshmallows didn’t start as candy. They started as medicine.

Full Recipe: eatshistory.com/the-history-of-the-marshmallow.../

Before sugar, gelatin, or corn syrup, marshmallows were made from the root of a marsh plant and sweetened with honey. In the ancient world, marshmallow root was prized for its soothing, medicinal properties, used to calm sore throats and inflammation.

In Egypt, where honey was sacred and reserved for rituals and the elite, a marshmallow-like confection would have been dense, sticky, and deeply intentional.
I recreated what an early marshmallow may have looked like using marshmallow root, honey, egg whites, and almonds.

The result is nothing like the modern version. It’s herbal, nutty, and rich, with a subtle bitterness beneath the sweetness. More medicinal than dessert. More ceremonial than snack.

The modern marshmallow still carries the name, but none of the root. This was the confection before factories made it weightless and disposable.

A taste of the marshmallow before it became candy.

Rating: 7.6 / 10

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 1,063

Eats History

Pabellón Criollo: Venezuela’s History Served on a Single Plate

Full Recipe: eatshistory.com/pabellon-criollo-venezuelas.../

If there’s one dish that truly feels like Venezuela, it’s Pabellón Criollo. This isn’t flashy restaurant food or a special-occasion showpiece. It’s everyday cooking that became symbolic through repetition, memory, and meaning. Shredded beef cooked down with aromatics, creamy black beans, fluffy white rice, and sweet fried ripe plantains may sound simple, but together they tell the story of an entire country.

What makes pabellón so powerful is that it wasn’t invented. It evolved. Each component reflects the realities of colonial Venezuela, where Indigenous foodways, African survival cooking, and Spanish ingredients were forced to coexist. Over time, those necessities became tradition, and tradition became identity.

The dish didn’t appear fully formed. Beef was shredded because tougher cuts needed time and moisture. Beans were essential because they were filling, affordable, and deeply rooted in Afro-Caribbean and Indigenous cooking. Rice arrived as trade expanded and became a staple. Plantains were already beloved, especially when fried ripe and sweet. Eventually, these foods began appearing together on the same plate, not by design, but because it worked.

Even the name carries weight. Pabellón means “flag,” and many Venezuelans see the plate as a reflection of the nation itself, with contrasting colors and components standing side by side. It’s a reminder that identity is often built from contrast, not uniformity.

This is comfort food with history behind it. A dish born from necessity that grew into a symbol of home, resilience, and belonging.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 1,000

Eats History

Rome’s Most Addictive Street Food Was Named After a Surprise

If you’ve ever bitten into a Roman supplì and watched molten cheese stretch like lava, you already understand the magic. But what most people don’t know is that this iconic street food got its name during the Napoleonic occupation of Rome. When French soldiers encountered these fried rice croquettes in the early 1800s, the gooey mozzarella center reminded them of a military telegram cord. They called it surprise — and Romans turned it into supplì.

Supplì were born as practical food for working Romans. Rice cooked slowly in tomato sauce, enriched with butter and cheese, then stuffed with mozzarella and fried until crisp. Cheap ingredients, maximum satisfaction. They were sold in bakeries and tavole calde, eaten standing up, and designed to keep people full for hours.

The texture is everything. Crack one open and you get a shattering crust, creamy rice, and that signature cheese pull that made them famous long before social media ever existed. It’s indulgent without being fancy, and that’s exactly why it survived centuries of change in Rome.

I learned to make these properly while eating my way through Rome, and recreating them at home is surprisingly doable. Slow-cooked tomato rice, a cube of mozzarella, breadcrumbs, and hot oil. That’s it. No shortcuts, no gimmicks.

Sometimes the best food stories aren’t about kings or empires. They’re about street food that refuses to disappear.

Full Recipe: eatshistory.com/suppli-recipe-romes-crispy-rice...…

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 883