(light music) - This program is brought to you by the members of WCNY.

Thank you.

- Nationwide, Hungry for History markers from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation highlight unique foods and traditions, including salt potatoes and Berry Dairy Days, available through grants for communities and nonprofits.

More at wgpfoundation.org/tv.

- Syracuse sits in the heart of New York State, with access to the Finger Lakes and the Adirondacks, from city vibes and great local eats, to live music and festivals that roll on year-round.

Four seasons for everyone.

- Liberty Tabletop has been crafting flatware in America for over 20 years and is dedicated to supporting our community and preserving the craft of flatware manufacturing.

Liberty Tabletop.

- Spatchcock Funk is in the house.

Our house and your house too.

You know where the party's at?

Wherever you're at.

We're gonna teach you how to throw the best parties, the best dinners, the best get togethers.

All you need is the people you love and we'll take care of the rest.

"Spatchcock Funk," dope food, strong drinks, great stories.

(upbeat music) Bow your head.

Gather all the finest meats and cheeses for a "Spatchcock Funk" feast.

We've assembled our royal court of the bawdiest lords and ladies for a realm-shaking party.

So sound the trumpets, and let the festival begin.

We're gonna drink and be merry tonight, y'all.

We're changing things up and taking this party old school, way back to the Middle Ages.

We're about to breathe life into the same old get together and we're gonna roar, roar like a dungeon dragon.

Trying something different and new, or in this case old, but new to us, keeps people refreshed, it keeps 'em guessing and keeps us all engaged.

We're gonna get you all learned up on some cocktail alchemy, a dinner fit for kings and queens, and throw a party that Marie Antoinette would be jealous of.

We're trying to keep our heads here and help you get your head right.

We about to party like it's 1499.

This is the King's Table.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) When you're throwing a royal party, you need a majestic cocktail to get the party jumped up.

And that's what we're doing today for our court, y'all.

Throwing a Renaissance party, a medieval type thing, that's pretty cool.

But, actually, it's unauthentic to the time period.

It's usually a blend of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

So we get that.

But, also, it didn't just happen in Europe, it was happening around the world, y'all, the Old World as they call it, or the New World, but it was there at the same time so we're not down with that.

We're using ingredients from both sides of the hemisphere to respect that time and technological growth.

But Valhalla's Nectar, this is named after where warriors go when they die, Viking warriors.

So in their honor, we're gonna use some honey mead.

While they were doing commerce and pillaging all over Europe, they were drinking this fine thing, it's like a wine basically made out of honey, which is awesome.

So we're gonna put a little bit of that into a shaker with ice.

By a little bit, I mean a lot.

The other powerful ingredient is representing the New World.

So in pre-Spanish Central America and the bottom North America, is when they first discovered making tequila and mezcal, so we're going with mezcal here.

So half the amount of that.

When you're making drinks too, depending on the cocktail, you gotta think about the mouth feel, right?

How does it feel?

Mouth feel means not just the smell and the taste, but how it feels, the texture in your mouth.

To prevent a high level of viscosity, a stickiness feeling, we're putting a little bit of water.

And then, to bring out the flavors, some acidity.

Now the honey, we're gonna double down on because we love it and you know we love making simple syrups.

So we've got a honey simple syrup.

More natural, which is great, and it's just a cup of water, a cup of sugar heated up together over a medium heat until the honey dissolves and it's liquid.

So we can put a healthy splash of that.

And we're gonna represent and respect all the time periods and all the people of the world, y'all, 'cause that's how we get down.

(shaker rattling) If you were living and fighting back then, or living and fighting now, we're here for you.

We got our shake up.

We're gonna shake things up by pouring a righteous drink.

We're celebrating the conquerors, but we're not forgetting the conquered either.

So here's to all of y'all.

Valhalla's Nectar.

(upbeat music continues) Oh, that's a royal drink.

(joyful music) When you're cooking for the King's Table, you've gotta come correct, y'all, 'cause when you come at the king, you best not miss.

For our dinner today, we've got a knockout starch, it's mashed potatoes.

However, mashed potatoes to me are either awesome or just okay and you know we don't do just okay.

So these are Whipped War Pigs, I'll tell you why later.

But first, let's make this crazy pork belly gravy.

Now, the first thing I'm adding in is a whole mess of pork belly fat.

Now, pork belly fat, you're like, where'd you get that?

Well, I made it 'cause we're putting pork belly in here.

I've also got some turkey fat that I rendered from some turkey necks, I'm gonna put that in there too.

We're gonna heat this all up with a little bit of chicken stock.

While we're simmering, we're gonna add in a whole bunch of melted butter so we don't disturb the temperature of it, and then we're gonna put in the rest of our chicken stock or chicken broth, we're using stock here.

Now while we're doing that,let me talk about the name.

The name is Whipped War Pigs, because we are, and I like being whipped sometimes 'cause I always give consent for that.

But Whipped War Pigs is a cool name and not just named that for an awesome Black Sabbath song.

But the whipped is 'cause they're whipped potatoes.

The war pigs though, like the song is named after, actually, is a wild story from the Middle Ages in the Renaissance time.

War pigs, they would, you know, back in the day, when they would go to war, they would line up on the battlefield and charge in.

Well, one side got smart, I would say, but pretty cruel.

And they would take pigs, live pigs, coat 'em with oil and set 'em on fire, so the pigs are screaming and yelling and charging at these people, right?

So you're a soldier ready to battle, all of a sudden, this screaming animal comes at you and that's what a war pig was.

It was psychological warfare way back in the day.

So we're naming this dish in honor of those pigs that gave their lives for a bunch of crazy stuff.

We're gonna add in some flour.

We're gonna mix that in with a little bit of wine, like a chardonnay.

We're gonna keep stirring that up until it starts to thicken up, y'all.

To thicken it up, you can add more flour, you can also add a slurry, which is one tablespoon of water and one tablespoon of corn starch mixed up and then add it in.

We're thickening up real nice right now.

So we're gonna add in salt and pepper to taste, as they say.

And for me, that's a lot.

And then, we can set it aside while we whip up our potatoes to make sure that this keeps thickening up as it warms.

Y'all, it's time to whip it and whip it good.

We got five pounds of Yukon gold potatoes that we boiled right up, 14 minutes, they're good to go.

Kept 'em in the pot, so the pot's still warm.

But first, our dairy part of the thing.

First part of the dairy, anyways, three sticks of butter.

We got a pound of shredded sharp white cheddar, a big old fat piece of cream cheese we got to room temperature.

And before we get into everything else, we are gonna just mix this up together, so as we fold in the potatoes, it's evenly distributed.

(blender whirring) I'm gonna add in some heavy cream into my taters.

Then I'm gonna add in a little bit of garlic salt that my dad made, which is awesome.

A whole mess of black pepper and ground mustard.

This is a key ingredient, the ground mustard.

This creates a bite throughout things, it brings out other flavors, the cheese, the fattiness of the pork belly.

Then, a whole bunch of granulated garlic.

And before we mix in our dairy part, we're gonna mix this up too.

(blender whirring) Now I'm gonna fold all that cheese in and the butter, and I'm gonna whip it again till it's real nice and smooth.

Yes, yes, y'all.

We got a ocean of fabulous whipped potatoes.

That's what I'm talking about.

Now we keep talking about layers of flavor, depth of flavor, and we wanna layer stuff on.

So I get a whole mess of chives.

But these are pork belly mashed potatoes, y'all.

So we're also gonna throw in that pound of pork belly that I chopped up real thin.

I'm gonna mix that up evenly, and now you've got Whipped War Pigs, baby.

And we on the war path for some great fixins.

And our guests are gonna love this with that gravy.

Potatoes fit for the finest lords and ladies of the land.

(pleasant music) Let's get medieval, y'all.

When you want to get into something, get into it.

Before the party, we're gonna learn all about how to swing a sword with the awesome people from Tales of Aloria.

(pleasant music continues) Yo, we're waiting for some mayhem.

We got Memo and Dewey here to get us battle ready.

How we do this, bro?

- All right, nice and simple.

You go ahead and pick up those swords and shields.

- Oh man.

- You're now the world's cheapest ragdolls.

So you have two hit points each, your torsos worth two hit points and your limbs are worth one point each.

- It's like right there.

- Exactly.

Instant dead, pop.

- Instant dead.

- Instant dead.

- Now if I take your arm, you're still alive and fighting.

If I take another leg, now you've lost both points.

- Now I've lost two points.

- Yeah.

- Exactly.

- When do I come back into the game though?

- Whenever the game resets.

So we do a lot of line fights and things, sometimes we'll do like infinite battles where you have infinite lives and we just grind fight for like 45 minutes.

- Wow.

See that's how I go on video games.

- Oh yeah.

- Get the code for infinite lives.

- Oh yeah, this is basically medieval "Call of Duty."

- Yeah, okay.

- Oh, I love it.

(both laughing) - So, how hard are we hitting?

- So you're gonna avoid stuff like this, we call it skinny or buttery.

That's a little light, you're gonna go for butter.

- Oh yeah, oh yeah.

I can do that.

That was weak.

- A little harder.

- Yeah.

- Give it a little more oomph.

Without the flat.

- Oh, that was flat.

Sorry, sorry.

- That's what you do to somebody you hate.

- Oh man.

- Then you say flat don't take.

- Oh man, that's why I did it.

I love it.

- Do you ever just take the shield and just barrel?

- Yep, so you can shield bash and you can also shield check.

- Oh yeah, that's gonna be my strategy.

- Shields don't deal any damage, but they are great if you wanna mess with somebody, like, you can open someone's shield.

- You ever chuck it up and then, whew.

- We're not supposed to throw shields, but sometimes it's fun.

- Okay, yeah, definitely fun.

- Okay.

- All right.

- Can we watch you guys duel first?

- Yeah, yeah, sure.

- Come on.

(pleasant music continues) (weapons thumping) - Whew.

Wow.

- They're quick, very quick.

- Thanks.

- Okay.

- They make it look easy.

Shall we?

- Okay, let's do it, ready?

Oh.

- Oh there you go.

- That was the torso.

- Was it?

- Taking your leg out, anyways.

- I got two legs done, I'm done.

- And one thing I'd recommend real quick, when you take a leg, just to be safe, either plop that forward and call it a dead leg and it's immune, but you cannot move.

- Dead leg.

- Or drop that knee down.

- Got it, yeah, I was hoping you were dropping down 'cause I was gonna behead you.

- Okay.

- Another thing, another thing, a quick tip about the weapons, don't put them tip down on the ground, that'll ruin the stab tip.

- Oh got it, okay.

- Yeah, yeah.

If you wanna lean on 'em, pommel on the ground.

- Yep.

- Okay.

- Exactly.

- Sweet.

(pleasant music continues) - Ah!

Ah!

(bright music) - When you're serving kings and queens, you better have a king and royal protein to make everybody get strong and big.

That's what we're doing today.

Now, renaissance fairs across the country since the Middle Ages, people love the turkey leg and so do I. So a king turkey leg is the biggest one you can get.

Now you can roast them, that's cool, you can steam 'em, I guess, I wouldn't recommend that.

You can grill 'em, also cool.

But us, we are gonna fry 'em, a fried turkey leg fit for a king or a queen.

We're also gonna top it with a killer cracked cranberry sauce.

Let's make the sauce first so that can chill and party together while we get really into the heavy stuff.

For our cranberry sauce, people call it aioli, which is really just a mayo and that's when you actually make it from scratch.

But we've got the mayo in here already, two cups of it.

We also have a whole can of whole berry cranberries.

I know it looks like gel, but trust me, it's the actual berry version.

I get confused by it all the time.

I'm gonna put that in there, and you'll see little parts of the berries in there.

That's important.

Then, because it's cracked, right?

We want cracked black pepper.

You cannot put enough black pepper in there.

I'm gonna put a whole bunch in here.

I'm gonna crack in some more.

Granulated garlic, which we love.

Some salt.

And then lime juice.

The acidity is gonna help with the cranberry acidity, and then keep making that fatty goodness.

We're gonna mix it up until it gets a bright, nice pink.

And then we're gonna set it aside and get on to getting.

Now we have fried all sorts of turkeys, all sorts of animals really, and deep fried turkey is one of our favorite things.

But you gotta marinate it first, keeps it juicy, tender.

Let's make the marinade.

This is gonna be a Creole based marinade.

So it's got all the typical Creole seasonings, which includes tomatoes, so we got a tomato up in there, chopped up white onion, not a full one, but a bit of it.

And we have a whole mess of smashed garlic.

When you smash garlic, fresh garlic, it opens up some pores on it, gets it all ripped up and shredded.

Not like me, but I wish I was, and that allows more surface area of the garlic to permeate all the stuff.

We've got some white pepper, some smoked paprika, some thyme, cayenne pepper, a little heat in there, some black pepper, some kosher salt, and then some oregano.

Then we just mix this thing up til we see it all muddy, just how we like it 'cause you know we like things dirty a little bit.

Now to marinade chicken and turkey, anything that has skin on it, there's a couple ways to do it.

You can inject it, and trust me, I love to inject things and I love meat injectors, those are cool too.

But another way to do it too is just take a sharp knife and give yourself some pokes, especially in the thicker part of the muscle.

Like, if I were to marinade myself, I would go right here and right there, so that'll allow the marinade to soak into the muscle fiber.

Then I'm just gonna drop it right in there, spin it around a little bit.

And you gotta do this for at least three hours, but it can go overnight.

These legs I put in the fridge last night to marinade, and then I patted 'em dry with a paper towel.

We wanna season them too, we want as much flavor as possible with turkey legs, they're gonna be juicy and fantastic.

So we're gonna use Cajun seasoning on it and pat it evenly and I'm gonna show you how.

But let me tell you, we call this thing the King's Table, and you might notice I have a king's crown tattoo here.

I think a crown is a cool symbol.

But the reason why I love crowns is because I have no king.

I'm an American, I kneel before no one, I'm a subject to no one and it makes me happy when I think about that.

After they're patted up and all Cajun seasoned, they go in a 375 degree fryer for 15 to 20 minutes.

(oil sizzling) We gave these king turkey legs the royal treatment, some parsley, salt right out of the fryer.

I'm just gonna grab one of these baddies, spin it in this beautiful sauce and take a bite.

So juicy, so much flavor, so much power for the King's Table.

(joyful music continues) We've already done some role playing today, and I don't mean in the bedroom, that's for later.

But on the field, doing some LARPing stuff like that.

We wanna make a dessert that is fantastic for everyone, for the minstrels, for the kings, for the queens, for the court jester, everybody.

So this is the Hot Princess Peach, and we love a good peach, I've got a good peach, these are good peaches.

And that's really the star of this dish.

So we're gonna grill it.

So back in the day, Middle Ages, Renaissance times, when they started to really experiment with stone fruit, and it's called stone fruit because of the pit in the center, right?

That's the stone, that's what they would call the stone back in the day.

So a peach though is a flavor that goes well with everything, they're beautiful, they smell great.

And this dish is as much about smell as it is flavor.

Before we get to the grilled peach though, we're gonna make the topping.

This is creme fraiche, which is like a sour cream, it's fantastic, sweet, creamy.

But we're gonna make a basil creme fraiche, basil pairs with peach almost as good as I pair with Princess Peach.

But it's fantastic.

Starting things up, we've got a food processor.

We're gonna add in a healthy handful of basil, and it's awesome, smells great.

We put that in there.

Then we're gonna add in a little bit of a neutral oil, so we're using sunflower oil here because they're pretty, they look cool on the battlefield in the background, has all the blood spurting and stuff like that.

But it also doesn't really impact the flavor, but allows us to create the pace we're looking for.

Got a good old pinch of just regular table salt.

Then we've got some vanilla.

And vanilla is pretty interesting because vanilla actually doesn't taste really that strong.

Vanilla really is taking a vodka with a split vanilla bean, draws all the vanilla flavor out of it, but it's the aroma.

So when you're eating food, anything you're eating, the smell actually impacts how the food tastes.

It's the whole kit and caboodle, as they used to say back in the day.

Maybe they didn't, I don't know, I wasn't alive back then.

We're just gonna pulse this up into a paste.

(blender whirring) Okay, let's take a peek.

Yeah, we're pretty pasty, like I am sometimes.

Now we're gonna take that paste and scoop all the parts of it out, get all the little vanilla, the liquid that still might be left into that pasty goodness.

Let's get it really evenly mixed.

It's gonna turn like a lighter shade of green with bits of the basil throughout, and that's perfect.

And there's two things we can do at this point.

If you're grilling it right away, I would throw this in the freezer for a few minutes while you're grilling 'cause you're gonna grill for about 15 minutes.

It won't freeze cold, but the hot peach with the creme fraiche on top, we don't want it to melt too quickly.

Otherwise, if you're not doing it till tomorrow, this will stay for a couple days, so throw that in the fridge.

To caramelize up these beautiful peaches, you've gotta make an awesome glaze first, again, with more flavors to just compliment the peach itself and really bring out like some spiciness to it, which is great.

So we're gonna add into a pan melted butter, unsalted butter, unsalted butter at this point.

Then, a good amount of honey.

(bright music) Then some prosecco vinegar, brown sugar, of course.

And then more cinnamon.

Now over medium heat, then we're gonna stir it until it becomes this beautiful shiny glaze.

Got our grill medium high.

So we're gonna take our peaches, silicone brush, and the open side up, glaze it liberally, I mean, be generous, man.

Just anywhere in the kitchen, at the grill, in the bedroom, generous, that's what you wanna do.

Get it all on there, and then this flat side goes on the grill for five minutes.

Then we flip it over for seven minutes.

(peach sizzling) (bright music continues) Ooh, these look peachy, y'all, and they're ready for whatever role you want 'em to play.

The role today?

Dessert.

Hit it with a dollop of this chilled basil creme fraiche.

Yeah, then a little more basil too, because the color, the flavor, you can't go wrong with it.

(sighs) Now comes the crowning moment.

Decadence in your backyard or for the throne.

(lively music) Yo man, the realm is rocking.

My first time in the Middle Ages party is pretty dope.

- Dude, this is sick.

- It's fun.

- Yeah, absolutely, man.

I will say, this is not my first time at a renaissance.

- Can't say I'm shocked.

- Oh.

- Can't say I'm shocked.

- I mean, you guys have been to the Renaissance Festival, right?

- No, I'm a virgin.

- All right, my mom used to take me as a kid.

It was a good time, right?

- Sure, yeah.

- You know, turkey legs and beer and whatnot.

- Love those.

Obviously, not as a kid.

- I was gonna say, how many beers were you crushing as a kid?

- Probably three to four, you know, eight ouncers.

But in college, actually, we were out cruising around one night, having a couple of beers, 12 ouncers.

- Yeah.

- We happened to stumble upon this renaissance/medieval themed bar, right?

- Okay.

- So we were gonna continue on, we're like, "No, no, no, no, no.

We gotta see this."

- It's a slow night, let's amp this up.

- Yeah, and we're going in with the intent, of course, we're young, we're stupid.

- Stupid.

- We're going in with the intent of kind of like goofing on these people.

- Young and stupid.

- And we get inside and, you know, the host is very nice, takes us to a table and we're overlooking the arena, right?

And when I say arena, I mean, this is legit, it's like sand bottom there, you got horses, people jousting.

- Wow, wow, that's awesome, dude.

- Knights with swords, right?

And we're like, "All right, this is good."

So waitress comes over, they take our order.

- Wait, let me guess.

- Yeah.

- Were you gambling at this point?

- There was a couple, a couple 2 or $3.

- A shilling here, a shilling there.

- A shilling there, yeah, yeah.

- All right.

- So, a waitress comes over, takes our order.

My buddy goes, "Wench, I'll take a light beer."

And we're like, "Oh man."

- Oh no.

- Right, so as the night proceeds, we're starting to get a little loose, if you will.

And we're starting to get the crowd pumped up, right?

So we are- - I'm sure they've never experienced drunk college kids in that place before.

- They've never, and they've never experienced.

- Not this kind, yeah.

- They've never experienced hype like this, right?

We're like Flavor Flav level hype.

- Wow.

- So we're getting this crowd hyped up.

We got one side cheering for this knight, the other side cheering for this knight.

The waitress continues to come over, right?

My buddy continues to keep calling her a wench.

"Wench, I'll take another beer."

- Buddy.

- "Wench, I'll take some silverware.

Wench, can I have another napkin?

- Did you see her face slowly getting irritated?

- She's slowly starting to be like, "All right, you know what?

It was funny the first time, the second time was kind of ha-ha.

Now it's like, it's over."

- I've heard it before, yeah.

- Right, right, right.

- Yeah.

- So finally he says it for like the seventh or eighth time, and she looks at him and she's like, "Listen, my man."

- This guy.

- "You say that one more time, you're gonna be wearing these beers."

- He's like, "Wow, these characters are so real."

- Yeah, we're like, "Oh, no way, she's not gonna do that."

So he goes, "Oh, really, wench?"

Two mugs, boom, right in the face, right?

- Wow, dude.

- Was this you this whole time?

This guy, this friend?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- He deserved it.

- Yeah.

Absolutely deserved it, right?

So we all stand up like, okay, it's on, like, there's gonna be a little bit of a rumble here at the Renaissance festival.

- And you're unarmed.

- Unarmed, and as we stand, we're just surrounded by a group of security guards, ready to be like, "All right, you wanna throw?

We're ready to throw as well.

- Chain mail?

- Huh?

- Chain mail security?

- No, man, like black T-shirts, white security lettering.

- Okay, okay.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

- They yank us right out, and I mean, that was the night.

It was fun.

- They should have thrown you in the stockades and thrown those rotten tomatoes at you.

- That would've been perfect.

You deserve that.

- Absolutely.

Thrown us in a moat or something like that, you know?

- Totally, yeah.

- I guess chivalry isn't dead, but I wouldn't try that with our wenches tonight.

- Yeah, man, our wenches would shut you guys down, absolutely.

- Phew.

(intriguing music) - This was a blast from the past, baby.

Just don't beat yourself up over your own past.

Don't trip over things behind you, learn, adjust, get better and move on.

Try something new or old.

Keep yourself guessing and avoid the pain of regret.

Sometimes we regret the things we didn't do.

- Take me to your castle.

- Huh, I wonder if they're gonna regret that.

I'll see you in court.

(upbeat music) - Hungry for History markers from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation shares stories behind regional dishes and local food festivals, including Smith Island Cake and Spiedie Fest, available through grants for municipalities and nonprofits.

wgpfoundation.org/tv.

- Syracuse sits in the heart of New York State, with access to the Finger Lakes and the Adirondacks.

From city vibes and great local eats to live music and festivals that roll on year-round.

Four seasons for everyone.

- Liberty Tabletop has been crafting flatware in America for over 20 years, and is dedicated to supporting our community and preserving the craft of flatware manufacturing.

Liberty Tabletop.

(bright music)