How the heck did people in the olden' days learn to beat eggs and other laborious tasks?
Did they have whipped cream in the olden days before electricity? I think that they might have. I'm sure I've seen a portrait of Henry VIII munching some of that creamy goodness before.
But what on earth caused someone to whisk cream for hours to see what would happen? Is there any scientific basis to it? For example, "Well I know if I whisk this cream, theoretically it should thicken up." Or was it just some super bored peasant folk who discovered it? Perhaps an argument between a peasant wife and a peasant worker, "I am going to take this fork to this cream and stir it for ages to make an annoying noise!"
Another example is beating eggs - why bother when intuition would probably tell us we are wasting our time?
Best Answer
Accident and/or trial and error, with a bit of 'evolution'. Someone notices that cream gets a bit thicker when it's been stirred a while, they put two and two together and beat it. Then someone has the bright idea to use a whisk to get more air into it and make it even thicker, etc etc.
Though actually I imagine that whipped cream was actually discovered during the process of making butter (keep whipping cream and butter is what you get).
Pictures about "How the heck did people in the olden' days learn to beat eggs and other laborious tasks?"
Can you beat an egg by hand?
The goal with slightly beaten eggs is simply to ensure that the white and yolk do not remain separate. In baking, you will often be further mixing the dough or batter so you won't need to spend much time beating the eggs.Why are eggs beaten?
In early recipes through the end of the 19th century, naturally separated cream was whipped, typically with willow or rush branches. The resulting foam on the surface was skimmed off and drained, a process taking an hour or more, and was repeated until enough cream had been skimmed.How did they make heavy cream in the old days?
Copper bowl and balloon whisk are the essentials for beating egg whites.10 Ways People in the 1800s Survived the Cold Winters
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Answer 2
Perhaps the original "experiment" was an accident. Someone carried some cream in a cart a long distance over a bumpy road, and what arrived was butter and buttermilk.
Answer 3
ElendilTheTall addressed some of the technical questions of "Why would some one think to do that?" So after that why take the time to do the exparament?
I would suggest taking a different frame of reference. Imagine your the cook to a lord and you have kitchen servants (typically the children of other house hold servants) under you. There is no real cost to you to have a servant beat eggs or cream for hours on end on the off chance it might turn out well. And if it doesn't your lord never needs to know. On the other hand if your lord gets bored with your cooking you can find your self out of a job, without a home, money, or marketable skills.
So an abundance of near free labor and a real reason to try new things is usually a good recipe for innovation.
Answer 4
i wondered this myself recently, except for cheese. i've been learning to make my own, and the conditions seem so specific for even the most basic cheese to happen that i marveled that humans ever discovered how to make it in the first place. my answer is: we are a hungry and curious species. : )
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