#journeycake

[theoutlanderevangelist]

“You could wake me from the dead for this.”

5x11 “Journeycake”

[slickcatbooks]

Remember this one from the Weekly Reader Children’s Book Club? A great copy from 1953! #slickcatbooks #greatbooksgreatmemories #journeycakeho #journeycake #journeycakefarm #farmlife #farm #farming #mountains #appalachia https://www.instagram.com/p/CmGfdJtOqbg/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[brian-in-finance]

Screenshot: OutlanderWatch

S05E11 Journeycake • 3 May 2020 Official Script

Outlander Rewatch 2023 Countdown To Season 7

Favourite Word

Ouch! It's hot. — Jemmy

Gif: @briannaellen

Gifs: @fyeahthemackenzies

Favourite Line

I knew you were a fairy, Auntie. — Ian

Favourite Image

Very tasty, but, um... are you sure it's to be eaten? Ye could seal letters or mend your boots wi' it as well. — Jamie Fraser

Remember… haven’t quite mastered ice cream yet, but I'll be damned if Jemmy grows up without tasting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. — Claire Fraser

66th of 75 • Wednesday, 7 June 2023

[sassenach77yle]

||COUNTDOWN ||SEASON 5 EPISODE 11 || JOURNEYCAKE||

#83daysofoutlander☆

It had taken some experimentation to put the microscope together properly; it wasn’t much like a modern version, particularly when reduced to its component parts for storage in Dr. Rawlings’s handsome box. Still, the lenses were recognizable, and with that as a starting point, I had managed to fit the optical bits into the stand without much trouble. Obtaining sufficient light, though, had been more difficult, and I was thrilled finally to have got it working.

“What are ye doing, Sassenach?” Jamie, with a piece of toast in one hand, paused in the doorway.

“Seeing things,” I said, adjusting the focus.

“Oh, aye? What sorts of things?” He came into the room, smiling. “Not ghosties, I trust. I will have had enough o’ those.”

“Come look,” I said, stepping back from the microscope. Mildly puzzled, he bent and peered through the eyepiece, screwing up his other eye in concentration.

He squinted for a moment, then gave an exclamation of pleased surprise. “I see them! Wee things with tails, swimming all about!” He straightened up, smiling at me with a look of delight, then bent at once to look again. I felt a warm glow of pride in my new toy.

“Isn’t it marvelous?”

“Aye, marvelous,” he said, absorbed. “Look at them. Such busy wee strivers as they are, all pushing and writhing against one another—and such a mass of them!”

He watched for a few moments more, exclaiming under his breath, then straightened up, shaking his head in amazement.

“I’ve never seen such a thing, Sassenach. Ye’d told me about the germs, aye, but I never in life imagined them so! I thought they might have wee teeth, and they don’t—but I never kent they would have such handsome, lashing wee tails, or swim about in such numbers.”

“Well, some microorganisms do,” I said, moving to peer into the eyepiece again myself. “These particular little beasts aren’t germs, though—they’re sperms.” “They’re what?” He looked quite blank. “Sperms,” I said patiently. “Male reproductive cells. You know, what makes babies?” I thought he might just possibly choke. His mouth opened, and a very pretty shade of rose suffused his countenance.

“Ye mean seed?” he croaked. “Spunk?” “Well . . . yes.” Watching him narrowly, I poured steaming tea into a clean beaker and handed it to him as a restorative. He ignored it, though, his eyes fixed on the microscope as though something might spring out of the eyepiece at any moment and go writhing across the floor at our feet. “Sperms,” he muttered to himself. “Sperms.” He shook his head vigorously, then turned to me, a frightful thought having just occurred to him. “Whose are they?” he asked, his tone one of darkest suspicion. “Er . . . well, yours, of course.” I cleared my throat, mildly embarrassed. “Who else’s would they be?” His hand darted reflexively between his legs, and he clutched himself protectively. “How the hell did ye get them?” “How do you think?” I said, rather coldly. “I woke up in custody of them this morning.” His hand relaxed, but a deep blush of mortification stained his cheeks dark crimson. He picked up the beaker of tea and drained it at a gulp, temperature notwithstanding. “I see,” he said, and coughed. There was a moment of deep silence. “I . . . um . . . didna ken they could stay alive,” he said at last. “Errrrm . . . outside, I mean.” “Well, if you leave them in a splotch on the sheet to dry out, they don’t,” I said, matter-of-factly. “Keep them from drying out, though”—I gestured at the small, covered beaker, with its small puddle of whitish fluid—“and they’ll do for a few hours. In their proper habitat, though, they can live for up to a week after . . . er . . . release.” “Proper habitat,” he repeated, looking pensive. He darted a quick glance at me. “Ye do mean—” “I do,” I said, with some asperity. “Mmphm.” At this point, he recalled the piece of toast he still held, and took a bite, chewing meditatively. “Do folk know about this? Now, I mean?” “Know what? What sperm look like? Almost certainly. Microscopes have been around for well over a hundred years, and the first thing anyone with a working microscope does is to look at everything within reach. Given that the inventor of the microscope was a man, I should certainly think that . . . Don’t you?” He gave me a look, and took another bite of toast, chewing in a marked manner. “I shouldna quite like to refer to it as ‘within reach,’ Sassenach,” he said, through a mouthful of crumbs, and swallowed. “But I do take your meaning.”

As though compelled by some irresistible force, he drifted toward the microscope, bending to peer into it once more. “They seem verra fierce,” he ventured, after a few moments’ inspection. “Well, they do need to be,” I said, suppressing a smile at his faintly abashed air of pride in his gametes’ prowess. “It’s a long slog, after all, and a terrific fight at the end of it. Only one gets the honor, you know.” He looked up, blank-faced. It dawned on me that he didn’t know. He’d studied languages, mathematics, and Greek and Latin philosophy in Paris, not medicine. And even if natural scientists of the time were aware of sperm as separate entities, rather than a homogenous substance, it occurred to me that they probably didn’t have any idea what sperm actually did. “Wherever did you think babies came from?” I demanded, after a certain amount of enlightenment regarding eggs, sperms, zygotes, and the like, which left Jamie distinctly squiggle-eyed. He gave me a rather cold look. “And me a farmer all my life? I ken precisely where they come from,” he informed me. “I just didna ken that . . . er . . . that all of this daffery was going on. I thought . . . well, I thought a man plants his seed into a woman’s belly, and it . . . well . . . grows.” He waved vaguely in the direction of my stomach. “You know—like . . . seed. Neeps, corn, melons, and the like. I didna ken they swim about like tadpoles.” “I see.” I rubbed a finger beneath my nose, trying not to laugh. “Hence the agricultural designation of women as being either fertile or barren!” “Mmphm.” Dismissing this with a wave of his hand, he frowned thoughtfully at the teeming slide. “A week, ye said. So it’s possible that the wee lad really is the Thrush’s get?” Early in the day as it was, it took half a second or so for me to make the leap from theory to practical application. “Oh—Jemmy, you mean? Yes, it’s quite possible that he’s Roger’s child.” Roger and Bonnet had lain with Brianna within two days of each other. “I told you—and Bree—so.” He nodded, looking abstracted, then remembered the toast and pushed the rest of it into his mouth. Chewing, he bent for another look through the eyepiece. “Are they different, then? One man’s from another, I mean?” “Er . . . not to look at, no.” I picked up my cup of tea and had a sip, enjoying the delicate flavor. “They are different, of course—they carry the characteristics a man passes to his offspring. . . .” That was about as far as I thought it prudent to go; he was sufficiently staggered by my description of fertilization; an explanation of genes and chromosomes might be rather excessive at the moment. “But you can’t see the differences, even with a microscope.”

He grunted at that, swallowed the mouthful of toast, and straightened up. “Why are ye looking, then?” “Just curiosity.” I gestured at the collection of bottles and beakers on the countertop. “I wanted to see how fine the resolution of the microscope was, what sorts of things I might be able to see.” “Oh, aye? And what then? What’s the purpose of it, I mean?” “Well, to help me diagnose things. If I can take a sample of a person’s stool, for instance, and see that he has internal parasites, then I’d know better what medicine to give him.” Jamie looked as though he would have preferred not to hear about such things right after breakfast, but nodded. He drained his beaker and set it down on the counter. “Aye, that’s sensible. I’ll leave ye to get on with it, then.”

He bent and kissed me briefly, then headed for the door. Just short of it, though, he turned back.

“The, um, sperms . . .” he said, a little awkwardly. “Yes?”

“Can ye not take them out and give them decent burial or something?” I hid a smile in my teacup.

“I’ll take good care of them,” I promised. “I always do, don’t I?”

36 WORLDS UNSEEN ~THE FIERY CROSS

[outlanderrepublic]

Y mientras filmaban el episodio 11 de la #Season5 ("Journeycake"/ "Para el camino"), nuestra #QueenB lo filmó al #KingOfSantasHoHoHo mirándola por arriba de los anteojitos (que nos derriten maaal🔥🔥🔥) mientras ella le cantaba una canción muy picarona. Como no había mucha luz, el video tiene una calidad bajísima pero lo que vale es la intención del regalo de la queen #ComoNoAmarla

#JebusCuantosRegalosDeNavidat

#ArchivosDeLaRepublicaOutlandera

#SusurrameHoHoHoYShamameMarta

#KingOfSantas

#QueenPicarona

#SAMtaJamie

#RememosLaSequia

#Outlander

#OutlanderGordaFanMal

#OutlanderPasion

#OutlanderasInsaciables

#PoneleOutlanderATodo

[flllk]

Jamie & Claire

Outlander 5x11 "Journeycake"

[hasufin]

Waybread, journeybread, journeycakes, hoecakes, or any number of other permutations, is probably the oldest form of “bread”. It’s very similar to hardtack, really: at its most basic, it’s just whatever flour or grain you have on hand, mixed with salt if you have it, then cooked by the fire. If what you have is grain, you grind it coarsely, but the goal is just “sticks together into something like a dough”.

You can cook it in a number of ways. Some homes would have a specific smooth stone by the fire for that purpose. There are even some attested cooking pans which were used to make waybread, but more often the dough would just be flattened on an available rock or nearby piece of wood. If nothing of the sort could be found, you could put the flattened dough in a wet leaf and put it directly on the ashes.

Such bread was still relatively long-lasting, but nowhere near the indestructibility of hardtack. However, as it wasn’t dried to the point of becoming masonry, waybread was softer and easier to chew.

More elaborate forms of this were also made, of course - often with fats and honey, resulting in a rather more pleasant cake. There’s even a story of an early English king, downtrodden from a defeat, being set to watch a peasant’s oatcakes by the fire.

This kind of bread was commonly eaten as far back as we have records. It’s one of a handful of ways someone could render a grain ration edible without any utensils or cooking facilities, which is desirable for anyone traveling, not to mention the extremely poor - e.g.those living on the Roman grain ration.

Even into the early 20th century it was common for someone traveling to simply take a sack of flour with them, intending to make waybread when they camp: I’m currently reading a book about people [dying in] Yosemite, and many of the earliest visitors to what would become the park carried nothing but flour for provisions.

By Tolkien’s time, pre-made hard biscuit was preferred for such journeys, but waybread would have been a familiar staple to his readers, hearkening not to a mythical past but merely to the rustic life of their grandparents. Lembas in this context is merely magical waybread, a familiar form of sustenance imbued with properties which rendered it, in the Elven fashion, like waybread but better: softer, longer-lasting, and more nourishing.

State of failure

I am currently making hardtack.

This is a mistake. The year is 2023 and there is no good reason to make hardtack. The stuff is an inherently bad idea. There is no practical use for hardtack which is not met today by a product which is superior in every way.

Hardtack existed as a solution for a particular time and application: a way to create portable calories which did not require any cooking in situ, which could be transported in almost any condition, and could be stored for years at a time with no significant detriment.

Today, we have a great many options to meet these requirements. We have MREs. Canned foods. Dehydrated foods. UHT packaging. Freeze-drying. Energy bars. Every one of these options manage to be better-tasting, more nutritious, and just overall more pleasant than hardtack.

Throughout much of history, the idea of going an extended period of time without being able to cook at all would have been ridiculous. What could your circumstances be, that you could not, just once every few days, start a fire? and if you can start a fire you can, at minimum, make waybread. Which isn’t particularly pleasant, sure, but is worlds better than hardtack.

But for a certain period of time, hardtack was indeed the solution. it’s mostly synonymous with sailor’s food, but was also a significant part of a soldier’s diet; certain forms of the stuff, known as “hard biscuit” were used even through WWII. It does have its advantages, mainly in durability. Actually, that’s pretty much it. Hardtack, if kept dry and free of insects, will last pretty much indefinitely.

What, you may wonder, is hardtack?

Well. It’s basically the worst, most basic form of bread you can imagine. It’s unleavened and as dry as possible. It consists of nothing but flour and salt, with just enough water to form into a stiff dough, then baked and dried. That’s literally it.

The hardtack above used 2 cups of whole wheat flour (plus a bit more for the working surface), about a teaspoon of salt, and somewhere between ½ and 5/8 of a cup of water.

I combined the salt with the flour. Note - no fat, no sweetener, no flavoring, no leavening. Then, I added half a cup of water and proceeded to knead it. And knead it. And knead it some more. It is impossible to overknead hardtack, because it’s going to be indistinguishable from masonry no matter what you do.

Now, there is some skill to this. You’re up against two competing needs. First, you must make your hardtack as dry as possible. Water is your enemy. If there is water, it could mold, or grow bacteria, or fungus.

On the other hand, you want your dough to be completely smooth. Any seam or fold in the dough will become a crack. The biscuit may break apart; some mold spore or insect could get in.

So, while I started with half a cup of water, I found that amount inadequate and added a little bit of additional water to make it work into a smoother dough. As you can see, it still wasn’t perfectly smooth but I successfully incorporated all the flour.

Once I had a terribly stiff dough, I rolled it out on a floured surface. There’s plenty of leeway here on how you can do it - some people would simply take pieces of the dough and pat them flat. Especially into the 19th century, this could be done with machinery, to make very consistent biscuits. That’s actually pretty important, since sailors and soldiers would want to be sure they were getting a fair ration.

Personally, since I have round biscuit cutters, that’s what I did. This is the style largely favored by the British, to be packed in barrels for Naval usage. Americans tended to make squares or rectangles for most efficient packing in tins. If these were being made professionally, the biscuits would then be impressed with a seal, usually indicating the company which manufactured the biscuits.

The next, and more important, part is to poke holes in the biscuits. These are not for show: they are meant to release steam when the biscuits are baked. If there are no holes, steam may accumulate in pockets, resulting in bubbles. While this might yield a moderately more pleasant hardtack - one that can be more easily broken apart - it also makes it less durable and more prone to spoilage. The holes need to be poked all the way through, which isn’t quite how most such baking is done, but there is no elegance to hardtack.

Next is baking. To be honest, hardtack is not baked. It is sterilized and dried. The simplest method is to bake the biscuits in a low oven for many hours - four is typical, but sometimes the hardtack is baked several times, or overnight. It should be baked just hot enough to assure anything in the flour is killed, and for long enough to remove almost all moisture from the biscuits.

I have opted for a compromise, in large part because I already had my dehydrator out. I baked the biscuits at 250°F for two hours, then transferred them to the dehydrator, where they are currently drying for…. well, until I decide to shut it off. Probably when I go to bed. Sadly, my dehydrator tops out at 160°F, which is 40°F too cool for proper sterilization. If it went up to 200°F, I could put the biscuits directly in there without needing the oven at all, but such was not to be.

So far, it smells surprisingly pleasant, and the one piece I have tasted confirms: it’s terribly bland, of course, lacking even the sourness of yeast. It’s also - as one could predict - quite hard, requiring prolonged dipping in tea to make it soft enough to bite. In short, the flavor is inoffensive while the texture is weaponizable.

I made this stuff knowing what it would be. I started out with the complete expectation that it would be akin to eating a roofing tile. Why do I do this?

Curiosity, I suppose. Now, sometimes I try to improve these historical recipes - I recognize the limitations under which they were made, and try to make them pleasant by adding spices and seasonings which were not available, applying techniques which would have been impractical, and adding fats and sugars which were uneconomical.

Not this recipe. You cannot improve hardtack without compromising its purpose. But I’d seen so many references to it, I knew I wanted to make it for myself, just to experience it.

I’m not going to share the stuff with my friends, though. Not anyone I want to keep as a friend, at any rate.

[theoutlanderevangelist]

5x11 “Journeycake”

[always-outlander]

Outlander 5x11 | Journeycake

[avasetocallmyown]

𝗷𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗲 𝘅 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗲 • every moment, every second • 𝟰𝟳/∞

[brian-in-finance]

Jamie Payne directed S05E03 Free Will • S05E04 The Company We Keep • S05E11 Journeycake • S05E12 Never My Love • S06E07 Sticks and Stones • S06E08 I Am Not Alone

Remember… Claire has cast the voice of Lionel as the voice of her guilt. The years of growing guilt in feeling responsible for pretty much everything that's happened to this family. — Jamie Payne

[jemscorner]

The future’s answer to journey cake - peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

Very tasty, but, um . . . are you sure it’s to be eaten?  Ye could seal letters or mend your boots wi’ it as well.

[evanzbuck]

the frasers + peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

[themusicsweetly]

Jamie x Claire x Windowsills

Journeycake vs. Lallybroch 5x11 vs. 1x12

[sassenach4life]

💗 Fraser Love 💗

Journeycake (511)

[whiteraven-s]

What did you tell them?

The truth.