Ruth is truly a delight to watch! I love that they don't simply tell us about history, they actually put themselves right in the thick of it. They really make you feel as though you're right there next to them.

Wouldn't it have been marvelous to have Ruth as your History teacher in school? She is just wonderful, I watch anything she is in.

Ruth is in a constant state of enthusiasm.

Excelent! This kind of videos are a delicious way of learning history. I am a Portuguese mechanical engineer, who worked/lived in Somerset for ~2.5 years (and enjoyed it). These videos remind us about the impressive societal changes that the industrial revolution brought to Britain, and to the world. (Similar in scale to the changes brought from the intercontinental trade resulting from the "age of discoveries") I'm still not a big fan of fish and chips, but now I see it "with different eyes"... But I did became a fan some (crispy fruity) types of Somerset cider!

Yes yes, The trio is great, especially Ruth and overfishing is a problem that that vendor seems to misunderstand, but has no one noticed that Fish'n'chips lad? He's adorable! I want a cooking show with him!

I am old enough to have eaten fish (halibut) and chips cooked in beef tallow. Gives the best flavour, nothing else comes close. And the saturated fat doesn't oxidise and break down when heated, unlike the vegetable oils we use now.

Google and it's algorithms. Was craving for some fish and chips and did a yelp search. 2 hours later, this is on my suggestion list.

I am having such a flashback to my childhood in Lancaster, Pennsylvania where at my house it was rhubarb sauce everyday for at least two months in the Spring, watercress and cream cheese sandwiches packed for school lunch, kippers, and Welsh Rarebit at Christmas. Haven't been to England since 1999, but my late Husband and I owned a 1991 Lotus type 82 Esprit, Jim Clark Edition. We traveled to Hethel in 1999 to do an Elise driving experience for my Husband's 50th Birthday. Rode Brit Rail, ate bangers and mash, me everyday and drank a bit of Blackthorns Dry every evening. I love Britain and miss the food very much. I ordered British bangers from RJ Balson and Sons this year for St. Patrick's Day and they are delicious and made me wish I could still be in England. Maiden name is Bell, and my Mother's maiden name was Cox. Great video, I throughly enjoyed learning about the farming and missing Britain and my friends who live there. FYI, I am from the same county where Robert Fulton, who invented the steam engine and the first steamboat was born and my late Mother-in-Law was a Budding and her Great Grandfather held a patent from Queen Victoria for the lawn mower.

I moved from England and what I miss most is full English breakfast Cornish pasty lunch and battered cod and cheesy chips for dinner. Shout out to my boys roast dinner and shepherds pie n sausage rolls keep it real 👌🏻

One of the things I really appreciate about Ruth is that she's so knowledgeable and seems to have so many skills collected from many eras of history, but as I'm watching her try to prepare herring, she's so willing to be bad at something and so humble about it too. I suppose that's how we get good at things though.

That chippy lad is lush :) what a sweetie

I had a very good friend of mine who along with her husband in Wales, collected and restored steamrollers and trains from the Victorian Era. They recently passed away due to Cancer.

...and let’s not forget Alex and Peter. Let it be said however that I absolutely looove Ruth’s hat!

I love this. I was born in the wrong country. I love trains. This is so beautiful. The first time I rode a train was in France after flying there from the US in 1990. Thank you.

This video makes me crave for fish and chips.

Peter is really special and makes the program special

It is interesting to see the variations of that phrase. In the US military they say "hurry up and wait". Even Augustus Caeser used to say Festina Lente which roughly translates to "make haste slowly".

LOL 24:20 Peter "Did you say Cider?" "NO. Maybe on the way."

This was a great episode from end to end in terms of the depth of information covered, the elements and the history.

Good fish and chips are one thing that we don't have enough of here in America. I am serious. It is so hard to find a nice crispy piece of fish and chips. Oh sure, you can find hamburgers all over the place, but not any good fish and chips. Good video. Thank you. 💓

I could never understand why my uncle loved herring so much until watching this, he was stationed in England during ww2 then married an English lass and brought her home to America, my aunt Vera

I just love Ruth's knowledge and enthusiasm, she makes these shows for me

Absolutely fantastic programme I ran into by mistake an' have been hooked and canna wait for the next episode.

I've never been to England but I would love to have a proper fish n chips at least once

I love red rubies, they're so gentle and cute I also love all the experts and guests they bring along for every episode, I always learn so much and it's just a joy to see them working

This is so fantastic! Thank you, Absolute History :)

Jumping sheep at 5:30, so cute!

Thank You. Liked, and Shared. I really enjoy your channel. The thing is, after I watch your videos it makes me feel better about my day. I know suck up right? No, I just appreciate history, and the hard work you folks put into your documentaries. The resource today kids have is extraordinary but they seem to be more interested in taking selfies. If only I had this resource when I was kid.

Thank you for posting these shows. They are so great and got me through the past year.

Always a fun and informative documentary!

I would have loved a living history class with her

Hey, that kippers shop is the same one that the 2 Fat Ladies visited in the "Breakfast" episode!

I absolutely love all of your videos. Thank you so much for all of the knowledge!!!

Brilliant. No other word is necessary. History brought to life........

we enjoyed this program , it was excellent . thank you for loading it.

Maybe the best episode of the series. Except that it makes me hungry every time I watch it.

great as always!

I love watching Ruth, Peter, and Alex! They work well together. The programs they present are fantastic!

The two steam engine seesaw plow blew my mind. That's way more complex then what I would have thought one of the first steam powered plows would look like.

I remember as a young lad growing up in Yorkshire riding in the steam train cab shunting the goods around the yard. Great memories

At 13 years old, my first job i was a spuddy, on a rumbler 2 hours after school. 3 days a week, cutting out eyes and making awsome fresh double fryed chips. I used to let the rumbler run a bit long at that age.... my pay, $5 ph..... and i was happy to do it... 1988? or so.

Amazing, Sir James Watt!

look up "Early 1900s Fish & Chip Shop" on youtube, its a video of how they build the old fish and chip shop that ruth works in at 27:50

Love those kippers. Absolutely beautiful.

i don't know when dood came back to the show but im glad he's back. he brings so much joy.

Fascinating history

@ 21:16 Alex: "Look at that one. I mean, THAT is a MONSTER." Breeder: "It's a big lad, innit he." Me: Huh. It's ok. Just a sheep----OHHH [I see the testicles] That's what they mean. lol I was surprised to learn fish and chips gained popularity in this era. I thought it was a much more older food tradition than that. Rhubarb farming is pretty. Didn't realize that they could live and grow in such cave-like conditions. I'm sure it is more than that but I really liked seeing the rhubarb farm.

Great episode, as all have been !

Fish and chips. The staple for me to pair with a nice pint of Guinness at a pub. Mmmm! 😊

Just awesome!

Superb documentary.

Fantastic serial on history👍👍

I love Ruth Goodman! So glad I found this.

27:50 Wow! I would go buy fish&chips every hour of the day there, if I could hear him say that "Well, hello! Fish and chips, is it?" with that pleasant voice and such a relaxing smile and posture, even the mustache is perfect! What kind of accent is it he have? English with some Irish in it?

12:47 is where the documentary starts to discuss fish and chips.

It's so interesting how all of Britain's most famous national foods are not actually truly from the Isles but came to exist as a cultural mashup. Also her in the US In-N-Out burger still uses those "chip" presses to make their french fries. The grid is more narrow but the mechanism is exactly the same. You can watch them do that while you wait in line. It's neat.

When i visited England, i wanted to have fish and chips literally every single meal! It is out of this world!

The battered fish idea was from Portuguese traders, who also took it to Japan - hence tempura. As others have pointed out, the idea of chips is from WW1 and Wallonia, the French-speaking part of Belgium.

I was in England in 2018; it was the very first time I had fish and chips.The restaurant owner knew I was a foreigner, he proudly gave me a brief history of this national dish.

This channel is quality.

I love riding trains. Too bad Amtrak is so severely limited in the continental US. This is especially so, when you get further away from the Eastern Seaboard. I got to do a little train travel when I was in England literally a year ago. I was mainly up in Redditch and Birmingham. I even did an overnight visit to Nottingham. Just seeing the English countryside from the train window has a calming effect.

I ate before watching this Now i'm hungry again.

43:25 The Guiness brewery is chock-a-block with narrow gauge railway tracks, none of them used today.

this trio vibe with each other so well, digging it.

I passed thru England a few times. I always got a meal of Fish and Chips, wrapped in newspaper. That British plow was amazing.

I just adore Ruth.

I imagine that originally, farms near London got good prices for their meat since there were no alternatives, while farmers further away, say in Dorset, earned lower prices. With the railways, distant farmers were able to find better prices for their produce, but those near the city would have suffered from the competition.

why can't i stop watching these.

Hey sheep! Don't get on that rail car! Do you have any idea where it's taking you to?

French fries were from Belgium, not France...at least according to Paul Hollywoods City Bakes

I've heard of Grimsby. That erudite gentleman from Across the Pond Lawrence Brown is from there. It's amazing how all this seemingly chaotic random stuff is actually tied together.

The American railroads transferred oysters from a rare delicacy to cheap common food in the 1800’s. Oyster Point, near Norfolk, VA was served by 3 railroads that daily took trainloads to the North East. Now Chesapeake Bay oysters are difficult to source. It’s hard to imagine a time when oysters were food for the poor. Oyster Shells were used for roads marking that you had entered a poor area.

Yum! Nothing like a nice crip n fish!

Now I want Fish'n'Chips, damn it!🌈😉

Seeing those kippers made my mouth water. Regarding seafood as fertilizer, I read that early American farmers in New England actually used whole lobsters as fertilizer for their fields as people thought that they were big spiders. When I was a lad in London in the 1950s a good fish and chips lunch cost 1/-; 3d. worth of chips and 9d for a piece of rock salmon (dogfish, a relation to shark) The last time I bought that in UK it was 18 pounds for three people and wrapped in specially made faux newspaper too!h Seeing that open-air plough dragged across that field reminded me of a man I knew in Northants. who had a ploughing tractor which had a totally enclosed weatherproof cab with air-conditioning and a stereo music player. Even in the 1950s we'd occasionally see a steam truck on the roads with a speed of 12 mph still on solid rubber tyres. Just after WW2 when my family lived in the Suffolk fishing port of Lowestoft, fresh fish was very hard to find in local shops as it was all hauled by train to London. Ironically what fish that was available came from London! One very British dietary item is the pork pie which is always specifically attached to the Midlands town of Melton Mowbray. Also seeing that railway pedestrian footbridge reminds me that we train-spotters would try to spit into the engine's chimney as it sped by below us.

I'm American, and this is putting me in the mood for British fish and chips.

i thought i had a basic knowledge on everything about modern British history-last 2000years] well to an extent but i feel like I'm watching an alternative universe, so much I've never seen on any other history show, and the castle and farm series are some of my favorite, this series is another stand-alone history show, who knew these time warpy farms exsist

7:15 I wonder if the producers went thru the flock and picked out the most docile, well behaved sheep they had!

I once had a patient, who served during WWII in England he told me that he never ate fish and chips again after seeing fish and chips cooked in motor oil due to the shortages in that area at the time. He also lost the love of his life due to the war and never married. RIP Bert.

I used to see Stevenson's "Rocket," supposed to be the first steam engine, in the lobby of the Science Museum in South Kensington -- every Wednesday, because that was a half-day at the French School, just across the bombed-site from the Museum.

I enjoy Ruth and the boys they really do bring history alive and she does look very lovely with her hair with the big braids on top and red is definitely her color

I've read a book called The Impact of Railways on Farming in Britain. So there most definitely are books about the link. And that was a book I found in a book shop not that long ago, first published in the 60s and the edition I bought was published in 2003. And I live in South Africa and found it in my local (not second hand) bookshop...

“They think tonnage like that isn’t feasible....but it was”..........well no, it WASN’T feasible, nor was it sustainable which is WHY you now have weeks withOUT herring.

About to play a game of Anno 1800. Makes me want to make some tractors and stuff at some point.

I just really feel the need to say thank you, to the creators of fish and chips! Love ‘em in Australia ! But the best fish is, IMO, battered blue cod, in Southland NZ 💓

I am an American and like so many of us, I'm a direct descendant of Great Britain. I love these videos !

Ruth is pretty awesome but she acts so humble

i used to work in a fisha dn chip shop with a rumbler and a chip press.. We used the rumbler to scale some types of fish too. Worse job I ever had - but great boss. Him and his dad had had the shop; for years - his dad taught me how to clean and fillet.

Did no body notice the random ass lamb trying to photobomb the herds scene at 5:30

I never knew so many people starved just because they couldn't get agriculture into the big cities.

I could listen to that guy in the fish and chip place talk all day! What an interesting accent!!! Lollllll

"don't put your thumb around the steering wheel" "alright, I need my thumbs" 39:00 ...

So Much gained. So Much Lost. great video.

And with steamship from Denmark: Bacon and Lurpak butter

I'm craving watercress now.

At 37:00... you should NOT stand close to a tensioned cable. If it were to snap, you could be cut in half.

Same old story with the fishing out the stocks in Britain. Very sad since fishing done properly is a renewable source of food..

Loved watching this. Love the UK even though I am an Aussie. Long may the UK continue! I must say, however, having tasted fish and chips in many countries of the world I love Aussie fish and chips the best. Only in Australia can you get potato cakes (potato scallops), fried dim sims and Aussie-style spring rolls which are eight inches long and a meal in themselves. UK chips fried in tallow do taste great, I must admit, and the differences between the Aussie version and UK version are minor.

You closed a missing link of mine. So from now on I ea fish & chips with added historic knowledge :-) Every time we stayed in GB, one meal with fish & chips was a personal tradition. :-)

Omg that potato man 😍