It took Andy George six months and $1,500 to make a single chicken sandwich. Because he made it from scratch.
And when George, U.S.-based host of the YouTube series “How to Make Everything” uses the term “scratch,” he’s not just talking about baking bread from flour purchased off the grocery store shelf, and smearing butter plucked from the dairy aisle.
No. He means milking his own cow to make cheese and butter; harvesting wheat and separating it from the chaff in his urban apartment; flying to the East Coast to make his own sea salt; and beheading a chicken.
Within a day of being uploaded, the introductory video documenting the ambitious project has gone viral with more than 500,000 hits.
“With every meal you eat, you’re partaking in a global trade network that brings food from around the world to your plate,” he explains.
Six months and $1,500 later, George sits down to a modest-looking chicken sandwich that belies a mountain of work.
In addition to the garden-grown lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and onions; the local honey he harvested; and the cheese he made, George took the project to extremes, flying out from Minnesota to Los Angeles to collect ocean water and make his own salt, and visiting a chicken farm where he learned the right way to kill a chicken.
In the end, after taking his first bite, however, George is candid about all his hard work.
“It’s not bad,” he says to the camera. “That’s about it. It’s not bad.”
The sandwich project is one of several different experiments on his "How to Make Everything" channel, which explores what it takes to become self-sufficient in an age when consumer goods are readily and instantly available.
The full series is also broken down into small segments.
