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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb. We have a vault episode here for

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Speaker 1: you today. We're doing some stuff behind the scenes here

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Speaker 1: to catch up a little bit. So this is going

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Speaker 1: to be the invention of Cotton Candy, Part one off two.

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Speaker 1: It originally published one thirty, twenty twenty five. Let's jump right.

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Speaker 2: In Cotton Candy by Edward Hirsch. We walked on the

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Speaker 2: bridge over the Chicago River for what turned out to

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Speaker 2: be the last time, and I a cotton candy. That

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Speaker 2: sugary air, that sweet blue light, spun out of nothingness.

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Speaker 2: It was just a moment, really, nothing more. But I

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Speaker 2: remember marveling at the sturdy cables of the bridge that

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Speaker 2: held us up, and threading my fingers through the long

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Speaker 2: and slender fingers of my grandfather, an old man from

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Speaker 2: the old world, who long ago disappeared to the nether regions.

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Speaker 2: And I remember that eight year old boy who had

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Speaker 2: tasted the sweetness of air, which still clings to my

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Speaker 2: mouth and disappears when I breathe.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert.

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Speaker 2: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, And that was I

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Speaker 2: said it in the opening, But again, that was the

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Speaker 2: poem Cotton Candy by the American poet Edward Hirsh. And

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Speaker 2: that's going to be relevant today because we're starting a

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Speaker 2: couple of episodes on the subject of cotton candy and

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Speaker 2: some of its historical predecessors. But I thought this would

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Speaker 2: be a good poem to feature, first of all, just

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Speaker 2: because I love it. It's very plainly stated, but very beautiful,

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Speaker 2: very evocative. There's something strong lurking in it about the

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Speaker 2: interplay of like strength and permanence on one hand, with

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Speaker 2: the imagery of the cables on the bridge and the

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Speaker 2: kind of tenacity of memory, but then on the other hand,

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Speaker 2: about ephemerality, like the fleetingness of human life, and the

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Speaker 2: inherent nothing substance of cotton candy, which somehow feels after

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Speaker 2: it's eaten, like it never existed, like it was never

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Speaker 2: a substance to begin with, and yet it persists as

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Speaker 2: a taste that clings to the mouth, as Hersch says,

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Speaker 2: clings to the mouth and disappears when you breathe, kind

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Speaker 2: of implying that there are some things that are ephemeral

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Speaker 2: and they disappear when we live. But anyway, to move

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Speaker 2: on to the subject, Yes, we're going to be talking

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Speaker 2: about cotton candy aka candy floss aka fairy flass. Now, Rob,

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Speaker 2: I don't know if you think along the same lines

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Speaker 2: as me here, but these alternate terms for cotton candy,

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Speaker 2: which I have encountered before, always struck me as incredibly

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Speaker 2: disgusting because, like a lot of American English speakers my age,

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Speaker 2: I assume the only time I ever used the word

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Speaker 2: floss is when referring to dental floss, and in fact,

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Speaker 2: for most of my life, I just assumed that the

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Speaker 2: dental application was the primary or even only meaning of

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Speaker 2: the word floss. Is dental floss.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I mean that's obviously the primary way I

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Speaker 1: use it, and the other usages of floss that I've

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Speaker 1: encountered are always you know, expressly or I feel like

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Speaker 1: I got the impression that they were derived from dental floss,

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Speaker 1: like everything begins with dental floss, and therefore the idea

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Speaker 1: of there being like a parallel usage of it just

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Speaker 1: didn't occur to me either. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So historically this is not the case. The English

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Speaker 2: word floss, from what I can tell, has uncertain etymological roots.

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Speaker 2: It might be related to the English word fleece, which

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Speaker 2: goes back to wool from a sheep or similar animal.

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Speaker 2: Or it might come from a French term flash, meaning

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Speaker 2: maybe wool or perhaps silk. But anyway, floss means fibers

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Speaker 2: like silk, wool, hair, or thread. So candy floss is

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Speaker 2: candy hair, which also doesn't sound very good. Maybe it's

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Speaker 2: just cultural familiarity because you also don't eat cotton. But

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Speaker 2: for some reason, to me, cotton candy is about as

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Speaker 2: appetizing as the terms for this substance get.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, plus at least like cotton has. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: organic in nature, and therefore it's like cotton candy. Well

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Speaker 1: that just sounds straight good for you, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, Yeah, it's health food.

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Speaker 1: When, of course, if I'm assuming everyone out there has

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Speaker 1: either had cotton candy or some derivative cotton candy or

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Speaker 1: even counted it, you know that it is, as the

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Speaker 1: poem so wonderfully describes it, blue light spun out of nothingness.

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Speaker 1: It's sugary air. It's just sweetness, like aggressive sweetness in

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Speaker 1: this like strange, barely physical form. It just melts in

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Speaker 1: your mouth immediately. And of course I'm always reminded of

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Speaker 1: that video that we discussed in a past episodes of

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Speaker 1: about Raccoons, where raccoon is given cotton candy and the

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Speaker 1: raccoon lowers it into the water as they are wont

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Speaker 1: to do, and then the raccoon is seemingly just horrified

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Speaker 1: when it melts away and just like instantly vanishes, just.

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Speaker 2: A diamond of sadness and disappointment. Yeah, that little video. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: another question to lodge here at the beginning. I think

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Speaker 2: maybe we can partially answer this as we go along,

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Speaker 2: But I was thinking, why is it that we associate

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Speaker 2: cotton candy with fairs and carnivals. Why is it something

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Speaker 2: you get at the amusement park or the county fair

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Speaker 2: and other candies are not something like I mean, I

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Speaker 2: guess you can get you some sweet tarts at the

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Speaker 2: county Fair, but it's a particular kind of event associated

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Speaker 2: candy unlike many others.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, as we'll discuss, I mean basically get

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Speaker 1: into the fact that it does have twentieth century origins

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Speaker 1: that are very tightly bound to the World's Fair. So

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Speaker 1: it kind of to a large extent is born out

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Speaker 1: of the World's Fair. The technology to create it has

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Speaker 1: long been very mobile, works well with like a food

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Speaker 1: cart sort of a situation, but it does drag in

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Speaker 1: all these other additional aspects. Like I think of cotton candy,

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Speaker 1: which I have not had since I was a child

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Speaker 1: for obvious reasons. It makes me think of stickiness out

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Speaker 1: in public, away from a place to wash your hands.

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Speaker 1: It makes me think of like sweating and eating cotton

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Speaker 1: candy at the same time, Like there's a certain grunginess

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Speaker 1: to the experience that is not, you know, altogether, you know,

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Speaker 1: unattractive to the childhood brain. But you know, yeah, it

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Speaker 1: is closely associated with like an outdoor, busy environment.

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Speaker 2: I mean yeah, I guess a lot of parents would

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Speaker 2: not be thrilled at the idea of like bringing home

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Speaker 2: a tub of cotton candy for their child to eat

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Speaker 2: at home.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but kids won. I mean it's bright, it's amazing looking,

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Speaker 1: it's novel. I think all kids should have it, you know,

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Speaker 1: at least a few times I think I was asking

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Speaker 1: my own child, was like like, yeah, what was your

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Speaker 1: favorite cotton candy that you ever had? And they're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I think I only had it once, and I think

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Speaker 1: maybe it was more than once, but still, Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: probably have been kind of limiting on the cotton candy.

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Speaker 1: Like it's one of those things as a parent, when

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Speaker 1: you're asked if you can get cotton candy, you might

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Speaker 1: be inclined to sort of steer them towards something else.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great thing to bring as a treat

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Speaker 2: to the children of someone else at their house. Hey,

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Speaker 2: kids play with this in the living room.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's pure sugar, it's it's sticky, it has

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Speaker 1: no real nutritional value. It's pure novel and therefore it

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Speaker 1: is the perfect thing to have.

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Speaker 2: It af fair and that it's one of those foods

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Speaker 2: where the appeal of it is pure sensory novelty. Like

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Speaker 2: what's It's really not going to be like the best

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Speaker 2: tasting candy you're going to ever have. It's like, what's

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Speaker 2: appealing about it is that it is unusual, that it

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Speaker 2: looks interesting, in that it feels interesting in the mouth.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll get into much later in this discussion. That

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Speaker 1: there are some traditions of cotton candy and some technologies

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Speaker 1: with cotton candy that are like pushing the boundaries of

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Speaker 1: what's possible, and they've managed to make it look even

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Speaker 1: more amazing, even more like some sort of a strange

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Speaker 1: blue sugar flame brought forth from another realm. But I

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Speaker 1: haven't tried it, and I suspect that the taste can

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Speaker 1: only be so complex because it is still is just

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Speaker 1: like an assault of sweetness, I would imagine. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: feel like there's also concerning Farris, there's the not quite

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Speaker 1: overt connection to be made between cotton candy and clown hair.

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Speaker 1: You know, clowns have you know, bright colored hair that

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Speaker 1: is often in big poofy arrays that may resemble cotton candy,

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Speaker 1: uh huh yeah yeah, And for me too, I'm also

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Speaker 1: reminded of killer clowns from outer Space The Harm of

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Speaker 1: You from nineteen eighty eight, in which you have an

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Speaker 1: array of wonderfully grotesque and colorful clowns I think some

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Speaker 1: of the best horror movie clowns ever. And there are

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Speaker 1: some key sequences where we find out that they use

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Speaker 1: cotton candy to spin cocoons around their human victims.

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Speaker 2: I'd forgotten about that, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that wonderful usage. And I also find it

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Speaker 1: interesting because obviously there's a comparison being made here between

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Speaker 1: spun cotton candy and spun silk cocoons. And you actually

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Speaker 1: find these connections made as well in some Chinese traditions

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Speaker 1: with particular confections that are at least a kin to

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Speaker 1: cotton candy. Okay, all right, So at this point we

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Speaker 1: really should turn to a very obvious question before we

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Speaker 1: get into the history and invention of cotton candy properly.

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Speaker 1: What is it? What is this strange blue sugar air

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Speaker 1: that is summoned out of some sort of a technological

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Speaker 1: vat when a man sticks to it like a paper

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Speaker 1: cone or conical array into a like a pit.

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Speaker 2: Yes, very good question. And the science behind cotton candy

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Speaker 2: turned out to be surprisingly fascinating, at least to me.

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Speaker 2: It sent me on a number of unexpected tangents. So

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Speaker 2: I hope you'll enjoy coming along with me. So I

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Speaker 2: want to shout out one of the best sources I

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Speaker 2: found on this, which was a series of chapters in

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Speaker 2: a book called Candy Bites The Science of Sweets. This

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Speaker 2: was by authors Richard W. Hardle and An Kate Hardle.

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Speaker 2: Richard Hardle is a professor of food science at the

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Speaker 2: University of Wisconsin. Now, to really understand what's going on here,

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Speaker 2: before we get into the direct how and why of

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Speaker 2: cotton candy, we should do a brief explainer on the

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Speaker 2: science of heating sugar syrup, which is a mixture of

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Speaker 2: sugar and water. The precise heating of sugar syrup is

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Speaker 2: actually a big part of the candy making process. And

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Speaker 2: the authors of this book talk about a fact that

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Speaker 2: I thought was quite wild. They discuss how before candy

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Speaker 2: thermometers were in common, use candy thermometer. If you've never

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Speaker 2: seen it before, you know, it's just a type of

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Speaker 2: thermometer with a certain temperature range. You pin it to

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Speaker 2: the side of a pot or whatever vessel you're heating

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Speaker 2: your sugar syrup in, and it has sort of markers

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Speaker 2: on it that will let you know different stages of

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Speaker 2: the sugar syrup heating process. And I'll explain more about

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Speaker 2: that in a minute. But apparently in the old school days,

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Speaker 2: the old days, a lot of candy makers would test

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Speaker 2: the temperature of their boiling syrup by feel literally with

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Speaker 2: their fingers. Please do not try this yourself. This could

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Speaker 2: lead to horrible, horrible burns. Like the only thing worse

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Speaker 2: than Touching a boiling hot liquid is touching a hot

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Speaker 2: liquid that sticks to your skin. Oh apparently, and please

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Speaker 2: don't get any ideas. I'm just gonna describe the trick here.

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Speaker 2: But you don't know how to do it, Okay, you

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Speaker 2: don't know how to do it right, so don't try

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Speaker 2: this at home. Apparently the trick was the old candy

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Speaker 2: maker would dip their fingers into cold water first, and

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Speaker 2: then quickly dip them in the hot sugar syrup and

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Speaker 2: then back into the cold water. Again. Please do not

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Speaker 2: try this. Apparently there's kind of an art to doing

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Speaker 2: it right, and even experienced candy makers would end up

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Speaker 2: with serious injuries and scars. But the idea is that

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Speaker 2: the feel of the boiling syrup, along with the visual appearance,

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Speaker 2: would help them know what temperature the syrup had reached.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this detail. I'd never run across this before. But

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Speaker 1: this matches up with other things I was reading about

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Speaker 1: in terms of confectionery traditions and different cultures. And you

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Speaker 1: can just look around you, certainly in any major city,

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Speaker 1: and you can see examples of this. Like to be

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Speaker 1: a candy maker is to engage in a specialized profession.

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Speaker 1: Not everyone can do it. Yeah, it's serious business, and

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Speaker 1: you know you have to be mentored into it. You

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Speaker 1: have to learn the tricks and the art of the trade.

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Speaker 2: Now, the question is, why would it be so important

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Speaker 2: to know exactly what temperature you're boiling sugar syrup had reached.

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Speaker 2: You know, why would you actually risk third degree burns

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Speaker 2: just to know what temperature exactly the syrup was. Well,

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Speaker 2: it's because the chemical and physical properties of sugar syrup

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Speaker 2: change greatly depending on exactly how hot it has gotten.

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Speaker 2: So the authors mention these benchmarks. I don't know if

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Speaker 2: this is the exact terminology you'll see on most candy

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Speaker 2: making thermometers, but they mentioned the following stages. Okay, there

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Speaker 2: is the thread state and these I'm not going to

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Speaker 2: give the temperatures for everything, but it starts with the

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Speaker 2: thread state at two hundred and thirty degrees fahrenheit or

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Speaker 2: one hundred and ten celsius. And the final state I'm

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Speaker 2: going to mention, is it about three hundred and five

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Speaker 2: degrees fahrenheit or one hundred and fifty two celsius. The

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Speaker 2: states are thread state, then you get soft ball state,

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Speaker 2: firm ball state, then hardball soft crack, and hard crack.

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Speaker 2: Aren't these enticing to your mind? Don't you want to

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Speaker 2: know what all of these mean?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of baseball terminology.

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Speaker 2: It sounds like it has nothing to do with baseball,

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Speaker 2: nothing at all. Oh, it does sound like all of

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Speaker 2: them could be like a hard crack is like the

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Speaker 2: site of the bad hitting. No, no, nothing to do

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Speaker 2: with baseball. It'll all make sense in the end.

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Speaker 1: The thread state is when you just lasen up your

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Speaker 1: boots and there it is. It all works.

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Speaker 2: That's right, should have the trash talking state. So the

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Speaker 2: interesting thing about sugar syrup, this makes it very different

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Speaker 2: from plain water, is that as you continue to boil

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Speaker 2: it over time, it's boiling point goes up. Now, how

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Speaker 2: is that possible? After all, we all know that when

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Speaker 2: you boil a pot of water, it has a maximum

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Speaker 2: temperature at one atmosphere of pressure. The hottest your boiling

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Speaker 2: water can get is two twelve fahrenheit or one hundred

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Speaker 2: degrees celsius. You keep applying heat to the pot and

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Speaker 2: it will never get any hotter as long as it

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Speaker 2: can boil off. I mean, if you use a pressure

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Speaker 2: cooker and you you pressurize it, you prevent the steam

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Speaker 2: from escaping. You can get it hotter, but if it

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Speaker 2: is at regular pressure the steam can escape. It will

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Speaker 2: just keep boiling at the boiling point, never get any

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Speaker 2: hotter until all the water has evaporated. However, when you

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Speaker 2: add a significant amount of sugar to the water, you

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Speaker 2: actually increase the boiling point of the solution. The sugar

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Speaker 2: molecules dissolved in this solution make the water molecules more

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Speaker 2: resistant to evaporation. When you've got sugar in the water,

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Speaker 2: it's harder for those water molecules at the surface of

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Speaker 2: the pot of water to make the phase transition into

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Speaker 2: steam and boil off. So it takes more energy to

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Speaker 2: boil the solution, which means the boiling point goes up.

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Speaker 2: Mix in sugar, it's got a higher boiling point. But

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Speaker 2: here's the interesting thing. The amount of energy it takes

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Speaker 2: to evaporate water from the solution is proportional to the

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Speaker 2: sugar content. So the more sugar is in the solution

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Speaker 2: relative to the amount of water, the higher the boiling point.

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Speaker 2: So as you heat the sugar syrup to its boiling point,

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Speaker 2: water evaporates, it does boil off, and this increases the

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Speaker 2: ratio of sugar to water in the syrup and thus

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Speaker 2: increases the boiling point even further, and it will do

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Speaker 2: this until eventually all of the water is evaporated or

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Speaker 2: almost all of the water is gone, and at some

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Speaker 2: point the sugar will just burn beyond increasing the boiling point.

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Speaker 2: Another consequence of increasing the sugar to water ratio of

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Speaker 2: the syrup through heating is that the viscosity of the

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Speaker 2: syrup increases. In other words, it becomes thicker. And this

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Speaker 2: increase in viscosity is what candy makers are talking about

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Speaker 2: with phrases like soft ball, hard ball, soft crack, and

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Speaker 2: so forth. So these terms mostly describes something about what

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Speaker 2: a drop of the syrup at each temperature and viscosity

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Speaker 2: state does when you score out and you PLoP it

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Speaker 2: into a bowl of cold water. So, for example, at

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Speaker 2: the soft ball state, you drop a bit of the

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Speaker 2: syrup into cold water, and first it forms little threads,

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Speaker 2: and you can gather these up and mold them into

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Speaker 2: a soft mass with your fingers. But the syrup at

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Speaker 2: the soft ball stage is not thick enough to hold

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Speaker 2: its shape, and it will slowly collapse and flow under

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Speaker 2: the force of gravity alone. So imagine the texture of

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Speaker 2: like the soft caramel filling in a chocolate truffle. And

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Speaker 2: so from here we go up the chain. You go

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Speaker 2: to the firm ball state. This means you can make

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Speaker 2: it into a ball. You can form it into a

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Speaker 2: ball with your hands, but it will be easily deformed

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Speaker 2: and molded with the fingers. It'll basically hold its shape

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Speaker 2: against gravity. At the hard ball stage, the cooled syrup

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Speaker 2: will firmly retain its shape. The authors use saltwater taffy

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Speaker 2: as an example of this texture. And after the ball stages,

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Speaker 2: you've got the crack stages, soft crack and hard crack.

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Speaker 2: And the authors described this point as follows. Quote. Sugar

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Speaker 2: syrup cooked to three hundred degrees fahrenheit and cooled quickly

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Speaker 2: in cold water forms hard brittle threads that crack when

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Speaker 2: you snap them. Thus the hard cracked state. In fact,

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Speaker 2: sugar cooked to this temperature and cooled quickly to room

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Speaker 2: temperature turns into a sugar glass and amorphous matrix of

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Speaker 2: sugar molecules that has solid like characteristics. Hard candy and

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Speaker 2: brittles are cooked to three hundred degrees fahrenheit to form

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Speaker 2: sugar glasses. So really, when you come back to the

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Speaker 2: idea of monitoring the temperature as the syrup boils. The

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Speaker 2: temperature monitoring is an indirect way for the candy maker

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Speaker 2: to measure the remaining water content of the syrup, since

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Speaker 2: the boiling point goes up as the water content goes down.

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Speaker 2: Now regarding this concept of sugar glass from the quote

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Speaker 2: I read, there's actually another chapter in the book on

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Speaker 2: this idea, which is both interesting on its own and

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Speaker 2: relevant to the subject of cotton candy, Because, as counterintuitive

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Speaker 2: as this sounds, cotton candy, this fluffy melt in your

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Speaker 2: mouth mass is a type of sugar glass, in fact,

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Speaker 2: is the authors describe it. They say, really, cotton candy

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Speaker 2: should be thought of as a type of fiberglass. It's

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Speaker 2: a fiberglass that you can.

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Speaker 1: Eat that well, that feels entirely accurate and is as

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Speaker 1: appetizing as it should be.

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Speaker 2: This actually leads to something that I didn't know about

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Speaker 2: old special effects in the movies. Did you know that

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Speaker 2: sugar plays a role in the history of breakaway glass

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Speaker 2: on movie sets.

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Speaker 1: I have always heard this, but I've never closely examined it,

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Speaker 1: you know, but I'd always heard, you know, accounts of like, oh,

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Speaker 1: he's going through sugar glass there, or accounts like, well

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Speaker 1: it was supposed to be sugar glass, but they ended

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Speaker 1: up using real glass and somebody got injured. That sort

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Speaker 1: of thing.

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Speaker 2: Oh okay, so you knew that I didn't know this before,

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Speaker 2: or one of those many things. Maybe that if I knew, I.

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Speaker 1: Forgot I didn't know enough about it to ever like

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Speaker 1: sight it, because it's one of those things that in the

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Speaker 1: back of my mind and have to think, well, maybe

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Speaker 1: I heard that wrong, Maybe they didn't use sugar.

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Speaker 2: No, no, you didn't hear it wrong. It's not often

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Speaker 2: the case today, but i'll explain. So when you see

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Speaker 2: a movie stunt where somebody gets thrown through a plate

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Speaker 2: glass window, or you know, generally glass breaks on a person,

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Speaker 2: that is almost always a special prop called breakaway glass.

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Speaker 2: It looks like regular glass when it's solid, looks like

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00:20:29,760 --> 00:20:32,719
Speaker 2: regular glass made out of silica, but it is not.

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00:20:33,080 --> 00:20:37,200
Speaker 2: It's some kind of clear, brittle material that shatters on impact,

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Speaker 2: but it doesn't form the hard, sharp edges that would

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00:20:40,240 --> 00:20:44,200
Speaker 2: cut you like regular window glass does. These days, it's

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00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:46,560
Speaker 2: often made out of some kind of plastic resin, but

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00:20:46,800 --> 00:20:49,760
Speaker 2: in older movies it was usually made out of sugar.

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Speaker 2: And by the way, sugar glass is not just a

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Speaker 2: term used in like the breakaway glass thing. I mean

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Speaker 2: a lot of the candies people eat are essentially a

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Speaker 2: form of sugar glass modified sugar glass, like lollipops, jolly ranchers, lifesavers,

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Speaker 2: et cetera. You can kind of see the glassiness when

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Speaker 2: you think of the texture of these things.

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Speaker 1: Well, now, I just I really want to look up

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Speaker 1: some examples from old movies where someone is like one

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Speaker 1: hundred percent going through a window pane made out of

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Speaker 1: sugar glass.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like you shatter through it, and then you get up,

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Speaker 2: dust yourself off, pick up the pieces and eat them.

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Speaker 1: Possibly children and animals form in to consume the precious

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Speaker 1: sugar glass. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I think they used sugar glass to make the methamphetamine

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00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:34,600
Speaker 2: on the Breaking Bad set.

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Speaker 1: That's right, I do remember reading that.

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Speaker 2: But to come back to the chemistry of it, So,

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Speaker 2: as we mentioned already, you make sugar glass by boiling

385
00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:55,199
Speaker 2: syrup to the hard crack stage just means taking it

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Speaker 2: past three hundred degrees fahrenheit. At this point, the remaining

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00:21:58,520 --> 00:22:02,800
Speaker 2: mixture is only about two percent water. And the authors

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00:22:02,800 --> 00:22:06,320
Speaker 2: talk about how sugar actually comes in two primary physical

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00:22:06,400 --> 00:22:09,880
Speaker 2: arrangements solid sugar. Of course, you can have melted forms

390
00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:12,919
Speaker 2: of sugar, but solid sugar is either going to be

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00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:16,800
Speaker 2: crystalline sugar like rock candy, or sugar glass, and that

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Speaker 2: would include both jolly ranchers and breakaway glass on movie

393
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Speaker 2: sets and cotton candy. Glasses are interesting from a physics

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00:22:25,800 --> 00:22:30,480
Speaker 2: and chemistry perspective because they combine properties of a solid

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Speaker 2: and a liquid, so they seem solid enough when you

396
00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:36,760
Speaker 2: look at them and touch them, but they actually behave

397
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:41,320
Speaker 2: in some ways like a liquid. So crystalline solids have

398
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Speaker 2: these regular patterns into which the molecules are arranged. If

399
00:22:45,200 --> 00:22:47,159
Speaker 2: you look at them with a you know, at the

400
00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:50,399
Speaker 2: molecular level, you will see these like long repeating chains.

401
00:22:50,440 --> 00:22:55,879
Speaker 2: It's a very structurally uniform. Glasses, which are called amorphous solids,

402
00:22:56,320 --> 00:22:59,000
Speaker 2: do not show these regular patterns, at least not on

403
00:22:59,040 --> 00:23:02,480
Speaker 2: the large scale. They might have small patterns in little

404
00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:06,280
Speaker 2: local areas of molecules, but they're largely more jumbled up.

405
00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:09,320
Speaker 2: The molecules are all kind of just mixed together and

406
00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:13,920
Speaker 2: kind of frozen in a chaotic mess. So an interesting

407
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:17,920
Speaker 2: consequence of the different molecular arrangement of glass is that

408
00:23:18,040 --> 00:23:23,119
Speaker 2: while it might be perfectly solid on a normal human timeline,

409
00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:27,399
Speaker 2: glasses do tend to flow in a way that crystalline

410
00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:30,879
Speaker 2: solids do not. And here in the book the author's

411
00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:35,480
Speaker 2: given illustration of this by making reference to something we've

412
00:23:35,520 --> 00:23:38,480
Speaker 2: talked about on the show before, the University of Queensland

413
00:23:38,600 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 2: Pitch drop experiment. I was trying to remember when this

414
00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:45,000
Speaker 2: came up. I know it won an Igno Bell Prize,

415
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:47,479
Speaker 2: so may have been in that context, or it may

416
00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:49,920
Speaker 2: have been some other time. We were discussing rheology, which

417
00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:53,160
Speaker 2: is the scientific study of how matter flows. The short

418
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:56,199
Speaker 2: version is this experiment, which began in the nineteen twenties

419
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Speaker 2: and I think is still ongoing, or at least was

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Speaker 2: ongoing until recently. I think it might still be going on.

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00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:05,760
Speaker 2: It consists of leaving a mass of tar pitch which

422
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:09,000
Speaker 2: is so thick it really seems like a solid, sitting

423
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:11,800
Speaker 2: that down in a funnel, and then subjecting it to

424
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:16,080
Speaker 2: atmospheric conditions and measuring how long it takes for part

425
00:24:16,119 --> 00:24:18,600
Speaker 2: of it to drip out the bottom of the funnel.

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00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:21,720
Speaker 2: I think the finding was that each drop took roughly

427
00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:26,159
Speaker 2: eight to ten years. Oh wow, so this chunk of

428
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:30,360
Speaker 2: tar looks totally solid to us, But in regular atmospheric

429
00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:35,160
Speaker 2: conditions it is flowing. It's just flowing very slowly. And

430
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:39,400
Speaker 2: other glasses are like that, except flowing even more slowly.

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Speaker 2: And here at the author's cite a now debunked belief.

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Speaker 2: So what I'm about to say is a myth. Do

433
00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:48,400
Speaker 2: not take this away as genuine knowledge, but a now

434
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:53,400
Speaker 2: debunked belief about stained glass windows in some medieval cathedrals.

435
00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:57,399
Speaker 2: This was based on the observation or the observation people

436
00:24:57,480 --> 00:24:59,440
Speaker 2: thought they had made that some of these window panes

437
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:01,840
Speaker 2: appear to be thicker at the base than they are

438
00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:05,440
Speaker 2: at the top. And to whatever extent that is true,

439
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:10,440
Speaker 2: the popular explanation is they're melting. These windows were made

440
00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 2: hundreds of years ago, and you know installed, I don't know.

441
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 2: So you imagine a cathedrals built in the twelve hundreds,

442
00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 2: and these windows are put in, and this has just

443
00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:23,600
Speaker 2: been over hundreds of years. They're gradually flowing down due

444
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:26,200
Speaker 2: to the force of gravity, and so the bases of

445
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:28,439
Speaker 2: them are getting thicker than the top. And now the

446
00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:31,840
Speaker 2: authors note that this claim is disputed by experts. I

447
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:34,439
Speaker 2: went and looked this up, and it seems to me,

448
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:37,119
Speaker 2: it's not just disputed. From what I can tell, it

449
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:41,200
Speaker 2: is thoroughly disproven. For example, I found the following paper.

450
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:45,639
Speaker 2: This is called Viscous Flow of Medieval Cathedral Glass, and

451
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:51,000
Speaker 2: this is by Osgar Gulbeton, John C. Morrow, Ziaujug, and

452
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:55,960
Speaker 2: Olus N. Boratav published in the American Journal of the

453
00:25:56,000 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 2: American Ceramic Society twenty eighteen. Their abstract begins by describing

454
00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:03,479
Speaker 2: the urban legend about the flowing windows and then notes

455
00:26:03,560 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 2: that quote, advances in glass transition theory and experimental characterization

456
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 2: techniques unquote will allow this idea to be tested more

457
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:15,199
Speaker 2: directly than it ever has before. And then from here

458
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:17,679
Speaker 2: I'm going to read from the abstract with some abridgments

459
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:22,480
Speaker 2: for simplicity. Quote. In this work, we investigate the dynamics

460
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:26,720
Speaker 2: of a typical medieval glass composition used in Westminster Abbey,

461
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 2: depending on the thermal history of the glass. The room

462
00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:34,719
Speaker 2: temperature viscosity is about sixteen orders of magnitude lower than

463
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:38,280
Speaker 2: found in a previous study of soda lime silicate glass,

464
00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 2: which is a common type of glass used in making windows.

465
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 2: But the authors go on later quote despite this significantly

466
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:49,280
Speaker 2: lower value of the room temperature viscosity. The viscosity of

467
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:53,640
Speaker 2: the glass is much too high to observe measurable viscous

468
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:58,520
Speaker 2: flow on a human timescale. Using analytical expressions to describe

469
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 2: the glass flow over a wall, we calculate a maximum

470
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 2: flow of about one nanometer over a billion years. So,

471
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:11,919
Speaker 2: just for context, a nanometer is one one billionth of

472
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:15,479
Speaker 2: a meter or like, you know, two percent as wide

473
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 2: as some viruses. A sheet of paper is roughly one

474
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:24,280
Speaker 2: hundred thousand nanometers thick, So if they are flowing like that,

475
00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:26,159
Speaker 2: it would not be enough for us to measure that.

476
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:29,639
Speaker 2: This would not explain any measurable thickness difference at the

477
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:30,880
Speaker 2: bottom of the glass.

478
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:35,359
Speaker 1: Right, you'd need some sort of like crazy time machine slash.

479
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:39,680
Speaker 1: I don't know, alien preservation of a cathedral to be

480
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:43,560
Speaker 1: in play. It's just impossible to imagine a scenario where

481
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 1: this would be observable to the naked eye.

482
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:47,800
Speaker 2: The glass does flow, I mean those windows will be

483
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:52,399
Speaker 2: melting by the heat death of the universe. They're just

484
00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:54,280
Speaker 2: not going to be flowing, you know, in a few

485
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:58,919
Speaker 2: hundred years. Yeah, But anyway, this observation relates to a

486
00:27:59,080 --> 00:28:02,879
Speaker 2: very interesting sign scientific measure that the authors of this

487
00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:07,440
Speaker 2: book mention. The hurtles mention what is called the Deborah number.

488
00:28:08,119 --> 00:28:11,119
Speaker 2: This is a number used in rheology and realogy is

489
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:15,360
Speaker 2: the study of how matter flows to describe the ratio

490
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:20,680
Speaker 2: of two figures. One is how quickly a fluid mass

491
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:25,359
Speaker 2: flows or how quickly it deforms under pressure versus how

492
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 2: long you are able to observe it and cool fact

493
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 2: is that the Deborah number gets its name from a

494
00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 2: passage in the Hebrew Bible. It's in the Book of

495
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 2: Judges chapter five, which is telling of a song by

496
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 2: the prophet Deborah in which she's prophesying a great destruction

497
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:49,440
Speaker 2: to come, and she says, this is the King James version. Lord,

498
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 2: when thou wentest out of sear, when thou marchest out

499
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 2: of the field of edom, the earth trembled, and the

500
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 2: heavens dropped. The clouds also dropped water. The mountains melted

501
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:03,800
Speaker 2: from before the Lord. And sometimes that line about the

502
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 2: mountains melting before the Lord is expressed as the mountains

503
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 2: flowed before the Lord. Some theologians I think this is

504
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 2: a later interpretation. Some theologians explain this by saying that

505
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:18,360
Speaker 2: it's not just a simple expression of power, i e.

506
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 2: God can melt mountains, but an expression of God's dominion

507
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 2: over time, meaning like he lives and sees forever, he

508
00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 2: is eternal, so to him mountains which are completely solid

509
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 2: throughout the lifetime of a human, you know, not a

510
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 2: noticeable change in a few decades to God's point of view,

511
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 2: and seeing outside of time, they just flow like soft caramel,

512
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 2: which would be somewhat scientifically accurate. I am not convinced

513
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 2: that's what the author of this passage actually had in mind.

514
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:48,400
Speaker 2: It sounds to me more like a classical expression of

515
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:51,160
Speaker 2: power and might. But interesting nonetheless.

516
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:54,520
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, I love it when there's an interpretation of

517
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 1: ancient writings like this that are not actually pushing some

518
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 1: sort of an ancient AA technology agenda, but are like,

519
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:06,719
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of nice that science matches up

520
00:30:06,760 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 1: here in a way that again is not pushing an

521
00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 1: agenda in either direction.

522
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I'm not trying to slam the passage in anyway.

523
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 2: I mean, this is a great passage of the Bible.

524
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:20,240
Speaker 2: That interpretation might be implying a kind of scientific insight

525
00:30:20,320 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 2: that the authors of the passage probably did not have.

526
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 2: But at the very least, it is a very interesting

527
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 2: coincidence and you know, if the author actually did have

528
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:32,520
Speaker 2: that insight, that's quite interesting too. But to come back

529
00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 2: to sugar glass, of course, sugar glass is much keener

530
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 2: on flowing than the soda lime silicon glass that you

531
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:42,480
Speaker 2: would be used in a stained glass window in a cathedral.

532
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 2: The sugar glass will flow more easily, and this leads

533
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:51,680
Speaker 2: to apparently funny considerations in older movie making. So the

534
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 2: authors talk about how if a prop window of sugar

535
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:58,000
Speaker 2: glass was made in the morning on an old movie set,

536
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 2: the production would kind of need to hurry long and

537
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 2: shoot the window smashing scene soon because the window wouldn't

538
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 2: last forever. As you might guess if you've ever left

539
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 2: Jolly ranchers out in a hot car under the stress

540
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 2: of heat and moisture conditions in the air, the sugar

541
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 2: glass window would gradually soften and then eventually begin to

542
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 2: melt and flow like the mountains before the Lord.

543
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:26,400
Speaker 1: Oh wow. Yeah, I mean, we've all heard or read

544
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 1: examples of really hot movie shoots, you know, be it

545
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 1: a set or some sort of a location. Throw melting

546
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 1: sugar glass into that scenario. Yeah.

547
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:41,960
Speaker 2: Now, here's where we finally get back directly to cotton candy.

548
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 2: The Heartles claim that cotton candy is probably descended from

549
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 2: a previously existing confectionery product called spun sugar. Now, spun

550
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:55,760
Speaker 2: sugar is made by heating sugar syrup to the hard

551
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:58,600
Speaker 2: crack phase. Remember that's the highest phase again, that's how

552
00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:00,440
Speaker 2: you make sugar glass. You take it up to pass

553
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 2: three hundred degrees fahrenheit and then you pour that syrup

554
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:07,479
Speaker 2: over something like a fork or a wisk, which allows

555
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 2: it to drip and stretch out and form these long,

556
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:15,400
Speaker 2: thin strands as it cools and hardens. So sometimes people

557
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:18,360
Speaker 2: I've seen this on like cooking shows before, people will

558
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:22,800
Speaker 2: make shapes out of sponge sugar. You know, they'll like

559
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:25,440
Speaker 2: pour the threads over the back of a bowl or

560
00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:27,239
Speaker 2: something like that and then peel it off, and then

561
00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 2: you will have this interesting wiry dome of these sugar threads.

562
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:35,120
Speaker 2: To me, sponge sugar has always kind of looked like

563
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 2: a thin wire. It's kind of shiny, so it has

564
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:39,240
Speaker 2: that metallic look to it.

565
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And I have encountered this on some desserts

566
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 1: as a grown up, and yeah, I mean, it's probably

567
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 1: the best place to utilize this sugar technology for the

568
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: adult palette, right, because it's not acting on its own.

569
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:56,800
Speaker 1: It's just kind of like a little novelty on top

570
00:32:56,880 --> 00:32:58,719
Speaker 1: of something that maybe has a more complex flavor.

571
00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:01,200
Speaker 2: I'm not knocking it, but I think the appeal of

572
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 2: sponge sugar is more for looking at than eating. I

573
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 2: don't know how much fun it really is to eat

574
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:11,160
Speaker 2: these little wires of sugar syrup.

575
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 1: But it's nice to know that you can.

576
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:17,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So here the authors talk a bit

577
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 2: about the history of how cotton candy was invented, like

578
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:22,280
Speaker 2: where the first machines came from. I think we'll get

579
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 2: more into that later in maybe later today or in

580
00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:28,320
Speaker 2: part two of the series, but to begin with, just

581
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 2: like what is it? Physically? What is it? Cotton candy

582
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 2: is sort of like sponge sugar, but taken to an

583
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:40,720
Speaker 2: almost spiritual extreme of wispiness. It's usually made with a

584
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:45,680
Speaker 2: special machine which includes a rapidly rotating disc or tray

585
00:33:45,840 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 2: called a spinner, and then in the middle of that

586
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 2: tray there's a heating element. So you pour the flavored

587
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 2: sugar into the middle of the spinner with the heating element.

588
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 2: It gets melted by the heating element and then this

589
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:01,959
Speaker 2: in the liquid form as the thing spins. It leaks

590
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 2: out of tiny holes in the outside wall of its

591
00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:10,440
Speaker 2: containers spinning container, and these tiny streams of melted sugar

592
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 2: make contact with the cold, unheated air outside the spinner,

593
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:20,799
Speaker 2: then quickly solidify into sugar glass, but microscopic hair like

594
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 2: strands of sugar glass. Then the operator collects all of

595
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:27,959
Speaker 2: these fibers from a larger kind of container or tray,

596
00:34:29,640 --> 00:34:32,839
Speaker 2: collects them into a cone or onto a stick, and

597
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:35,960
Speaker 2: here's your cotton candy. Now here's where we come back

598
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:39,560
Speaker 2: to the comparison to fiberglass. The haartles in the book

599
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:44,319
Speaker 2: right quote. Fiberglass, first commercialized by the Owen Corning Fiberglass

600
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:48,280
Speaker 2: Corporation in nineteen thirty eight, is made by extruding molten

601
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:52,040
Speaker 2: silica glass through small holes to make thin strands or

602
00:34:52,080 --> 00:34:56,040
Speaker 2: fibers of glass. As the strands exit the extruder, they

603
00:34:56,080 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 2: cool into the solid glassy state and are collected further processing.

604
00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:05,080
Speaker 2: The process is essentially the same as for making cotton candy,

605
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:09,880
Speaker 2: which is just great. Now, of course, there are major

606
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:13,320
Speaker 2: differences due to the chemical differences between silica based glass

607
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:18,360
Speaker 2: and sugar glass. Regular fiberglass made out of glass glass

608
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:22,759
Speaker 2: silica glass is used as an insulation material in construction.

609
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:26,799
Speaker 2: It's quite resistant to heat and moisture. That is one

610
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:31,040
Speaker 2: of its main appeals. Cotton candy is exactly the opposite.

611
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 2: Contact with heat or moisture will destroy the structure of

612
00:35:34,520 --> 00:35:37,600
Speaker 2: cotton candy, so once it's made, it's got a short

613
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:39,759
Speaker 2: shelf life, or you've got to like seal it off

614
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:43,239
Speaker 2: against the atmosphere basically like, yeah, you need to eat

615
00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:46,320
Speaker 2: it right away or put it inside water type packaging.

616
00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:50,760
Speaker 2: And the water type packaging is not just for protection

617
00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:56,880
Speaker 2: against the raccoon washing full dunk scenario. Sugar is hygroscopic,

618
00:35:57,360 --> 00:36:01,399
Speaker 2: meaning it will absorb water from the air around it,

619
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 2: so you know, usually there's some water content in the air.

620
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:07,600
Speaker 2: I guess you're a cotton candy might survive longer if

621
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:09,480
Speaker 2: you make it in the middle of the desert, but

622
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 2: to whatever degree it's humid outside, cotton candy will quickly

623
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:15,799
Speaker 2: go from being fluffy and delightful to kind of like

624
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:20,880
Speaker 2: collapsing down and becoming a sticky, semi melted mess. And

625
00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:22,920
Speaker 2: then of course if you actually like splash water on

626
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:24,839
Speaker 2: it or it gets rained on, that's just the end

627
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:25,080
Speaker 2: of it.

628
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:27,959
Speaker 1: Yeah, heartbreaking in.

629
00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:30,319
Speaker 2: Fact, you can look up I did before we started here.

630
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 2: Cotton candy, like slow death of cotton candy time lapse videos,

631
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:37,400
Speaker 2: and these are really good and they always have hilarious

632
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 2: music because you're just watching joy die. You're watching a

633
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:44,480
Speaker 2: lump of cotton candy over the course of you know,

634
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:48,480
Speaker 2: three or four hours, just slump down and collapse. But

635
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 2: the music that's playing sounds like like orbital or something.

636
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 2: It's very like feel good, upbeat, very upbeat.

637
00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:56,080
Speaker 1: I was surprised by that. I thought it would be

638
00:36:56,160 --> 00:36:59,720
Speaker 1: more like, you know, nine is Nails Hurt or something,

639
00:36:59,760 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 1: you know.

640
00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 2: For the Johnny Cash cover.

641
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:05,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Johnny Cash cover Slowed the Cave Cotton Candy, or.

642
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:07,799
Speaker 2: The Johnny Cash cover of Rusty Cage, because you know,

643
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:09,879
Speaker 2: it's like, in a way, it's breaking out of the

644
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:11,640
Speaker 2: form you have put it in. I'm gonna break my

645
00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 2: Rusty Cage of being an extruded, you know, hair like

646
00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:18,319
Speaker 2: filament of glass and I'm just going to turn into

647
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:22,640
Speaker 2: what I've always wanted to be, a thick, sticky like puddle.

648
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 1: Yeah. The one that I watched at the end, after

649
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:29,880
Speaker 1: it had like shrunken down, they then chopped it up

650
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:32,800
Speaker 1: or cut it up with scissors, and it was I

651
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:34,120
Speaker 1: don't know why it's so fascinating.

652
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So that's what's going on with the chemistry

653
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 2: of cotton candy. Much more interesting subject than I expected

654
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:52,280
Speaker 2: it to be. But there's also a lot of interesting

655
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:55,480
Speaker 2: stuff about cotton candy and how it interacts with sort

656
00:37:55,520 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 2: of the history of confectionery and other related candies treats

657
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:01,720
Speaker 2: made in the past.

658
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:06,279
Speaker 1: That's right now. Obviously, I think most of us are

659
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:08,720
Speaker 1: aware of this. Humans have always had a sweet tooth

660
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 1: ready to pounce upon such sweet treats that you might

661
00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:18,320
Speaker 1: find in the natural environment as carrots, berries, or perhaps

662
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:21,440
Speaker 1: even if you're lucky and daring, a taste of wild honey.

663
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:24,799
Speaker 2: I was wondering, is honey about as sweet as it

664
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 2: gets in terms of natural products just things you would

665
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:31,879
Speaker 2: find in nature, unprocessed or unreduced pretty much?

666
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:35,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, because oftentimes when you hear examples of

667
00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:38,120
Speaker 1: like the sweet tooth of our ancient ancestors, you know,

668
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:41,440
Speaker 1: they're talking about things like carrots as being like extremely sweet,

669
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:46,720
Speaker 1: and that's something that in our modern sugar saturated world,

670
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 1: like we don't even think about carrots being sweet, but

671
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:51,200
Speaker 1: carrots are sweet like, take a little time to appreciate

672
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:55,320
Speaker 1: a candy carrot the next time you're rooting around in

673
00:38:55,360 --> 00:38:55,880
Speaker 1: the fridge.

674
00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:58,880
Speaker 2: I recall when I was a kid there were carrots.

675
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:01,400
Speaker 2: I think they were like baby carrots, which are not

676
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:04,799
Speaker 2: actually baby carrots, by the way. They're just different ways

677
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:05,680
Speaker 2: of cutting a carrot.

678
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:08,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're just ugly carrots and carrot leftovers that are

679
00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:10,360
Speaker 1: trimmed down into these little notes.

680
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:12,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the carrot principle of It's kind of like

681
00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:17,799
Speaker 2: tater tots, you know, it's reducing waste. But yeah, carrots.

682
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:20,279
Speaker 2: I remember some baby carrots when I was a kid

683
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:22,759
Speaker 2: that were sold under some brand name that was like

684
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:25,800
Speaker 2: Sugar Treats or something like that. There was just carrots,

685
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:27,520
Speaker 2: but I think it was a way of tricking kids

686
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:30,360
Speaker 2: at the stores. Something goes, oh, that's called sugar yum yum.

687
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:34,359
Speaker 2: They did taste sweeter somehow. They just got to prime

688
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:34,840
Speaker 2: your mind.

689
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:36,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's one of the reasons kids will

690
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: actually eat them most of the time.

691
00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:40,399
Speaker 2: But we're not hating on carrots. But carrots are great.

692
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:43,239
Speaker 1: Great love carrots. But there's a lot of evidence for

693
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:47,279
Speaker 1: humanity's deep seated sweet tooth. The spider caves and what

694
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:51,279
Speaker 1: is now Spain featured depictions of human honey gathering. The

695
00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 1: believe the oldest known depiction of bees and evidence of

696
00:39:55,280 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 1: human conception of honey and or the harvesting of honey.

697
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:05,440
Speaker 1: I've seen different dates for this, including eight thousand BCE

698
00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:08,920
Speaker 1: and some more like six thousand BC, but suffice to

699
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 1: say it's very ancient evidence, and the practice obviously predates

700
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:17,840
Speaker 1: the depiction Humans were going out and harvesting honey, stealing

701
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:21,760
Speaker 1: honey from the insects that created now. As we've discussed

702
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:24,280
Speaker 1: in the show before, the ancient Egyptians made various uses

703
00:40:24,320 --> 00:40:29,359
Speaker 1: of honey medicinal the magical, but they also appreciated it

704
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:33,560
Speaker 1: for its sweetness and proper sugar based confections go back

705
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:37,480
Speaker 1: at least to two thousand BCE in India according to

706
00:40:37,520 --> 00:40:40,960
Speaker 1: Sanskrit texts, though I've also seen the date of refined

707
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 1: sugar in India going back to six thousand BCE, and

708
00:40:44,760 --> 00:40:48,560
Speaker 1: the English words sugar and candy are both distantly related

709
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 1: to their original Sanskrit terms. As such, there is of

710
00:40:54,000 --> 00:41:00,160
Speaker 1: course a very deep rooted sweets culture in India, and

711
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:03,479
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of expertise in it. But

712
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:09,160
Speaker 1: I have been to Indian sweet shops before as an adult,

713
00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:11,279
Speaker 1: so I was I've almost I've never been in the

714
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:14,279
Speaker 1: market for the sweets they have. I'm usually buying something

715
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:17,759
Speaker 1: like Somosa's or something. But as such, there is of

716
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:20,839
Speaker 1: course a robust world of Indian sweets out there. It's

717
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:25,160
Speaker 1: a very deep sweet culture, one that I sadly did

718
00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:27,239
Speaker 1: not have access to as a child, when I would

719
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:31,239
Speaker 1: have most appreciated all of this. You know, I only

720
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:35,440
Speaker 1: had Indian food basically once I was at least in college,

721
00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:38,560
Speaker 1: I think. So when I go into Indian sweet shops,

722
00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:41,680
Speaker 1: I'm impressed by all the colors and shapes, but I

723
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:45,800
Speaker 1: just don't have the appetite for it. I don't know

724
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:47,840
Speaker 1: if there are any listeners out there who have definite

725
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:51,520
Speaker 1: recommendations about what I should try at the local Indian

726
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:54,080
Speaker 1: sweet shops. Let me know and I will go out

727
00:41:54,160 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 1: and I will conduct the experiment. Now, when it comes

728
00:41:57,080 --> 00:42:00,840
Speaker 1: to European traditions of sweets, sugar based to confects emerged

729
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:03,840
Speaker 1: during the Middle Ages as luxury goods brought in initially

730
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 1: via apothecaries in the Middle East, but in other parts

731
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:10,360
Speaker 1: of the world. As we've been discussing places where sugarcane

732
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 1: grew naturally, talking about South Asia, Southeast Asia, and potentially

733
00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:18,480
Speaker 1: New Guinea, or of course lands adjacent to those lands,

734
00:42:18,480 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 1: places where candy culture could either emerge or easily flow into.

735
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:28,480
Speaker 1: In those cases we see more deeply rooted sugar cultures,

736
00:42:28,719 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 1: deeply rooted sweet cultures, such as in India. Now fast

737
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 1: forwarding to cotton candy, just to put all that in perspective,

738
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 1: we're going to get more into the origin story of

739
00:42:38,680 --> 00:42:42,840
Speaker 1: cotton candy. But again, generally, the generally accepted invention story

740
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:47,759
Speaker 1: for cotton candy proper is that it is unleashed upon

741
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:51,279
Speaker 1: the world at the nineteen oh four World's Fair, an

742
00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:56,359
Speaker 1: invention by a pair of Tennesseeans dentist William Morrison and

743
00:42:56,400 --> 00:42:59,680
Speaker 1: a confectioner by the name of John C. Wharton, both

744
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:00,560
Speaker 1: full based.

745
00:43:00,600 --> 00:43:03,160
Speaker 2: I believe dentists creating cotton candy.

746
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:08,239
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, that is a frequently spouted fact that never

747
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:12,719
Speaker 1: stops being hilarious, because again it is just essentially peer shite. There.

748
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:16,239
Speaker 1: Of course, some other contemporary rivals for the invention honors here,

749
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:19,560
Speaker 1: as is often the case with inventions from the nineteenth

750
00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 1: or twentieth century, as we've discussed before in our invention episodes,

751
00:43:24,560 --> 00:43:28,359
Speaker 1: but generally people point to Morrison and or Alton there

752
00:43:29,200 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 1: when it comes to the invention of proper cotton candy.

753
00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:36,399
Speaker 1: There are also some additional arguments for nineteenth or even

754
00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 1: fifteenth century CE European origins for cotton candy or things

755
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:44,360
Speaker 1: adjacent to cotton candy. One of the more fascinating arguments

756
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:47,240
Speaker 1: that I ran across was that was that cotton candy

757
00:43:47,320 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 1: or something similar to it dates back to China's Han dynasty,

758
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 1: which would place it somewhere between two two BCE and

759
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 1: nine C, or between twenty five and two twenty CE,

760
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:03,520
Speaker 1: depending on where in the Hun dynasty you're falling. Okay,

761
00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:06,880
Speaker 1: so in this we're talking about long sheet tongue or

762
00:44:07,160 --> 00:44:13,000
Speaker 1: dragons Beard candy, sometimes abbreviated in Western circles as d

763
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 1: b C. I've not personally had Dragon's Beard candy. It's

764
00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:20,839
Speaker 1: possible that I've had the chance and just didn't recognize

765
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:25,880
Speaker 1: my opportunity, or just wasn't looking for something sweet. I

766
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:29,320
Speaker 1: think that's ultimately the tragedy of being exposed to different

767
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:32,000
Speaker 1: sweet cultures. As you grow older, you just have less

768
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:36,359
Speaker 1: of an appetite for it, but it's still it's very

769
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:39,280
Speaker 1: interesting looking. You can easily look up various YouTube videos

770
00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:43,080
Speaker 1: of Dragon's Beard candy, and I've also seen places where

771
00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:47,560
Speaker 1: you can apparently buy it online, you know, where it's

772
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:51,600
Speaker 1: like shrink wrapped or something. The same is true of

773
00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:56,760
Speaker 1: some Middle Eastern examples that will refer to of similar treats,

774
00:44:57,040 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 1: such as Middle Eastern flos Alva, which sometimes has the

775
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:03,920
Speaker 1: flossy hairl like consistency that we're talking about. But I've

776
00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:06,279
Speaker 1: also seen images of it that look like they're a

777
00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:09,719
Speaker 1: bit more solid, but in that kind of reminds me

778
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 1: of these examples that we're just talking about of what

779
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:14,040
Speaker 1: happens when you take cotton candy, allow it to sit,

780
00:45:14,239 --> 00:45:17,920
Speaker 1: and then you cut it up. So maybe it's a

781
00:45:17,960 --> 00:45:21,200
Speaker 1: case like that where you have different versions of what

782
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:24,200
Speaker 1: the is ultimately going on to the tray in the

783
00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:29,239
Speaker 1: confectionery store. But flas Alva also looks quite good. I

784
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 1: would definitely accept some of this from Tilda Swinton in

785
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:36,080
Speaker 1: a sleigh if she was offering this Turkish delight. So

786
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 1: I was reading a bit more about Dragon's Beard candy.

787
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:42,320
Speaker 1: I found a really nice Eater travel article by Tiffany

788
00:45:42,440 --> 00:45:46,040
Speaker 1: Lee from twenty twenty four titled Welcome the Year of

789
00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:48,759
Speaker 1: the Dragon with Dragon's Beard Candy if you can find

790
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:53,520
Speaker 1: it by the way, Happy Lunar New Year. As we

791
00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:55,880
Speaker 1: have now entered into the Year of the wood Snake.

792
00:45:56,400 --> 00:45:59,400
Speaker 2: Now refresh my memory, rob woodsnake means that, like you

793
00:45:59,440 --> 00:46:02,040
Speaker 2: get a year of a specific animal, like year of

794
00:46:02,040 --> 00:46:03,719
Speaker 2: the Dragon, year of the pig. This is a year

795
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 2: of the snake. But also the animal is under the

796
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:10,600
Speaker 2: influence of a certain planet, and so that would mean

797
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:12,680
Speaker 2: that's the wood aspect. Is that right?

798
00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:15,439
Speaker 1: Right? There are different elemental factors that come into play,

799
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:18,240
Speaker 1: so you know, it might be like iron snake, water snake,

800
00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:20,720
Speaker 1: wood snake. This year is the wood snake.

801
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 2: I like wood snake. It's very earthy.

802
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:27,480
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the author here, Lee, herself born to immigrant

803
00:46:27,520 --> 00:46:31,040
Speaker 1: parents from Hong Kong, describes childhood memories of buying the

804
00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:34,320
Speaker 1: treat from a food stall in Toronto, and she describes

805
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:36,200
Speaker 1: the candy as follows. I thought this was a nice

806
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:41,920
Speaker 1: description quote. The candies stretched sugar strands wrapped around a

807
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:46,719
Speaker 1: crunchy core of peanuts, coconut and sesame seeds create a

808
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:51,320
Speaker 1: series of textual sensations on the tongue. Some strands dissolve

809
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:56,800
Speaker 1: into a soft mass, while others shatter into foyotine flakes

810
00:46:57,040 --> 00:47:00,680
Speaker 1: before the whole thing morphs into a chewy, crunchy jumble

811
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:03,759
Speaker 1: of nugat. Foyotine by the way, that is, I had

812
00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:05,239
Speaker 1: to look this up and it was not familiar with

813
00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:09,840
Speaker 1: it as a crunchy French confection made from thin sweetened crapes.

814
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:12,040
Speaker 1: I've never had this one either, but I you know,

815
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:12,800
Speaker 1: I get the idea.

816
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:16,239
Speaker 2: Is the foy part of foyotine does that share root

817
00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:18,800
Speaker 2: with like, oh, I don't know how to pronounce this

818
00:47:18,960 --> 00:47:22,239
Speaker 2: me meal foy or whatever. The thousand layers thing.

819
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:26,920
Speaker 1: Ooh, that sounds likely is one of those layers crunchy.

820
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:28,360
Speaker 1: I guess it would have to be.

821
00:47:28,840 --> 00:47:30,840
Speaker 2: I think they're I think they're all crunchy, aren't they.

822
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:32,840
Speaker 2: I think like a bunch of it's like tons and

823
00:47:32,880 --> 00:47:35,920
Speaker 2: tons of crunchy layers. I think it means it means

824
00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:39,480
Speaker 2: like a thousand layers or a thousand sheets or something. Okay, Yeah,

825
00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:43,279
Speaker 2: like I I L L E F e U I L.

826
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:46,000
Speaker 1: L E Okay, so a thousand sheets that all have

827
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 1: the same experience. I was thinking like each sheet would

828
00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:51,440
Speaker 1: have a different consistency and that that would be impossible

829
00:47:51,440 --> 00:47:55,800
Speaker 1: to pull off. So anyway, we have pretty complex confection

830
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 1: here in dragon Beard candy with sugar floss wrapped around

831
00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:03,120
Speaker 1: a nutty center. If it sounds less sweet because of

832
00:48:03,160 --> 00:48:06,040
Speaker 1: the nuttiness, well, Lee assures us that it's plenty sweet.

833
00:48:07,600 --> 00:48:11,240
Speaker 1: You'll most likely find it in places where traditional Chinese

834
00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 1: suites are sold. I am not sure if I have

835
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:16,040
Speaker 1: a local source for it here in Atlanta, or I'm

836
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:17,239
Speaker 1: going to just have to look for it the next

837
00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:21,200
Speaker 1: time I'm in a bigger city. Listeners, do send your

838
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:23,680
Speaker 1: recommendations if you have had this and know where it

839
00:48:23,719 --> 00:48:27,200
Speaker 1: is sold. But based on Lee's article, it sounds like

840
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:30,719
Speaker 1: it hasn't completely caught on in the West, despite occasional

841
00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 1: spikes and popularity as a fad, like I believe she mentions,

842
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:36,720
Speaker 1: like in New York at one point it became popular

843
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:38,759
Speaker 1: for a little bit, but then people became distracted by

844
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 1: something else, and it hasn't really become entrenched in the

845
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:48,760
Speaker 1: way that other imported suites have. Okay, And as she discusses,

846
00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:53,760
Speaker 1: it's pretty labor and skill intensive, so that's another hurdle

847
00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:56,399
Speaker 1: for it really taking over. According to Lee. It takes

848
00:48:56,440 --> 00:49:00,040
Speaker 1: two years of mentorship to learn to make it, and

849
00:48:59,880 --> 00:49:02,600
Speaker 1: it's one of those things like hand pulled noodles where

850
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:05,360
Speaker 1: half the appeal is watching someone make it. And I

851
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:09,640
Speaker 1: guess that holds true of western cotton candy as well.

852
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:13,120
Speaker 1: Like you want to watch the cotton candy man stick

853
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:17,840
Speaker 1: that cone or tube into the little cauldron, stir it around,

854
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:21,960
Speaker 1: and emerge with that big puff of blue sugar.

855
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:25,200
Speaker 2: There's a kind of pleasure in watching the cotton candy

856
00:49:25,239 --> 00:49:28,080
Speaker 2: made that's similar to how people watch those videos of

857
00:49:28,120 --> 00:49:32,200
Speaker 2: things being cleaned, like people watching videos of a dirty

858
00:49:32,200 --> 00:49:35,440
Speaker 2: carpet being hosed out, or of people dusting and stuff.

859
00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:38,320
Speaker 2: There's something similar going on in the way the wisps

860
00:49:38,320 --> 00:49:39,080
Speaker 2: are collected.

861
00:49:39,560 --> 00:49:44,359
Speaker 1: Yes, it is like a spell as being cast of

862
00:49:44,600 --> 00:49:49,320
Speaker 1: dragon's beard candy, Lee writes. Quote. Classic recipes require chefs

863
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 1: to heat granulated sugar and maltose together with extracting precision,

864
00:49:54,080 --> 00:49:57,120
Speaker 1: shape them into a molten puck, and expand that puck

865
00:49:57,160 --> 00:50:00,879
Speaker 1: into a lasso. Then, with deft fingers and the aid

866
00:50:00,880 --> 00:50:04,240
Speaker 1: of rice flour, they stretch, pull, and fold the sugar

867
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:08,319
Speaker 1: onto itself into a figure eight until silky Vermicelli like

868
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:12,759
Speaker 1: strands appear before wrapping the threads around the filling, and

869
00:50:12,840 --> 00:50:15,920
Speaker 1: you have to get the required temperatures exactly right, which

870
00:50:16,080 --> 00:50:17,960
Speaker 1: makes sense matching up with when we were talking about

871
00:50:17,960 --> 00:50:21,680
Speaker 1: earlier with the temperature precision involved in any of these

872
00:50:21,719 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 1: various stages of heating sugars and syrups, and you have

873
00:50:25,239 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 1: to be prepared to make adjustments depending on ambient temperature

874
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:32,000
Speaker 1: as well, especially in the case of like open carts

875
00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:35,960
Speaker 1: where someone might be making this candy oh yeah, and

876
00:50:36,160 --> 00:50:38,080
Speaker 1: then you really need to eat them the day off.

877
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:41,160
Speaker 1: Much like cotton candy. It's like, you want it fresh.

878
00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:44,320
Speaker 1: If it sits around, it's not going to hold its form.

879
00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:47,200
Speaker 1: I'm assuming the prepackaged source that you can buy on

880
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:50,360
Speaker 1: the internet. It's obviously it's not gonna be the same experience,

881
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:52,560
Speaker 1: but maybe they're able to keep it from drying out

882
00:50:52,600 --> 00:50:54,879
Speaker 1: with some air tight packaging, you know, and I guess

883
00:50:54,920 --> 00:50:57,480
Speaker 1: it's better than nothing if you don't have access to fresh.

884
00:50:57,960 --> 00:51:00,960
Speaker 2: I was having trouble picturing the full finished products, so

885
00:51:01,040 --> 00:51:03,040
Speaker 2: I looked it up and it looks like it. You know,

886
00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:06,680
Speaker 2: it's often made into kind of a dumpling form or

887
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:09,719
Speaker 2: it's like a hot pocket, but with the pastry replaced

888
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:13,440
Speaker 2: with these these white white sugar threads, and then the

889
00:51:13,480 --> 00:51:17,840
Speaker 2: interior filling being the nut coconut mixture you mentioned earlier.

890
00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:31,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, now getting back to the history of this

891
00:51:31,120 --> 00:51:36,120
Speaker 1: sugar retreat, Lee does cite a popular legend that dragons

892
00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:38,680
Speaker 1: Beard candy was an imperial treat dating back to the

893
00:51:38,719 --> 00:51:42,040
Speaker 1: Han dynasty, with the emperor himself giving it its name

894
00:51:42,320 --> 00:51:46,440
Speaker 1: since the white strands reminded him of dragons whiskers. You'll

895
00:51:46,480 --> 00:51:49,680
Speaker 1: also find this mentioned on the Wikipedia entry for Dragon's

896
00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:52,600
Speaker 1: Beard candy, though the citations there don't really go anywhere active.

897
00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:53,480
Speaker 1: As far as I could.

898
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:56,160
Speaker 2: Tell, rumors rumors bound.

899
00:51:56,880 --> 00:51:59,960
Speaker 1: So on one hand, I think the dragons whiskers description

900
00:52:00,800 --> 00:52:05,239
Speaker 1: is perfect. To compare it to a Western movie, think

901
00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:08,719
Speaker 1: of the luck dragon from the Never Ending Story. Falcore. Okay,

902
00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:10,960
Speaker 1: it's like if you had a segment of falcre and

903
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:14,160
Speaker 1: you like sliced into them, and yeah, you would have

904
00:52:14,239 --> 00:52:17,480
Speaker 1: like the nugat like center with the nuts and the

905
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:21,680
Speaker 1: coconut and all, and then the white fur on the outside.

906
00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:25,400
Speaker 2: Shave a foulcore, wrap it around, wrap the trimmings around

907
00:52:25,400 --> 00:52:26,440
Speaker 2: some nuts. There you go.

908
00:52:26,719 --> 00:52:31,080
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, in past episodes on inventions, We've discussed the

909
00:52:31,200 --> 00:52:36,880
Speaker 1: questionable historical accuracy of anything that is attributed to an emperor,

910
00:52:37,040 --> 00:52:42,920
Speaker 1: Chinese or otherwise in terms of its invention. Sometimes the

911
00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 1: guy the toidets to take all the credit, and a

912
00:52:46,200 --> 00:52:48,040
Speaker 1: lot of legends there, Yeah, a lot of legends. And

913
00:52:48,080 --> 00:52:50,960
Speaker 1: while it's the naming here and not the invention itself

914
00:52:51,360 --> 00:52:53,799
Speaker 1: that is attributed to a hunt emperor, I think we

915
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:57,799
Speaker 1: might exercise similar caution. But the more interesting question here

916
00:52:57,920 --> 00:53:01,520
Speaker 1: is really whether there is any indicator that this dessert

917
00:53:01,600 --> 00:53:05,480
Speaker 1: item or something much like it actually dates back to

918
00:53:05,719 --> 00:53:10,000
Speaker 1: the year two twenty CE or much earlier. Okay, So

919
00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:11,799
Speaker 1: I turned to a couple of other sources on this

920
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:15,280
Speaker 1: about so the history of sweets and sugar in general,

921
00:53:15,800 --> 00:53:18,880
Speaker 1: as pointed out by Tim Richardson in Sweets a History

922
00:53:18,920 --> 00:53:22,319
Speaker 1: of candy, sugar cane was introduced into China early in

923
00:53:22,320 --> 00:53:26,520
Speaker 1: the first millennium BCE, but that, unlike with India, it

924
00:53:26,600 --> 00:53:30,400
Speaker 1: didn't develop. China didn't develop a sugar based sweet culture

925
00:53:30,800 --> 00:53:33,520
Speaker 1: and arguably never really did, at least not on the

926
00:53:33,520 --> 00:53:36,400
Speaker 1: scale comparable to the robust tradition of sweets that you

927
00:53:36,480 --> 00:53:40,960
Speaker 1: find on the Indian subcontinent. Yeah, Okay, Maltos which I

928
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:44,839
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, remained the sweetener of choice in China. This

929
00:53:44,920 --> 00:53:49,040
Speaker 1: is a jelly extracted from grains and sorghum reeds. Honey

930
00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:54,000
Speaker 1: was also used, and they long remained dependent on imported

931
00:53:54,040 --> 00:53:57,360
Speaker 1: sugar from India and Indo China for anything that actually

932
00:53:57,360 --> 00:53:59,480
Speaker 1: called for sugar or some mix of sugar and these

933
00:53:59,480 --> 00:54:03,480
Speaker 1: other sweeten and Richardson writes that this was likely due

934
00:54:03,640 --> 00:54:08,239
Speaker 1: to technological difficulties with sugar refinement and or just lack

935
00:54:08,280 --> 00:54:12,200
Speaker 1: of demand for it, okay, which makes sense. It's like,

936
00:54:12,239 --> 00:54:16,280
Speaker 1: it's one thing to acquire the secrets of sugar refining,

937
00:54:16,600 --> 00:54:18,520
Speaker 1: but then is there a need for it? Do people

938
00:54:18,560 --> 00:54:21,600
Speaker 1: actually want it? As is it anything other than a

939
00:54:21,719 --> 00:54:23,880
Speaker 1: novelty for the court. And if it is just a

940
00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:26,680
Speaker 1: novelty for the court, then maybe you just keep importing it.

941
00:54:26,680 --> 00:54:28,759
Speaker 2: Right yeah, yeah, And.

942
00:54:28,719 --> 00:54:32,400
Speaker 1: So Richardson says it wasn't till six forty seven CE

943
00:54:32,760 --> 00:54:35,000
Speaker 1: that the emperor at the time, and I believe this

944
00:54:35,040 --> 00:54:39,200
Speaker 1: would be Tongue Taizong sent delegates to India to learn

945
00:54:39,239 --> 00:54:42,319
Speaker 1: the secrets of sugar refinery, and from then on there

946
00:54:42,320 --> 00:54:46,040
Speaker 1: are various Chinese advancements in the sugar industry. In twelve eighty.

947
00:54:46,280 --> 00:54:50,600
Speaker 1: Richeson points out that Kubla Khan brought in Egyptian experts

948
00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 1: to share the secrets of white sugar, which, you know,

949
00:54:53,120 --> 00:54:55,319
Speaker 1: if you're going to have a stately pleasure, dome got

950
00:54:55,320 --> 00:54:56,200
Speaker 1: to have that white sugar.

951
00:54:56,480 --> 00:54:59,880
Speaker 2: Yeah. Just did he have cotton candy in the pleasure?

952
00:55:00,760 --> 00:55:02,560
Speaker 1: I mean it's the perfect place for it, right. I

953
00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:06,320
Speaker 1: can imagine Kubla Khan with some sort of cotton candy

954
00:55:06,360 --> 00:55:06,879
Speaker 1: in each hand.

955
00:55:07,239 --> 00:55:08,880
Speaker 2: Though you know what happens when you get it, wet

956
00:55:09,280 --> 00:55:12,520
Speaker 2: goes down through the caverns, measureless to man less.

957
00:55:12,520 --> 00:55:17,680
Speaker 1: See nice. Another book, I was looking at Sweets and Candy,

958
00:55:17,760 --> 00:55:22,120
Speaker 1: A Global History by Laura Mason discusses Dragon's Beard candy

959
00:55:22,200 --> 00:55:26,600
Speaker 1: briefly within the larger context of pulled sugar sweets that is,

960
00:55:26,640 --> 00:55:30,280
Speaker 1: again syrup boiled to a crack and while malleable, worked

961
00:55:30,280 --> 00:55:33,680
Speaker 1: into desired forms and literally pulled by hands and or

962
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:37,960
Speaker 1: hooks to create ropes and threads. She defines this process

963
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:42,520
Speaker 1: as ancient but also not necessarily well recorded. She mentions

964
00:55:42,560 --> 00:55:47,320
Speaker 1: that the pulling of these confections was probably or perhaps

965
00:55:47,400 --> 00:55:51,600
Speaker 1: originally thought to quote convey special qualities, and I believe

966
00:55:51,640 --> 00:55:54,880
Speaker 1: these special qualities are linked to the rarity of sugar

967
00:55:55,280 --> 00:55:57,920
Speaker 1: in some of the places where this would have been conducted,

968
00:55:58,120 --> 00:56:01,920
Speaker 1: and also the seeming alca of working it into these shapes,

969
00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:05,759
Speaker 1: sometimes shapes that themselves might convey special meanings, such as

970
00:56:05,880 --> 00:56:09,400
Speaker 1: rings and circles. But also, yeah, just coming back to

971
00:56:09,719 --> 00:56:14,440
Speaker 1: the modern example of cotton candy, watching its creation does

972
00:56:14,520 --> 00:56:17,000
Speaker 1: feel like a kind of magic, and we can imagine

973
00:56:17,280 --> 00:56:22,760
Speaker 1: easily imagine our ancestors and parts around the world engaging

974
00:56:22,800 --> 00:56:24,000
Speaker 1: in a similar fascination.

975
00:56:24,400 --> 00:56:26,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean this takes us back to something we

976
00:56:26,360 --> 00:56:28,520
Speaker 2: talked about at the beginning of the chemistry section, which

977
00:56:28,560 --> 00:56:33,279
Speaker 2: is like the minute attention before modern thermometers that would

978
00:56:33,280 --> 00:56:36,800
Speaker 2: allow you to, you know, to just easily judge exactly

979
00:56:36,800 --> 00:56:39,560
Speaker 2: how hot your boiled syrup mixture is getting, like the

980
00:56:39,640 --> 00:56:42,799
Speaker 2: attention and know how required to get it to just

981
00:56:42,840 --> 00:56:44,919
Speaker 2: the right temperature to have the properties you want.

982
00:56:45,440 --> 00:56:51,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, she stresses that broadly. With pulled sugar confections, colors

983
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:55,040
Speaker 1: can be added, and I don't think I was fully

984
00:56:55,080 --> 00:56:57,200
Speaker 1: aware of this, but this is where the basics of

985
00:56:57,239 --> 00:57:01,400
Speaker 1: the candy cane come into play. Traditionally, candy cane is

986
00:57:01,480 --> 00:57:06,200
Speaker 1: apparently more of a pulled sugar confection, but not necessarily

987
00:57:06,280 --> 00:57:10,440
Speaker 1: in its modern, mass manufactured version. And then there are

988
00:57:10,520 --> 00:57:13,719
Speaker 1: various pulled candy traditions and pretty much every culture to

989
00:57:13,760 --> 00:57:16,280
Speaker 1: sort of catch the pulled sugar bug as it traveled

990
00:57:16,280 --> 00:57:19,640
Speaker 1: out of sugar rich lands into other realms. She of

991
00:57:19,640 --> 00:57:25,440
Speaker 1: course highlights pulled Turkish keeton halva, also known as piecemanna,

992
00:57:26,320 --> 00:57:29,080
Speaker 1: noting the addition of butter and flour in that process.

993
00:57:30,400 --> 00:57:34,320
Speaker 1: She stresses that keaton halva is different from cotton candy, though,

994
00:57:34,840 --> 00:57:38,560
Speaker 1: and that there's no true Western equivalent. As cotton candy,

995
00:57:38,680 --> 00:57:42,080
Speaker 1: she writes, is coarse and gritty. I don't remember if

996
00:57:42,080 --> 00:57:45,520
Speaker 1: that's accurate, but it sounds right. I do vaguely recall

997
00:57:45,640 --> 00:57:47,720
Speaker 1: sort of a grittiness to it, but at least right

998
00:57:47,760 --> 00:57:52,240
Speaker 1: before it melts well, keatsan hava is smooth or soft.

999
00:57:52,680 --> 00:57:55,160
Speaker 1: But of course pulled sugar in the West also connects

1000
00:57:55,240 --> 00:57:59,280
Speaker 1: into traditions of pulled taffy, the example many listeners may

1001
00:57:59,280 --> 00:58:01,360
Speaker 1: be familiar with than you know. Generally you have like

1002
00:58:01,760 --> 00:58:04,440
Speaker 1: some sort of machine with hooks for that, and dragon's

1003
00:58:04,480 --> 00:58:07,640
Speaker 1: beard candy, she writes, is closer to keisan halva and

1004
00:58:07,880 --> 00:58:11,480
Speaker 1: related confections and accounts of Keaton Halve date back at

1005
00:58:11,560 --> 00:58:15,120
Speaker 1: least as far as the early fifteenth century CE. As

1006
00:58:15,160 --> 00:58:18,680
Speaker 1: for the earliest possible origin of Dragon's beard candy, she

1007
00:58:18,760 --> 00:58:23,280
Speaker 1: does write that a Chinese confectionery tradition probably developed from

1008
00:58:23,320 --> 00:58:26,920
Speaker 1: around the seventh century CE, when sugar began to replace

1009
00:58:26,960 --> 00:58:33,000
Speaker 1: honey in sweetcakes. In Chinese culinary traditions, sugar based items, though,

1010
00:58:33,040 --> 00:58:36,200
Speaker 1: would have been only for the aristocracy, and it would

1011
00:58:36,200 --> 00:58:39,840
Speaker 1: remain that way for centuries. So it would seem possible

1012
00:58:40,280 --> 00:58:43,200
Speaker 1: that some form of pulled sugar treat, even something close

1013
00:58:43,240 --> 00:58:45,920
Speaker 1: to what we know of as Dragon's beard candy today,

1014
00:58:46,920 --> 00:58:50,040
Speaker 1: was brought before a Han Chinese emperor. It seems like

1015
00:58:50,120 --> 00:58:53,400
Speaker 1: it's possible, But it also seems possible that this treat

1016
00:58:53,440 --> 00:58:56,560
Speaker 1: might have developed later, during at least the seventh century

1017
00:58:56,640 --> 00:58:59,600
Speaker 1: rather than the third century. See. I wish there were

1018
00:59:00,360 --> 00:59:04,400
Speaker 1: firmer sources on the Han dynasty legend here, but I

1019
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:06,680
Speaker 1: at least couldn't find them in English. So if anyone

1020
00:59:06,680 --> 00:59:09,880
Speaker 1: out there has access to additional data on this legend,

1021
00:59:10,640 --> 00:59:12,040
Speaker 1: I would love to hear.

1022
00:59:11,880 --> 00:59:13,000
Speaker 2: About it totally.

1023
00:59:13,080 --> 00:59:13,480
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1024
00:59:13,920 --> 00:59:16,600
Speaker 1: Also, I mean there, you know, as we've been discussing here,

1025
00:59:16,600 --> 00:59:20,800
Speaker 1: like sugar and treats. They do seem to travel reasonably

1026
00:59:20,840 --> 00:59:23,280
Speaker 1: easy from one culture to another, so you'll often find

1027
00:59:23,360 --> 00:59:28,040
Speaker 1: different versions of cotton candy or or dragon's beard candy

1028
00:59:28,120 --> 00:59:31,760
Speaker 1: or something like this in various other cultures. Like there

1029
00:59:32,080 --> 00:59:36,760
Speaker 1: there's like a Korean version of of a poll sugar treat.

1030
00:59:36,960 --> 00:59:40,800
Speaker 1: There's a Persian variant of halva that is called Pashmak.

1031
00:59:40,880 --> 00:59:43,920
Speaker 1: There's an Indian variant that's called I believe son pop d.

1032
00:59:44,680 --> 00:59:49,160
Speaker 1: So you know, they're probably endless variations across time and space.

1033
00:59:50,320 --> 00:59:52,400
Speaker 2: But also speaking of time and space, I mean I

1034
00:59:52,400 --> 00:59:56,600
Speaker 2: think about how when you get into these really delicate

1035
00:59:56,760 --> 01:00:01,480
Speaker 2: versions of sponge sugar, they become increasingly sensitive to atmospheric conditions,

1036
01:00:01,520 --> 01:00:05,840
Speaker 2: which may limit their ability to certainly their ability to

1037
01:00:05,960 --> 01:00:10,000
Speaker 2: travel as finished products. You know, you would have trouble

1038
01:00:10,040 --> 01:00:12,400
Speaker 2: like making a confection like this and then having it

1039
01:00:12,480 --> 01:00:15,760
Speaker 2: survive I don't know, a trip to market or something

1040
01:00:15,800 --> 01:00:19,360
Speaker 2: like that, so much like they're made at the fair

1041
01:00:19,560 --> 01:00:23,360
Speaker 2: these days. It's something that in most conditions would probably

1042
01:00:23,440 --> 01:00:25,880
Speaker 2: need to be eaten immediately, but maybe in some conditions

1043
01:00:25,880 --> 01:00:28,440
Speaker 2: I don't know, like a cold, dry place or something,

1044
01:00:28,480 --> 01:00:30,400
Speaker 2: it could survive longer.

1045
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:34,160
Speaker 1: It definitely seems the case where if word of this

1046
01:00:34,240 --> 01:00:38,320
Speaker 1: treat traveled to your emperor, you would have to quickly realize, well,

1047
01:00:38,360 --> 01:00:40,720
Speaker 1: I just can't tell the emperor about this. I have

1048
01:00:40,800 --> 01:00:45,040
Speaker 1: to bring someone with their supplies and their tools in

1049
01:00:45,120 --> 01:00:46,720
Speaker 1: order to make this for the emperor.

1050
01:00:47,000 --> 01:00:49,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, you can't like make it ahead and bring

1051
01:00:49,040 --> 01:00:50,240
Speaker 2: it to that. You've got to make it there.

1052
01:00:50,640 --> 01:00:54,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. And again, as the sources noted, there's a lot

1053
01:00:54,080 --> 01:00:57,440
Speaker 1: that's been lost to history. Sugary treats are not always

1054
01:00:58,440 --> 01:01:01,000
Speaker 1: the things that are talked about in the surviving histories.

1055
01:01:01,360 --> 01:01:03,520
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna go ahead and close this episode out,

1056
01:01:03,560 --> 01:01:05,080
Speaker 1: but we're going to come back for at least a

1057
01:01:05,160 --> 01:01:08,000
Speaker 1: part two on cotton candy because there's more to discuss.

1058
01:01:08,760 --> 01:01:11,240
Speaker 1: I think we're probably going to get into the twentieth

1059
01:01:11,240 --> 01:01:15,960
Speaker 1: century origins of modern cotton candy a bit, and then

1060
01:01:16,000 --> 01:01:18,800
Speaker 1: there are also going to be some offshoots, things that

1061
01:01:18,840 --> 01:01:21,240
Speaker 1: are maybe cotton candy and name only, but are still

1062
01:01:21,640 --> 01:01:26,080
Speaker 1: pretty fascinating from other disciplines of the science world.

1063
01:01:26,480 --> 01:01:27,000
Speaker 2: Can't Wait.

1064
01:01:27,720 --> 01:01:29,920
Speaker 1: All right, just a reminder to everyone out there that

1065
01:01:30,000 --> 01:01:31,880
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and

1066
01:01:31,880 --> 01:01:34,640
Speaker 1: culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short

1067
01:01:34,680 --> 01:01:37,560
Speaker 1: form episodes on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set aside

1068
01:01:37,560 --> 01:01:39,800
Speaker 1: most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film

1069
01:01:39,840 --> 01:01:42,480
Speaker 1: on Weird House Cinema. If you are let's see. If

1070
01:01:42,520 --> 01:01:45,280
Speaker 1: you're on the social media's, you can find us on

1071
01:01:45,360 --> 01:01:48,160
Speaker 1: most of those major platforms. If you're on Instagram, we're

1072
01:01:48,200 --> 01:01:50,000
Speaker 1: stvym podcast.

1073
01:01:50,360 --> 01:01:54,040
Speaker 2: Huge Things as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1074
01:01:54,320 --> 01:01:55,840
Speaker 2: If you would like to get in touch with us

1075
01:01:55,840 --> 01:01:58,280
Speaker 2: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

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Speaker 2: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

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Speaker 2: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

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Speaker 2: your Mind dot com.

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Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 3: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.