WEBVTT - From the Vault: Turkey, Wishbones and Gravy 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.039 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:11.520 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. Time 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:14.840 for a vault episode. This one originally aired on November. 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:20.079 This was actually an episode about Thanksgiving food, which got 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.040 way weirder and more interesting than than you would expect. 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:27.400 This one sounds exciting that I have no memory of it, um, 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:29.280 and then we just did it last week we talked 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.840 about holy gravy. Oh yes, yes, okay, I do remember 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:36.360 it now. Yes, the Holy Gravy discussion is pretty fun. Well, 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:45.280 let's ladle it up and enjoy. Hello, listeners. This is Seth, 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:48.000 the audio producer for Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:49.599 is just a quick note to let you know that 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:54.800 in this episode Robert's microphone sounds a little different compared 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:58.160 with our normal episodes, but it's just a one time thing, 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:02.120 little glitch in the old technology during these COVID times. 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.160 But do not worry. We've cleaned it up as best 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:09.040 we can and should be still a very pleasant listening 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:11.840 experience and we'll be back to normal next week. Thank 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:17.720 you very much. Enjoy the show. Welcome to stot to 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:27.000 Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio Hey, you 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:28.800 welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name is 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:32.200 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe mccormickan. Today we're gonna be 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:36.560 talking about some American Thanksgiving food. Rob I've noticed that 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:40.800 over the past few years, every year you say something like, 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:44.080 this year we're going to lean into the holidays. But 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:47.280 we've been doing it a lot, and I think one 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:51.280 I'm wondering about something psychological. Is it that you think 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:55.080 if we actually do content about the holidays on the show, 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:59.520 the Holidays, will we will get through them faster? Um? 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:01.640 Maybe that's part of it. It does kind of extend 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.600 from my personal philosophy of like, you know, in the past, 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:09.040 I have seen Halloween as sort of the end of 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:10.880 the year, and then all this other stuff is just 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:12.839 kind of added on and isn't as fun and maybe 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:14.840 it's more of a chore. And then I realized, well, 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:17.160 that's not getting me anywhere. You know. I don't want 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:19.079 to be a sad sack um, you know, or a 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:24.560 grump us holidays, be a happy sack. Yeah. So so 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:27.160 the idea, you know, lean into it, find find something 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:30.799 to enjoy about the holidays, find that the bits that 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:34.480 that work for me and celebrate those, and uh, yeah, 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:36.040 I think maybe part of it is like, yeah, if 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:38.280 you're into it, it's gonna it's gonna move a little faster. 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:41.520 It's gonna it's gonna move along. Uh you know. Uh 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:44.680 and yeah, I think that's part of it. And uh 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.720 also occasionally we have advertisers who are saying who come 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:49.400 to us and say, hey, what are your holiday episodes 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.440 for this year? Could have one or two in the 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.920 you know, in the sheath, but you you brought up 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.760 a topic that I actually thought was pretty interesting because 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.360 I'd never considered this at length before. And it's the 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:07.280 idea of the poultry wishbone. So so that's where we're 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:09.919 going to be starting today. I don't did you ever 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.280 actually do the thing as a kid where you take 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:14.480 out the turkey's wishbone and break it or was that 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:17.359 just something you saw on TV? We would do it 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.000 at some point or another, and it's not something I 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:22.680 remember doing every year. It's so not a tradition. I 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:26.400 continue I have continued on when I'm around cooked turkeys. 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.120 Uh So I don't have like a strong attachment to it, 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:32.079 but I do remember doing it. But I probably did 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:34.920 it because I saw it on TV. Yeah, I'd say 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:37.760 me too. Uh. We we figured at some point we 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:39.840 tried it at my house and I figured out I 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:43.240 don't remember the details, but I figured out intuitively how 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:45.960 to always get the bone to break in my favor, 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:50.800 and I definitely did. That's a real life hack there, 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:54.680 magical life hack, because yeah, it generally the idea is 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:58.120 you take this wishbone, this this little you or v 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:01.640 shate bone in the turn key. Um. You'll also, of 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:03.840 course find in a chicken. We'll get into all the 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:05.400 places you can find it here in a bit. But 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:08.640 the idea is what it's. It's you or be shaped. 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:11.360 Two different people grab an end of it, and then 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:15.120 you bend, you break, and whoever gets the big part, 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:18.559 whoever gets the the lion's share of the turkey bone, 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:22.400 gets to live. However, what they get, they get a 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:24.160 wish Is that the thing or it's a good luck 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:26.919 maybe that's what it's. What it's called a wishbone. I 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.960 don't know. I mean it's some kind of luck thunder dome. Yeah, 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:32.040 you get the good end of the bargain. It's not 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.800 clear exactly what the bargain is. Yeah, it's it's one 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:39.880 of these things that it seems pretty it is pretty 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:43.680 harmless because it's almost completely devoid of of any kind 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:46.240 of magical thinking. I've never encountered anyone who took the 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.560 wishbone seriously, like, yes, now I have a wish that 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.520 I may call upon, or oh wow, but this day 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:54.400 is gonna be great. The rest of the day is 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:56.480 gonna be wonderful because I got the big end of 0:04:56.520 --> 0:05:00.320 the wishbone. But it has what feels like this visual 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:04.120 magic that has that has been passed down, like something 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.080 like the turkey itself. You know, it has been so 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:11.440 cooked and rendered it's almost unrecognizable anymore, but there is 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:15.560 a semblance of the original organism here, and I think 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.360 that's that's kind of what we see with the wishbone. Yeah. 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:21.520 Oh maybe even in an evolutionary sense with some wishbones 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:25.240 and some types of birds or bird like organisms. But 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:28.400 what I was thinking about the wishbone is maybe the 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:32.279 tradition would would be more powerful if instead of saying 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:34.960 the winner gets something good, you say the loser, the 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:36.960 side of the one who gets the bad side of 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:40.359 the break gets something bad, like those email forwards that 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:42.400 would say, you know, like if you get the wrong 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.000 side of the wishbone, you will see a ghost face 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:47.880 in the bathroom mirror or something like that. Or how 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:49.840 about this one. If you get the short end of 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.560 the wishbone, you're the one who has to pick all 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:55.400 the meat off the turkey carcass for soups and sandwiches 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:58.440 the next day. If you get the short endo the wishbone, 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:01.440 you have to eat the turkey breasts that has been 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:05.039 cooked to a hundred and ninety degrees fahrenheit is as 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:08.000 dry as a pile of sawdust, and you don't get 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:11.920 any gravy to moisten it. Uh yeah. The The only 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:14.480 hope for those pieces is the is the turkey sounds 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:17.480 the next day where you can literally apply man AI's 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:21.960 to it. Oh yeah, yeah, rescues everything, though, I do 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:24.080 I do want to talk about gravy later in the 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:26.760 episode and the role that gravy serves, because I think 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.640 one of the big functions of gravy, in addition to 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:31.960 just making the best of a pan that's got some 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:39.000 good fond on it, is rescuing utterly lifeless base foods. 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.840 All right, So yeah, we're gonna We're gonna start with wishbone. 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:43.440 We're gonna get into the turkey a little bit, and 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:45.840 then we'll finish off with the gravy. The gravy will 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:50.120 be necessary to go on top. Okay, So, but like biologically, 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:53.320 what is a wishbone? I've actually wondered this before. It 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:56.080 seems like it's in a weird place on a bird. 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:59.919 What what does it do? So, yeah, we're talking about 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.920 an actual bone. It is the fercula um or if 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:07.560 you're talking plural, ferkually, and it is a bone between 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.560 the neck and the breast. It's flexible, it stores energy 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:14.840 that's been released during the wing stroke. It's form via 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:17.760 the fusion of two clavicals. It's essential to flight, and 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.440 so we see it in all modern birds. Even the 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.760 flightless penguin has a fercula, though it's structurally a bit 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:27.680 different to accommodate flipper action rather than flying. So it's 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:30.520 sort of like um almost kind of like a spring 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:33.560 or a little structural thing within the breast that that 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:38.080 provide structural support when the breast muscles are powering back 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:40.400 and forth to move the wings. Yeah, I think that 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:42.720 would be a fair way to think about it. And 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.800 uh yeah, so it's it's just an essential part of 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.800 powered flights and modern and powered flight and modern birds, 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:52.080 or in the case of the Pengland powered swimming um. 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.440 The interesting thing, though, that is that even flightless terrestrial 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:57.960 ratites we discussed rattites on the show in the past, 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:02.520 we're talking about things like ostriches, the emu um. These 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:07.280 are birds that no longer fly, but they retain vestigial 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.240 aspects of their wings, and you do find the remains 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:12.880 of a wishbone in there, although in these cases it 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:16.440 is almost entirely absent. Now that probably raises a question. 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.600 If you're listening to the show for you know, the 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:20.720 past year or so, you might remember our episodes on 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:24.960 the Moa. The Moa, of course, is this now extinct 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:29.320 flightless bird that was just simply amazing. You'll have to 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:31.120 go back and listen to those episodes for our full 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.560 argument on the wonder of the Moa. But one of 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:36.560 the many wonderful things about it is that it is 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:41.400 this giant rattype, this enormous flightless bird that not only 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:45.520 lost the use of its wings, but completely lost its 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:48.520 wings like it had no wings. It is a completely 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:53.200 two limbed land creature, unlike virtually anything else you could 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:56.480 think of what the snake is to the lizard, this 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:00.360 bird is to to the flying bird. Yes, So my 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:03.439 immediate question then, with MOA on the mind was how 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.000 about the MoMA is? Did the moa have, as far 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:08.440 as we know, have anything like a wishbone, like even 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.680 just the slimmest remnant of a wishbone. And I looked 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:13.680 around and in some of the sources we used for 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:16.920 the MOA episode, and I wasn't finding anything about it. 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:22.120 So I actually looked up a researcher who had worked 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:26.040 on some MOA stuff before, Dr Charlotte a Brassie of 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:30.600 Manchester Metropolitan University, and I exchanged a couple of emails 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:33.760 with them, just asking like, is there how about the moment? 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:36.079 Did the moa have a wishbone? And this is what 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.200 they told me quote. I don't think moa had fercularly 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:42.200 to speak of the different species of moa very a 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:45.760 bit in their shoulder region denornis. The really big ones 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:49.920 did have a vestigial clavical, which are are what eventually 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:53.240 fused together to form the fercula, but they are very 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:58.320 small and not fused packy ornis and megal electrics. Moa 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:02.680 didn't even have of this digital clavical just totally accent Wow, 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:07.280 interesting by by bones. Yeah, so, uh, you know, obviously 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:10.800 there are exceptions to the rule then, but you look 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:15.120 at modern birds, uh, instant birds, and you're going to 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:17.760 find a wishbone in there. But that's interesting and it 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:21.319 makes me wonder since birds are the closest relatives of 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:25.880 the extinct non avian dinosaurs. Uh, did dinosaurs have a 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:28.679 have a fercula? Ever? Did that they have a wishbone 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:30.960 on a on a raptor or t rex or something. 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:34.280 It's interesting because, as it turns out, the wishbone has 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.959 an interesting place in our in the history of our 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:42.680 understanding of dinosaurs. So the seeming absence of the fercula 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:46.200 in dinosaurs was long held as a case against the 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:51.240 connection between dinosaurs and modern birds. And uh and and 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:54.080 we see this really even with the archaeopter x discovered 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.040 in the early nineteen hundreds, of which we have some 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:01.520 pretty impressive fossil evidence of a lot of these these dinosaurs. 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.200 Especially when you're going back to the early nineteen hundreds, 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.000 you're dealing with very incomplete fossil sets. You know, there 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:08.800 were a lot of gaps we had to fill in 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:11.240 and Therefore, when it comes to something like a wishbone 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:13.600 being there or not, you can say, well, maybe it 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.200 was and we just haven't found it yet. Um. But 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:18.000 with the with the archaeopter X, you know, some of 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:23.240 these are very complete looking fossil remains and they seem 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:27.920 to be lacking a wishbone. So Dlo's law of irreversibility 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:31.600 at the time held that things lost to evolution would 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.079 not come back, so admitt that the missing fercula and 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:37.280 dinosaurs could not lead to modern birds. Now we know 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.679 now that Dolo's law is incorrect, and the clavicles of 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:44.439 non avian dinosaurs serve as one of the key objections 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.360 to this idea. But as far as dinosaurs go, yeah, 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.240 that the key thing to drive home is dinosaurs did 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:54.240 have ferculate that they were simply missing from our early 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:57.560 fossil evidence in many of these creatures. Uh, And it's 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:00.880 and it's a small feature after all. Again, we have 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.600 to think about the fossil record, the missing pieces that 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:07.160 are just a part of uncovering the fossil evidence of 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:10.360 these ancient organisms. And as it turns out, the archaeopter 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:17.839 X itself um actually did have these kind of cartilage uh, 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:22.600 fercularly in their in their bodies. What the situation was 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:26.480 that these were these were young ones um young archaeopter 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:30.080 x in the fossils, and they didn't have fully ossified 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:34.439 fercularly yet and therefore, um it was softer, it was 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.440 easier to lose, and it took U V examinations to 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.360 pinpoint it in these well preserved fossil remains. Oh okay, 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:45.040 So the lack of fercule in some dinosaurs or dinosaur 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:49.880 bird relatives um could be due not just not actually 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.240 to what was present in the animal as it lived, 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:55.199 but to biases in what types of body parts are 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.559 preserved and how right. And then of course as time 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.280 went by, we just found more and more fossil evidence 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:04.000 for for the for many of these dinosaurs. So like 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:07.400 for now, for now we know that the t rex itself, 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:11.080 the mighty key Rex, had a fercula um. You know, 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:13.880 it's not You look at evidence as examples of it, 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:16.199 and it doesn't look like the wishbone as much. It's 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:19.200 a much more like a U shape that has been 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:23.720 almost completely straightened out at least is leased as far 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:26.160 as the way it's presented in a lot of these uh, 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.360 these fossil displays, but it is still a wishbone. I 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:32.040 think this is clear evidence that the tiny t rex 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:34.640 arms were actually wings and the t rex could fly. 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:40.760 Now now that you have everyone has a little bit 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:44.480 more respect for the role of the wishbone. Like no, 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:47.320 when if you're holding a wishbone today or this uh 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.080 holiday season, you know you're you're holding this thing that 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:53.040 is universal to all living birds, that it connects to 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:56.000 the age of the dinosaurs. But again, most of us 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:58.960 interact with this thing simply by plucking out of out 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:01.760 of the holiday carcass and then snapping in in half 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:03.880 with a friend so that you can engage in some 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:08.120 some lighthearted divination. I could point out. Another thing is 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:12.880 that sometimes chefs, when roasting a chicken will advocate removing 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:15.880 the wishbone prior to cooking because this makes it easier 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:18.079 to carve the breast of the bird in the end. 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:20.520 Like this is the thing I've seen videos for the 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.320 chef Thomas Keller recommends doing this. So you kind of 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:25.800 like stick your knife in and you rub it around 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:27.240 on the wishbone and then you pull it out with 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:29.320 your fingers. It looks kind of gross, but it makes 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:32.480 the breast makes you able to take the breast off 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.040 in one piece when you're done cooking. So this is 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:36.880 this is this is a this is a good point 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:39.440 to make because, yeah, we're about to get into discussions 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:43.640 of of how the wishbone was used and interpreted by 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:47.120 by ancient people's. And so if you're processing the carcass 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:51.800 of a of a chicken or some chicken like bird, uh, 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:54.480 it's going to be potentially something you take out early 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:58.040 right in order possibly process the carcass and then if 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:00.560 you do take it out or what her phase in 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:03.480 the butchery that you do this, Uh, it is it 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:06.280 is something that look that has a distinctive shape again 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:08.480 you or v shape. It is going to have sort 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:12.000 of a symbolic quality to it, Uh that might be 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:17.960 lacking in other easily plucked pieces of the skeletal system. Sure. Yeah, 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:20.160 So I was looking around for some more information on 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.080 all of this, and I ran across a wonderful book 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:26.840 by by Janet uh limb Key that's L. E. M. 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.080 B k E. And the title of the book is 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:34.200 Chickens Their Natural and Unnatural History. And in this book 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.200 she writes a great deal just about chickens and their 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:41.000 history obviously, but she touches on on the wishbone of 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:44.320 the chicken and things involving the snapping of the wishbone, 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.280 et cetera. And she says that customs surrounding the wishbone 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:50.320 may be as old as the Etruscans in what is 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:55.160 now called Tuscany or or Umbria, and then the Romans arrived, 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:58.200 the custom passed on to them, and of course from 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:01.720 the Romans we we would see it entering into ultimately 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:05.320 into European and uh in British culture, and then that 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.680 would have been transplanted to the New World during the 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:16.160 age of of transatlantic colonization. So um. She points out 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:18.760 that that first of all, you have to put this, 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:21.280 you have to couch this this idea of of looking 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.640 at the wishbone at all in the history of bird 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:29.720 divination in general, and bird divination is interesting because it 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:33.680 can cover a broad category of divination, like not just 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:37.480 cutting open a bird to to poke around in it 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:39.800 and look at its organs or bones as a way 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.400 to understand the future, but also just observing birds in 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:47.360 the sky and using the flight patterns of birds as 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:51.640 a way to try and magically understand the patterns of 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:55.520 the world. Yeah, if you want a fuller dive on divination, 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:56.760 by the way, you might want to go back and 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:59.880 check out our older episode on the each ing which 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:02.480 uh which which. This has gotten me thinking about one 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:05.080 possibility we talked about in the episode. And obviously this 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:07.800 would be impossible to prove, but but an idea that 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.600 we play with there is that divination could actually prove 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:14.800 useful to people even though you can't get real hidden 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:18.199 knowledge that's in any way accurate, it could prove useful 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:23.840 to people just by introducing uh, motivations that spur action 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:26.600 and what would otherwise be a sort of paralyzing state 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:30.480 of of you know, just not knowing anything. Yeah, it's 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:34.719 like I'm I'm to understand that that modern sports games 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:37.879 well sometimes began with the flipping of a coin. You 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.080 need that random event in order to make it fair 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.480 that one team will have what might be an unfair 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:50.080 advantage by starting first, right um and so um, and 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:52.639 it gets going. It's gets you going and instead of 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:55.440 just being at a complete stand still. That's very good analogy. 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:57.879 And birds are a perfect thing to look for in 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:01.280 this case, right, because birds also invite a kind of 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:06.959 sacred understanding because birds can fly, they are able to 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:10.960 to bridge this gap between the Earth and the sky, 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:14.720 between the terrestrial world and the realm of clouds and 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.680 stars and gods and what have you. But that doesn't 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:20.159 mean it's just birds, of course. There's also a long 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:25.760 ancient tradition of examining the bodies of terrestrial creatures. Babylonian 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:29.480 texts pointed the examination of sheep in trails in acts 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:33.880 of divination, and the Romans to famously practice such readings 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:38.320 of in trails known as horestacy, especially concerning the livers 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:42.119 of sheep and poultry m HM. In Greece, it was 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:46.399 known as heptosco scopie or heptomancy to give it a 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:48.800 you know, more of a Dungeons and Dragon's feel to it. 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:50.840 If you want to bust out some heptomancy in your 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:53.840 next game. Is that that's also looking at livers? I 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:59.000 think yeah. Now, the Etruscans considered chicken sacred and use 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.000 their bodies and acts of divination. They would apparently dry 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:05.159 the fercula and touching it would bring good luck, like 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.560 the fercula itself was kind of a good luck charm. Hmm. 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:10.280 I wonder if that has anything to do with the 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:12.680 idea of a horseshoe being a good luck charm. That 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.800 could could be totally unrelated. But but then again there 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:17.680 is there does seem to be a similarity between the 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:24.160 symbols right, similar shape. Now again, the Romans eventually adapted this, 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:30.040 adding the breakage tradition apparently, and and it appears to 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:34.359 a varied depending on who is using this tradition, whether 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:38.040 the big scoring, the big part of the wishbone, or 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:40.479 the small part was the good luck Like, who wins? 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:42.359 Is it the small or the big. It's kind of 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:45.119 like drawing straws or something. I don't know. You just 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:49.160 break it and then you calvin ball it out from there. Yeah. Now, 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:52.359 the Romans subsequently then brought the tradition to England, where 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:55.920 the particular bone was often known as the merry thought, 0:19:57.040 --> 0:20:00.840 and then the English brought it to the New World. Now, 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.560 in terms of just thinking about these acts of divination 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:08.280 involving the bodies of the movements of animals, um, there's 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:10.560 more to consider here. I read about some of this 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:14.520 animals and divination by Peter Struck and he points out 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.320 that among the Greeks and the Romans, these were common 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:20.399 ways of attempting to understand what was happening and would 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.480 happen in the world around you. Uh. He writes that 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:27.120 there there wasn't anything esoteric about turning to the entrails 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:29.359 or the bones of an animal like this, It's just 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:33.440 what you did. Quote. The ancients understood that the universe 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:37.119 had certain inclinations built into it which were more or 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:41.920 less closely tied to the inclinations of the gods. So 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:46.879 maybe you could think about UM trying to do divination 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:50.159 based on the behavior or the bodies or parts of 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.040 animals as sort of like the modern thing where people 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:56.960 think that animals no first, when X is going to happen, 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.480 you know, when there's going to be an earthquake or whatever, 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:02.439 you know, some kind of natural disaster. Yeah, I mean, 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.639 you could also look to the modern UM use of 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:10.000 biomimicry and bio mimetic the designs the idea that if 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:12.359 we're going to solve an engineering problem, let's look just 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.000 to see how evolution solved it first, see how the 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:19.760 bodies of animals or plants solve that particular design problem. Um. 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:23.920 I mean, these are more nuanced and scientifically accurate versions 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:26.920 of the same thing, like, I need to understand what's 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:29.520 happening in the world. Let me look to the physical 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:32.960 substance of the world for hints about its design. Right, 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:35.680 And when you have a fuzzier picture of the causes 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:39.200 and connections between all the different parts of nature, it 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:42.440 might seem more logical to try to infer x from 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:45.120 the you know, the bodies of animals or something. I mean, 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:49.080 you don't know, that's not how it works. Now, they'll struck. 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:53.280 In his writings here he points out that Ascalis, who 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:57.800 lived through four fifty six b c e UH, summoned 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:00.480 up much of this in the words of the titan 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:05.640 Prometheus in his play from Prometheus Bound, discussing how Prometheus 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:09.320 instructed humans and the quote difficult and murky art of 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:13.399 reading these inclinations uh in key places, such as in 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:16.840 the livers and thigh bones of birds. It does make 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:19.560 me wonder to what extent we see reverberations of these 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:23.000 ideas even in the modern scientific undertaking of of the 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:27.240 autopsy or the necropsy. Uh. You know, not the procedures themselves, 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:30.840 but the sort of the grandeur afforded them in the media. 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:34.800