Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: When it comes to sweet treats, ice cream is a classic.
Speaker 1: A hot fudge Sunday, a banana split, a double dip
Speaker 1: waffle cone. You won't catch me turning any of these
Speaker 1: delicacies down. But as much as I enjoy a pint
Speaker 1: of Ben and Jerry's, there's one dairy connoisseur that I
Speaker 1: will never be able to compete with. His name is
Speaker 1: John Harrison, and he was born to eat ice cream
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty, decades before John even existed, his great
Speaker 1: grandfather opened two ice cream parlors in New York City.
Speaker 1: Later on, his grandfather created Tennessee's first dairy co op.
Speaker 1: His uncle founded at ice cream factory in Memphis. His
Speaker 1: father operated a dairy ingredient company in Atlanta, Georgia. So
Speaker 1: when John was born in nineteen forty two, he basically
Speaker 1: had dairy in his blood. As he grew up, John
Speaker 1: loved the vanilla cone just as much as the next kid,
Speaker 1: but his appreciation went beyond what you might call well normal.
Speaker 1: You see, John helped his dad out at work by
Speaker 1: tasting various milk products, and it soon became clear that
Speaker 1: he had a particular talent. John had such a discerning
Speaker 1: palate that he could taste the smallest differences in dairy.
Speaker 1: For example, he could eat a spoon of ice cream
Speaker 1: and determine exactly how much fat it contained in the milk,
Speaker 1: down to a fraction of a percent. But despite this
Speaker 1: bizarre ability, John wasn't sure that he wanted to join
Speaker 1: the family business. As a young adult, He considered a
Speaker 1: career as a lawyer or a doctor, but a ring
Speaker 1: to him he felt that God was calling him back
Speaker 1: to the dairy industry. In nineteen eighty, he submitted an
Speaker 1: application to Dryers, which was the biggest ice cream company
Speaker 1: in the United States. Three days later, they offered him
Speaker 1: a position at their headquarters in Oakland, California. John's title
Speaker 1: was the head ice cream taster. Now, before we move forward,
Speaker 1: I know what you're thinking. Eating ice cream all day
Speaker 1: sounds like the greatest gig ever, right, But it's not
Speaker 1: as easy as it sounds. His job was to ensure
Speaker 1: quality and consistency. The flavor, texture, and distribution of the
Speaker 1: ingredients in every batch had to be perfect. If something
Speaker 1: was even slightly off, it was John's job to say,
Speaker 1: throw it all out. And when you're dealing with thousands
Speaker 1: of gallons of ice cream, making that call is a
Speaker 1: huge responsibility, one that John did not take lightly. Naturally,
Speaker 1: he took a lot of measures to make sure that
Speaker 1: his taste buds were top notch. First of all, he
Speaker 1: always ate off a golden spoon. That's because wood and
Speaker 1: plastic gave off a residual flavor, and silver would tarnish.
Speaker 1: During the week, John kept to a strict diet. He
Speaker 1: avoided onions, garlic, spicy food, caffeine, and anything else that
Speaker 1: could alter his tasting abilities. He never smoked or drank
Speaker 1: alcohol either. Every morning he had a cup of decaffeinated
Speaker 1: herbal tea to cleanse his palate, and when John got
Speaker 1: to work, he stood in front of a lineup of
Speaker 1: about sixty different ice cream flavors. He dipped his golden
Speaker 1: spoon into each one, placed the dessert on his tongue
Speaker 1: and swirled it around in his mouth for exactly five seconds.
Speaker 1: Once he determined whether or not the batch was suitable,
Speaker 1: he spat it back out, took a sip of lukewarm water,
Speaker 1: and moved on to the next one. So no, John
Speaker 1: was not ingesting gallons of ice cream every day. He
Speaker 1: could have if he wanted to, but he chose to
Speaker 1: save his cholesterol levels instead. John retired in twenty ten.
Speaker 1: Over the course of his thirty year career, he estimates
Speaker 1: that he tasted and approved about two hundred million gallons
Speaker 1: of ice cream, but he rejected quite a bit as well.
Speaker 1: In night ninety alone, Dryers had to give away about
Speaker 1: half a million gallons of subpar ice cream because they
Speaker 1: didn't meet John's high standards. The following year, nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: the company spokesperson told the La Times, and I quote,
Speaker 1: John's tongue is so crucial to our business, which is
Speaker 1: why Dryers actually took out an insurance policy on his
Speaker 1: taste buds. During his time at the company. John's tongue
Speaker 1: was insured for the incredible sum of one million dollars.
Speaker 1: That's what I call having expensive taste. We all know
Speaker 1: that famous and powerful people can be a little well eccentric.
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin was a big fan of air baths, which
Speaker 1: just meant that he liked to sit naked in front
Speaker 1: of an open window on a breezy day. Queen Elizabeth
Speaker 1: I almost exclusively ate sweets, to the point that her
Speaker 1: teeth rotted out of her mouth. Vincent van Goh swallowed
Speaker 1: yellow paint, Albert Einstein refused to wear socks, and Madame
Speaker 1: Marie Curie kept radioactive test tubes in her pockets. But
Speaker 1: there's one world leader with a particularly interesting quirk, one
Speaker 1: that he believed could change his country forever. Fidel Castro
Speaker 1: was obsessed with milk. His love for dairy knew no bounds,
Speaker 1: regular milk, yogurt, cheese, it didn't matter. Castro wanted it all.
Speaker 1: He often took down as many as eighteen scoops of
Speaker 1: ice cream after dinner. Once the US government tried to
Speaker 1: assassinate him by spiking his daily milkshake. He survived, of course,
Speaker 1: but he started making others taste test his desserts. Beyond
Speaker 1: just loving a good bowl of froyo, Castro believed that
Speaker 1: milk could save the Cuban economy. You see, after he
Speaker 1: rose to power in nineteen fifty nine. The country was
Speaker 1: in a state of despair. More than half of their
Speaker 1: food supply was imported, so when major world powers stopped
Speaker 1: trading with them, malnutrition became a widespread problem. The Cuban
Speaker 1: people were starving, but Castro had an idea for how
Speaker 1: to fix that. He wanted to breed a special fleet
Speaker 1: of livestock to feed the nation. In his mind, there
Speaker 1: would be thousands of these so called supercows, and they
Speaker 1: would make millions of gallons of milk. In the mid
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, Castro assigned government scientists to make it happen.
Speaker 1: They interbred two different types of cows, the Cebu, which
Speaker 1: was native to Cuba's tropical environment, and the Holstein, a
Speaker 1: Canadian breed known for its high milk production. Sadly, though
Speaker 1: there would be no convoy of supercows, the scientists only
Speaker 1: managed to create a single one. But what an impressive animal.
Speaker 1: She was born in nineteen seventy two. Her name was
Speaker 1: Ubrey Blanca or white Utter in English. She was the
Speaker 1: apple of Fidel Castro's eye. At a time when most
Speaker 1: Cubans didn't have climate controlled homes, Ubrey lived in an
Speaker 1: air conditioned stable. She was protected by armed military personnel,
Speaker 1: and all of her food was tested on other animals
Speaker 1: in case someone tried to poison her. To make her
Speaker 1: four daily milkings more comfortable, calming music was piped into
Speaker 1: her stable, and all of this luxury paid off too.
Speaker 1: On average, Ubra created about four times as much milk
Speaker 1: as a regular cow. In nineteen eighty two, she produced
Speaker 1: twenty eight point nine gallons in a single day, which
Speaker 1: was a new world record. Clearly she was special. Castro
Speaker 1: called her the nation's great champion. When he met with diplomats,
Speaker 1: he was always talking about his prized bovine. Sometimes he
Speaker 1: would even bring foreign dignitaries in to meet her in person.
Speaker 1: That's because Ubre Blanca was more than livestock. She was
Speaker 1: a symbol of Cuban ingenuity and abundance. She became a
Speaker 1: sort of national mascot, once having her image printed on
Speaker 1: postage stamps. Ubra Blanca had a few calves, but none
Speaker 1: of them could match her high milk production. It seemed
Speaker 1: that she was a one of a kind miracle, and
Speaker 1: no matter how hard the government scientists tried, they couldn't
Speaker 1: make another cow like her. So when she fell ill
Speaker 1: with a life threatening tumor in the mid nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: Castro was distraught. Knowing she would likely pass away soon,
Speaker 1: he called for her eggs and other genetic tissues to
Speaker 1: be harvested and kept for later research. Ubre Blanca died
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five, but Castro ensured that she did
Speaker 1: not go quietly. She received military honors, a full page
Speaker 1: obituary in the state newspaper, and a eulogy written by
Speaker 1: the poet Laureates of Cuba. A giant portrait of her
Speaker 1: was hung in the National Library, and a marble statue
Speaker 1: of her likeness was installed in the town where she
Speaker 1: once lived. And as if that weren't enough, Ubra Blanca's
Speaker 1: embalmed body is now permanently displayed at Cuba's National Cattle
Speaker 1: Health Center. Her legacy will not soon be forgotten, at
Speaker 1: least not if the Cuban government has anything to say
Speaker 1: about it. In two thousand and two, it was reported
Speaker 1: that Fidel Castro was attempting to clone the supercow using
Speaker 1: DNA harvested in the eighties. Whether or not the project
Speaker 1: worked is unknown, but the whole idea is utterly curious.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities, subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: This show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.