Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's hanging out too, and that's
Speaker 1: making this Stuff you Should Know episode. So welcome everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome back Chuck. Yeah, welcome back Josh, Welcome back Jerry.
Speaker 1: This is Uh, this feels weirder than ever before. I think, well,
Speaker 1: we should explain we're recording our first our first episodes
Speaker 1: of the year. M uh. And it feels even weirder
Speaker 1: to ramp back up because we had such a long,
Speaker 1: great break. I grew a beard. Now you didn't. I
Speaker 1: just saw you in person, but I almost felt not nervous,
Speaker 1: but I was like, do I remember how to do this?
Speaker 1: Of course you do. I guess are you feeling right now?
Speaker 1: A little shaky? I mean, we're doing it, so I
Speaker 1: guess this is how we do it. This is how
Speaker 1: we do it. Also, Chuck me, you're doing great. By
Speaker 1: the way. Um, we have a big announcement to make.
Speaker 1: We want to bring everybody up to speed. We hit
Speaker 1: the one million dollar mark. Uh, we being Stuff you
Speaker 1: should Know listeners, and um, we hit it a little
Speaker 1: bit after the turn of the new year, right, that's
Speaker 1: right for our our friends at co ED. They're the
Speaker 1: Cooperative for Education that does such great work helping you
Speaker 1: break the cycle of poverty in Guatemalan. And I know
Speaker 1: a sort of beat you over the head with at
Speaker 1: the end, but we really wanted to get the Stuff
Speaker 1: you should know army over a million bucks because that's
Speaker 1: a that's a big number. And we did it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we did it. So congratulations to everyone in Stuff you
Speaker 1: should Know land in a special thanks to everybody who
Speaker 1: opened up their hearts and their wallets and contributed to
Speaker 1: all those people in Guatemala all the key to all Right,
Speaker 1: just wanted to let everybody know, and sorry for keeping
Speaker 1: you in suspense. I know this is going to come
Speaker 1: out in like late January, but yeah, themes of the
Speaker 1: breaks everybody. Yeah, and our big beautiful stash of episodes
Speaker 1: that we recorded to take that long break are almost gone.
Speaker 1: They're dwindled like a like a yule log burned down
Speaker 1: after the new year. Yeah, it's kind of what it
Speaker 1: feels like. It's just seeing that shrink is exhilarating and sad.
Speaker 1: It is I've I've missed um, you know, being kind
Speaker 1: of up to date. When people send in a listener mail,
Speaker 1: I'm not like, what what episode does because we're, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks out, we're like right there on
Speaker 1: the edge, like cal Paccino and heat. I know, but
Speaker 1: I was getting episodes. I was like, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: forgot we recorded that one, you know, six weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Pleasantly surprised. So yeah, we're back in full form again,
Speaker 1: I guess is the point of what we've been talking
Speaker 1: about for the last three minutes. That's right, I'm ready
Speaker 1: to go. I'm feeling totally normal now, not weird at all.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to talk about something that's not weird
Speaker 1: at all, and that would be toast. Yeah, who doesn't
Speaker 1: love toast? I genuinely don't know. I've I've never met
Speaker 1: anybody who was I hate toast. Maybe it's like I
Speaker 1: don't like toast a certain way, but I've never met
Speaker 1: anybody who just generally didn't like toast. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: they're out there. If you are, go ahead and right in,
Speaker 1: let us know why you don't like toast. But I've
Speaker 1: never met an individual who didn't like toast. Well, I
Speaker 1: think we should clarify. If you like bread, then you
Speaker 1: probably like toast. Okay, I think they're non bread eaters
Speaker 1: and likers. But if you like the bread part, surely
Speaker 1: you like it. And it's well grittled is pretty great too.
Speaker 1: But toast, I would argue, is its best form. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I guess we are talking about a specific way
Speaker 1: of heating and crisping bread. I think people actually get
Speaker 1: that pedantic about when actually does bread become toast in
Speaker 1: the toasting process, etcetera. We're not gonna go down that road.
Speaker 1: We're gonna keep this fun and light and talk about toast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is my pick, and Livia helped us out with it.
Speaker 1: And uh, here's my deal is. I don't I hardly
Speaker 1: ever eat toast because it's just, especially when you're carrying
Speaker 1: a few pounds extra around your middle. It's not like
Speaker 1: you jump up and say, let's throw a few slices
Speaker 1: of bread in the oven and and butter and start
Speaker 1: our day that way. Uh. Toasts as a treat for me,
Speaker 1: a semi rare treat when I'm maybe out to breakfast
Speaker 1: or recording an episode on toast, Because after studying this morning,
Speaker 1: I was like, I gotta go eat a piece of toast.
Speaker 1: I have to You know, what's weird is I finally
Speaker 1: got to that point. I was telling you me last night.
Speaker 1: I was like, it's so weird. I've been researching toast
Speaker 1: all day and I don't have a hankering for toast.
Speaker 1: And it finally got me this morning. How I started, no,
Speaker 1: not yet. I started looking up all we have our
Speaker 1: tortillas in the house. I'm like, you can't make toast
Speaker 1: out of this. But so I started looking up the
Speaker 1: best white bread and I found a serious eats I think,
Speaker 1: no eat this, not that um basically taste test and
Speaker 1: they said that it was a type of pepperage farms.
Speaker 1: But they said it's it's pretty good. It makes better toast.
Speaker 1: But they said the overall better bread was nature's own
Speaker 1: perfect white bread. I believe it's what it's called. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get me some of that and make some toast.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty bold name. Uh perfect white Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that's what it is. What it's called. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had and I have a written down. I made
Speaker 1: a draft of my email folder so I didn't forget it.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, Chuck, it is nature's own perfectly
Speaker 1: crafted white bread. Okay, okay, perfect white that has some
Speaker 1: bad insinuations. I think right perfectly crafted. Their their marketing
Speaker 1: team is like whoo woa whoa. Well, uh so here's
Speaker 1: what I did uh and I want to shout out
Speaker 1: a listener. I use the uh. We have had some
Speaker 1: oat nut wheat bread uh in the in the old pantry.
Speaker 1: So I threw that in a toaster oven, a Breville
Speaker 1: toaster oven. Uh. And we'll talk about the different kinds
Speaker 1: of toasters. We honestly just don't have counterspace. We don't
Speaker 1: have a huge kitchen, so we don't have enough room
Speaker 1: for the beautiful superior stand up toaster mhm. And then
Speaker 1: I use the butter beell. And this is from Amanda
Speaker 1: who just wrote in. Amanda plash All wrote in like
Speaker 1: last week, they said, hey, you gotta use a butterbell croc.
Speaker 1: You know what those are. Yeah, we had one in
Speaker 1: the butter kept growing mold. Are you changing your water
Speaker 1: every three days? Yeah? I'm taking it like a shot,
Speaker 1: a little buttery water shot. Alright, Well, that's weird. Mine
Speaker 1: hasn't molded yet. Uh. So I use that, which keeps
Speaker 1: the butter nice and soft and spreadable. And then I
Speaker 1: on a whim. Took a little and I go for
Speaker 1: a sort of a medium dark I like it. I
Speaker 1: don't like it, yeah, not a really light toast, but
Speaker 1: not dark dark either. But I really love that sound
Speaker 1: when you're spreading it, you know. And then I put
Speaker 1: some cloister cinnamon honey, like the spun spreadable honey on there,
Speaker 1: and it was so but butter and honey. But it
Speaker 1: could have been just butter or just I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things that can put on toast and
Speaker 1: enjoy it. I like butter and jam for toast. If
Speaker 1: I do honey, I need to do peanut butter. I'm
Speaker 1: not crazy about the butter and honey combination, although I
Speaker 1: do love a good honey butter, but that's not the
Speaker 1: same thing because butter and honey and I just don't
Speaker 1: I don't know why. They sound like they'd be spectacular together,
Speaker 1: but they just don't hit me quite right. Kind of
Speaker 1: like bourbon and grapefruit juice sounds like it'd be great,
Speaker 1: it's actually kind of awful. Yeah, I don't think that
Speaker 1: sounds great though. Okay, all right, should we talk about
Speaker 1: butter or toast? Is that what we're talking about today?
Speaker 1: We should do one on butter though. That's a good idea. Sure,
Speaker 1: that's a great idea. So um, we should probably start
Speaker 1: with the history because we don't exactly know who started
Speaker 1: making toast, but um, most people chalk it up to
Speaker 1: the ancient Egyptians. They think the Greeks are the Romans
Speaker 1: stole it from the Egyptians and um kind of made
Speaker 1: a big deal out of it. Actually named the stuff
Speaker 1: we called toast toast because um in uh I guess
Speaker 1: ancient Roman Latin Latin, it's the new year toast um
Speaker 1: is uh is Latin for scorched, So that's kind of
Speaker 1: where we get other word toast from. So that's where
Speaker 1: toast kind of first appears. But they're basically saying, like
Speaker 1: Olivia helped us out with this, that Um, as long
Speaker 1: as people have been making bread, they probably very quickly
Speaker 1: after that started making toast. Yeah, and that's toast um
Speaker 1: as in t O s t u M. It's not
Speaker 1: t o a st apostrophe might because that's probably some
Speaker 1: highly manufactured food product probably yeah uh yeah, So yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: there was fire, there was sort of stalish bread probably
Speaker 1: and they said, hey, we can uh the air fryers
Speaker 1: not around yet that we can revive this sort of
Speaker 1: stale thing by putting a little brown on it, meaning
Speaker 1: toasting it. Sure, okay, oh are you going dirty? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It was okay, so really, um, I guess the in
Speaker 1: medieval times they were kind of like, okay, we'll see
Speaker 1: what we can do with this toast and um. That's
Speaker 1: where cinnamon toast comes from. The fifteenth century, there was
Speaker 1: something called golden SOPs, which is kind of a predecessor
Speaker 1: of French toast um, and that came around in the century.
Speaker 1: I think it was associated with the alchemists because it
Speaker 1: was supposed to be associated with gold, which was attributed
Speaker 1: to immortal life. That sounds really alchemist e to me.
Speaker 1: And I think that's just like dip in toast and
Speaker 1: egg yolk, right, yes, not like you fry it up
Speaker 1: or cook it in some way. Oh. I thought you
Speaker 1: would just eat the toast and dip it in that
Speaker 1: yolk and eat it. I don't think so. I think
Speaker 1: you dip the bread in the yolk and then cook it. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: there's like French toast, but none of that matters. It
Speaker 1: does not matter. From the time of ancient Egypt through
Speaker 1: to the fifteenth century because nothing important happened until I believe, Um,
Speaker 1: the people, the great people of Naples, Italy, invented cinnamon toast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is straight up cinnamon toast. Uh. They toasted
Speaker 1: the bread over fire, and we'll get to the implements
Speaker 1: they used to do that. Uh. And they would put
Speaker 1: butter on it, they would put cinnamon and sugar on it.
Speaker 1: But this sounds so key and delicious. Uh. It says
Speaker 1: here that they would add a creamy cheese and then
Speaker 1: cook it some more. Yeah, I can't. I mean, does
Speaker 1: that mean cream cheese because it can be kind of good.
Speaker 1: It sounds delicious to me. It does sound pretty good. Um.
Speaker 1: But regardless, I think cinnamon toast is one of the
Speaker 1: pinnacles of human cookery. Have you ever had Have you
Speaker 1: ever had Welsh rare bit? No? Uh? And I want
Speaker 1: to try it now, but and I know I've looked
Speaker 1: it up before and realize it's not what I thought.
Speaker 1: But I always thought it was a rabbit e meati
Speaker 1: ish and just always avoided it. No. Well, the legend
Speaker 1: goes that the poor Welsh peasants called it Welsh rabbit
Speaker 1: because they used the cheese instead of meat, because cheese
Speaker 1: was cheaper and easier to get than rabbit meat was.
Speaker 1: They also heard that that was kind of a derogatory
Speaker 1: or scornful thing, like to the Welsh, this is what
Speaker 1: rabbit is. You know, this cheese substitute. But it's a cheesy,
Speaker 1: really delicious, cheesy sauce teeth that includes beer and worst
Speaker 1: just shut and then you put that over toast. And
Speaker 1: I can't remember there might be some other component to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had it at this restaurant in d C. And
Speaker 1: I can't remember the name of it, but it's where
Speaker 1: um JFK proposed to Jackie. Oh, so I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: some d C people who know. But they had Welsh
Speaker 1: by bit and I was like, I gotta try this,
Speaker 1: and it was really good. I'm gonna try it, and
Speaker 1: it's again, it's nothing to be scared of. And I
Speaker 1: didn't feel as dumb knowing that it originally like it
Speaker 1: may have had rabbit and they used cheese instead. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it felt like a dummy comes because it doesn't
Speaker 1: even say rabbit right well, I mean, yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a bastardization of it. It's like um instead of rabbit.
Speaker 1: It's like R A B B apostrophe. I t h.
Speaker 1: Things really cooked up though in a big way, no
Speaker 1: pun intended. In the Victorian era in Britain when they
Speaker 1: went wild for toast. Uh, all kinds of great recipes.
Speaker 1: We're gonna highlight a few of them here that Livia
Speaker 1: dug up, including bone marrow toast. I have kind of
Speaker 1: turned on bone marrow. I was enjoying it for a
Speaker 1: little while, but the last time I had it, I
Speaker 1: didn't really like it, and it kind of gross me out.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I can see that if you stop and
Speaker 1: think about it, it can gross you up pretty easy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think I'm off of it now, or maybe
Speaker 1: just a tiny bit goes a long way for me.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, not too much marrow. So the marrow
Speaker 1: toast was from a book in eighteen sixty seven from
Speaker 1: Charles elm uh friend Catelly, I guess, and he was
Speaker 1: in Queen Victoria's kitchen and said the Queen ate this
Speaker 1: basically every night for dinner. Uh. And that was kind
Speaker 1: of a fun line. And it's fun reading these old
Speaker 1: recipes always. One of them says that, uh, you should
Speaker 1: get the butcher to break the bones as this is
Speaker 1: a rather awkward affair for ladies, right, I guess to
Speaker 1: to break those bones not very late. I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's an awkward affair for anybody really. And what's the
Speaker 1: other funny line in that recipe? Um that it should
Speaker 1: have just a mere suspicion of shalott. I love that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a strange way to put it, but
Speaker 1: I like that. Guys, well you say a hint of something,
Speaker 1: so that makes sense, right, A mere suspicions. I've never
Speaker 1: heard anything like it in either So. There was another
Speaker 1: cookbook in Victorian England called The Book of Household Management
Speaker 1: by Isabella Beaten. I think everyone referred to her as
Speaker 1: Mrs Beaton, and she um came up with a couple
Speaker 1: of good ones, A good A couple of good contributions.
Speaker 1: One is the toast sandwich, and it's exactly what it
Speaker 1: sounds like. Yeah, it's like the Blues Brothers wish sandwich.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that no, huh? Where you had two
Speaker 1: slices of bread and you wish you had some meat.
Speaker 1: That's basically it is. It was a meat substitute if
Speaker 1: you take two pieces of bread and your meat was
Speaker 1: a piece of toast. Yeah, like the bread would be
Speaker 1: buttered and everybody calmed down, but it was just dry
Speaker 1: toast in the middle. That was the substance of the sandwich.
Speaker 1: People would eat them. It's kind of yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: a little bit, but without the meat, without the dressing,
Speaker 1: without the sesame seed bun, without the lettuce, without any
Speaker 1: of that. I'm surprised you didn't say it like the
Speaker 1: old commercial. I can't remember. I've got the bak jingle
Speaker 1: in my head and it's not it's not gibing. I
Speaker 1: think it was too all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles,
Speaker 1: onion on a sesame seed bun. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: I've got um have it your your way, have it
Speaker 1: your way in my head all the time, not just
Speaker 1: right now. By the way, What did that mean? Was
Speaker 1: Burger King known for like saying you can get a
Speaker 1: special type of hamburger, and not yeah, get you know,
Speaker 1: spit on. It was hold the pickles, hold the lattice,
Speaker 1: special orders. Don't upset us. All we want is that
Speaker 1: you let us have it your way. I don't remember
Speaker 1: going to McDonald's though, and then being upset when I
Speaker 1: said no pickles or whatever. Oh man, they were well
Speaker 1: known for their people just going into a rage if
Speaker 1: you asked them to hold anything like you knew better
Speaker 1: in the eighties than to open your mouth and McDonald's,
Speaker 1: aside from ordering directly off the man, hold this, buddy, right, Uh,
Speaker 1: this recipe is pretty fine. Toast water. I think if
Speaker 1: you gave people a test and said, guess three guesses
Speaker 1: on what toast water would be, they probably wouldn't guess
Speaker 1: what toast water is, even though it's exactly what it
Speaker 1: sounds like, which I think the mind repels it thinking
Speaker 1: of it. You know, it's just making toasts, pouring boiling
Speaker 1: water over the toast. Uh. And that's not the meal.
Speaker 1: It's not like milk toast, which we'll get to in
Speaker 1: a second. You just let it get cold and then
Speaker 1: you strain out that toast and have toast flavored water,
Speaker 1: like kind of as Olivia puts a toast based iced tea.
Speaker 1: I kind of want to try this. I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't want to try it at all. I think it's
Speaker 1: really awful, But let me know how it is. I'm
Speaker 1: totally gonna try this. Okay, seriously, dude, let let me
Speaker 1: know how it is so you mentioned milk toast, we
Speaker 1: can't not mention milk toast, not to be confused with
Speaker 1: milk steak. This is milk toast. And although it was
Speaker 1: a rage in like the nineteenth century, they think it
Speaker 1: was actually invented in New England. And it was basically
Speaker 1: toast with warm milk and then something like cinnamon, sugar,
Speaker 1: maple syrup something like that. Uh. It could be eaten
Speaker 1: as a breakfast. It was frequently given to people on
Speaker 1: their sick beds Um. It was just comfort food, early
Speaker 1: comfort food. UM. And it actually gave us UM a
Speaker 1: comic strip character's name, Casper Milk Toast, And I looked
Speaker 1: up Casper milk Toast. I've I've heard of him plenty
Speaker 1: of times, but I never actually saw Casper Milk Toast
Speaker 1: comic strip. And it was like looking into a mirror.
Speaker 1: I actually didn't look it up. I'm doing so right now.
Speaker 1: This guy. Life is just so hard for this guy
Speaker 1: because no, no, no, his his like the things that
Speaker 1: the way he sees the world just like looking into
Speaker 1: a mirror. Everything is so hard and difficult, and everybody
Speaker 1: just wants to beat him up. And it's just I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, I got more than a little strain
Speaker 1: of Casper milk toast. To me, it's worth looking up
Speaker 1: for sure, like a tear in your eye. Uh So,
Speaker 1: milk toast is um. I had kind of had a
Speaker 1: vision for it as like toast floating and like a
Speaker 1: thin plate of milk, And it turns out there's kind
Speaker 1: of all kinds of ways. I've seen it recipes where
Speaker 1: it's toast with like a milky cream that you kind
Speaker 1: of drizzle over it. But then I've seen it also
Speaker 1: like as if you just chop up toast and eat
Speaker 1: it like a bowl of cereal. Yeah. I don't think
Speaker 1: there's any specific rules on eating milk toast. I'm going
Speaker 1: to try that too. I would try that for sure.
Speaker 1: It sounds pretty good. Um. One thing I came across
Speaker 1: chuck that it just kept popping up is apparently toast
Speaker 1: back in this time was was way thinner. I saw
Speaker 1: it cut. It should be cut to about a quarter inch,
Speaker 1: which is really thin toast, almost appallingly thing. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: is very much Melbourne, like I think, maybe twice as
Speaker 1: wide as as your standard Melbourne toast, but I mean
Speaker 1: it's still pretty thin. It would be brittle really fast.
Speaker 1: If you asked me should we take a break, we should?
Speaker 1: Did you forget that part? All right, we'll be right
Speaker 1: back everybody. So this is going so so far, so far,
Speaker 1: so so so far. Yeah, it's harder to say than
Speaker 1: it sounds. You got to practice in your head right
Speaker 1: before you said, I did not by the way, I
Speaker 1: really love I didn't want it to go unmentioned that
Speaker 1: I really dug your milksteak ref so you slid it
Speaker 1: in there so quickly that I didn't want to get
Speaker 1: because sometimes we'll do that and we'll get letters or
Speaker 1: like could blue choked left when he said milk steak
Speaker 1: boiled over hard? Uh? Okay, there's one other thing we
Speaker 1: got to talk about, and that is means of creating
Speaker 1: toast from bread. Yeah, these are the implements that I
Speaker 1: that I mentioned, which it's funny a lot of these
Speaker 1: implements look basically are just like modern camping implements. There
Speaker 1: are all kinds of little camping toasty things, including telescoping,
Speaker 1: which was invented it looks like in the Victorian era. Um,
Speaker 1: they're not as fancy as they used to be, but
Speaker 1: all kinds of things that are basically kind of like
Speaker 1: camping toasters. Yeah, because that's basically what everyone was doing
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century was camping indoors, so they had those.
Speaker 1: They had toasting forks, and they had toasting forks for
Speaker 1: hundreds of years. There was not a lot of innovation
Speaker 1: on that, although they tinkered with you know how many
Speaker 1: times it had or just kind of trying to improve
Speaker 1: the toast fork, but that that was how you made
Speaker 1: toast for a really long time. And then they came
Speaker 1: up with stoves and somebody very quickly said we can
Speaker 1: attach like a little thing onto the front of the
Speaker 1: stove and direct some of that heat onto a little
Speaker 1: toast rack and make toast that way. That was a
Speaker 1: pretty big innovation, I guess, but it wasn't until electric
Speaker 1: power came along that toast really started to come into
Speaker 1: its own if you ask me, H for sure. But
Speaker 1: I also want to shout out the toast track because
Speaker 1: that is the thing I didn't know as a thing
Speaker 1: until I saw it, and I was like, I love this,
Speaker 1: It's brilliant. Why don't they still have these? And they do?
Speaker 1: They do. I saw somebody and on like some toast
Speaker 1: form or whatever, thing like do not eat toast? Without
Speaker 1: a toast track. And if you don't have a toast track,
Speaker 1: like lean your toast up against like a glass or
Speaker 1: something like that. Like that's how you store toast until
Speaker 1: you eat it, and you should be eating it pretty
Speaker 1: quickly after you make it. Yeah, and to be clear,
Speaker 1: this is not a means of cooking. But if you're
Speaker 1: serving like a brunch or a breakfast at your house, uh,
Speaker 1: you you toast all the toast, and it's sort of
Speaker 1: like a little miniature bike rack with a caddie handle.
Speaker 1: I think of it more like a little remember those
Speaker 1: little forty five record stands? Sure, oh yeah that too,
Speaker 1: kind of like that. Yeah, but it keeps you know.
Speaker 1: I think the ideal way to like you said, to um,
Speaker 1: store toast until it goes in your mouth is not
Speaker 1: laying down on the plate where it can collect that
Speaker 1: condensation and moisture because heat gets the heat, my god,
Speaker 1: the heat. Like you pick up a piece of toast,
Speaker 1: if you see um water on your plate, you're doing
Speaker 1: it wrong, right, And the toast track gets around that. So, yes,
Speaker 1: hats off to the toast track. And yes, if you
Speaker 1: were a toast afficionado and you're not using a toast track.
Speaker 1: You've got a whole world that's about to open up
Speaker 1: to your buddy, that's right. But we were talking about
Speaker 1: electricity and specifically the innovation that came along, which was
Speaker 1: uh nichrome. And you think, what is nichrome? And I'll say, well,
Speaker 1: it's a nickel and chromium composite invented by an engineer
Speaker 1: named Albert Martia nine five. And he said, well, what
Speaker 1: is that. It's just a heating coil, right, It's this
Speaker 1: this really neat alloy that has a high electrical resistance,
Speaker 1: which means that if you run an electrical current through it,
Speaker 1: it doesn't like that. And um, it responds by getting
Speaker 1: really really hot, putting out infrared radiation and turning bright red.
Speaker 1: And if you say, well, that sounds a lot like
Speaker 1: a toaster's heat the element. That's why. Because apparently nichrome
Speaker 1: is still in use today. I think Court says as well,
Speaker 1: but I think in your average fifteen dollar toaster that
Speaker 1: your bank gives you for opening an account, I don't
Speaker 1: know if they still do that or not, it's gonna
Speaker 1: have nichrome heating elements in it. Yeah, And it's I
Speaker 1: assume it's the same thing in like a space heater,
Speaker 1: right or is that different the most dangerous ones? Yeah? Man,
Speaker 1: I don't like a space heater unless it glows. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Oh really, yeah, I love those
Speaker 1: I do too. It's kind of nice. It's fire like
Speaker 1: because it almost is fire. It's it's it's almost fire.
Speaker 1: That's how they should market it, right, That actually would
Speaker 1: be good marketing. Uh. Can we talk about the D
Speaker 1: twelve because I'm in love with this thing? Hm. That
Speaker 1: was a GE product and they basically say this is
Speaker 1: the first mass marketed commercial toaster. When you're in a
Speaker 1: safe space, you're not driving your car something, you can
Speaker 1: look this thing up. Just look up on an image
Speaker 1: search g E D twelve toaster admitted by Frank Shayler.
Speaker 1: And this thing is beautiful and its simplicity. I would
Speaker 1: love to be able to find one and have an
Speaker 1: electrician like rig it to work in my modern kitchen
Speaker 1: because it just looks super cool because I love those coils.
Speaker 1: That thing would catch on fire so fast, it would
Speaker 1: I mean, you just plug it in and it just
Speaker 1: immediately catch fire. I think for the first time. Can
Speaker 1: you describe the shape it's It's like if you took
Speaker 1: the guts out of a toaster, one side of the
Speaker 1: gutside of a toaster, and kept the cord and plugged
Speaker 1: it in and did not have any kind of guard
Speaker 1: or anything around it, and you just laid the toast
Speaker 1: on it. That it looks to me kind of like
Speaker 1: um uh, like it's the toaster version of a wicker wheelchair.
Speaker 1: I find it deeply uncomfortable like that. You know your
Speaker 1: long standing fear. I don't think it's ever going away.
Speaker 1: I don't see my fear of what their wheelchairs ever. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna upon retirement, you're gonna find one of those
Speaker 1: on your front porch with a big bow on it.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I wouldn't come out of the house for
Speaker 1: so long. That's a great Casper milk toast comic strip.
Speaker 1: Uh so the D twelve. But the toast leans like
Speaker 1: you said, it's at a bit of an angle, so
Speaker 1: it's like a little pup tent with heating coils. The
Speaker 1: problem with the D twelve was that you had to
Speaker 1: obviously flip it over. And I don't say it's a problem.
Speaker 1: I think that's a fun, interactive way to make toast.
Speaker 1: But you have to flip it over to toast both sides, um,
Speaker 1: And I think the first pop up toaster was the
Speaker 1: first one where they said, hey, why don't we see
Speaker 1: if we can toast both sides of this thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the guy named Charles straight from Minnesota invented the first
Speaker 1: pop up toaster in it went on to be manufactured
Speaker 1: and marketed as the Toastmaster. I think that brand might
Speaker 1: still be around. It sounds familiar. Um. So the thing
Speaker 1: is is Charles strike like invented this thing pretty much
Speaker 1: perfectly right out of the gate. Where again, if you
Speaker 1: go to a bank and you ask for the toaster
Speaker 1: that that they give you when you open your account,
Speaker 1: they probably are giving you a Charles strit version of
Speaker 1: a toaster. He just created it correctly right out of
Speaker 1: the gate, that's right. And the plus here again is
Speaker 1: you don't have to flip it and had a very
Speaker 1: key component which was a timer, so you don't have
Speaker 1: to sit there and watch it, and it would just
Speaker 1: pop it up, spring loaded. And here's well we'll get
Speaker 1: to in a second. But the startling revelation of this
Speaker 1: episode to me is I thought that's how all modern
Speaker 1: pop up toasters worked today. Was he set a little
Speaker 1: brownness variation which was just essentially a timer and put
Speaker 1: a pin in that because that's not how modern toasters work.
Speaker 1: And I was blown away to learn that. Well, I say,
Speaker 1: we talked about that right now, because I'm raring at
Speaker 1: the bit. Yeah right, Um, So I guess somebody came
Speaker 1: along and said, how can we make this harder or
Speaker 1: more complex? And they did. They took the timer element
Speaker 1: out of it and instead they now have the the
Speaker 1: current that's created, I guess the circuit is closed, right,
Speaker 1: which means that the electricity can flow through it, which
Speaker 1: heats up the heating element. That happens when you press
Speaker 1: down the lever the handle to sink the toast into
Speaker 1: the toaster, but it also triggers something that connects an
Speaker 1: electro magnet that holds that basket that the toaster and down.
Speaker 1: But eventually enough electricity flows through that. A capacitor that
Speaker 1: I guess is set to some certain voltage, reaches its limit,
Speaker 1: turns off the energy to the electromagnet, which now releases
Speaker 1: the basket, which pops the toaster up, so the handle
Speaker 1: comes up with it, which means that the circuit is
Speaker 1: now open. If there's no longer electricity, that can flow
Speaker 1: through it and the other way. And this is the
Speaker 1: one that really blew me away, because to me, nothing
Speaker 1: is more simple than just a timer. But it can
Speaker 1: be controlled by a switch that is made of two metals.
Speaker 1: It's bimetallic, and these two metals expand at different rates,
Speaker 1: so one of them is getting hot at a rate
Speaker 1: that the other one is get not getting hot at
Speaker 1: and once they reach a whatever certain point, they will
Speaker 1: push apart and break that circuit. So I always just
Speaker 1: figured it was a timer, and it's one of these
Speaker 1: two things, which, like you said, just seems infinitely more complicated.
Speaker 1: But uh, there's gotta be a reason, right, I guess
Speaker 1: it's probably because it's cheaper to make, and that's what
Speaker 1: I would guess. Yeah, I can think about it. The
Speaker 1: timer has that you gotta do. You have to have
Speaker 1: a clock, you gotta have some spring, You have to
Speaker 1: have a mouse attached to the string that sets off
Speaker 1: that ball. Yeah, the little pole with the Buddha attached
Speaker 1: that knocks over the water that ends the timer. I
Speaker 1: forgot about all that stuff. Yeah, that's expensive. I also
Speaker 1: do want to shout out my favorite toaster, which I um,
Speaker 1: I guess people might have these in their homes. There's
Speaker 1: probably a home version, but the one you get at
Speaker 1: the Hampton End Lobby Breakfast or in the Delta sky Club.
Speaker 1: The beautiful conveyor belt toaster, the quiz Nos toaster. Oh
Speaker 1: I love. I've never been to quiz Nos, but I
Speaker 1: love those conveyor toasters. Oh you're missing out. Quiz Noses
Speaker 1: one of the best. Yeah, because they toast everything. They
Speaker 1: don't ask you if they you want your sub toasted,
Speaker 1: they do it. And it was on this cool little
Speaker 1: conveyor belt toaster and it comes out delicious every time. Man,
Speaker 1: they needed. Why aren't they sponsoring us? I don't know.
Speaker 1: They've really greatly diminished in size. I thought maybe they've
Speaker 1: gone out of business, but they just closed a lot
Speaker 1: of their stores. But they're still around apparently. But I
Speaker 1: guess that's probably why. Well, I mean, we're given him
Speaker 1: pre advertising. I called out Jared from Subway years before
Speaker 1: his great cha like, we're doing everything for Quitness we
Speaker 1: can do. That's that's true, man, zero dollars. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: love the conveyor toaster. It's I think they're awesome. Uh,
Speaker 1: I wish I had one in my house. Maybe I'll
Speaker 1: do that one day. Yeah, just go to stay at
Speaker 1: a Hampton Inn and walk out with their toaster. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh and those little waffle irons. Yes, they need to
Speaker 1: triple the number of waffle irons that they have in
Speaker 1: my experience that don't and don't let children uh operate
Speaker 1: them because they screw everything up. Um, did you see
Speaker 1: the Balmuda toaster Balmuda toaster I sent you. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is very appealing it but boys, it expensive. It is.
Speaker 1: It's three but it does other things rather than just toasts.
Speaker 1: So if you hear somebody says the three toaster, just
Speaker 1: be like, actually it does a lot more than just toast,
Speaker 1: butter it is first of all. Yeah, so I mean
Speaker 1: three toaster oven is. I mean that's an expensive toaster
Speaker 1: of them, but it's not astronomical compared to other toaster ovens,
Speaker 1: I think, compared to like the fifteen dollar Bank toaster. Yes, sure, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: give it you mean it was It wasn't a thousand bucks,
Speaker 1: but it's it's a luxury item. I think the trick
Speaker 1: here is at least they say what I want to
Speaker 1: do is try one out because you pour a little
Speaker 1: bit of water in it, right, and that's supposedly the
Speaker 1: steam helps the toast taste better. Yeah. They you toast
Speaker 1: your bread with steam, which apparently heats up faster than air,
Speaker 1: which makes sense because steam can burn your face off
Speaker 1: faster than air can um. And that's what they do
Speaker 1: to the toast. They burn the face off of the
Speaker 1: bread using hot steam, and it crisps the outside, turns
Speaker 1: it pretty brown if you want it to be, and
Speaker 1: then the inside stays like chewy and soft. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like searing the juices inside a steak. Hold on
Speaker 1: a second, it is only steam. Yeah, it's hot hot
Speaker 1: steam air. That's what that's my understanding of it. I
Speaker 1: thought it was a coil and with some steam addition.
Speaker 1: So it's the same thing. If you're you're not actually
Speaker 1: cooking the bread it on your heating element and a toaster,
Speaker 1: the air is cooking the toast, right Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is just a variation on that. They're using steam
Speaker 1: rather than just air, so they're using water and air
Speaker 1: heated up rather than just heated air. Okay, I didn't
Speaker 1: know it was only steam. That is. That is pretty wild. Yeah,
Speaker 1: weird wild stuff in that company. I've never heard of
Speaker 1: that company, and I looked into a little bit. It's
Speaker 1: a Japanese company that, um, I think they have like
Speaker 1: four things they make a tea kettle, a toaster, a
Speaker 1: Bluetooth speaker, and what else, oh, a lantern? Right for
Speaker 1: very disparate things, even weirder than the parent company of
Speaker 1: quiz Nos. They should be doing pretty well then with
Speaker 1: those three dollar products. That's right. Can you take a break?
Speaker 1: Oh boy? Yes, sure? All right? Or should we wait?
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, it's all bets are off. How
Speaker 1: about this. Let's uh, let's tell this awesome angent story
Speaker 1: that Olivia dug up, which I think is kind of
Speaker 1: one of the coolest parts of this episode, and then
Speaker 1: we'll take a break. Okay, fair enough, alright, hit hit
Speaker 1: me with it. Who was Alan McMasters, the inventor of
Speaker 1: the toaster dummy? He invented it back in don't you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was from Edinburgh and he was electric electrical engineer
Speaker 1: and he worked for the British electric company Crompton and
Speaker 1: Go and came up with the first toaster ine And
Speaker 1: we know because it was on Wikipedia and there was
Speaker 1: even the picture of this old timey picture of this guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it had to be true, but it turned out
Speaker 1: it wasn't true at all. And there's a fifteen year
Speaker 1: old British boy who said that picture does not look
Speaker 1: like it's from the nineteenth century. And if you look
Speaker 1: at the picture, it doesn't look like it's from the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century at all. I mean, just running a slight
Speaker 1: CPO filter on it does not a nineteenth century picture
Speaker 1: make right. Uh huh. But it was enough to fool
Speaker 1: everybody for a very long time. So in two thousand
Speaker 1: and twelve, there was a college student I did not
Speaker 1: see where he went, but his name was al Alex,
Speaker 1: and he had a friend whose name was Alan McMasters.
Speaker 1: And just as a joke, Alex edited the Wikipedia entry
Speaker 1: I believe for toasts or toasters to say that that
Speaker 1: Allen McMasters was the inventor of the toaster joke. It
Speaker 1: is a good joke. But then it got picked up
Speaker 1: by the press, starting with the Daily Mirror. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: not the hoax picked up, but just the story. And
Speaker 1: there are articles in libbyas innocent link. There's one from
Speaker 1: twelve that is still not corrected online. Uh. I think
Speaker 1: it was from the Daily Mirror, right, Yeah. The Mirror
Speaker 1: said they did a list of things that were invented,
Speaker 1: invented in Great Britain, and they they chalked it up
Speaker 1: to Allen McMasters, but he didn't. He didn't exist at all,
Speaker 1: Like there wasn't Alec Allen McMasters. But again, he was
Speaker 1: a college student in the two thousand tens. He wasn't
Speaker 1: an eighteen nineties Scottish inventor. And yet once that Daily
Speaker 1: mirror Um article went up, it's kicked off other citations.
Speaker 1: And then the beauty part of all of it, chuck,
Speaker 1: is that those citations are those articles that sprung from
Speaker 1: the fake Wikipedia entry um became citations in the Wikipedia
Speaker 1: entry so it was a self sustaining support system for itself.
Speaker 1: It was amazing that there was a BBC show called
Speaker 1: Great British Menu that uh created from scratch a dessert
Speaker 1: named after McMasters. Uh. There was apparently a school in
Speaker 1: Scotland that had a Alan McMaster's Day in his honor.
Speaker 1: And really, and it's a harmless prank. That's why I
Speaker 1: think it's so great, Like I'm normally not a big
Speaker 1: fan of pranks, but I don't think this really hurt
Speaker 1: anybody that I can think about. Yeah, can you imagine
Speaker 1: it hurting someone or my being. I I don't know. Well,
Speaker 1: I wonder if they ever told the school kids that
Speaker 1: there there was no Allen McMasters after they celebrated Allen
Speaker 1: McMaster's day. Okay, so maybe a small life to school children,
Speaker 1: But otherwise I think it's hysterical because it really I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure these guys were like, I can't believe this
Speaker 1: works so well, but they were eventually found out and
Speaker 1: uh McMasters was revealed. But I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the great pranks. Uh yeah, I agree, and you misunderstand me.
Speaker 1: I think the fact that these school kids were lied
Speaker 1: to accidentally makes it even funnier, not like that's a problem, okay.
Speaker 1: And this is also why we've never used Wikipedia as
Speaker 1: a source, which we really haven't. It's um, I kind
Speaker 1: of had to just tune out people that in our
Speaker 1: reviews over the years say these two numb skulls just
Speaker 1: read Wikipedia pages when we've literally never and it's a
Speaker 1: point of pride. And we told when we started getting
Speaker 1: freelance writers, were like, can't use Wikipedia as a source,
Speaker 1: and and now I can say, and this is a
Speaker 1: great reason why excellently put Chuck all right break time.
Speaker 1: It is finally break time. Everybody all right, So now
Speaker 1: we get to talk a little bit about the mall Yard.
Speaker 1: I always said Mallyard, But is it Mallard? Uh, because
Speaker 1: the eye is not after the yell like I thought
Speaker 1: it was. So his name was Louis Camille Mayyard. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm I don't think it matters at this point. That's
Speaker 1: the reaction. If you've ever heard fancy chef types or
Speaker 1: people at a dinner party trying to impress someone else
Speaker 1: talk about the Mayod reaction, that is this. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a chemical reaction that takes place when you heat foods,
Speaker 1: and this specific one is like when you make toast
Speaker 1: or toasted tortilla, or make popcorn or like sea steak.
Speaker 1: I think that's the same thing to write, yeah, the
Speaker 1: chicken skin browning. Yeah, that's this reaction named after this
Speaker 1: French chemist. And uh, that's kind of the magic of
Speaker 1: where this taste comes from. It's how these chemicals are
Speaker 1: reacting to one another. Yes, specifically amino acids and sugars
Speaker 1: that form all sorts of new smells and new tastes.
Speaker 1: Um one of the new compounds that they create as
Speaker 1: a setal tetrahydropyridine um, which is the the the smell,
Speaker 1: the taste, the aroma that gives toasts. It smell, gives popcorn,
Speaker 1: it smell corn tortillas, baking, it smell um. It's just
Speaker 1: one of many compounds that are made by the mayard reaction.
Speaker 1: But in the case of toast, that's where it comes from.
Speaker 1: And um. Apparently depending on the kind of bread you use,
Speaker 1: you'll get different kinds or or different color toast, like
Speaker 1: darker toast or lighter toast. And the more alkaline a
Speaker 1: toast is um, the browner it will it, which is
Speaker 1: why it's very difficult to toast sour dough to a
Speaker 1: deep brown color, because it's actually very acidic as far
Speaker 1: as breakes go. Yeah, and if you've heard in the
Speaker 1: news over recent years that um like toast can be
Speaker 1: bad for you, or or anything sort of seared might
Speaker 1: be bad for you, it's because the jury is kind
Speaker 1: of out whether or not. Well. I think the the
Speaker 1: American Cancer Society said that there's definitely potentially carcinogenic compounds definitely,
Speaker 1: maybe definitely maybe that can be created through this toasting
Speaker 1: and searing. Uh. And that's like grilled meats. We talked
Speaker 1: about that before. Um, but they don't know if, like,
Speaker 1: if you're eating enough of that stuff to really be
Speaker 1: dangerous to you. Yeah. They just basically said, like, just
Speaker 1: just be careful, don't eat don't eat dark toast. No
Speaker 1: one likes burned toast anyway, So don't be a jerk
Speaker 1: and say you like it. Yeah, you gotta keep your
Speaker 1: eye on it because caramelization can happen, which is great
Speaker 1: if you're an onion. Uh and maybe a tiny bit
Speaker 1: if you're some toast, but you don't want to You
Speaker 1: don't want to make that toast black, that bitter black,
Speaker 1: and no amount of knife scraping mom will make that
Speaker 1: taste any better. I totally agree with you, man. You
Speaker 1: want to talk about toasts around the world. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is all this does is make me hungry. These all
Speaker 1: sounds so good. So there's one called Kaya toast from
Speaker 1: Singapore and Malaysia. So you charcoal grill the toast. You
Speaker 1: would love that, right, and then you um make a
Speaker 1: sandwich out of the toast with butter and a jam
Speaker 1: that's made from coconut and eggs called Kaya. The name
Speaker 1: Kaya toast. I would try that any day of the week,
Speaker 1: all right, what about our friends from Italy? Of course
Speaker 1: they're gonna serve you something with garlic, uh and olive oil.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what they do. It's called hunt. We
Speaker 1: call that garlic toast in the Midwest. Yeah, garlic, maybe
Speaker 1: a little salt, little olive oil. Bing bang boom done.
Speaker 1: I've got one I want to try as soon as possible.
Speaker 1: It's from Sweden, where I'd like to go, by the way,
Speaker 1: I have a real hankering to go visit Sweden. Sometime.
Speaker 1: They have a toast called toast coggin and you um,
Speaker 1: it's basically a shrimp toast mixed together crim fresh butter shrimp.
Speaker 1: You put a little dill on it, some capers. You
Speaker 1: put it all on a toast, maybe with a slight
Speaker 1: a little bit of lemon juice or or a lemon
Speaker 1: slice on it as a garnish, and then you eat
Speaker 1: it and say, man, I feel like I'm in Stockholm.
Speaker 1: Are friends down under? What's going on down there? I
Speaker 1: love you. We get so much support from Australia. But
Speaker 1: and you've got your vegamine of course, which is divisive,
Speaker 1: of course, but we're not here to talk about vegamine.
Speaker 1: We're here to talk about making toast, buttering it and
Speaker 1: then covering it with like ice cream sprinkles. Yeah, also
Speaker 1: called um yes sprinkles, non perils. That's what we call
Speaker 1: them here down there, and I think in in the
Speaker 1: UK they call them hundreds and thousands. But there's those multicolored,
Speaker 1: tiny little round sprinkles. I know we're gonna get email
Speaker 1: saying like, just try it, mate, trust me. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: call it fairy bread. Which if you put that together
Speaker 1: with a good you know, Instagram photo of of that stuff,
Speaker 1: it's like, wow, I would try that sometime. Which other
Speaker 1: ones should we highlight here? I think, um, the pan
Speaker 1: kuan tomate, because I would like to try that one too,
Speaker 1: all right, that's Spanish, right, mm hmm. Then what do
Speaker 1: you do? How do you make it? Well, you just
Speaker 1: grill some bread again little olive oil. So you think, well,
Speaker 1: I'm making futuna. We already talked about that wrong, because
Speaker 1: you add some grated on a box grade or a
Speaker 1: big old beef steak tomato, so that you just have
Speaker 1: the enters of the tomato and not the skin, and
Speaker 1: you mix that with some stuff like some basil or
Speaker 1: some other spices and you, um, put it on some
Speaker 1: toast and eat it almost immediately. Maybe put it single
Speaker 1: anchovy on there, Maybe put a little ioli dap on
Speaker 1: there too. I saw what's your buddy's name, Kenji all
Speaker 1: lopezez Ultore. Yes, Uh, they put a They had a
Speaker 1: pretty good, um little entry and and recipe for pancone
Speaker 1: tomate that I would like to try to. That sounds
Speaker 1: really good. Uh. It almost started out sounding like, what's
Speaker 1: the nice Italian appetizer which just the tomatoes and olive
Speaker 1: oil on the toast points brush. Yeah, brusquetta. I love
Speaker 1: a good bruschetta. I used to make that all the time.
Speaker 1: I don't make it much anymore. Yeah, it's good. The
Speaker 1: simpler the better with that I've found. Yeah, I do
Speaker 1: want to shout out toad in a hole or toad
Speaker 1: in the hole, which I've only had a few times,
Speaker 1: but whenever I see it on a menu, I'll order that.
Speaker 1: And that's when I think they are like casserole variations.
Speaker 1: But the kind of scene is just toast with the
Speaker 1: center cut out and then you uh fry an egg
Speaker 1: in the middle of it, and then you top it
Speaker 1: with a live toad where it's cool. I would try that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just I love toast with Fridays. So
Speaker 1: I don't know about losing any of the toast by
Speaker 1: cutting a hole out of it. What do you do
Speaker 1: with the whole toast? I don't know, make a big mac. Sure, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's one other thing we got to talk about, Chuck, Well,
Speaker 1: maybe two. But if you'll remember back not too long ago,
Speaker 1: less than a decade ago, there's a pretty big toast
Speaker 1: craze going on in the United States. It was hipsterrific.
Speaker 1: It's where we got avocado toast. So I'm very glad
Speaker 1: that it happened. I love avocado toast, but that's where
Speaker 1: it all came from. There was a toast movement for
Speaker 1: a little while, and it just was a huge flash
Speaker 1: in the pan. It came and went faster than you
Speaker 1: can say, lickety split. But it's it was still kind
Speaker 1: of interesting because again, it gave us some some good toast.
Speaker 1: It introduced people to toast. But at the same time
Speaker 1: people were like, well, this is millennial's problem. This is
Speaker 1: why you can't buy a house because you're spending five
Speaker 1: bucks on a piece of toast. Yeah, no, no, man,
Speaker 1: I've seen, uh, you know, I watch a lot of
Speaker 1: Top Chef and there was a couple of seasons there
Speaker 1: where there was a lot of like little toasts added.
Speaker 1: But to me, it's just sort of like beautiful, simplistic cooking,
Speaker 1: like toast with some you know, some nut butter and
Speaker 1: banana or you know, any little like nice thing you
Speaker 1: can throw on top. Is it nice? I think it
Speaker 1: just it's one of those things that got like Instagram
Speaker 1: too much, probably cost a little too much, and there
Speaker 1: was a bit of a revolution against it. But at
Speaker 1: its core, I love the idea of taking toasts and
Speaker 1: putting delicious things on them. Yeah. Um, just to kind
Speaker 1: of button that up, that artisanal toast fad was traced
Speaker 1: back by Pacific Standard to a woman named Julietta Correlli
Speaker 1: who owns Trouble Coffee and Coconut Club, and they said,
Speaker 1: this is this is ground zero for where people started
Speaker 1: getting the idea to make toast. She there was just
Speaker 1: offered in San Francisco, of course, and she just offered
Speaker 1: like a really good cinnamon toast that would knock your
Speaker 1: socks off. And then other people were like, yeah, toast,
Speaker 1: that's a great idea, and it just kind of spread
Speaker 1: from there. Yeah, that's kind of a become a thing
Speaker 1: in more recent years, which I like, uh in in
Speaker 1: the chef world, which is like back to simplicity, uh
Speaker 1: and just like a few simple ingredients and you don't
Speaker 1: have to you know, because for a while they're like
Speaker 1: molecular gastronomy was the thing and making needs foams and
Speaker 1: you know, beads that popped and smoke would come out.
Speaker 1: And there's there's room for all of it. I love cooking,
Speaker 1: and I love cheap dining and I love fine dining.
Speaker 1: I love it all, so I think there's a place
Speaker 1: for all of it. And just I don't know. I
Speaker 1: hate when something delicious happens and people are like hipsters
Speaker 1: like it, so I hate it. Right. Yeah, you shouldn't
Speaker 1: do that, I mean, just make your own mind up.
Speaker 1: Don't identify with something or against something because someone else
Speaker 1: you don't like likes it. And why don't you like
Speaker 1: those people in the first place? Have you really stopped
Speaker 1: and invested any time or thought it into yourself. Maybe
Speaker 1: you don't like what you see in them that reminds
Speaker 1: you of yourself. Maybe that's what you don't like about
Speaker 1: people like hipsters from the mouth of Casper milk toast himself.
Speaker 1: That's right, all right, we're gonna finish up a little
Speaker 1: bit with Olivia just knocked this one out of the
Speaker 1: park with a fun little thing that I wouldn't even
Speaker 1: even thought to research. Probably is the word toast as
Speaker 1: a uh it's like a lot of things, but like
Speaker 1: as a verb, like, uh, the we're making a toast.
Speaker 1: That started apparently, um, because they would drop spice toasted
Speaker 1: bread into a drink to help flavor it up a
Speaker 1: little bit and then pull it out let the dog
Speaker 1: eat it maybe, and then that was a toast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that that just became um the word that was
Speaker 1: used anytime you held up a glass and said something
Speaker 1: nice about somebody else. Makes sense, Sure, I like that.
Speaker 1: There's an actual origin story to it, right. And then
Speaker 1: apparently from that all sorts of other usages of toast
Speaker 1: kind of spread, like the toast of the town, something
Speaker 1: that's really great. Um. That's that dates back to the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century. Apparently, um toast was used in the early
Speaker 1: seventies to mean like awesome today, that's toast, Okay, she
Speaker 1: put in here eight four there was a phrase something
Speaker 1: was bad as toast. I've never heard that before in
Speaker 1: my life. I've never heard that before in my life either.
Speaker 1: But speaking of the way that you and I used
Speaker 1: toast all the time, like they're toasts, they're done for,
Speaker 1: they're finished. That actually traces back to Bill Murray and Ghostbusters?
Speaker 1: Can this be true? George Will said in And George
Speaker 1: Will knew what he was talking about. He was a
Speaker 1: language columnist, and in he traced it back to Bill Murray. Uh.
Speaker 1: Instead of saying, Um, I'm gonna turn this guy into toast,
Speaker 1: which the script called for, Bill Murray said this chicken
Speaker 1: toast instead, and it just kind of took off from there.
Speaker 1: If that's true, I love that because what a great
Speaker 1: sort of tie into a movie that we used to
Speaker 1: talk about a lot. Yeah. Remember we used to mark
Speaker 1: time by how many years before? After Ghostbusters? It was? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think I mentioned on the show that I
Speaker 1: thoroughly enjoyed that brand new version even though it got
Speaker 1: widely panned. Yeah. And speaking of pan, that's another name
Speaker 1: for bread or toast. Look at that. What was I
Speaker 1: nervous about? I don't know, Like I said, this one
Speaker 1: went pretty so, so okay, I'll take it Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: same here, especially for the first one back. Since Chuck
Speaker 1: said I'll take it. That means, of course, everybody, it's
Speaker 1: time for listener mail. That's right. I guess the first
Speaker 1: thing we should mention is a quick correction. Uh. In
Speaker 1: the Edmund Fitzgerald episode, we got the location, well a
Speaker 1: couple of things on that. We got the location of
Speaker 1: Zoog Island. Incorrect in that right. Yeah, we said it
Speaker 1: was in Lake Michigan. Wrong. It's in the Detroit River
Speaker 1: which flows into Lake Erie. It was never in Lake Michigan. Uh.
Speaker 1: And boy, I made a lot of Canadians angry because
Speaker 1: I did not like that song. And Gordon Lightfoot is
Speaker 1: apparently the Pride of Canada. Did not mean to knock anyone.
Speaker 1: I do not like that song. But I gotta say
Speaker 1: this though, Um, I got accused of young yucking, and
Speaker 1: I think that phrase has been taken a bit too far.
Speaker 1: Now that's when used you Well, let's all stop using that. No.
Speaker 1: The way it was written in was basically people were saying, like,
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to express an opinion about something anymore
Speaker 1: because that's young yucking And that's not true. You can
Speaker 1: have opinion, you say, I don't like this thing. I
Speaker 1: think young yucking is when you're like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's a step further, which is like, how can you
Speaker 1: like this awful thing or something? Well? I think some
Speaker 1: Canadians feel like you hit that line across the yeah,
Speaker 1: and I can people would like it if they If
Speaker 1: you like that song, fine, if you like that garbage song,
Speaker 1: that's your basis. All is right with the universe again? Boy?
Speaker 1: All right, So onto the mail. This is a very
Speaker 1: sweet one from Anna and Carter and the great city
Speaker 1: of Cleveland. Hey, guys, been listening for many years. I'm
Speaker 1: an army sergeant and about every two years ago, we
Speaker 1: were in a month long field exercise. One week. Every night,
Speaker 1: helicopters practice night landings in the same field we were
Speaker 1: sleeping in um. After a few nights constantly being up
Speaker 1: to what felt like a mechanical tornado, I decided I'd
Speaker 1: be up anyway, so I might as well put the
Speaker 1: podcast in my earbuds, and I fell straight to sleep
Speaker 1: and slept all night. Am I doing it? Ever since?
Speaker 1: Flash forward to present day, my son and I have
Speaker 1: made the podcast part of our nightly routine. We played
Speaker 1: on the phone under a shared pillow to snuggle and
Speaker 1: cover mostly bugs and animals. It makes for great discussions
Speaker 1: with a four year old. Last night he wanted Godzilla's
Speaker 1: or butterflies. Uh and Tracy and Holly have covered Godzilla,
Speaker 1: so that my son requested you guys with butterflies. Uh.
Speaker 1: So my son, Carter, and myself say thank you for
Speaker 1: the info. Work peaceful sleep for an exhausted mom and soldier,
Speaker 1: have a good night. And that is Anna and Carter
Speaker 1: in Cleveland, Ohio. Thanks a lot, Anna and Carter. It's
Speaker 1: a great email. And uh Ani made reference to Holly
Speaker 1: and Tracy. She was saying that stuff you missed in
Speaker 1: history class apparently did an episode on Godzilla, which I
Speaker 1: didn't know which I want to go listen to immediately.
Speaker 1: Colleagues that we don't get to see anymore, but we
Speaker 1: go way back and they're the best. We presumably still exist.
Speaker 1: I got an email from Holly and that they're alive
Speaker 1: and well, okay, it's confirmed. So thank you from us
Speaker 1: and from Tracy and Holly to Anna and Carter. And
Speaker 1: if you want to be like Anna and Carter, you
Speaker 1: can send us an email to Stuff Podcasts at iHeart
Speaker 1: radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. H