Speaker 1: Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. And today we're continuing our trek through human
Speaker 1: techno history, and we're going to begin with The flint Stones. Okay, uh.
Speaker 1: If you've ever watched The flint Stones the old uh
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixties American cartoon, you're probably familiar with their
Speaker 1: over the top cartoon world in which you know, you
Speaker 1: have you have these cavemen. But they're also it's also
Speaker 1: like a commentary to a limited extent on nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: American culture, and they live alongside dinosaurs and they utilize
Speaker 1: them to power pretty much every aspect of their society.
Speaker 1: Is the satirical element there. If I've only seen The
Speaker 1: flint Stones Viva Rock Vegas, probably yeah, I think so,
Speaker 1: because they, if I remember correctly, those live action adaptations
Speaker 1: did put a lot of emphasis on the dinosaur and
Speaker 1: prestar a creature based technology. Oh yeah, clearly. That's the
Speaker 1: big draw of the series, is the curiosity what kind
Speaker 1: of dinosaur is going to be playing the role of
Speaker 1: a toilet today? Yeah, because well, they didn't use dinos
Speaker 1: to power everything. For instance, they did insist on footing
Speaker 1: their own ridiculous stone cars around town. I love that
Speaker 1: they had a typewriter that was a mere stone machine,
Speaker 1: kind of like a cross between a typewriter and a
Speaker 1: stone xylophone or something. But they also used, of course,
Speaker 1: that would be what is it a lithophone? Actually it's
Speaker 1: not a there is a name for a stone xylophone.
Speaker 1: But but it was of course more complicated, ridiculously complicated. Uh,
Speaker 1: in the flint stones. But then they also used, just
Speaker 1: to name a few inventions, the following uh. And let
Speaker 1: let's go back and forth on these jokes, a sauropod
Speaker 1: powered construction crane device, a stegosaur based fire truck, theropod
Speaker 1: based mobile stairs like the airport. Yeah, okay, A small
Speaker 1: dinosaur that they used as a can opener up. This
Speaker 1: one's really famous. And I know they used this one
Speaker 1: in the live action film. A garbage disposal dinosaur that
Speaker 1: just lives underneath the counter. I remember this. Actually they
Speaker 1: were like the garbage disposals acting up and he opens
Speaker 1: up the cabinets and like yells at it. But they've
Speaker 1: also got a record player that's a turtle and hummingbird. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the hummingbird is the needle, of course, and
Speaker 1: the turtle was somehow spinning the record. Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: where they're hummingbirds? And wait a minute. This is because
Speaker 1: they were definitely not humans coexisting with dinosaurs. Uh. They
Speaker 1: had a mammoth based uh system of running water, didn't
Speaker 1: They also have a tiny mammoth that was like the
Speaker 1: vacuum cleaner. They used it to because the hose or
Speaker 1: maybe it's young. I don't know how this worked. There
Speaker 1: was also a I'm not sure it was a bird
Speaker 1: or terra saar based camera, So like you hold up
Speaker 1: the camera to take the picture and the small winged
Speaker 1: creature uses its beak to then a chisel the image
Speaker 1: into a piece of stone. That's funny that it's some
Speaker 1: kind a bird as a dishwasher, it was like a pelican. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looked a lot like a pelican. And then, of course,
Speaker 1: if you need a kitchen knife, what are you gonna
Speaker 1: do use a sawfish? Why not a rock? Why not
Speaker 1: a like a flint stone. It's it's there in the
Speaker 1: name the flint hilarious If it is an actual sword fish,
Speaker 1: I guess, but that defeats the purpose, I mean why
Speaker 1: you would use an animal in place of a machine
Speaker 1: is that an animal is complex and has moving parts
Speaker 1: and can generate motive power if you just need a
Speaker 1: knife or something. It seems like real Stone age technology
Speaker 1: would work just as well. Oh absolutely, um. And then
Speaker 1: of course there's the added fact that they have a
Speaker 1: pet dinosaur named Dino who is just there for companionship. Now,
Speaker 1: all of this is ridiculous, and even today we watch
Speaker 1: it and we laugh at it because it's a ridiculous
Speaker 1: exaggeration of animal labor. Each dinosaur prehistar creature is highly specialized.
Speaker 1: So you know, either the humans of the flint Stones
Speaker 1: just found the right animals to perform these very specific functions, uh,
Speaker 1: or like us real life humans, they bred them to
Speaker 1: encourage certain traits, traits who would make them ideal for
Speaker 1: highly specific specialized tasks such as living under your sink
Speaker 1: and eating all of your scraps. That's right. And to
Speaker 1: explore this concept further today we're going to look at
Speaker 1: a real historical example. Uh. Certainly not the only example
Speaker 1: of an animal bred for a certain job within the
Speaker 1: house providing some kind of motive power. Of course, we
Speaker 1: know farm animals, draft animals, pack animals have been doing
Speaker 1: this kind of thing for millennia. But today we're gonna
Speaker 1: be looking at a very strange specific case from history.
Speaker 1: The turnspit dog, a breed of domestic dog that is
Speaker 1: bred to run around a small wheel to power e rotisserie. Yes,
Speaker 1: and this is this is this is amazing. I was
Speaker 1: I had not heard of this before. So this was
Speaker 1: like suddenly, It's like suddenly realizing the flint stones were
Speaker 1: real to a certain extent. But but this is gonna
Speaker 1: be a great episode as well, because it's not just
Speaker 1: going to be about this dog. It's gonna be about
Speaker 1: sort of two or three additional technologies that factor in
Speaker 1: to this period in time in which dog labor was
Speaker 1: used to help cook big chunks of meat. Right, So
Speaker 1: I guess first we always asked the question here what
Speaker 1: came before this invention? So obviously we should look at
Speaker 1: the dog itself, and the dog in a way, if
Speaker 1: you sort of if you sort of squint, it is
Speaker 1: sort of a human invention. I mean, obviously it's a
Speaker 1: product of nature. So we like we didn't create you know,
Speaker 1: canines generally, but the domestic dog and the domestic dog
Speaker 1: breeds that exist have in many ways been guided by
Speaker 1: human hands to greater and lesser extents. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's not you know, it's not necessarily a situation where
Speaker 1: a prehistoric uh you know, member of human society said
Speaker 1: that is a good wolf creature out there. I have
Speaker 1: a few pointers for what we might change in it,
Speaker 1: but that is essentially the process that ends up taking place. So, yes,
Speaker 1: before you can have a dog powered meat spinning grill machine,
Speaker 1: you have to have a domestic dog. And in brief,
Speaker 1: the domestic dog dates back an estimated twelve thousand years
Speaker 1: to the Near East, before the cat, before the sheep,
Speaker 1: before the goat, and before the horse. The dog maybe
Speaker 1: man's best friend, and it is certainly one of his
Speaker 1: oldest non human friends. It is the oldest recognizably domestic animal.
Speaker 1: And we know they were used some eleven thousand years
Speaker 1: ago in post glacial Europe by hunter gatherers, and they
Speaker 1: were almost certainly used in hunting. Interestingly enough, it's sometimes
Speaker 1: questioned why humans didn't actually domesticate the dogs sooner than this,
Speaker 1: and one idea is that there was even more incentive
Speaker 1: to domesticate these, you know, the wild wolf like creatures
Speaker 1: into the domesticated dog in the post glacial world because
Speaker 1: you increasingly then had to track wounded animals that you've
Speaker 1: wounded during the you know, the hunt through wooded regions.
Speaker 1: Increasing a wooded regions is the forest return, and a
Speaker 1: dog's superior sense of smell could make a huge difference
Speaker 1: in that task. So the dog was a pre farming
Speaker 1: domestic species, and that's something that's really essential to note.
Speaker 1: Because the cat, I think we've touched on this before.
Speaker 1: If not an invention, then unstuff to blow your mind.
Speaker 1: You know, the cat comes about as an investigated species
Speaker 1: in the post farming world because of the post farming
Speaker 1: surplus of food. Right, So in the in the post
Speaker 1: farming world, you might have say stores of grain or
Speaker 1: other foods in a settled location that you're not moving
Speaker 1: around from, and those might attract to say rats or
Speaker 1: something like that that would get into your grain, and
Speaker 1: then the cat can follow the rats. Right. And then
Speaker 1: these areas other species, many of them of course, our
Speaker 1: food species that we domesticated so in so as to
Speaker 1: uh control them and not have to hunt them anymore.
Speaker 1: They live with us, and we kill them when we
Speaker 1: desire to kill them. But of course as great as
Speaker 1: dogs can be and continue to be, and in the
Speaker 1: in aiding the hunt, we know that they can be
Speaker 1: bred who specialize in a number of key tasks. And
Speaker 1: I have a short list here that I thought we
Speaker 1: might go back and forth on again, much like we
Speaker 1: did with the dinosaurs of the Flintstones. So you can
Speaker 1: of course breed a dog over many generations to fetch
Speaker 1: felled foul. That's kind of a tongue twister, but yeah,
Speaker 1: you can see. Maybe you shoot down a bird, you
Speaker 1: don't know exactly where it went, but the dog can
Speaker 1: find it. Essentially, the dog is still aiding in the hunt,
Speaker 1: but it's a more specialized version of aiding in the hunt.
Speaker 1: Now the other thing would be playing more of a
Speaker 1: role we think of with cats these days, are ridding
Speaker 1: the home area or the food storage areas of rats
Speaker 1: and other vermin. Right. Another one is to aid in
Speaker 1: fishing specifically, and this is one of the breeds you
Speaker 1: see this with is the Newfoundland dog, which is a
Speaker 1: you know, a kin to the Labrador retriever. The Labrador
Speaker 1: retriever fetches felled foul, but the traditionally but the Newfoundland
Speaker 1: dog is there to retrieve floats and ropes from dangerous
Speaker 1: icy waters. Now, of course we see lots of shepherd
Speaker 1: ng dogs in world traditions that they can help control
Speaker 1: the movements and direction of flocks. Right, Um, a big
Speaker 1: scary dog with a loud bark has long been used
Speaker 1: and uh and and is still used to as as protection,
Speaker 1: either to protect an individual or to protect property. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I guess this would be part of a bigger thing.
Speaker 1: Is just sort of like using dogs for violence or
Speaker 1: the threat of violence. So dogs used in war or
Speaker 1: fighting or in in in combat dogs. Unfortunately, sometimes dogs
Speaker 1: you used to fight each other purely for sport, which
Speaker 1: is terrible, or in other equally egregious kinds of bear baiting. Like. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another area though that is not dark or not not
Speaker 1: intrinsically dark, is tracking because dogs mad dogs could be
Speaker 1: used to track somebody or something for nefarious reasons, certainly,
Speaker 1: but dogs can be used to track people to say,
Speaker 1: to find uh say, fine individuals who have been buried
Speaker 1: in an avalanche, that sort of thing. Right, And then
Speaker 1: of course you've got the final version, the version that
Speaker 1: many of us today probably know the best, which is
Speaker 1: just pure companionship. Dogs are a good friend. They're a
Speaker 1: good buddy. And this is where we get the final
Speaker 1: form of the dog, the pug. Right. But while we
Speaker 1: often think of other animals like horses, donkeys, cattle, and
Speaker 1: stuff like this clearly as draft animals animals that are
Speaker 1: used to pull loads, or as pack animals animals that
Speaker 1: are used to carry loads. Uh, animals that are there
Speaker 1: to provide motive power. We don't often think of the
Speaker 1: dog this way. And yet, nevertheless, the dog has been
Speaker 1: used for these purposes in many ways around the world
Speaker 1: all throughout history. And one of those ways is what
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about today, pairing dogs for motive
Speaker 1: power with a specific type of cooking technology, which is
Speaker 1: the turnspit, the practice of using a dog to turn
Speaker 1: a wheel like a hamster wheel to turn a rotisserie
Speaker 1: in a kitchen. Right. I mean, but before we really
Speaker 1: started researching this, the only example that would have come
Speaker 1: to mind would be sled dogs, where the dog is
Speaker 1: used for locomotion to pull a sled across snow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there there are plenty of examples of people
Speaker 1: using dogs to uh to pull carts and things like that. Uh,
Speaker 1: and there carry a pack, yes, yes, exactly but later
Speaker 1: in the episode we'll also talk about other types of
Speaker 1: more treadmill based motive power that come from dogs. Another
Speaker 1: important thing to note when we're talking about all these
Speaker 1: different things that dogs have been bred floor and and
Speaker 1: this is kind of this is one of those sort
Speaker 1: of overstatements of the obvious, But the role changes the
Speaker 1: form of the dog. So like when we're talking about
Speaker 1: these dogs that are that were bred to you know,
Speaker 1: to catch rats and to chase vermin, we're often dealing
Speaker 1: with dogs that are that are small in stature that
Speaker 1: can chase the rat into its hiding places. Likewise, the
Speaker 1: dogs that are used for tracking and in many cases
Speaker 1: involving the hunt as well, are often some of the
Speaker 1: absolute best smellers and are just you know, ideal for
Speaker 1: tracking and and in all of this too, we get
Speaker 1: into the problem of the modern world sometimes where someone
Speaker 1: will have a pure bred dog, a dog that has
Speaker 1: been whose evolution has been hijacked too, you know, for
Speaker 1: the specific function, and then it finds itself as a
Speaker 1: pet without a without necessarily having an avenue for that
Speaker 1: special power that it has been given through selective breeding.
Speaker 1: So I mean a lot of times it's funny that
Speaker 1: people will have a dog for a pet and they
Speaker 1: don't even realize what the that dog breed that their
Speaker 1: pet is was was originally bred for. And so they
Speaker 1: may notice behavioral characteristics of the dogs that come through
Speaker 1: without knowing why that dog is like so attuned to
Speaker 1: chasing after my certain little moving objects, or why that
Speaker 1: dog has to sniff everything. Yeah, I've I've heard though
Speaker 1: of specific cases where especially urban dogs um have you know,
Speaker 1: their owners will make an effort to find outlets, like
Speaker 1: find a place where they can herd a single sheep
Speaker 1: around and use that energy, or these groups that will
Speaker 1: go through. I think it's New York. I heard a
Speaker 1: radio I think it's an NPR story about this, where
Speaker 1: people with traditionally vermin hunting dogs will get together and
Speaker 1: basically go on a big rat chase through the streets,
Speaker 1: you know, because that's that's what the dog wants, right.
Speaker 1: So we've read plenty of breeds for different tasks, but
Speaker 1: I guess we should turn to the other half of
Speaker 1: the equation here, leading to the turnspit dog, which is
Speaker 1: the Rotisseriy. Yes, the rotissory. So if you've been to
Speaker 1: the supermarket, I think you know the basic idea here
Speaker 1: because you've probably seen rotisserie chickens, right, but this this, uh,
Speaker 1: it's a chicken on a spit, and usually they're like
Speaker 1: multiple spits creating this whole carousel of rotisserie chickens, and
Speaker 1: they're moving under some sort of heat source, you know,
Speaker 1: being a lamp or some sort of actual you know,
Speaker 1: heating element. But you've probably also seen it if you've
Speaker 1: ever seen like the spit for donor kebab or for euros.
Speaker 1: These are traditionally done where there's a heat element on
Speaker 1: one side and there's a bunch of you know, seasoned
Speaker 1: meat that's on a spit that constantly rotates. And the
Speaker 1: idea what the constant rotation is to provide even heat. Right,
Speaker 1: meat is skewered and then placed over or adjacent to
Speaker 1: a heat source. But then what happens if you don't
Speaker 1: turn it. You're gonna get one side of the meat
Speaker 1: that's hideously burned and one side of the meat that
Speaker 1: is perhaps undercooked. Even you but it's not what you want.
Speaker 1: You want uniform heating around the meat and within the meat.
Speaker 1: And this method actually still works. One of their Robert,
Speaker 1: do you ever encounter steak World, you know this whole
Speaker 1: world world wisdom and false wisdom about what you're supposed
Speaker 1: to do or not do with steaks. It can be,
Speaker 1: it can be a treacherous pass So used to when
Speaker 1: I when I still ate beef and I would grill
Speaker 1: sometimes I had I had, I would look in a
Speaker 1: grill book and there would be a lot of wisdom
Speaker 1: there about how to do it. And then you go
Speaker 1: on the line and there might be, you know, wisdom
Speaker 1: that set the opposite. Yeah, exactly. There's also a lot
Speaker 1: of like, you know, dad wisdom kind of stuff that
Speaker 1: about this. One of the one of the steak myths
Speaker 1: that people often say is you should only turn your
Speaker 1: steak once. You know, you put it on the grill
Speaker 1: one side, let it go halfway on that side. Flip
Speaker 1: it once and let it go halfway on that side. Uh,
Speaker 1: that is not good wisdom. You can turn a steak
Speaker 1: as many times as you want if you're grilling it,
Speaker 1: and that actually helps the steak cook more evenly. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, by constantly turning it, you are not letting
Speaker 1: the heat build up too much on one side and
Speaker 1: overcook that side. Okay, Well, like a similar thing I
Speaker 1: do when I do grill. I tend to do veggie grilling,
Speaker 1: and so I'll do like a grill basket and I'll
Speaker 1: just make sure I I stir it up. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the same principles actually, I think would apply pretty well
Speaker 1: to vegetables. Probably the more you stir them, the more
Speaker 1: evenly cooked they're going to be. But in this case,
Speaker 1: we're continuing to talk about big hunks of meat. The
Speaker 1: bigger the better on a spit turning, uh, so as
Speaker 1: to have that uniform cooking. But here's the thing. You've
Speaker 1: got to turn that spit, and the most basic way
Speaker 1: to do that is to turn it by hand. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, later it's no spoiler to say that eventually
Speaker 1: machines are going to come into play and do it,
Speaker 1: because again, you've been to the grocery store, you've seen
Speaker 1: machines turning rotisserie chickens. You know that that is coming. Um. However,
Speaker 1: the rotisserie, you know, was very much in vogue in
Speaker 1: the medieval world, and we see plenty of illustrations of
Speaker 1: their use, both both in you know, their terrestrial setting
Speaker 1: depictions of everyday medieval humans engaging in rotisserie cooking. But
Speaker 1: then you also see lots of these imagined realms of hell,
Speaker 1: to where if you see a big, elaborate depiction of
Speaker 1: eternal damnation, there's almost certainly going to be some individual
Speaker 1: spitted on a on a long skewer and then turned
Speaker 1: over a fire. Right, the culinary traditions of the time
Speaker 1: come through in our imaginations of torment right now. The
Speaker 1: word ROTISSERII. The rotisserie concept itself, of course is not
Speaker 1: too complicated, but the word comes goes back to France
Speaker 1: in around fourteen fifty years so, which is ironic because
Speaker 1: while there were versions of of turnspit roasting or rotisserie
Speaker 1: all over Europe from the medieval period and probably some
Speaker 1: earlier than that, but especially beginning in the medieval period,
Speaker 1: I've read that it is most common in Great Britain,
Speaker 1: that that is where spit roasting was an extremely popular
Speaker 1: form of cooking. That like in the European continent and
Speaker 1: elsewhere in the world, people would be more likely to
Speaker 1: use like ovens enclosures to cook inside if they were
Speaker 1: going to do a roast of meat at all or
Speaker 1: anything like that. Apparently, for some reason, English culture was
Speaker 1: just not into the ovens for roasting. They liked the
Speaker 1: open flame and the constantly turning spit. Yeah, yeah, absolutely both.
Speaker 1: I think the main sources we turned to in this yeah,
Speaker 1: they center almost exclusively on England. Uh. That's where we
Speaker 1: look at the documentation of the of the spit and
Speaker 1: all of these additional details about how the practice changes. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that's for two reasons. The number one, spit
Speaker 1: roasting in general seems a more popular form of cooking
Speaker 1: in Great Britain. And then beyond that, where spit roasting
Speaker 1: is done, it seems like the dog was a more
Speaker 1: popular way of doing it in Great Britain than it
Speaker 1: was elsewhere. Now, one of the sources that I I
Speaker 1: used in in my research here is an excellent book
Speaker 1: by one B. Wilson called Consider the Fork, a History
Speaker 1: of how We Eat and Uh. And you know, one
Speaker 1: thing that's important is even though we have this cartoony
Speaker 1: and perhaps even flint Stonian idea of meat spitted above
Speaker 1: a fire and roast in turned, I think this is
Speaker 1: how the Ewoks were attempting to to to consume the
Speaker 1: heroes in Star Wars, right, maybe, I mean they've got
Speaker 1: them hanging from a stick. It would be kind of
Speaker 1: awkward spitted I guess they weren't spitted, there would be
Speaker 1: a lot of like tumbling and falling around the ropes
Speaker 1: they were hanging from. So I'm not sure how well
Speaker 1: that would work for somebody I thought they were going
Speaker 1: to eat somebody. I thought that they were going to
Speaker 1: eat them. Yeah, I just don't know if they would
Speaker 1: have turned to them. I think they probably would have
Speaker 1: just burned them on one side and then they do
Speaker 1: all right. Well. Well, one thing that that B. Wilson
Speaker 1: points out is that the spit was typically located next
Speaker 1: to a fire and not over it for most of
Speaker 1: the cooking. You would only position it more over the
Speaker 1: fire towards the end to toast it, sort of like
Speaker 1: in another and now you might you know, you might
Speaker 1: bake something and then broil it to the last you know,
Speaker 1: few minutes to get it a little crispy on top. Right,
Speaker 1: then that makes sense putting it next to the fire.
Speaker 1: I think you could get gentler, more even heat throughout right,
Speaker 1: And a lot of times in England we're talking about
Speaker 1: open hearth cooking too, so that just makes more sense. Right,
Speaker 1: the fire is in the fireplace, and then your eu
Speaker 1: rotisserie is positioned in front of the fireplace, but for
Speaker 1: open hearth cooking, you have to understand that this means
Speaker 1: the kitchen, especially near the fireplace, is going to be
Speaker 1: a sweltering environment, and somebody's got to turn that spit.
Speaker 1: And according to be Wilson, before we put the spit
Speaker 1: dogs to work turning the spit, we used turnspit boys. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's it's, it's, it's, it's it's it's hilarious and at
Speaker 1: the same time it is so disturbing. So only only
Speaker 1: during the sixteenth and seventeen centuries did the dogs take
Speaker 1: over the work really, uh, and they took over the
Speaker 1: work from human children. She includes a quote from biography
Speaker 1: John Aubrey, who said, quote in olden times, the poor
Speaker 1: boys did turn the spits and lipped the dripping pans,
Speaker 1: Oh boy, the dripping yeah. And Be describes this as
Speaker 1: perhaps the worst of the many quotes soul destroying jobs
Speaker 1: in the rich medieval kitchen. Here's a passage from their
Speaker 1: book quote by the reign of Henry the Eighth, the
Speaker 1: king's household had whole battalions of turnspits, charring their faces
Speaker 1: and tiring their arms to satisfy the royal appetite for
Speaker 1: roast capin's and ducks, venison and beef crammed in cubby
Speaker 1: holes to the side of the fireplace. The boys must
Speaker 1: have been near roasted themselves as they labored to roast
Speaker 1: the meats. Until the year fifteen thirty, the kitchen staff
Speaker 1: at Hampton Core worked either naked or in scanty, grimy garments.
Speaker 1: Henry the Eighth addressed the situation not by relieving the
Speaker 1: turnspits of their duties, but by providing the master cooks
Speaker 1: with a clothing allowance with which to keep the junior
Speaker 1: staff decently closed and therefore even hotter. That's horrible, I
Speaker 1: mean this, this lines up with everything I've read that
Speaker 1: the turnspit role was essentially the lowest rank in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: It was the last job you'd want to have, because
Speaker 1: it's like, it's not only sweltering hot, hard work, it's
Speaker 1: also incredibly dull and repetitive. You know, you're not getting
Speaker 1: much of variety. You're just standing there by a really
Speaker 1: hot fire, turning a crank at a steady pace for
Speaker 1: hours and hours at a time. It's kind of it's
Speaker 1: like Conan the Barbarian, you know, running the mill exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's very important that the crank had to be
Speaker 1: turned at a steady rate. You couldn't have the person
Speaker 1: turning the crank take a break for a few minutes
Speaker 1: and go do something else, because then the meat would
Speaker 1: burn on that side. So you had to keep it turning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's yeah, it's it's grueling, just monotonous manual labor here.
Speaker 1: And uh and even though it's not even just the
Speaker 1: big kingly houses, even lesser houses used them and they
Speaker 1: were they were actually seen as acceptable well into the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century in England. And uh and uh. Also in Scotland.
Speaker 1: B rights that Scottish highlander John McDonald born seventeen forty one.
Speaker 1: He was an orphan and at the age of five
Speaker 1: he worked the spit in a household. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think this comes through in common expressions within the English
Speaker 1: language of the period, Like there was the expression turn
Speaker 1: spit to like refer insulting lee to someone. It was
Speaker 1: essentially you would call somebody a turnspit to suggest they
Speaker 1: were like lowly and not worth your time, uh, that
Speaker 1: they were wretched in some way. But around the Tutor area,
Speaker 1: which was roughly like the sixteenth century, you know, late
Speaker 1: fourteen hundreds through the end of the fift hundreds. Uh,
Speaker 1: technology change the picture somewhat. For this is when kitchens
Speaker 1: in in England started using the rotisserie spit powered by
Speaker 1: belt and dog wheel. So maybe we should take a
Speaker 1: quick break and then when we come back we can
Speaker 1: discuss more about the turnspit dog Hey everybody, with the
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Speaker 1: so here's where we're gonna look at the turnspit dog
Speaker 1: and the wheel itself. So I guess I should mention
Speaker 1: a couple of sources that I used for this. One
Speaker 1: is a book by Jan Bondison called Amazing Dogs, A
Speaker 1: Cabinet of Canine Curiosities from Amberley Publishing, two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: and another is a book by Brian D. Cummins, who
Speaker 1: is a cultural anthropologist who's focused on the relationships between
Speaker 1: humans and dogs and This book is called Our Debt
Speaker 1: to the Dog, How the Domestic Dog Helped Shape Human
Speaker 1: Societies from Carolina Academic Press. So, according to Cummins, the
Speaker 1: first published mention of turnspit dogs in history comes from
Speaker 1: a treatise published in fifteen seventy six written by an
Speaker 1: author named Johannes or John Caius, who was quote Doctor
Speaker 1: of physic a in the University of Cambridge. And this
Speaker 1: is sometimes claimed to be the first English book written
Speaker 1: about dogs. I think he actually wrote it in Latin,
Speaker 1: but it was quickly translated by an assistant into English. Um.
Speaker 1: And Cummins points out that right from the beginning, Kaius
Speaker 1: identifies the turns a dog or what he spells the
Speaker 1: turns pete dog as a breed, which Commons thinks is
Speaker 1: probably incorrect. And we'll come back to that more later,
Speaker 1: whether the turnspit dog was a distinct breed of dog
Speaker 1: or not. But John Kaias appears to have gotten a
Speaker 1: lot of things wrong about dogs in his book about dogs.
Speaker 1: He apparently didn't know much about dogs, but he's like,
Speaker 1: I'll write a book any little, um. But this this
Speaker 1: being the first mentioned in literary history, I guess we
Speaker 1: should take a look at what he says, and so
Speaker 1: the text reads of the dog called turnspeed in Latin
Speaker 1: vuver sater, there is comprehended, under the curs of the
Speaker 1: coarsest kind, a certain dog in kitchen service excellent for
Speaker 1: when any meat is to be roasted, they go into
Speaker 1: a wheel, which they turning round about with the weight
Speaker 1: of their bodies, so diligently looked to their business, that
Speaker 1: no drudge nor scullion can do the feat more cunningly
Speaker 1: whom the popular sort here upon call turnspeeds. Now that
Speaker 1: is that is interesting. Even if there is, we'll discuss
Speaker 1: there maybe problems with it, because it does imply that
Speaker 1: this is not just you didn't just grab a random
Speaker 1: animal and throw it in and just see what it
Speaker 1: did in the wheel. Now that the dog seems to
Speaker 1: have been trained to to to proceed on the wheel
Speaker 1: at a regular pace so as to properly cook the meat. Right,
Speaker 1: KaiA says that it's not just that the dog can
Speaker 1: turn the wheel. It's the dog turns the wheel and
Speaker 1: the spit at a better rate than the human cooks
Speaker 1: in the kitchen do, which I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people can probably relate to the idea of a dog
Speaker 1: being more reliable than a human um. But but the
Speaker 1: premise here, I think, is that a dog runs inside
Speaker 1: a wheel like a hamster wheel, in order to turn
Speaker 1: a belt that turns a spit to ensure the even
Speaker 1: cooking on all sides of the roast. So beginning a
Speaker 1: few centuries later, in the seventeen hundreds, more records of
Speaker 1: turnspit dogs show up in the literature, including a formal
Speaker 1: breed category station by Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish scholar who
Speaker 1: established a lot of important conventions of taxonomy and nomenclature
Speaker 1: in zoology and botany. And so again, I think Linnaeus
Speaker 1: here is identifying the turnspit dog is a distinct breed
Speaker 1: of dog. Bondison points out that Linnaeus's name for the
Speaker 1: breed is Canus vertigious, or dizzy dog. A name used
Speaker 1: in several English sources is the verna pator cur. So
Speaker 1: here's Bondison on on Linnaeus's description here quote small, long bodied,
Speaker 1: and bandy legged. Most had drooping ears, but some had
Speaker 1: ears standing up. Some turnspit dogs had gray and white fur,
Speaker 1: often with a white blaze down the face. Others were
Speaker 1: black or reddish brown, There may as well have been
Speaker 1: several other colors. Brian Cummin says that the most common
Speaker 1: characteristics of the dog identified as a breed are small size,
Speaker 1: short legs, muscular especially for their size and weight estimates
Speaker 1: are kind of all over the place, range from like
Speaker 1: fourteen to thirty five pounds, good cardiovascular conditioning for obvious reasons,
Speaker 1: and generally being terrier like. And that makes sense because
Speaker 1: a terrier would already be a breed that is, uh
Speaker 1: would be we're talking with breeds that are are small
Speaker 1: in stature. Why you utilize mainlis vermin um uh, chasers.
Speaker 1: I don't actually know, but that sounds right. I know,
Speaker 1: there's like the rat terrier r yeah, uh so. Charles
Speaker 1: Darwin even made reference to the turnspit dog in on
Speaker 1: the Origin of Species. I had forgotten about this, but
Speaker 1: so of course. One of Darwin's main arguments for his
Speaker 1: theory of evolution by natural selection was the artificial breeding
Speaker 1: of animals such as cattle and dogs. Showing the descent
Speaker 1: with modification was possible by the guidance of human breeders,
Speaker 1: and thus it could also be possible by the guidance
Speaker 1: of the natural environment. That was the point of comparison
Speaker 1: he was trying to make. And so Darwin writes that
Speaker 1: in domesticated strains of animals we constantly see examples of
Speaker 1: adaptation quote not indeed to the animals or plant own good,
Speaker 1: but to man's use or fancy. Some variations useful to
Speaker 1: him have probably arisen suddenly or by one step. So
Speaker 1: it has probably been with the turnspit dog. So we
Speaker 1: know that in the middle of the eighteen hundreds when
Speaker 1: Darwin's writing about this, it would have been a common enough,
Speaker 1: like a well known enough phenomenon to have a turnspit
Speaker 1: dog working in a kitchen that he could just make
Speaker 1: casual reference to it and people would know what he
Speaker 1: was talking about. Oh, yes, that dog that is so
Speaker 1: well adapted to turning a wheel in kitchens. So, but
Speaker 1: the question kind of becomes is the turnspit dog like
Speaker 1: a dog? Are these dogs bred for this work or
Speaker 1: are you merely selecting dogs to fulfill the role of
Speaker 1: the turnspit dog? Right? And I think it's possible that
Speaker 1: it's some combination of the two. Right, that dogs with
Speaker 1: initial bits of characteristics were selected for the job early on,
Speaker 1: and then maybe they were bred to bring out certain
Speaker 1: characteristics that made them especially good wheel turners. Right, And
Speaker 1: this would be the same process that you would get say,
Speaker 1: a good rat chasing dog. You can imagine like early on,
Speaker 1: people saying I need some dogs to go catch those rats.
Speaker 1: Give me some short legged dogs, and then you know,
Speaker 1: the breeding commences and you get increasingly breeds of short
Speaker 1: legged dogs that have a real tenacity for chasing rats. Right.
Speaker 1: If you've got a batch of them, maybe the two
Speaker 1: that catch the most rats, you breed them together and
Speaker 1: that makes the next generation. At the time, an author
Speaker 1: named J. G. Wood mentions the turnspit dog in his
Speaker 1: Illustrated Natural History in eighteen fifty three, but he writes
Speaker 1: that by his time the dog had become rare, and
Speaker 1: while it had previously been very common, then existed only
Speaker 1: in isolated regions. But in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Speaker 1: uh turnspit dogs were extremely common in Great Britain. Bondison
Speaker 1: writes that they were especially common in the west of
Speaker 1: England and particularly in the city of Bristol, and in Wales,
Speaker 1: especially South Wales. Bondison writes quote in sixteen thirty nine,
Speaker 1: when the cornishman Peter Mundy visited Bristol. He was amazed
Speaker 1: that there was quote scarce a house that hath not
Speaker 1: a dog to turn the spit in a little wooden wheel.
Speaker 1: So he's not just talking about palaces or like ends
Speaker 1: with big kitchens there, he's saying scarcely a house. So
Speaker 1: that's where it was apparently most common, but there was
Speaker 1: less common. There are still records that they were turnspit
Speaker 1: dogs outside of Great Britain, in places like France, where
Speaker 1: they were shin torn a brochues, or in Switzerland and
Speaker 1: Germany and Holland, and in North America. There even references
Speaker 1: to turnspit dogs in Ben Franklin's own Pennsylvania Gazette. But
Speaker 1: I mean we should recognize that something. So Cummins characterizes
Speaker 1: the turnspit dogs work as often quite wretched for the dog.
Speaker 1: So they'd be having to power a wheel by walking
Speaker 1: essentially inside the wheel for hours at a time. These
Speaker 1: roasts take a long time to cook, uh, And they
Speaker 1: were near the heat of the fire, which meant that
Speaker 1: their work was sweltering, and they were often dehydrated. And
Speaker 1: they can't take breaks because the wheel has to keep going. Well,
Speaker 1: they can in some cases. I'll get to that in
Speaker 1: a second. Generally the dog wheel was hung suspended from
Speaker 1: the ceiling next to the fireplace. Yeah. I believe their
Speaker 1: woodcuts to kind of show this as well, Like it
Speaker 1: almost looks like something you would see on a cracker
Speaker 1: barrel wall, right, you know, exactly, Yeah, except it has
Speaker 1: a living dog in it turning a crank um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is one of the things that's so interesting about
Speaker 1: this is all these other categories we've looked at, or
Speaker 1: at least, you know, disgusting in passing, in which we
Speaker 1: have bred a dog to to fulfill a specific task.
Speaker 1: Those tasks are exclusively I think in the wild though,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's some version of the thing they
Speaker 1: would do, be it hunting a rat, or fetching a
Speaker 1: bird that's been shot out of the sky with with
Speaker 1: bow or or buckshot, you know, or or even swimming
Speaker 1: after fishing lures, or or even pulling a sled. At
Speaker 1: least it is it is out in an environment. It
Speaker 1: is running across the countryside in this kind of artificially
Speaker 1: uh constructed pack structure. Well, yeah, you know, I would
Speaker 1: say even for more indoor dogs, like companion dogs that
Speaker 1: sit on your lap and cuddle with you, I mean
Speaker 1: that does seem more analogous to some kind of natural behaviors,
Speaker 1: you know, like din snuggling behaviors. Uh, this sort of
Speaker 1: like being trapped in a kitchen in a wheel, turning
Speaker 1: the wheel does seem more estranged from the natural habitat
Speaker 1: and behaviors of a dog in the wild than any
Speaker 1: of these other uses I can think of. It is
Speaker 1: at best almost animal cruelty and probably just animal cruelty.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean in many cases, surely. I mean
Speaker 1: it's hard to know because on one hand, like a
Speaker 1: lot of dogs do seem to kind of like enjoy
Speaker 1: having a task to do, right, But this seems like
Speaker 1: it's really hard work that is sustained for a long time.
Speaker 1: That like, there are lots of stories of the dogs
Speaker 1: not wanting to do it, like they would try to
Speaker 1: flee like they would because dogs are intelligent. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so one of the details I was reading is that
Speaker 1: you would have the turnspit dog that I get. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not in the all the time. One presumes that
Speaker 1: it's just sort of either hanging out in the kitchen
Speaker 1: or around the house. And then if the dog begins
Speaker 1: to observe the telltale signs of a roast being prepared. Uh,
Speaker 1: if will run off and hide because there's no it
Speaker 1: knows what's coming. Yeah, And there are explicit tales of
Speaker 1: cruelty in some cases, at least, like where authors at
Speaker 1: the time right that some cruel cooks if a dog
Speaker 1: didn't keep the wheel turning at a satisfactory rate, that
Speaker 1: mean cook would put a hot coal into the wheel
Speaker 1: with the dog, so the dog would be made to
Speaker 1: run to escape the coal, which continually tumbled in the
Speaker 1: wheel after it was Obviously it's horrible. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like it was always equally bad everywhere.
Speaker 1: Like some luckier dogs worked in pairs, trading off in
Speaker 1: shift so that one could rest while the other worked.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe they would have a rest today while the
Speaker 1: other worked for a day, or they could trade off,
Speaker 1: you know, and I don't know, by the hour or
Speaker 1: something like that. Right, So there is there there is
Speaker 1: the possibility for a less cruel model of it. And
Speaker 1: at the same time, as we discussed later, there there
Speaker 1: were individuals who who specifically pointed out the practice as cruelty. Yes,
Speaker 1: and as as one rare piece of good news in
Speaker 1: this story. In the seventeen fifty six Sinographia carl Linnaeus. Again,
Speaker 1: the Swedish scholar wrote the when he was writing about
Speaker 1: turnspit dogs that as a reward for their hard work,
Speaker 1: turnspit dogs would often get to eat a piece of
Speaker 1: the steak. That's good, you know, I guess well, I
Speaker 1: doubt that the cook who's putting the hot coal in
Speaker 1: there with them is also giving them a taste of
Speaker 1: the roast. But I imagine kitchen to kitchen, it would
Speaker 1: vary to give a bit of flavor about what this
Speaker 1: was like to see in person from from people who
Speaker 1: were there witnessing it firsthand. I want to read one
Speaker 1: often sided passage that comes from a work called Anecdotes
Speaker 1: of Dogs by Edward Jesse from the nineteenth century. So
Speaker 1: here's what Jesse writes, How well do I recollect in
Speaker 1: the days of my youth watching the operations of a
Speaker 1: turnspit at the house of a worthy old Welsh clergyman
Speaker 1: in Worcestershire. As he had several borders as well as
Speaker 1: day scholars, his two turnspits had plenty to do. They
Speaker 1: were long bodied, crooked legged, and ugly dogs with a suspicious,
Speaker 1: unhappy look about them as if they were weary of
Speaker 1: the task they had to do and expected every moment
Speaker 1: to be seized upon to perform it. Cooks in those
Speaker 1: days were very cross, and if the poor animal, wearied
Speaker 1: with having a larger joint than usual to turn, stopped
Speaker 1: for a moment, the voice of the cook might be
Speaker 1: heard rating him in no very gentle terms. When we
Speaker 1: consider that a large solid piece of beef would take
Speaker 1: at least three hours before it was properly roasted, we
Speaker 1: may form some idea of the task a dog has
Speaker 1: to perform in turning a wheel. During that time, a
Speaker 1: pointer has pleasure in finding game. The terrier worries rats
Speaker 1: with considerable glee, the greyhound pursues hairs with eagerness and delight,
Speaker 1: and the bulldog even attacks bulls with the greatest of energy.
Speaker 1: While the poor turnspit performs his task by compulsion like
Speaker 1: a culprit on a treadwheel, subject to scolding or beat.
Speaker 1: If he stops a moment to rest his weary limbs,
Speaker 1: and then kicked about the kitchen when his task is over,
Speaker 1: that that's some stark condemnation. And and of course, and
Speaker 1: it dobtally, it does, it does bring to mind all
Speaker 1: of the popular chef TV reality shows in which the
Speaker 1: chef is is just nasty to humans. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: one can imagine how nasty a chef could be. Uh,
Speaker 1: this stereotypical TV chef could be to the poor, the
Speaker 1: four spit dog. I wonder why is that such a
Speaker 1: common stereotype of the angry, yelling chef who's meaned all
Speaker 1: the cooks working for them? Is that? Is that just
Speaker 1: an accident a cultural contingency? Or does is does that
Speaker 1: grow naturally out of the kind of work that happens
Speaker 1: in kitchens, with the heat and the rapid pace of
Speaker 1: work and everything. I don't know, it'd be interesting to
Speaker 1: hear from people because I know it, and I've heard
Speaker 1: shows where people are talking about like regional differences. Um,
Speaker 1: goodness me. I'm terrible remembering what podcasts I've listened to before,
Speaker 1: what what radio shows? But I specifically remember listening to
Speaker 1: a show. No, it was a documentary, it was it
Speaker 1: was visual about I believe it was a British couple
Speaker 1: that had moved to Thailand to open a Thai restaurant
Speaker 1: and they're using Thai chefs, and I believe it was
Speaker 1: the wife was was Thai and the husband was was British,
Speaker 1: and so he was used to the more British kitchen culture.
Speaker 1: And when they when they were setting up a shop
Speaker 1: in Thailand, like she advised him, Look, you can't yell
Speaker 1: at the staff like you you did back in Britain.
Speaker 1: It's a different culture here. If you yell at them,
Speaker 1: they just won't come back to work the next day.
Speaker 1: So that anecdote in that show would lead me to
Speaker 1: believe that it does gonna is. It is going to
Speaker 1: vary greatly from culture to culture, and maybe what we
Speaker 1: see on TV IS is largely a product of sort
Speaker 1: of the you know, the big city high cuisine and um,
Speaker 1: you know, major metropolitan parts of Europe and the United States,
Speaker 1: or maybe even something specifically about like angry British food
Speaker 1: cuisine culture, because almost all the angry chefs I can
Speaker 1: think of are like British guys. Yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: see what the gentle chef, but maybe it just takes
Speaker 1: forever for the for the food to come out. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you never really know what they were like
Speaker 1: actually in their work. But I mean as far as
Speaker 1: TV personas come along, there were some gentle chefs I
Speaker 1: think of Paul Prudog. You know, he always seemed like
Speaker 1: such a lovely, gentle soul. But I wanted to turn
Speaker 1: back to turnspit dogs for a second here. Uh So,
Speaker 1: there's a fact about them that cited in multiple sources
Speaker 1: that I thought was interesting, which is that apparently it
Speaker 1: was a well known custom on Sundays to take turnspit
Speaker 1: dogs out of the kitchen and bring them to church
Speaker 1: with you. Uh, not just to have his companions at church,
Speaker 1: but specifically to be used quote as foot warmers. Foot warmers,
Speaker 1: I guess, so you put your feet on the dog
Speaker 1: and the dog is warm. Maybe I assume it's cold
Speaker 1: in church, and that I don't know, lessons the pain
Speaker 1: of going to church somewhat, I guess. And it sounds
Speaker 1: like a step up for the dog, But not that
Speaker 1: that's saying much though. This actually led to a number
Speaker 1: of popular church jokes at the expense of the poor
Speaker 1: turnspit dogs. Bondison notes a couple of these. I'll read
Speaker 1: a quote from from jam Bondison quote. According to an
Speaker 1: eighteenth century joke, the Bishop of Gloucester once preached to
Speaker 1: a church in Bath, uttering the line it was then
Speaker 1: that Ezekiel saw the wheels. This is the passage from
Speaker 1: the prophet ezekiels is the wheels coming in the sky
Speaker 1: and uh and Boniston continues at the mention of this
Speaker 1: dreaded word, all the turnspit dogs ran for the door,
Speaker 1: their tails between their legs, and then Bondison mentions that
Speaker 1: another version of the story has the bishop talking about
Speaker 1: the horrors of hell, where there's like roasting and turning
Speaker 1: on a spit, and again the mention of these words
Speaker 1: sends all the foot warmer dogs running to escape. And
Speaker 1: it's it's a clever joke, but it does get back
Speaker 1: to the idea that the dogs. Dogs are intelligent, and
Speaker 1: dogs would pick up on the cues. They might well
Speaker 1: pick up on the particular words like this, but but
Speaker 1: even on I think even the smaller signs, like they're
Speaker 1: just just little clues that everyone is preparing for a
Speaker 1: feast right now, Robert, I think you turned up some
Speaker 1: examples of other animals that were used in a similar fashion. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is something that b brings up in their book, because,
Speaker 1: like we've been touching on, the dog was awfully smart,
Speaker 1: perhaps too smart for the work, and could run and hide.
Speaker 1: Uh So there were some who said that the turnspit
Speaker 1: goose was the preferred method, uh, that you would get
Speaker 1: you would get a goose in there, and it would
Speaker 1: perform better and longer, uh and would be less prone
Speaker 1: to outthink the chefs. So we have thus far we
Speaker 1: have turnspit children, turnspit dogs, and the turnspit goose. But
Speaker 1: of course there was like there was an arc of
Speaker 1: the turnspit dog, the turnspit dog is a convention came
Speaker 1: and went. Jan Bondison writes that in seventeen fifty h
Speaker 1: turnspit dogs would be found all over the place in
Speaker 1: Great Britain, extremely common. By eighteen fifty people still knew
Speaker 1: about them. It was like a thing you could make
Speaker 1: reference to and and people knew what it was. But
Speaker 1: they'd become more scarce at that point, and by nineteen
Speaker 1: hundred they had almost completely vanished. There. There were just
Speaker 1: a few here and there left. Uh. And of course
Speaker 1: the main reason is the increasing availability of mechanical alternatives
Speaker 1: like clock jacks, which we will talk about more in
Speaker 1: a bit. But there was also an accompanying shift in
Speaker 1: social norms I think, not just against animal cruelty, which
Speaker 1: was a thing that changed somewhat in social conventions over time,
Speaker 1: but by the middle of the nineteenth century, when turnspit
Speaker 1: dogs were increasingly rare to be seen, with a turnspit
Speaker 1: dog in your kitchen came to be interpreted as a
Speaker 1: sign of poverty, of sort of backwardness or old fashioned nous,
Speaker 1: or just of eccentricity. It was the kind of thing
Speaker 1: you might have, like you're saying at the at the
Speaker 1: cracker barrel wall, you know, people putting up weird stuff,
Speaker 1: having a strange attraction at their inn or restaurant. Uh,
Speaker 1: you could have a turnspit dog. Would be like, isn't
Speaker 1: that quaint? The old school turnspit dog. Like this would
Speaker 1: be even like today, of course even more so, like
Speaker 1: this would be a moment in a horror film. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know the cup young couck ball There, car breaks
Speaker 1: down and they're invited into the you know, the warm uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the living room of this eccentric individual, and
Speaker 1: they're on the wall is a turnspit dog running in
Speaker 1: its wheel, Uh to operate the rotissary. Right, It's a
Speaker 1: sign you should turn around and go back. Now we'll
Speaker 1: come back to the question of whether the turnspit dog
Speaker 1: was actually a breed of dog or not. But Bondison
Speaker 1: argues that the disuse of the wheel turned spits over time,
Speaker 1: and you know again by the beginning of the twentieth
Speaker 1: century that almost completely vanished. The disuse of this technology
Speaker 1: led to the extinction of the breed of dog known
Speaker 1: as the turnspit dog, since the looks and the temperament
Speaker 1: of the dog made them mostly unattractive as pets. In fact,
Speaker 1: one of the extremely few records of turnspit dogs being
Speaker 1: kept as pets after the decline of their role in
Speaker 1: the kitchens is that Queen Victoria herself kept three quote
Speaker 1: turnspit tykes as personal pets at winds Or Castle. So
Speaker 1: whatever you think of Queen Victoria otherwise she she took
Speaker 1: in some turnspit tykes. Well, yeah, that was pretty decent.
Speaker 1: And you know what, it also speaks we touched on
Speaker 1: the cleverness that would still be innate in the turn
Speaker 1: spit dog. But also like it also shows that the
Speaker 1: dogs other long standing ability uh could not be bred
Speaker 1: out of it its ability to bond with humans, to
Speaker 1: you know, to look up at humans with those uh,
Speaker 1: those eyes that seem you know, almost you know, watery
Speaker 1: with devotion and emotion and and and enabling this bond
Speaker 1: to form and and and indeed a bond to form
Speaker 1: with the most powerful individual insaid country, the bond between
Speaker 1: them and the lowest domesticated animal. Well, you know, you
Speaker 1: you could identify many of the great powers of the
Speaker 1: dog as a species. You know, they have an amazing
Speaker 1: sense of smell. You can you can see their determination
Speaker 1: and dedication and hard work in many cases to the
Speaker 1: tasks they set to. But I think it could easily
Speaker 1: be argued that the ultimate superpower of the dog is
Speaker 1: their ability to form emotional connections with humans more so
Speaker 1: than any other. After all, they've they've lived alongside us
Speaker 1: so long, longer again than any of the domesticated animals.
Speaker 1: All Right, on that note, we're going to take another break,
Speaker 1: and when we come back, we're gonna get into the
Speaker 1: legacy of the turnspit dog. Alright, we're back, all right.
Speaker 1: I think we should talk a bit about the legacy
Speaker 1: of the turnspit dog in English literature, because references to
Speaker 1: them show up in English literature roughly from like the
Speaker 1: fifteen hundreds, when the turnspit dog first became popular, uh,
Speaker 1: roughly to the eighteen hundreds, it kind of cut off
Speaker 1: after in the twentieth century. And it makes sense, right
Speaker 1: because if especially in in in Britain, if this was
Speaker 1: something that was to be found in pretty much every household,
Speaker 1: or in a lot of households anyway, it would be
Speaker 1: a common frame. There would be a common frame of reference.
Speaker 1: It would be a common even in perhaps a metaphor
Speaker 1: for expressing something about the human condition. And so it
Speaker 1: might not surprise you that, since it goes back to
Speaker 1: the hundreds, it shows up in Shakespeare. In Shakespeare's Comedy
Speaker 1: of Errors, Dromeo of Syracuse says, I amazed ran from
Speaker 1: her as a witch, And I think, if my breast
Speaker 1: had not been made of faith in my heart of steel,
Speaker 1: she had transformed me into a curtail dog and made
Speaker 1: me turn in the wheel. So curtailed dog there refers,
Speaker 1: I think, to the docking of the tail, and curtailed
Speaker 1: like cut off, and and that seems to have something
Speaker 1: to do with the social class or status or value
Speaker 1: of the dogs, like the the more valuable breeds that
Speaker 1: would would have belonged to rich people. I think we're
Speaker 1: more like to have the full tail, whereas the tail
Speaker 1: was curtailed in breeds that were maybe for working, like
Speaker 1: in the kitchen. That's where we get the word curtail. Yes,
Speaker 1: oh my goodness, all right, I'm all sorts of discoveries
Speaker 1: are taking place with the stopping. Well, actually, I want
Speaker 1: to go back. I'm not sure that's where we get
Speaker 1: the word curtail. I mean I think that means cut short.
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, but let's just say that is where
Speaker 1: we get But by Brian Cummins account, usually a curtail
Speaker 1: dog in Shakespearean references is a reference to a turnspit dog.
Speaker 1: There's another quote in The Mary Wives of windsor quote
Speaker 1: Hope is a kurtil dog in some affairs, and Cummins
Speaker 1: links this to the futility of hope in some cases,
Speaker 1: like to the futility of the work in the turnspit wheel,
Speaker 1: that it just goes on and on. Another one is
Speaker 1: that some authors have even alleged that the saying every
Speaker 1: dog has its day comes from the turnspit dog tradition.
Speaker 1: I think this is not proven. I can't find strong
Speaker 1: evidence linking the saying to the roasting spit. But the
Speaker 1: the idea is that since many kitchens would have two dogs,
Speaker 1: in some cases they would trade off every other day,
Speaker 1: so you'd have a day where you work in the
Speaker 1: wheel and then you'd have a day of rest. And
Speaker 1: from what I can tell, this English expression does probably
Speaker 1: show up during the Tudor period in the fifteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: which is also the time when turnspit dog wheels became
Speaker 1: common in England, but again I can't prove that's where
Speaker 1: the phrase comes from. Interesting, yeah, and it's like there's
Speaker 1: this handy example of of of of cruelty in every household,
Speaker 1: and of course it makes its way into language or
Speaker 1: in this case potentially. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's like every reference
Speaker 1: to it in English literature is to the fact that
Speaker 1: it is wretched work, that it's something you don't want
Speaker 1: to have to do, that it's hard, that it can
Speaker 1: be cruel. In fact, even not just not just hard
Speaker 1: work and cruel, but Sissaphian literally, because Bondison also quotes
Speaker 1: a quote a rare collection of poems entitled Norfolk Drollery,
Speaker 1: And here's the quote. This I can us he goes
Speaker 1: around around a hundred times and never touches ground, and
Speaker 1: in the middle circle of the air he draws a
Speaker 1: circle like a conjurer with eagerness, he still does forward
Speaker 1: tend like Sisyphus, whose journey has no end. Of course,
Speaker 1: is the what the Titan that is punished by having
Speaker 1: to push the rock up the hill and then it
Speaker 1: rolls back down. Yeah, I don't know if it's Titan,
Speaker 1: you're probably right about that. Yeah, but in Greek mythology,
Speaker 1: having to push the boulder up the hill only to
Speaker 1: have it roll back down again every time, he's somebody
Speaker 1: who ticked off a guy. That But that's interesting because
Speaker 1: then why a mythology is usually the handy metaphor to
Speaker 1: turn to. It's like, for this period of time, you
Speaker 1: had to replace Sisiphus. You'd replaced me because you had
Speaker 1: the real life Sysiphus installed in your home. That's the
Speaker 1: epic struggle that everybody can relate to because they've seen
Speaker 1: one of these in the kitchen. Uh. And it turns
Speaker 1: out we mentioned this earlier, but there were other similar
Speaker 1: dog powered machines in human history. For some reason, always
Speaker 1: especially in Whales, I don't know live at whales, and
Speaker 1: Western England seemed like the epicenter for dog powered machines.
Speaker 1: So you had dog powered butter turns dog powered fruit presses,
Speaker 1: dog powered grain wheels, even water wheels to draw water
Speaker 1: up from a well. And then later I was reading
Speaker 1: about how in England and in the United States there
Speaker 1: were a few examples of dog powered printing presses. Wow, Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, it really sounds like we're almost getting into
Speaker 1: the realm of dog punk. I think, yeah, well, that
Speaker 1: could be a great like whole family plus dog halloween costumes,
Speaker 1: some kind of dog punk outfit actually, and that's someone
Speaker 1: should do this. You could have a scenario where it's
Speaker 1: like a dog punk world, but of course the dogs
Speaker 1: are heroes and they of course escape and repel, so
Speaker 1: sort of like dog punk meets rats of nim basically
Speaker 1: rights itself. Yeah. Uh so we we talked before about
Speaker 1: the question of whether the turnspit dog was actually a
Speaker 1: breed of dog. There's been a lot of speculation about
Speaker 1: which dog breeds most resemble or are most moosely related
Speaker 1: to the turnspit dog. According to Bondison, the docks In
Speaker 1: and the Bassett hound have been proposed, but Boniston thinks
Speaker 1: these are bad candidates. Maybe better candidates for relations are
Speaker 1: the glen of imaal terrier, which greatly resembles historical reports
Speaker 1: of the turnspit dogs though has a more terrier like head,
Speaker 1: and this was but this was also a dog that
Speaker 1: was definitely used to hunt vermin. Yes, so we're getting
Speaker 1: into that area to where perhaps this is a dog
Speaker 1: that had a dual role, like we have these rat
Speaker 1: catcher dogs. I need something to turn this wheel. Go
Speaker 1: grab one of those rat catcher dogs and throw in
Speaker 1: the wheel. Yeah. I think that's highly plausible, especially early on,
Speaker 1: you know, and maybe they were bred more for wheel
Speaker 1: duties as time went on. Another bit better candidate also
Speaker 1: is apparently the Welsh corgy, which is ironic because of
Speaker 1: the famous Welsh corgy Corgis, who are royal companions at
Speaker 1: the castles of the British monarchy. Which might sort of
Speaker 1: fit with the story of the nineteenth century Queen Victoria
Speaker 1: taking in turnspit dogs as pets, I mean, because it
Speaker 1: perhaps you end up with another selective breeding situation. The
Speaker 1: cutest of the turnspit dogs are taken in by the queen,
Speaker 1: and you get you get Corgis. I can see it,
Speaker 1: though I don't know how far back corgyes go. Corny
Speaker 1: might that may not actually match up with the Corky
Speaker 1: lineage and perhaps we'll hear from corky breeders in that right.
Speaker 1: So Cummins ultimately argues that, given all of the disparate
Speaker 1: reports about size, appearance, coat, and so forth, that the
Speaker 1: turnspit dog, in his mind, probably was not a distinct
Speaker 1: breed of dog, but rather was any small dog that
Speaker 1: could be trained to turn the wheel, though he believes
Speaker 1: they were mostly derived from terrier breeds. So we've got
Speaker 1: these different I think it's not fully settled whether the
Speaker 1: turnspit dog was a breed of dog, or was in
Speaker 1: any large part maybe sort of a breed of dog,
Speaker 1: or just was was a class of types of dogs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like we might be in that area where it was
Speaker 1: on its way in some regions towards becoming a breed.
Speaker 1: But ultimately, and thankfully, the practice does go away. There
Speaker 1: is one known taxidermy turnspit dog at the Abergavenny Museum
Speaker 1: in Wales. It's a named Whiskey. I've included a picture
Speaker 1: for you to look at here, Robert. I mean it's
Speaker 1: a small dog with short kind of bent or crooked legs,
Speaker 1: and it is a cute dog. I could see a
Speaker 1: dog like this, uh, you know, earning its way out
Speaker 1: of the wheel and into the hearts of a queen. Now,
Speaker 1: b rights that turnspit dogs were used in America into
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, and uh, and that you had an
Speaker 1: early animal rights advocate by the name of Henry Berg
Speaker 1: who lobbied against their use, and he ultimately succeeded in
Speaker 1: bringing some shame to the practice, but with limited consequences. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were there were at least some cases where he
Speaker 1: like identified turnspit dogs that were being used in some
Speaker 1: cities as like as where there was obvious cruelty, and
Speaker 1: he like took the people who were who owned the
Speaker 1: dogs to court. Yeah, and he would make surprise visits
Speaker 1: and kitchens to catch the dogs and they would use
Speaker 1: and reportedly be rights. In some cases he found that
Speaker 1: the dogs had been replaced by young black children. It's horrible.
Speaker 1: It commins rights about that too, that in some cases
Speaker 1: when the dogs were removed. Uh, that human children were
Speaker 1: used in the role, especially black children, and that Berg
Speaker 1: tried to to advocate on behalf of the children who
Speaker 1: were put through this cruelty to in some cases arguing
Speaker 1: that like, will children not be given the same rights
Speaker 1: as an animal? Yeah, thankfully. However, you know, even though
Speaker 1: we started with children and then dogs into the picture
Speaker 1: than geese into the picture. Thankfully, going back to children
Speaker 1: is not the change that ultimately brought the end of
Speaker 1: the turnspit dog. Right, just as dogs replaced some human
Speaker 1: turnspits early on, automotive power ultimately replaced the majority of dogs.
Speaker 1: And and it started not the majority, but it started
Speaker 1: somewhat as early as the sixteenth century and would just
Speaker 1: go on to replace dogs more and more for spit
Speaker 1: turning as time went on. So bonda And writes that
Speaker 1: Leonardo da Vinci, of course invented an automatic spit turning
Speaker 1: device that was called a smoke jack, and it worked
Speaker 1: sort of on the principle of a windmill, except inside
Speaker 1: a chimney. So smoke and hot air rising from the
Speaker 1: fireplace up into the chimney would rotate a turbine with
Speaker 1: several blades, and then the turbine, driven by the smoke
Speaker 1: and the rising gases, would generate rotational energy that could
Speaker 1: be transferred by belt or chain to the roasting spit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a clever, clever invention. It would later see some use.
Speaker 1: One of the drawbacks to it, of course, is that
Speaker 1: you do have to Uh, you have to feed a
Speaker 1: lot of fuel to the fire. You have to keep
Speaker 1: the fire up. You have to keep that updraft powerful
Speaker 1: enough to turn the machinery. Yeah, there were several problems
Speaker 1: with the smoke jack model. Uh. It was improved upon
Speaker 1: incrementally in later decades after da Vinci's invention of it.
Speaker 1: Bondison notes that records indicate smoke jack's were in use
Speaker 1: in England during the time of Samuel Peeps, who was
Speaker 1: an English naval administrator and prolific diarist whose journals give
Speaker 1: the window into much about what English life was like
Speaker 1: at the time, which was like sixteen thirty three to
Speaker 1: seventeen oh three. But even these later improved models of
Speaker 1: smoke jack's were still dirty, they were unreliable, and yeah,
Speaker 1: they required a very hot fire and a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, putting off, so a lot of fuel essentially
Speaker 1: to get them spinning at the right rate. But even
Speaker 1: with those limitations they could do the work of a
Speaker 1: lot of dogs. Bondison writes quote in the early nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: Lowther Castle near Penrith had a particularly advanced smoke jack drive,
Speaker 1: driving eight horizontal and four vertical spits, saving the labor
Speaker 1: of not less than twelve turnspit dogs. But another automated solution,
Speaker 1: and I think the one that ultimately really replaced turnspit dogs,
Speaker 1: was also in existence by the sixteenth century, and this
Speaker 1: was the clock jack, sometimes called the meat jack, had
Speaker 1: other names as well. Yeah, the clock jack's used a
Speaker 1: suspended weight or a spring that you would wind up
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the cooking process to store potential
Speaker 1: energy that would slowly be released with a steady rotation mechanism,
Speaker 1: and it worked much better than any of the other
Speaker 1: known methods. Yeah. Basically consisted of a weight suspended from
Speaker 1: a cord and wound around a cylinder. The weight slowly descended,
Speaker 1: the power transferred through a series of cogs and pulleys
Speaker 1: and powered one or even multiple spits. Uh. Sometimes there
Speaker 1: was even a bell included which would ring when it
Speaker 1: stopped when the food was done. Even uh So, some
Speaker 1: commentators have likened it to a modern microwave in that respect.
Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting, But did it have a popcorn function? No,
Speaker 1: it didn't, I bet not, So you might be asking
Speaker 1: the question, Wait a second. If clock jacks existed since
Speaker 1: the sixteenth century as long as smoke jacks and almost
Speaker 1: as long as the turnspit dogs. Like, why were inferior
Speaker 1: turnspit engines such as dogs or smoke jacks or whatever
Speaker 1: used at all? And the main answer here has cost.
Speaker 1: You know, clock jacks, especially early on, were expensive. They
Speaker 1: these were mechanisms that had intricate you know, clockwork issue
Speaker 1: designs which were too expensive for standard homes and ends.
Speaker 1: But I think as time went on, as they became
Speaker 1: cheaper to produce or mass produce, you could get them
Speaker 1: cheaper and more people would replace their turnspit dogs with
Speaker 1: an automatic system like a clock jack. And indeed Be
Speaker 1: points out that by around seventy eight and the meat
Speaker 1: jack was just highly praised as as a method to
Speaker 1: keep the meat turning. Uh. And you actually would find
Speaker 1: them in nearly half of English households. Uh. And that's
Speaker 1: of all households, not just the rich ones, but that
Speaker 1: just all English households. Uh. You know these culinary robots
Speaker 1: as being caused them, Uh, they did the job. They
Speaker 1: didn't invoke even a tinge of shame. Uh. And it
Speaker 1: wouldn't run off and hide like a turns fit dog.
Speaker 1: And we know this, we know that it was in
Speaker 1: in pretty much half of all households based on probate
Speaker 1: inventories of the deceased, so this would be where you know,
Speaker 1: they go. They had records of what were in the
Speaker 1: households of people who had died, and so they knew
Speaker 1: like this house had had a head of clock jack,
Speaker 1: this house had a clock jack, and ultimately we can
Speaker 1: say like half of England had a clock jack in
Speaker 1: their house, thus driving away the necessity of the turnspit dog.
Speaker 1: So you would hope that that what would have happened
Speaker 1: historically is that there was a great awakening of people,
Speaker 1: you know, turning away from animal cruelty and human cruelty
Speaker 1: for these these biologically powered spits and saying hey, there's
Speaker 1: a better way. But no, it sounds like probably it
Speaker 1: was more like technology and economics that played the main
Speaker 1: role in replacing dogs and humans to turn spits. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so you you had you know a number of
Speaker 1: these gadgets came into play, not only the clockwork jack
Speaker 1: but also the smoke jack, which whom entered earlier had
Speaker 1: become the designs had become better. Still, there were certain
Speaker 1: design problems with it, but you saw them implemented. Um
Speaker 1: other English inventors experimented with steam water clock were various,
Speaker 1: like even more elaborate clock work wonders. Uh. You. Spit
Speaker 1: roasting meat was just such a central part of the
Speaker 1: English way of life that it attracted the sort of
Speaker 1: endless innovation that we see now and things like coffee preparation.
Speaker 1: You know, like everybody's got to have their coffee, and
Speaker 1: so you see so many endless varieties of ways to
Speaker 1: make a cup of coffee, and still continue to see
Speaker 1: new innovations in coffee percolation design, right. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: of course once electricity came along, I think that was
Speaker 1: a huge game changer, right, because now rotisseries pretty much
Speaker 1: all of them are going to be electrically powered. Right.
Speaker 1: And the other big factor that b points out is that,
Speaker 1: you know, with with with all these jacks, we had
Speaker 1: an increasingly high tech invention based around rather old cooking methodology,
Speaker 1: the like open hearth cooking, cooking something in front of
Speaker 1: that big open fireplace. But then this went out of
Speaker 1: style during the mid nineteenth century, and so did the
Speaker 1: meat jack and its related meat turning robots. Though of course,
Speaker 1: just spit roasting itself of course, did not go away.
Speaker 1: Spit roasting itself lives on as to do various mechanical rotisseries.
Speaker 1: You can you can buy them for your backyard grill.
Speaker 1: You can buy you can you know, certainly you can
Speaker 1: see them at the grocery store, the butcher shopper anywhere. Uh,
Speaker 1: chickens or other meats are are, you know, turning about
Speaker 1: and cooking their own juices. But thankfully you will not
Speaker 1: find dogs turning tiny wheels to power them. I gotta
Speaker 1: say this one was interesting, but it tugged on my
Speaker 1: heart strings. Yeah, I mean, and they certainly. I mean
Speaker 1: in a way it's this is human techno history, right,
Speaker 1: you have you have to consider the light in the dark. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But I mean also just seeing the way changes in
Speaker 1: technology and culture are constantly interacting with each other as
Speaker 1: time goes on, the way the technology influences what's culturally
Speaker 1: appropriate and acceptable and that, and then then cultural values
Speaker 1: affecting what kind of technology is in demand. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: then also I'm so interested in the fact that you had, uh,
Speaker 1: some very old technologies that were remaining the same, but
Speaker 1: this one aspect of the process kept getting altered, you know,
Speaker 1: like the cauldron and the spit itself. Uh, there's nothing
Speaker 1: modern about that that the hearth itself did not change
Speaker 1: for so long, but there was like a one pivot
Speaker 1: in the process that was where you saw all this
Speaker 1: innovation and then ultimately everything else changes as well. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: now in the twenty one century, we can cook all
Speaker 1: of our food in the microwave. Yes, and hopefully I
Speaker 1: think the plan is so this November, of course, we
Speaker 1: are doing a lot of food based episodes that you know,
Speaker 1: we'll do food based episodes the rest of the year
Speaker 1: as well as well. We have already, but we wanted
Speaker 1: to really focus in on food given that this is
Speaker 1: a period of feast uh traditionally and especially in America.
Speaker 1: So hopefully we're gonna get to the microwave this month
Speaker 1: as well. It'll melt your brain in the best way,
Speaker 1: all right. Sure everybody has some thoughts on this. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, whether you're a fan of spitted turning meat
Speaker 1: or a fan of dogs or like you know, all
Speaker 1: of us. Uh, you know someone who is, you know,
Speaker 1: starkly offended by the prospect of putting children to work,
Speaker 1: five year olds to work in a in a kitchen, uh,
Speaker 1: performing manual labor. Uh. We would love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You can reach out to us a number of different ways.
Speaker 1: You can also find the podcast at invention pod dot com.
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Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson.
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