Speaker 1: You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what will?
Speaker 2: What's that mango?
Speaker 1: I was reading about Spaghettio's last night doing a deep
Speaker 1: dive because that is how I spend most of my wednesdays.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what else would you do?
Speaker 1: Nothing? Of course? But did you know that Spaghettios, which
Speaker 1: came out in the nineteen sixties, wasn't the first spaghetti
Speaker 1: in a can? I did not. It's so bizarre to
Speaker 1: be Apparently, for a few decades before, you could get
Speaker 1: a tin of saucetuff spaghetti, but it was always super
Speaker 1: mushy and no one could get the consistency right to
Speaker 1: last on the shelf. That is until Campbell's figured it
Speaker 1: out in the nineteen sixties. And once they had this
Speaker 1: new pasta technology, they combined it with the popularity of
Speaker 1: cheerios so that kids could eat their pasta in a spoon,
Speaker 1: which was a brand new novelty food for the world.
Speaker 2: You know, if there's one thing I feel like my
Speaker 2: kids have missed out on is the fact that they've
Speaker 2: really not experienced things like Spaghettios and those little raviolis
Speaker 2: and all the different forms of Chef Boyardi treats. I
Speaker 2: definitely had my share of them as a kid. But actually,
Speaker 2: I'd never thought about Teios being an inspiration for Spaghettios.
Speaker 2: But I guess they both have o's in the name,
Speaker 2: so now it all makes sense.
Speaker 1: I know, there's a whole world of like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: my kids haven't had like Hamburger, Helper or like all
Speaker 1: these other.
Speaker 3: Right, like yeah, yeah, what are we doing.
Speaker 1: The funny thing is about how Spaghettio's was marketed, and
Speaker 1: the ads are pretty great. Campbell's claimed Spaghettio's would finally
Speaker 1: end the trauma of eating long stranded spaghetti, which I
Speaker 1: think is just so perfect, and they declared it the
Speaker 1: greatest invention since the napkin. WHOA, I don't know why
Speaker 1: the napkin is getting so much praise. It feels like
Speaker 1: if your hands are dirty, you just wipe it on
Speaker 1: leaves or something. It wasn't like that much jumped to
Speaker 1: move the clot But the most interesting thing about the
Speaker 1: article to me was that even though Spaghettio's was meant
Speaker 1: to be this convenience food snackstack, this newsletter puts it
Speaker 1: the contents of the can get dumped into a bowl
Speaker 1: which gets shoveld into your mouth and whether or not
Speaker 1: you heat it up is up to you. But because
Speaker 1: Julia Child became popular around the same time that Spaghettio's
Speaker 1: was getting popular, Campbells tried to have it both ways,
Speaker 1: and they tried to make spaghettios not just a convenience
Speaker 1: food but also something you could make fancy. So they
Speaker 1: released all these like gourmet recipes, including a recipe for bacon,
Speaker 1: onion and green bean Neapolitan spaghetti, I guess, and they said,
Speaker 1: either you can use spaghetti and cheese, or you can
Speaker 1: use spaghettios and you'd serve it cor at a dinner party. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I had such a good time on the Snackstack website
Speaker 1: learning about everything from why rc cola is so popular
Speaker 1: in Tajikistan to the romantic reason why goldfish crackers are
Speaker 1: shaped like goldfish, and I thought, why not invite the author,
Speaker 1: Doug Mack, onto chat about snacks today, So that's what
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 2: That is awesome. Doug is such a fascinating guy. I
Speaker 2: cannot wait to hear this interview.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't wait for you to hear it too.
Speaker 1: So let's dive in Hey, there are podcast listeners. It's
Speaker 1: Mongish Articular aka your pal Mango, and I have a
Speaker 1: special guest in studio here today. He is a wonderful writer.
Speaker 1: We've had on the show a long, long time ago.
Speaker 1: His name is Doug mac. He wrote this book I
Speaker 1: Loved the not Quite States of America, and since then
Speaker 1: I have been absolutely obsessed with this newsletter and website
Speaker 1: he runs. It's called Snackstack. You can find it at
Speaker 1: snackstack dot net. And he delves into and solves all
Speaker 1: these great mysteries about food there, including a snacking secret
Speaker 1: we talked about a few weeks ago, the story of
Speaker 1: where gummy worms come from and how it inspired a
Speaker 1: whole trend of deliciously disgusting candies. But I am so
Speaker 1: thrilled to have him in the studio chatting with me today. Doug,
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to have you here.
Speaker 3: Hello, Thanks for having me and really looking forward to this.
Speaker 3: I'm always happy to talk about snacks and stack adjacent things.
Speaker 1: So I come from a family of inveterate snackers, like
Speaker 1: we would rather snack than eat meals. For the most part,
Speaker 1: we love Bombay street foods. The Super Bowl was a
Speaker 1: big event in my house, just because it was sort
Speaker 1: of like a snack buffet that constituted dinner. But I'm curious,
Speaker 1: where is your fascination with snacks coming from.
Speaker 3: I mean, I am also a big snacker. Sola comes
Speaker 3: because he doesn't love snacks, right, But from a journalistic
Speaker 3: point of view, I think that I was just interested
Speaker 3: in learning those stories because these are things that we
Speaker 3: so often take for granted, Especially in food journalism. Stacks
Speaker 3: are usually seen as junk food, right, or instant gratification,
Speaker 3: perceptions that they don't have a rich history or the
Speaker 3: soul of some elaborate meal it takes hours to cook,
Speaker 3: or has centuries of tradition and symbolism. But I think
Speaker 3: that's wrong. Snacks can embody all of that too. They
Speaker 3: have their own story to tell in their own terms.
Speaker 3: Before I got into food writing, I was a travel
Speaker 3: writer for about fifteen years. I've always loved looking at
Speaker 3: the little details of a place and using them as
Speaker 3: a lens into personal stories or broader issues of culture
Speaker 3: in place and politics. You know, stacks are such an
Speaker 3: embodiment of everyday life. There are a lot of stories
Speaker 3: embedded in these little things that we kind of graze
Speaker 3: on the rect the day, but also I do love
Speaker 3: to snack, and snacks are just enjoyful things, right, It's
Speaker 3: fun to eat them and it's fun to learn about them.
Speaker 1: When we started Mental Flaws, I learned about this writer
Speaker 1: that you have referenced, Clementine Paddleford, and how she wasn't
Speaker 1: given these opportunities that most people, most men would get,
Speaker 1: and so she was given food and just used food
Speaker 1: as this prism to see the world and tell the
Speaker 1: most exciting stories. In that way, using snacks as a
Speaker 1: prism to see and understand cultures is just something I
Speaker 1: really really love about your work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you. And she was such an influential writer
Speaker 3: in the mid century. It's such a shame that her
Speaker 3: name has been largely forgotten because if you go back
Speaker 3: through magazine archives from that era, she's everywhere, and she's
Speaker 3: supporting from across the USA. Her writing is sharp, her
Speaker 3: insights are great.
Speaker 1: She had a piper cup plane that she would fly
Speaker 1: all over and then like tell stories of how they
Speaker 1: made brownies and submarines, like it's unbelievable.
Speaker 3: She's just an amazing, amazing woman. I hope that Netflix
Speaker 3: or HBO or some staping service would make a show
Speaker 3: about her because her life is just incredible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so tell me. I used to do this when
Speaker 1: I would go places. I've got two kids, and I
Speaker 1: would just pick up different flavored potato chips or crisps.
Speaker 1: When I was in England, where if I was in Asia,
Speaker 1: I'd get all these types of candies for the kids
Speaker 1: to try. You've got two kids, what sorts of stuff
Speaker 1: have you been adventurous with them with? And what have
Speaker 1: you brought them that is either delighted or disgusted them.
Speaker 3: We were actually just in the UK ourselves over the summer,
Speaker 3: and the first thing we did when we landed at
Speaker 3: Heathrow was we're all hungry. We went down to the shop.
Speaker 3: I said, look, you see all of these there's a
Speaker 3: whole wall of potato chips here. Call them crisps, you know,
Speaker 3: explaining that it's the same thing. Don't be too intimidated. Here.
Speaker 3: We just got a few different bags and we just
Speaker 3: stood there with our luggage piled on a cart of
Speaker 3: tissues as our napkins for greasy hands, and we just
Speaker 3: ate some of these crisps. And I said, okay, now,
Speaker 3: but do you like is there anything that's different. Hey,
Speaker 3: I didn't want to be too analytical about it. We're
Speaker 3: on vacation. Oh god, Dad's going into a museum guide
Speaker 3: good already, But it was a way to remind them, like,
Speaker 3: we are in a different place, but there are some
Speaker 3: similar things. Let's kind of think about that in a
Speaker 3: way that is approachable and fun. You know, my kids
Speaker 3: are not super adventurous eaters. I wasn't when I was
Speaker 3: a kid, and so I sort of try to empathize
Speaker 3: with that. But snacks, I think, are a really good
Speaker 3: way to nudge them in a new direction because it's
Speaker 3: just one little bite. I'm not expecting you to eat
Speaker 3: a plate of something unfamiliar, and usually it's it's either
Speaker 3: from like a street flud vendor or it's from a
Speaker 3: crakily bad Just like at home, there's a certain level
Speaker 3: of familiarity to the experience, and you know, Offen their
Speaker 3: falty sweet snacks are really hitting all of the basic things.
Speaker 3: They seem like universal favorite labor profile, and so that
Speaker 3: was a good way to get them to try some
Speaker 3: new things while we are traveling. Whenever I am traveling
Speaker 3: without them, I usually do try to bring back, even
Speaker 3: if it is just a bag of potato chips or
Speaker 3: a candy. My wife and I were in Japan a
Speaker 3: year ago, just the two of us, and we brought
Speaker 3: back so many candies for the kids, even if it's
Speaker 3: just a different kind of melon flavor that they have
Speaker 3: never had.
Speaker 1: So tell me you've got this wonderful newsletter called snack Stack, Like,
Speaker 1: how are we defining a snack?
Speaker 3: I take a pretty expansive view. It's not really like
Speaker 3: a physical characteristic, but it's more of a sense of informality. Right.
Speaker 3: It's not a full meal, It's just a pause in
Speaker 3: your day as represented by food. It's often something that
Speaker 3: you will eat quickly on the dough, like a bag
Speaker 3: of chips from the gas station, or maybe a little
Speaker 3: treat from the ice cream truck or a bakery if
Speaker 3: you're walking around, or it could be something that you're
Speaker 3: eating absent mindedly. Why doing something else. You're just munching
Speaker 3: on a bowl of nuts watching TV or popcorn and
Speaker 3: movie theater classic snack experience. I think there are a
Speaker 3: lot of foods there you might say are snack adjacent
Speaker 3: or become a snack depending on circumstance. Like I wouldn't
Speaker 3: say that pizza is a snack. But if you're eating
Speaker 3: cold pizza out of the box the next day, that
Speaker 3: is a snack. Right's not dignified, And that's part of
Speaker 3: their charm. I love that.
Speaker 1: So tell me, I know you've traveled to like far
Speaker 1: flung places and found these incredible snacks that you probably
Speaker 1: can't get in the States. What are some of the
Speaker 1: snacks that are worth traveling for?
Speaker 3: So, there are a bunch of baked goods bakery items
Speaker 3: in Portugal. Lots and lots of countries have a bakery culture,
Speaker 3: but Portugal it seems kind of like it's off the
Speaker 3: charts and things that I just haven't really seen elsewhere.
Speaker 3: The two places that I really want to go and
Speaker 3: eat all the snacks are Portugal and Indonesia because they
Speaker 3: both seem to have higher than concentrations of different kinds
Speaker 3: of stacks, different flavor profiles, just to really vibrant snacking cultures.
Speaker 3: And they've also both been like crossroads or have there.
Speaker 3: Like Guy said, in the case of Portugal, it's more
Speaker 3: outgoing colonialism imperialism. But they both have a lot of
Speaker 3: connections to a lot of other places throughout history, which
Speaker 3: means that they're pulling in other flavor profiles or ingredients.
Speaker 3: There's just a lot that's being combined in these places,
Speaker 3: and a lot of rich history. And so I would
Speaker 3: love to go to Portugal and Indonesia and just eat
Speaker 3: all these stacks that I've been reading about.
Speaker 1: My dad grew up in Goa in India, which was
Speaker 1: a Portuguese territory colony, and Indonesia. You think about all
Speaker 1: the languages that are there, and like how interesting it
Speaker 1: is that you see the mix of cultures reflected in
Speaker 1: the foods of these places.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think if you only know a few
Speaker 3: words of the language, you don't know all the nuances,
Speaker 3: but you can get buying conversation. And I think that
Speaker 3: snacks are sort of like the equivalent to that. They're
Speaker 3: the basic couching to ten of foods. It's an easy
Speaker 3: entry point.
Speaker 1: I'm curious, you're from Minnesota, what are some must try
Speaker 1: snacks In Minnesota?
Speaker 3: I will say we have an amazing state fair, like
Speaker 3: I think is the best state fair on a daily
Speaker 3: attendance basis. It's the largest state fair, even larger than
Speaker 3: Texas in Iowa, and there's always a lot of great food,
Speaker 3: a lot of new foods and one of the things
Speaker 3: you'll see a lot here at the fair, and spried
Speaker 3: cheese curds, which I always thought were just like a
Speaker 3: common thing because I'm from Minnesota, and then I started
Speaker 3: traveling elsewhere and I would mention deep fried cheese skirts
Speaker 3: that people like, what are you talking about? And they
Speaker 3: are delicious, especially when they're hot out of their fire.
Speaker 3: They're so tasty. I will also say that the University
Speaker 3: of Minnesota created a lot of the most popular apples
Speaker 3: out there, including honeycrisp. There's a big apple program development
Speaker 3: there at the state Fair. Every year there's a University
Speaker 3: of Minnesota apple booth, and if they have a new
Speaker 3: flavor that they're coming out with, you can go get
Speaker 3: a preview of the next big apple and people line up.
Speaker 3: They will stand in line for quite a while to
Speaker 3: taste a new apple.
Speaker 1: I would stand in line to try a new apple.
Speaker 3: I mean absolutely. You can obviously get honey crisps and
Speaker 3: a lot of the other varietiers developed here all over
Speaker 3: the country, all over the world, but they started here.
Speaker 3: So if you come to Minnesota, you certainly have to
Speaker 3: have a honey crisp or two.
Speaker 1: That's really cool. You do this great origin story of
Speaker 1: pop rocks and how it led to all these fears,
Speaker 1: And I'm curious if you could talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 3: It's hard to imagine it now in the twenty first century,
Speaker 3: but when they first came out, you know, pop rocks,
Speaker 3: it's a really weird experience to have in your mouth
Speaker 3: the first time you do it, right, because you're like,
Speaker 3: why is this thing exploding inside of me? This probably
Speaker 3: shouldn't be happening, like even now when I have poprops
Speaker 3: and like, something is very wrong, but also I don't
Speaker 3: hate it, right, So this was nineteen seventy five that
Speaker 3: a lot of parents were kind of terrified. They test
Speaker 3: marketed them in Ontario before bringing to the US market,
Speaker 3: and they're a big hit in Windsor, Ontario. In nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy five, people in Detroit were driving across the border
Speaker 3: purchasing sixty boxes at a time. It was like this
Speaker 3: forbidden thing, and so people were like, well, I want
Speaker 3: to have that. But it comes to the USA finally
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy six, and a few test markets again,
Speaker 3: and then nationwide in nineteen seventy seven, and even right
Speaker 3: at the beginning nineteen seventy seven. There are unsubstantiated rumors
Speaker 3: about pop Rocks killing kids or sending them to the hospital.
Speaker 3: They have been available for purchasing Tacoma, for example, for
Speaker 3: one week. Within one week, they were already reports in
Speaker 3: newspapers that like, we heard a rumor that somebody's cousins, friends,
Speaker 3: dog sitter, you know, this sort of thing. Obviously, there's
Speaker 3: plenty of urban legends now with the intern, but also
Speaker 3: you can fact check things if you're diligent. But back
Speaker 3: then there's this new project. Nobody knows what's going on.
Speaker 3: It makes you feel really weird. Some parents thought that
Speaker 3: it was a gateway for hard rocks, and these rumors
Speaker 3: just fly all over you, right.
Speaker 1: That it wasn't just pop rocks. They also made like
Speaker 1: a crushed version of it called like space dust.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, there was a powdered version of power. Sorry,
Speaker 3: but there are probably were kids who were snorting that.
Speaker 3: Let's just put that out there, because I think that's
Speaker 3: where where all of our minds are heading anyway. But yeah,
Speaker 3: and that's the thing is, right, once you have pop rocks,
Speaker 3: which a is a big success, what's your spin off, Well,
Speaker 3: let's just crush them into a power sure. But there
Speaker 3: was this kid named Mikey who was famous from the
Speaker 3: Life Cereal commercials in the early in nineteen seventies, and
Speaker 3: somehow this rumor started that Mikey had died because he
Speaker 3: drank pop rocks and soda at the same time, and
Speaker 3: you know, chemical reaction, lots a bubbles, bang. He is fine.
Speaker 3: Mike is fine. But there were so many rumors.
Speaker 1: Wait, Mikey's still fine. Have we checked it?
Speaker 3: I haven't. You know what, I haven't googled him. We
Speaker 3: should do that. We assume he's fine. So by nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy nine, there were so many rumors that the manufacturer
Speaker 3: General Foods took out full page ads in forty five
Speaker 3: different newspapers around the USA with a personal message from
Speaker 3: the guy who invented pop rocks, I named William Mitchell.
Speaker 3: And he's basically like, look, I'm a nice guy. I
Speaker 3: love kids. I wouldn't do anything to hurt your kids.
Speaker 3: Pop rocks are fine. There's a photo of him with
Speaker 3: a bunch of kids, looking very wholesome and grandfatherly. They
Speaker 3: sent him on a lecture tour to schools. They sent
Speaker 3: out fifty thousand pamphlets to principles. They set up a
Speaker 3: toll free number people could call for more information and
Speaker 3: assurance that you know, no kids are dying from these.
Speaker 3: It makes your mouth feel weird, but not going to
Speaker 3: kill you. There were also rumors at the same time
Speaker 3: that pop rocks had spider eggs, also not true. So
Speaker 3: they're just trying to dispel a lot of nonsense. It
Speaker 3: didn't really help, is the thing, And so in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty General Foods pulled pop Rocks from the market and
Speaker 3: it wasn't until nineteen eighty seven that a different company
Speaker 3: bought the rights to pop Rocks and started producing them again.
Speaker 3: And now they're still around. But there was a gap
Speaker 3: there for about seven years because people were so terrified
Speaker 3: that this is going to kill our kids. It was
Speaker 3: this actual moral panic that is so crazy.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere. We've got more snacks secrets right after
Speaker 1: this break, Welcome back to Part time Genius. But we're
Speaker 1: talking all things snacks with Doug Mack. So another thing
Speaker 1: I am always fascinated by is what takes off in
Speaker 1: other countries. When cable first came to India, one of
Speaker 1: the first sitcoms that was aired there in English was
Speaker 1: Small Wonder. I don't know if you remember, it was
Speaker 1: like this eighties sitcom about this robot girl and it's
Speaker 1: not a very good show, and yet that this was
Speaker 1: the first sort of American export that was like sent
Speaker 1: and somehow was what would persist in India for a bit.
Speaker 1: It made me think of your piece on RC Cola, like,
Speaker 1: how do some of these American things end up in
Speaker 1: places around the world.
Speaker 3: God Arcy Cola is one of those brands that I'm
Speaker 3: sort of aware that it exists in the USA, but
Speaker 3: I haven't seen it in the store.
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 3: I just remember seeing it in store.
Speaker 1: It's like Shasta or like these old brands that did
Speaker 1: exist at one point but you don't see anywhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, like it's been around for a long time,
Speaker 3: but it's an icon that is also sort of forgotten.
Speaker 3: And so yeah. One thing that I really love to do,
Speaker 3: both for when I'm writing stories for Stacksack but also
Speaker 3: just when I'm trying to kill time is I love
Speaker 3: just dropping into a random city on Google street View
Speaker 3: and just looking around. Right, It's the whole travel writer thing.
Speaker 3: Even if I can't teleport there in person, I can
Speaker 3: kind of look around this treescape like try to get
Speaker 3: a sense of the energy, what's being sold here, what
Speaker 3: does the architecture looks like? All these different things. So
Speaker 3: one day I was poking around Tajikistan, as one does,
Speaker 3: and I saw a corner shop with a big sign
Speaker 3: that said arc Cola over the door, and not just
Speaker 3: like a piece of paper, but like an actual bolted
Speaker 3: to the building, new looking sign like this is serious business,
Speaker 3: like we sell ourc Cola. We really want everyone to
Speaker 3: know that. I was like, I wonder, is this just
Speaker 3: a one off? Because sometimes it is who knows? And
Speaker 3: I quickly found out that not only is it a
Speaker 3: thing in Tajikistan, but it's bigger than coke and pepsi.
Speaker 1: It's the thing. It is the thing.
Speaker 3: It is the American cola, if not the American brand
Speaker 3: in Tajikistan. And I was like, that doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3: But as soon as I say that doesn't make any sense,
Speaker 3: that my brain goes, well, it probably does, but why
Speaker 3: does it make sense? That's a better way of saying that.
Speaker 3: What's let's be curious about this, you know, be curious,
Speaker 3: not judgmental. I love that line from ted Lasso, and
Speaker 3: I think about it a lot. And so I started
Speaker 3: going down this rabbit hole, and pretty soon I was
Speaker 3: using Google Translate to look at the bottler's website in Tajikistan,
Speaker 3: and I ended up on like international development white papers
Speaker 3: from the nineteen nineties that were scanned in the far
Speaker 3: reaches of the Internet and really rainy PDFs and things
Speaker 3: like that. And basically what happened is in the early
Speaker 3: nineteen nineties, the Soviet Union that's falling apart to Jikistan
Speaker 3: becomes independent in nineteen ninety one, and there is this
Speaker 3: bottling company that sets up shops. It's a new new
Speaker 3: country and new economy, like, let's do something here, right,
Speaker 3: so bobbling company called obi Zulo, which I'm sure I'm
Speaker 3: not pronouncing right, but they're bottling mostly water and comes
Speaker 3: from this mountain stream and it's supposed to be a
Speaker 3: little bit sweet. It's very good water. They're advertising all
Speaker 3: that stuff. At the same time as the Soviet Union
Speaker 3: is collapsing, Americana has like extra potency as a brand
Speaker 3: like McDonald's opens in Moscow, Marlborough starts putting up billboards
Speaker 3: in Poland. Levi's jeans are becoming a fashion statement but
Speaker 3: also a political expression. And back then in the early nineties,
Speaker 3: ARCI Cola is a bit more of a thing in
Speaker 3: the USA, not as much as CO Cola, but it
Speaker 3: was certainly more so than now. So bottling company into Jikistan,
Speaker 3: strikes a deal with somebody. My best guess is whoever
Speaker 3: the rc Cola rights guy was, just happened to shake
Speaker 3: hands with the guy who had the bodily rights. And
Speaker 3: then Tajikistan falls into a civil war, and much of
Speaker 3: the rest of the nineteen nineties nothing is really happening
Speaker 3: with the bottling company. Then right around two thousand, they
Speaker 3: kind of get back on their feet as a nation
Speaker 3: and as an economy and as a bottling company. They
Speaker 3: already have this deal struck with rc Cola from a
Speaker 3: decade earlier, and so they run with it and it
Speaker 3: becomes really interestingly it's both a symbol of Americana. If
Speaker 3: you look at the ads, a lot of them have
Speaker 3: pictures of the wild West. But if you go to
Speaker 3: like their Facebook page and their socials, you can also
Speaker 3: find a lot of images of like specific national holidays.
Speaker 3: Like there'll be a picture of a tank, and then
Speaker 3: the graphic is like arc Cola is celebrating whatever the
Speaker 3: national holiday is. And so because it's also a symbol
Speaker 3: of economic growth, and we know our countries but simultaneously,
Speaker 3: like the brand is Americana, but the company that is
Speaker 3: bottling it here is a symbol of our national might.
Speaker 3: Coke just recently few years ago started making inroads there.
Speaker 3: But last I heard, RC Cola is still the main
Speaker 3: cola in Tajikistan because they got their first due to
Speaker 3: the political circumstances of the early nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: You said this wonderful line from Ted Lasso about being
Speaker 1: curious but not judgmental, and I think you and I
Speaker 1: had somewhat similar experiences with Carab growing up, where it
Speaker 1: was talked about as this like chocolate replacement. I'm curious
Speaker 1: about how your views on carib evolved and what the
Speaker 1: learning's were.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So for anyone who doesn't know about Arab, who
Speaker 3: hasn't been blessed with its upbringing, Arab is a tree
Speaker 3: that grows primarily around the Mediterranean. It has these large
Speaker 3: pots which have seeds and pulp inside. You can process
Speaker 3: that season pulp and make it edible. It's kind of
Speaker 3: brownish sweetish, And I would guess that most Americans who
Speaker 3: know Carab are most familiar with it as a kind
Speaker 3: of fake chocolate, because that's how it was promoted in
Speaker 3: health food stores and magazines and sort of Hippi adjacent
Speaker 3: American culture, especially in the nineteen eighties. I grew up
Speaker 3: going to a very crunchy, cooperatively run preschool in Minneapolis,
Speaker 3: and it was like a staple treat for us, you know.
Speaker 3: I was like rice cakes and carib loves. The school
Speaker 3: hated Carab because it was billed as this tastes like chocolate, right,
Speaker 3: because again, it's kind of sweet and kind of brown.
Speaker 3: I was reading an article in The New Yorker a
Speaker 3: few years ago by a writer who had an experienced
Speaker 3: very similar to mine. He said that Carab traumatized the
Speaker 3: generation and how it was like, yeah, thank you for
Speaker 3: saying that I was traumatized. I should go to therapy
Speaker 3: about this. But then I was doing my re search
Speaker 3: as a duke, and I was like, wait, no, this
Speaker 3: is all backward. Obviously it isn't chocolate. We can't expect
Speaker 3: it to be chocolate. It makes no sense for me
Speaker 3: to hate care because it doesn't taste like chocolate. It's
Speaker 3: like going on a carousel and then being mad because
Speaker 3: somebody told you it would be like going on a
Speaker 3: roller coaster. It's not the carousel's fault that it's not
Speaker 3: a roller coaster. So in the Middle East and the Mediterranean,
Speaker 3: where cab originates, it's mostly just like a sweet flavor
Speaker 3: to enjoy on its own terms, as we do with
Speaker 3: most flavors, like this is the thing that you should
Speaker 3: enjoy because this is what it is, not because we're
Speaker 3: trying to trick you and makes you think that it's
Speaker 3: the thing you actually want. And that reminded me that,
Speaker 3: of course my experience isn't universal. It didn't traumatize a generation.
Speaker 3: It traumatized a very specific generation of people who have
Speaker 3: this experience in the nineteen eighties. But the people who
Speaker 3: are most familiar with carab outside the USA, like, they're
Speaker 3: just having it because it's delicious on its own. And
Speaker 3: so I think that that's a really important thing to remember,
Speaker 3: is that, you know, just get out of the way,
Speaker 3: let careb or anything else, just sign on its own
Speaker 3: terms without trying to fool people. Because did you tell
Speaker 3: somebody that something tastes like chocolate, It better be chocolate, right,
Speaker 3: because otherwise, yeah, it is inherently going to taste different
Speaker 3: because it is not bad thing.
Speaker 1: It's funny. I studied abroad in Nepal and Tibet, and
Speaker 1: you would often receive butter tea, you know, as a
Speaker 1: beverage when you're welcomed into someone's house or like a
Speaker 1: monastery or that type of thing, and it was so
Speaker 1: hard to drink as tea. But then someone said, oh,
Speaker 1: if you think about it as a soup, it's a
Speaker 1: very different experience. And it's true that like reframing of something,
Speaker 1: it's not told to you. It's a chocolate equivalent, like
Speaker 1: it's a much better experience or a much different experience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. You should enjoy in the way that's meant
Speaker 3: to be enjoyed.
Speaker 1: You know. One of the things I loved reading about
Speaker 1: on your site was that pizza roles actually come from
Speaker 1: a guy who had started making egg rolls and realized
Speaker 1: that they could put pizza fillings in the egg rolls.
Speaker 1: And that origin blew me away. What's another snack origin
Speaker 1: story that I can use to impress people at a party?
Speaker 3: Yes, I am so much fun at parties because I
Speaker 3: have endless snacking anecdotes.
Speaker 1: Do you stand right by the snack exactly before you
Speaker 1: have the charcouterie.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you the history. No, I do try
Speaker 3: to avoid that, although there is often a monologue in
Speaker 3: my mind, and I can try to keep internal, huh,
Speaker 3: because I do often think like, oh, I know about that.
Speaker 3: I've got two that I think are especially good and
Speaker 3: will impress people at parties for sure. So one is
Speaker 3: gold dish crackers, you know, iconic Pepperidge Farm product, now
Speaker 3: available in at least ten thousand different flavors and sizes
Speaker 3: and everything. I think we have three different bags right
Speaker 3: here in my house right now. They actually originated in Switzerland.
Speaker 3: You can still get them there, the original goldfish crackers,
Speaker 3: And the reason they have that shape of the gold
Speaker 3: dish is that the creator wanted to honor his wife.
Speaker 3: Her astrological sign was pist seats, so white way fish. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the whole history of snacking, right, the whole history
Speaker 3: of snacking would be different if this guy's wife had
Speaker 3: been born at a different time of the year, like
Speaker 3: if she'd been a cancer. We might have three different
Speaker 3: bags of crab crackers in my house right now.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. I did a show on astrology, and the
Speaker 1: whole point of it was like whether or not you
Speaker 1: believe in astrology. It's happened to you because like Reagan
Speaker 1: used astrology for nuclear deep proliferation, or like, uh, the
Speaker 1: ways astrology is around you without your noticing it is crazy.
Speaker 1: But the fact that it's in my snack cabinet is
Speaker 1: not something that I figured out yet.
Speaker 3: A particular in mid century Switzerland happened to be born
Speaker 3: in a peticlar toniner, and therefore we have cold fish crackers.
Speaker 3: My other favorite food origin story is a much lesser
Speaker 3: known food called coba, which is from Madagascar. It's street
Speaker 3: food that you would often find in like a train station,
Speaker 3: bus station, that kind of place. And to make it,
Speaker 3: you take rice, flour, mashed banana, honey, and peanuts, mix
Speaker 3: them all up, put them in a banana leaf, and
Speaker 3: you steam them. So it's kind of like our very
Speaker 3: sweet tamali. You cut into slices and you sell it
Speaker 3: by this slice, very very dense, very sweet, very full
Speaker 3: of sugar, sounds delicious. That's in Madagascar, But it turns
Speaker 3: out that there is an almost identical food in Indonesia
Speaker 3: and the island of Borneo, and actually in a specific
Speaker 3: part I think it's southern Borneo, which is about five
Speaker 3: thousand miles away, right, But that also happens to be
Speaker 3: where the original inhabitants of Madagascar came from. They sailed
Speaker 3: from Borneo, we think about twelve hundred years ago. Scientists
Speaker 3: have dunge genetic analysis between the two places and so
Speaker 3: that they've confirmed that's the origin story of the human
Speaker 3: settling of Madagascar. Even if you're not a scientist studying DNA,
Speaker 3: you can make the connection by looking at some of
Speaker 3: the similarities in language and boats and other things, including cooba.
Speaker 3: So if you go to the bus stop in Madagascar
Speaker 3: and somebody is selling this sweet snack, it's really a
Speaker 3: symbol of these ancient seafares from millennia ago and the
Speaker 3: incredible journey they undertook, And you can use that particular
Speaker 3: snack to trace the roots of an entire society to
Speaker 3: a specific region across an ocean.
Speaker 1: More with Doug Mack right after this break, Welcome back
Speaker 1: to part time is where we're talking all about snacks today. So, Doug,
Speaker 1: before we end, I was amused by your stating on
Speaker 1: the record that you're skeptical of viral novelty foods. First, like,
Speaker 1: how are you defining viral novelty food, And then secondly,
Speaker 1: what is it about them that makes you so skeptical?
Speaker 3: So viral novelty foods? I would say that these are
Speaker 3: corporate foods. I'm not just talking about somebody making your recipe.
Speaker 3: That's fine, no problems with that, Go have your fue
Speaker 3: love it.
Speaker 1: I'll probably try like state fares, right, Like state fares
Speaker 1: are full of like sort of knowledge.
Speaker 3: I don't mind the crazy foods at state fairs. The
Speaker 3: Minnesota State there, which which I truly love, that is
Speaker 3: held at the end of August, beginning of September and
Speaker 3: in early July. Every year. It's this big media event
Speaker 3: when they announce all the new foods and people are
Speaker 3: posting on it on social media, their stories in the newspaper,
Speaker 3: on TV, all this stuff. I love that because those
Speaker 3: typically are independent vendors. They're trying to catch attention, but
Speaker 3: often they are just bringing in ingredients that haven't been
Speaker 3: at the fair or cultures that haven't really been represented
Speaker 3: the fair. So those and those became sort of big
Speaker 3: viral advance, at least locally because everyone's like, oh, it's
Speaker 3: a new fair food. But the viral foods that really
Speaker 3: bug me are the ones like when Taco Bell or
Speaker 3: some other big company is like, Hey, we've got this
Speaker 3: new crazy thing that you're going to want to post
Speaker 3: about on Instagram, and that I think is really really
Speaker 3: what it's about is it is internet content. And I
Speaker 3: see those as less like a joyful expression of like, hey,
Speaker 3: we want to share this thing.
Speaker 1: It's like a cross commercial opportunity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly right. It's this cynical effort to take your
Speaker 3: sense of wonder and surprise but commodify it in a
Speaker 3: way that I just find really off putting because these
Speaker 3: things are not just being in bold and flavorful, but
Speaker 3: they're supposed to give you bragging, right, And it's this
Speaker 3: corporation that's like forcing this sense of play on you,
Speaker 3: but you're supposed to be entertained on their terms, and
Speaker 3: I just find that a little bit exhausting. There's this
Speaker 3: like cheese it front trap was one of the big
Speaker 3: things from Taco Bell recently, and if somebody just made
Speaker 3: that in their own kitchen, I would think that was
Speaker 3: really fun and cool. When it's Taco Bell, it's just
Speaker 3: like hammering you over the head and being like, aren't
Speaker 3: you entertained? Isn't this fun? No? No, thank you?
Speaker 1: No, are there any snack trends that you're seeing right
Speaker 1: now that are curious or fascinating to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah. That trend that I'm starting to see and that
Speaker 3: I would love to see more of, is just even
Speaker 3: more variation within chips, in particular potato chips. Obviously there
Speaker 3: are a ton of flavors already, but in other countries
Speaker 3: they also have their own flavors. You can certainly find
Speaker 3: some of those risk from other parts of the world
Speaker 3: here in the States, but it's not always easy. I
Speaker 3: think that some of those are gonna start to hit
Speaker 3: it big and be available, you know, in every convenience store.
Speaker 1: Do you have a specific example of mine.
Speaker 3: I don't have a specific example, but I do have
Speaker 3: a specific example of packaging. When I was in Japan
Speaker 3: a year ago, you could get various snacks on the train,
Speaker 3: and Japan also has an amazing snack and culture. There
Speaker 3: was a brand I think it was called Star Chips,
Speaker 3: I want to say, and you could get them everywhere.
Speaker 3: They're sort of sold them a little kidister much like Pringles,
Speaker 3: but the version that you could buy on the trains
Speaker 3: had this really cool graphic design. It was like a
Speaker 3: version of the Great waves of the famous painting, only
Speaker 3: available limited edition on the trains. I bought the snacks
Speaker 3: just for the packaging, and I would love to see
Speaker 3: like Kringles or Fredo Lay or some more snack companies
Speaker 3: just really get some really artsy snack packages. You know,
Speaker 3: maybe that's not necessarily about the place, but I absolutely
Speaker 3: would go all in on that. I would be the
Speaker 3: guy driving from state to state to get the limited
Speaker 3: edition Texas or Washington version of whatever packaging or whatever flavor.
Speaker 3: I think that'd be kind of cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like an easy win for someone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So one last question. Chex mix is such a big
Speaker 1: thing in my family. My dad always baked up Chex
Speaker 1: mix for holidays, from Thanksgiving through the New Year. I
Speaker 1: had never really thought about the evolution of it and
Speaker 1: how first of all, how it came about, and then
Speaker 1: like how it changed, And I was curious if you
Speaker 1: could tell a little bit of that story.
Speaker 3: Chex Mix is something that's emblematic of a broader trend
Speaker 3: in stacking. The first version of Chex Mix, as far
Speaker 3: as I can tell, wasn't like a prepackaged thing. It
Speaker 3: was a recipe that appeared in Life magazine in nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty two. The idea was that this is something that
Speaker 3: you can make to entertain. You know, this is targeted
Speaker 3: toward the post war housewife. Americans are having a little
Speaker 3: bit more money, a little bit more leisure time. There
Speaker 3: is much more of like a dinner party and informal
Speaker 3: hosting at your house kind of energy in society. The
Speaker 3: entertaining vibe has gone from you we have to have
Speaker 3: find china and find silverware and all that stuff too. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we can just have people come over for drinks and snacks,
Speaker 3: but there's still certain expectations of what you're gonna have.
Speaker 3: Some thought and care has to go into it. So
Speaker 3: the idea with this recipe was, hey, housewife, here's a
Speaker 3: fun recipe that you can combine these different cereals probably
Speaker 3: have on hand and other ingredients, and then you can
Speaker 3: present it to your friends. And that's kind of nice, right,
Speaker 3: that's a little bit fancy. It's an entertaining food. And
Speaker 3: then over time the companies start to package it together
Speaker 3: and it becomes more of just like it in any
Speaker 3: time kind of thing. It's not just for parties. Now
Speaker 3: you can snack on it anytime you want. You can
Speaker 3: see the same trend. For example, an easy change the
Speaker 3: sprayable cheese in a can, which started out at about
Speaker 3: the same time. It was presented to women hosting parties
Speaker 3: as like, here's a way to just put some cheese
Speaker 3: on crackers. You can make it into little designs. It's
Speaker 3: really fancy. It's convenience food, but it's also kind of classy.
Speaker 1: It feels very mad Men, right, like you can imagine
Speaker 1: those tits.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very mad men, very much geared toward like this
Speaker 3: is a nice thing that you give to your guests.
Speaker 3: It's not an everyday thing for family, but it's also
Speaker 3: super easy. And over time, again as with checks mix,
Speaker 3: easy chase just becomes a little bit more ubiquitous. It's
Speaker 3: now it's become sort of like a stunt food, but
Speaker 3: it really wasn't a stunt food when it originated. It
Speaker 3: was a convenience food, but it was something classy that
Speaker 3: you serve at your fancy cocktail party.
Speaker 1: It was basically like a revolutionary convenience food. Right. It
Speaker 1: feels like cutting edge technology almost to be able to
Speaker 1: save your time and present these crackers.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely, it's very yeah, mid century view of
Speaker 3: the future, like, look, you can put your food in
Speaker 3: a can and spray it out well.
Speaker 1: Doug, thank you so much for being here with me.
Speaker 1: The newsletter is Snackstack. It is so good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people can look at snackstack dot net or I'm
Speaker 3: sure if you google it you will find some listings,
Speaker 3: and I hope I'm at the top of those listings.
Speaker 1: I couldn't recommend it more.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: As predicted, that was an awesome chat with Doug Mango.
Speaker 2: He is such an interesting guy and you know now
Speaker 2: I really want to organize and tasting where we do
Speaker 2: like somosas from around the world. There are different types
Speaker 2: of crazy candies and just have him talk us through
Speaker 2: all the tasting notes and origin stories. We got to
Speaker 2: get this on the book sometimes.
Speaker 1: It would be so fun. I actually talked to Doug
Speaker 1: and he's promised me that he'll come back to do
Speaker 1: a special on Super Bowl snacks. So maybe we can
Speaker 1: do a ridiculous tasting with that. Perfect That's it for
Speaker 1: today's episode. We'll be back soon with a brand new show,
Speaker 1: but from Gabe, Mary, Dylan and me. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of
Speaker 1: Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will Pearson
Speaker 1: and me Mongais Chatikler, and research by our good pal
Speaker 1: Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced by
Speaker 1: the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The
Speaker 1: show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and
Speaker 1: Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay, trustee
Speaker 1: Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.