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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and

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Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're bringing you a special

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Speaker 1: bonus episode that is not not an original Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow your Mind episode, but an episode of the other

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Speaker 1: show that Robert and I do, Invention, which is an

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Speaker 1: exploration of human techno history. Uh, stories about like the

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Speaker 1: things they made and how they in turn shaped our

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Speaker 1: lives and the development of our species. And you know

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Speaker 1: there's a reason we're doing this today is because we

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Speaker 1: checked in with the machine and it turns out there

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Speaker 1: are some of you that listen to this show but

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Speaker 1: have not gone to check out Invention yet. What's wrong

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Speaker 1: with you? No, no, we know everybody's time is precious.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of shows to listen to. We put

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Speaker 1: out a lot of shows. Some of you just haven't

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Speaker 1: gotten around to it yet. But hey, here you are.

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Speaker 1: You're already listening to an episode of Inventions. Time to

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Speaker 1: just tuck in and keep going. Don't worry. This one's

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Speaker 1: a pretty weird one, that's right. We thought it would

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Speaker 1: be great for the Stuff to blew your mind, crowd,

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Speaker 1: because this is an episode about dog based cooking technology,

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Speaker 1: not not cooking dogs, not cooking dogs to eat, but

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Speaker 1: using dogs in order to power the technology that cooks

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Speaker 1: your food. Yes, dog powered machines that help you cook

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Speaker 1: you know, other animals, not dogs. We can't stress that enough.

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Speaker 1: No dogs are going to be eaten in this episode.

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Speaker 1: So obviously we hope you enjoyed this episode of Invention.

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Speaker 1: We also really hope you go over to check out

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Speaker 1: the separate Invention feed. The podcast is called Invention. If

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Speaker 1: you don't already listen, hit the subscribe button, and then

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Speaker 1: if you really want to do us a favor, if

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Speaker 1: you're like, oh, Robert and Joe bring me these episodes

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Speaker 1: every week, I really enjoy them. I want to help

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Speaker 1: them out. You know what you can do. It's quite easy.

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Speaker 1: Just download like every episode of Invention, get them all,

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Speaker 1: listen to all of them, set our numbers on fire,

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Speaker 1: and you benefit in the process. Yeah. I mean we

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Speaker 1: we did a several different episodes over the holidays about toys,

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Speaker 1: and each episode is kind of a grab bag of

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Speaker 1: different toys. So we discussed Legos for instance, and one

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Speaker 1: of them talk about the history of Lego Blocks, how

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Speaker 1: those Lego bricks came together, and sort of a brief

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Speaker 1: history of that company, as well as other inventions like

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Speaker 1: the Yo Yo, and we mentioned the Chinese Yo Yo

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Speaker 1: and one of those episodes the Uh the Apola and

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Speaker 1: I got to use one just last weekend and at

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Speaker 1: a Chinese New Year celebration they had some on hand.

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Speaker 1: There was somebody there to to show me how to

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Speaker 1: use one, and I have to say they are hypnotic.

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Speaker 1: Do you want to be hypnotized with knowledge and fascination

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Speaker 1: of the technology of ages past? If so, check out Invention. Subscribe,

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Speaker 1: download like every episode you can find, get on it,

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Speaker 1: help us, help yourself. We think you're gonna love it.

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Speaker 1: All right, let's jump right in. Welcome to Invention, a

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Invention. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Land and I'm Joe Cormick. And today

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Speaker 1: we're continuing our trek through human techno history, and we're

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Speaker 1: going to begin with The flint Stones. Okay, Uh. If

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Speaker 1: you've ever watched The flint Stones, the Old Uh in

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixties American cartoon, you're probably familiar with their over

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Speaker 1: the top cartoon world in which you know, you have,

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Speaker 1: you have these cavemen, but they're also it's also like

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Speaker 1: a commentary to a limited extent on nineteen sixties American culture,

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Speaker 1: and they live alongside dinosaurs and they utilize them to

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Speaker 1: power pretty much every aspect of their society. Is the

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Speaker 1: satirical element there. If I've only seen the Flint Stones

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Speaker 1: Viva Rock Vegas, probably yeah, I think so, because they,

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Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, those live action adaptations did put

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Speaker 1: a lot of emphasis on the dinosaur and prehistoric creature

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Speaker 1: based technology. Oh yeah, clearly. That's the big draw of

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Speaker 1: the series, is the curiosity what kind of dinosaur is

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Speaker 1: going to be playing the role of a toilet today? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because well, they didn't use dinos to power everything for it.

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Speaker 1: They did insist on footing their own ridiculous stone cars

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Speaker 1: around town. I love that they had a typewriter that

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Speaker 1: was a mere stone machine, kind of like a cross

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Speaker 1: between a typewriter and a stone xylophone or something. But

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Speaker 1: they also used of course that would be what is

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Speaker 1: it a lithophone. Actually it's not a there is a

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Speaker 1: name for a stone xylophone, but but it was of

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Speaker 1: course more complicated, ridiculously complicated uh, in the flint stones.

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Speaker 1: But then they also used, just to name a few inventions,

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Speaker 1: the following uh. And let let's go back and forth

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Speaker 1: on these jokes. A sauropod powered construction crane device, a

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Speaker 1: stegosaur based fire truck, theropod based mobile stairs like the airport. Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: a small dinosaur that they used as a can opener. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this one's really famous. And I know they used this

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Speaker 1: one in the live action film. A garbage disposal dinosaur

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Speaker 1: that just lives underneath the counter. I remember this. Actually

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Speaker 1: they were like the garbage disposals acting up and he

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Speaker 1: opens up the abnets and like yells at it. But

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Speaker 1: they've also got a record player that's a turtle and hummingbird. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's like the hummingbird is the needle, of course, and

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Speaker 1: the turtle was somehow spinning the record. Wait a minute,

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Speaker 1: where they're hummingbirds? And wait a minute. This is because

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Speaker 1: they were definitely not humans coexisting with dinosaurs. Uh. They

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Speaker 1: had a mammoth based uh system of running water, didn't

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Speaker 1: They also have a tiny mammoth that was like the

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Speaker 1: vacuum cleaner. They used it to be as the hose

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Speaker 1: or maybe it's young. I don't know how this worked.

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Speaker 1: There was also a I'm not sure it was a

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Speaker 1: bird or terra saar based camera, So like you hold

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Speaker 1: up the camera to take the picture and the small

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Speaker 1: winged creature uses its beak to then a chisel the

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Speaker 1: image into a piece of stone. That's funny that it's

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Speaker 1: some kind of bird as a dishwasher, it was like

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Speaker 1: a pelican. Yeah, it looked a lot like a pelican.

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Speaker 1: And then, of course, if you need a kitchen knife,

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Speaker 1: what are you gonna do? Use a sawfish? Why not

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Speaker 1: a rock? Why not a like a flint stone. It's

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Speaker 1: it's there in the name flint hilarious. If it is

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Speaker 1: an actual sword of fish, I guess, but that defeats

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Speaker 1: the purpose. I mean why you would use an animal

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Speaker 1: in place of a machine is that an animal is

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Speaker 1: complex and has moving parts and can generate motive power.

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Speaker 1: If you just need a knife or something that seems

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Speaker 1: like real stone age technology would work just as well.

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Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, um. And then of course there's the added

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Speaker 1: fact that they have a pet dinosaur named Dino who

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Speaker 1: is just there for companionship. Now all of this is ridiculous,

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Speaker 1: and even today we watch it and we laugh at

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Speaker 1: it because it's a ridiculous exaggeration of animal labor. Each dinosaur,

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Speaker 1: prehistar creature is highly specialized. So you know, either the

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Speaker 1: humans of the flint Stones just found the right animals

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Speaker 1: to perform these very specific functions, or like us real

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Speaker 1: life humans, they bred them to encourage certain traits, traits

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Speaker 1: that would make them ideal for highly specific specialized tasks

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Speaker 1: such as living under your sink and eating all of

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Speaker 1: your wraps. That's right. And to explore this concept further,

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Speaker 1: today we're going to look at a real historical example, uh,

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Speaker 1: certainly not the only example of an animal bread for

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Speaker 1: a certain job within the house of providing some kind

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Speaker 1: of motive power. Of course, we know farm animals, draft animals,

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Speaker 1: pack animals have been doing this kind of thing for millennia.

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Speaker 1: But today we're gonna be looking at a very strange

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Speaker 1: specific case from history. The turnspit dog, a breed of

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Speaker 1: domestic dog that is bred to run around a small

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Speaker 1: wheel to power e rotisserie. Yes, and this is this

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Speaker 1: is this is amazing. I was I had not heard

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Speaker 1: of this before, so this was like suddenly, It's like

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Speaker 1: suddenly realizing the flint Stones were real to a certain extent.

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Speaker 1: But but this is gonna be a great episode as well,

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Speaker 1: because it's not just going to be about this dog.

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Speaker 1: It's going to be about sort of two or three

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Speaker 1: additional technologies that factor in to this period in time

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Speaker 1: in which dog labor was used to help cook big

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Speaker 1: chunks of meat. Right, So I guess first we always

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Speaker 1: asked the question here what came before this invention? So

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Speaker 1: obviously we should look at the dog itself, and the

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Speaker 1: dog in a way, if you sort, if you sort

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Speaker 1: of squint, it is sort of a human invention. I mean,

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Speaker 1: obviously it's a product of nature. So we like, we

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Speaker 1: didn't create you know, canines generally, but the domestic dog

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Speaker 1: and the domestic dog breeds that exist have in many

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Speaker 1: ways been guided by human hands to greater and lesser extents. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's not you know, it's not necessary a

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Speaker 1: situation where a prehistoric h you know, number of human

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Speaker 1: society said that is a good wolf creature out there.

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Speaker 1: I have a few pointers for what we might change

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Speaker 1: in it, but that is essentially the process that ends

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Speaker 1: up taking place. So yes, before you can have a

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Speaker 1: dog powered meat spinning grill machine, you have to have

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Speaker 1: a domestic dog, and in brief, the domestic dog dates

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Speaker 1: back an estimated twelve thousand years to the Near East,

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Speaker 1: before the cat, before the sheep, before a goat, and

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Speaker 1: before the horse. The dog maybe man's best friend, and

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Speaker 1: it is certainly one of his oldest non human friends.

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Speaker 1: It is the oldest recognizably domestic animal. And we know

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Speaker 1: they were used some eleven thousand years ago in post

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Speaker 1: glacial Europe by hunter gatherers, and they were almost certainly

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Speaker 1: used in hunting. Interestingly enough, it's sometimes questioned why humans

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Speaker 1: didn't actually domesticate the dogs sooner than this, and one

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Speaker 1: idea is that there was even more incentive to domesticate these,

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Speaker 1: you know, the wild wolf like creatures into the domesticated

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Speaker 1: dog in the post glacial world, because you increasingly then

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Speaker 1: had to track wounded animals that you've wounded during the

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Speaker 1: you know, the hunt through wooded regions. Increasingly wooded regions

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Speaker 1: is the forest return and a dog's superior sense of

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Speaker 1: smell could make a huge difference in that task. So

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Speaker 1: the dog was a pre farming domestic species, and that's

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Speaker 1: something that's really essential to note because the at I

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Speaker 1: think we've touched on this before. If not an invention,

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Speaker 1: then unstuff to blow your mind. You know, the cat

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Speaker 1: comes about as an investigated species in the post farming

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Speaker 1: world because of the post farming surplus of food. Right,

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Speaker 1: So in the in the post farming world, you might

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Speaker 1: have say stores of grain or other foods in a

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Speaker 1: settled location that you're not moving around from, and those

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Speaker 1: might attract to say rats or something like that that

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Speaker 1: would get into your grain, And then the cat can

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Speaker 1: follow the rats. Right. And then these areas other species,

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Speaker 1: many of them of course our food species that we

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Speaker 1: domesticated so so as to uh control them and not

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Speaker 1: have to hunt them anymore. They live with us, and

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Speaker 1: we kill them when we desire to kill them. But

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Speaker 1: of course, as great as dogs can be and continue

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Speaker 1: to be, and in the in aiding the hunt, we

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Speaker 1: know that they can be bred to specialize in a

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Speaker 1: number of key tasks. And I have a short list

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Speaker 1: here that I thought we might go back and forth

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Speaker 1: on again, much like we did with the dinosaurs of

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Speaker 1: the Flintstones. So you can of course breed a dog

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Speaker 1: of many generations to fetch felled foul. That's kind of

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Speaker 1: a tongue twister, but yeah, you can see maybe you

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Speaker 1: shoot down a bird, you don't know exactly where it went,

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Speaker 1: but the dog can find it. Essentially, the dog is

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Speaker 1: still aiding in the hunt, but it's a more specialized

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Speaker 1: version of aiding in the hunt. Now, the other thing

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Speaker 1: would be playing more of a role we think of

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Speaker 1: with cats these days, are ridding the home area or

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Speaker 1: the food storage areas of rats and other vermin. Right.

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Speaker 1: Another one is to aid in fishing specifically, and this

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Speaker 1: is one of the breeds you see this with is

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Speaker 1: the Newfoundland dog, which is a you know, a kin

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Speaker 1: to the Labrador retriever. The Labrador retriever fetches felled foul,

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Speaker 1: but the traditionally but the Newfoundland dog is there to

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Speaker 1: retrieve floats and ropes from dangerous icy waters. Now, of

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Speaker 1: course we see lots of shepherd ng dogs in world

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Speaker 1: traditions that they can help control the movements and direction

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Speaker 1: of flocks. Right, Um, a big scary dog with a

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Speaker 1: loud bark has long been used and uh and and

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Speaker 1: is still used to as as protects and either to

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Speaker 1: protect an individual or to protect property. Yeah, and I

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Speaker 1: guess this would be part of a bigger thing. Is

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Speaker 1: just sort of like using dogs for violence or the

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Speaker 1: threat of violence. So dogs used in war or fighting,

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Speaker 1: or in in in combat dogs. Unfortunately, sometimes dogs you

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Speaker 1: used to fight each other purely for sport, which is terrible,

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Speaker 1: or in other equally egregious kinds of bear baiting. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Another area, though that is not dark, or not not

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Speaker 1: intrinsically dark, is tracking, because dogs made dogs could be

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Speaker 1: used to track somebody or something for nefarious reasons, certainly,

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Speaker 1: but dogs can be used to track people, to say,

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Speaker 1: to find uh say, fine individuals who have been buried

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Speaker 1: in an avalanche, that sort of thing, right, And then

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Speaker 1: of course you've got the final version, the version that

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Speaker 1: many of us today probably know the best, which is

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Speaker 1: just pure companionship. Dogs are a good friend, they're a

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Speaker 1: good buddy. And this is where we get the final

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Speaker 1: form of the dog, the pug. Right. But while we

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Speaker 1: offer think of other animals like horses, donkeys, cattle and

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Speaker 1: stuff like this clearly as draft animals, animals that are

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Speaker 1: used to pull loads, or as pack animals, animals that

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Speaker 1: are used to carry loads, animals that are there to

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Speaker 1: provide motive power, we don't often think of the dog

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Speaker 1: this way. And yet nevertheless, the dog has been used

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Speaker 1: for these purposes in many ways around the world all

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Speaker 1: throughout history. And one of those ways is what we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about today, pairing dogs for motive power

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Speaker 1: with a specific type of cooking technology, which is the turnspit,

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Speaker 1: the practice of using a dog to turn a wheel

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Speaker 1: like a hamster wheel to turn a rotisserie in a kitchen. Right.

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Speaker 1: I mean, but before we really started researching this, the

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Speaker 1: only example that would have come to mind would be

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Speaker 1: sled dogs, where the dog is used for locomotion to

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Speaker 1: pull a sled across snow. Yeah. I mean, there are

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Speaker 1: plenty of examples of people using dogs to uh, to

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Speaker 1: pull carts and things like that. Uh and there carry

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Speaker 1: a pack, yes, us exactly. But later in the episode

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Speaker 1: we'll also talk about other types of more treadmill based

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Speaker 1: motive power that come from dogs. Another important thing to

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Speaker 1: note when we're talking about all these different things that

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Speaker 1: dogs have been bred for, and and this is kind

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Speaker 1: of this is one of those sort of overstatements of

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Speaker 1: the obvious, but the role changes the form of the dog.

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Speaker 1: So like when we're talking about these dogs that are

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Speaker 1: that were bred to, you know, to catch rats and

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Speaker 1: to chase vermin, we're often dealing with dogs that are

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Speaker 1: that are small in stature that can chase the rat

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Speaker 1: into its hiding places. Likewise, the dogs that are used

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Speaker 1: for tracking and in many cases involving the hunt as well,

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Speaker 1: are often some of the absolute best smellers and are

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Speaker 1: just you know, ideal for tracking and and in all

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Speaker 1: of this too we get into the problem of the

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Speaker 1: modern world sometimes where someone will have a pure bred dog,

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Speaker 1: a dog that has been whose evolution has been hijacked,

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Speaker 1: uh to you know, for the specific function, and then

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Speaker 1: it signs itself as a pet without a without necessarily

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Speaker 1: having an avenue for that special power that it has

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Speaker 1: been given through selective breeding. I mean a lot of

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Speaker 1: times it's funny that people will have a dog for

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Speaker 1: a pet and they don't even realize what the that

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Speaker 1: dog breed that their pet is was was originally bred for.

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Speaker 1: And so they may notice behavioral characteristics of the dogs

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Speaker 1: that come through without knowing why that dog is like

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Speaker 1: so attuned to chasing after my certain moving objects, or

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Speaker 1: why that dog has to sniff everything. Yeah, I've I've

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Speaker 1: heard though of specific cases where especially urban dogs um

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Speaker 1: have you know, their owners will make an effort to

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Speaker 1: find outlets like find a place where they can herd

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Speaker 1: a single sheep around and use that energy, or these

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Speaker 1: groups that will go through I think it's New York.

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Speaker 1: I heard a radio I think it's an NPR story

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Speaker 1: about this, where people with traditionally vermin hunting dogs will

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Speaker 1: get together and basically to go on a big rat

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Speaker 1: chase the streets, you know, because that's that's what the

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Speaker 1: dog wants. Right. So we've bred plenty of breeds for

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Speaker 1: different tasks, but I guess we should turn to the

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Speaker 1: other half of the equation here, leading to the turnspit dog,

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Speaker 1: which is the rotisseriy. Yes, the rotissory. So if you've

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Speaker 1: been to the supermarket, I think you know the basic

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Speaker 1: idea here because you've probably seen rotisserie chickens, right, but

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Speaker 1: this this, uh, it's a chicken on a spit, and

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Speaker 1: usually they're like multiple spits creating this whole carousel of

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Speaker 1: rotisserie chickens. And they're moving under some sort of heat source,

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Speaker 1: you know, being a lamp or some sort of actual

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Speaker 1: you know, heating element. But you've probably also seen it

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Speaker 1: if you've ever seen like the spit for donor kebab

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Speaker 1: or for euros. These are traditionally done where there's a

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Speaker 1: heat element on one side and there's a bunch of

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Speaker 1: you know, seasoned meat that's on a spit that constantly rotates.

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Speaker 1: And the idea what the constant rotation is to provide

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Speaker 1: even heat right meat is skewered and emplaced over or

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Speaker 1: adjacent to a heat source. But then what happens if

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Speaker 1: you don't turn it. You're gonna get one side of

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Speaker 1: the meat that's hideously burned and one side of the

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Speaker 1: meat that is perhaps undercooked even you, but it's not

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Speaker 1: what you want. You want uniform heating around the meat

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Speaker 1: and within the meat. And this method actually still works.

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Speaker 1: One of their Robert, do you ever encounter steak world?

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Speaker 1: You know, this whole world world wisdom and false wisdom

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Speaker 1: about what you're supposed to do or not do with steaks.

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Speaker 1: It can be it can be a treacherous pass So

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Speaker 1: used to when I when I still ate beef, and

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Speaker 1: I would grill sometimes I had I had, I would

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Speaker 1: look in a grill book and there would be a

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Speaker 1: lot of wisdom there about how to do it. And

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Speaker 1: then you go on the line and the would might be,

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Speaker 1: you know, wisdom that set the opposite. Yeah, exactly. There's

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Speaker 1: also a lot of like you know, dad wisdom kind

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Speaker 1: of stuff that about this. One of the one of

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Speaker 1: the steak myths that people often say is you should

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Speaker 1: only turn your steak once. You know, you put it

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Speaker 1: on the grill one side, let it go halfway on

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Speaker 1: that side. Flip it once and let it go halfway

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Speaker 1: on that side. Uh. That is not good wisdom. You

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Speaker 1: can turn a steak as many times as you want

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Speaker 1: if you're grilling it, and that actually helps the steak

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Speaker 1: cook more evenly. Um. You know, by constantly turning it,

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Speaker 1: you are not letting the heat build up too much

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Speaker 1: on one side and overcook that side. Okay, Well, like

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Speaker 1: a similar thing I do when I do grill, I

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Speaker 1: tend to do veggie grilling, and so I'll do like

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Speaker 1: a grill basket and I'll just make sure I I

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Speaker 1: stir it up. Yea. And the same principles actually, I

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Speaker 1: think would apply pretty well to vegetables. Probably the more

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Speaker 1: you stir them, the more evenly cooked they're going to be.

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Speaker 1: But in this case, we're continuing to talk about big

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Speaker 1: hunks of meat. The bigger the better on a spit turning. Uh,

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Speaker 1: So as to have that uniform cooking. But here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: You've got to turn that spit, and the most basic

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Speaker 1: way to do that is to turn it by hand. Now,

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Speaker 1: of course, later it's no spoiler to say that eventually

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Speaker 1: machines are going to come into play and do it,

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Speaker 1: because again, you've been to the grocery store, you've seen

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Speaker 1: machines turning rotisserie chickens. You know that that is coming. Um. However,

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Speaker 1: the tissory, you know, it was very much in vogue

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Speaker 1: in the medieval world, and we see plenty of illustrations

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Speaker 1: of their use, both both in you know, their terrestrial

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Speaker 1: setting depictions of everyday medieval humans engaging in rotisserie cooking.

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Speaker 1: But then you also see lots of these imagined realms

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Speaker 1: of hell, to where if you see a big, elaborate

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Speaker 1: depiction of eternal damnation, there's almost certainly going to be

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Speaker 1: some individual spitted on a on a long skewer and

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Speaker 1: then turned over a fire. Right, the culinary traditions of

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Speaker 1: the time come through in our imaginations of torment. Right.

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Speaker 1: And now the word rotissori. The rotisserie concept itself, of

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Speaker 1: course is not too complicated, but the word comes goes

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Speaker 1: back to France in around fourteen fifty years so, which

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Speaker 1: is ironic because while there were versions of turnspit roasting

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Speaker 1: or rotisserie all over Europe from the medieval period and

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Speaker 1: probably some earlier than that, but especially beginning in the

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Speaker 1: medieval period, I've read that it is most common in

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Speaker 1: Great that is where spit roasting was an extremely popular

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Speaker 1: form of cooking. That like in the European continent and

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Speaker 1: elsewhere in the world, people would be more likely to

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Speaker 1: use like ovens enclosures to cook inside if they were

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Speaker 1: going to do a roast of meat at all or

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Speaker 1: anything like that. Apparently, for some reason, English culture was

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Speaker 1: just not into the ovens for roasting. They liked the

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Speaker 1: open flame and the constantly turning spit. Yeah, yeah, absolutely both.

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Speaker 1: I think the main sources we turn to in this, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they center almost exclusively on England. Uh, that's where we

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Speaker 1: look at the documentation of the of the spit and

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Speaker 1: all of these additional details about how the practice changes. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think that's for two reasons. Number One, spit roasting

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Speaker 1: in general seems a more popular form of cooking in

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Speaker 1: Great Britain, and then beyond that, where spit roasting is done,

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Speaker 1: it seems like the dog was a more popular way

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Speaker 1: of doing it in Great Britain than it was elsewhere. Now,

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Speaker 1: one of the sources that I I used in in

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Speaker 1: my research here is an excellent book by one B.

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Speaker 1: Wilson called Consider the Fork, a History of how We

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Speaker 1: Eat and uh. And you know, one thing that's important is,

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Speaker 1: even though we have this cartoony and perhaps even flint

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Speaker 1: Stonian idea of meat spitted above a fire and roast

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Speaker 1: in turned, I think this is how the Ewoks were

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Speaker 1: attempting to to to consume the heroes in Star Wars,

401
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Speaker 1: right maybe. I mean they've got them hanging from a stick.

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Speaker 1: It would be kind of awkward actually spitted. I guess

403
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Speaker 1: they weren't spitted. There would be a lot of like

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Speaker 1: tumbling and falling around the ropes they were hanging from.

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Speaker 1: So I'm not sure how well that would work for

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Speaker 1: somebody I thought they were going to eat somebody I

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Speaker 1: thought that they were going to eat them. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: just don't know if they would have turned to them.

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Speaker 1: I think they probably would have just burned them on

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Speaker 1: one side and then they do all right. Well, Well,

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Speaker 1: one thing that that B. Wilson points out is that

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Speaker 1: the spit was typically located next to a fire and

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Speaker 1: not over it for most of the cooking. You would

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Speaker 1: only position it more over the fire towards the end

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Speaker 1: to toast it, sort of like in an oven. Now

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Speaker 1: you uh, you know, you might bake something and then

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Speaker 1: broil it to the last you know, few minutes to

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Speaker 1: get it a little crispy on top. Right, then that

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Speaker 1: makes sense putting it next to the fire, I think

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Speaker 1: you could get gentle er, more even heat throughout right,

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Speaker 1: And a lot of times in England we're talking about

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Speaker 1: open hearth cooking too, so that just makes more sense.

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Speaker 1: Right the fire is in the fireplace and then your

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Speaker 1: eu rotisserie is positioned in front of the fireplace. But

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Speaker 1: for open hearth cooking, you have to understand that this

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Speaker 1: means the kitchen, especially near the fireplace, is going to

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Speaker 1: be a sweltering environment and somebody's got to turn that spit.

428
00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:37,400
Speaker 1: And according to B. Wilson, before we put the spit

429
00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:42,520
Speaker 1: dogs to work turning the spit, we used turnspit boys. Yes,

430
00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:45,879
Speaker 1: it's it's, it's, it's, it's it's it's hilarious and at

431
00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:50,440
Speaker 1: the same time it is so disturbing. So only only

432
00:22:50,520 --> 00:22:53,520
Speaker 1: during the sixteenth and seventeen centuries. Did the dogs take

433
00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:55,960
Speaker 1: over the work? Really? Uh? And they took over the

434
00:22:55,960 --> 00:22:59,919
Speaker 1: work from human children. She includes a quote from biography

435
00:23:00,119 --> 00:23:04,200
Speaker 1: John Aubrey, who said, quote in olden times, the poor

436
00:23:04,280 --> 00:23:07,639
Speaker 1: boys did turn the spits and licked the dripping pans.

437
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:12,000
Speaker 1: Oh boy, the drippings. Yeah, and Be describes this as

438
00:23:12,040 --> 00:23:15,880
Speaker 1: perhaps the worst of the many quotes soul destroying jobs

439
00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:19,200
Speaker 1: in the rich medieval kitchen. Here's a passage from their

440
00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:22,840
Speaker 1: book quote by the reign of Henry the Eighth, The

441
00:23:22,920 --> 00:23:27,720
Speaker 1: king's household had whole battalions of turnspits, charring their faces

442
00:23:27,960 --> 00:23:31,560
Speaker 1: and tiring their arms to satisfy the royal appetite for

443
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:35,959
Speaker 1: roast capin's and ducks, venison and beef crammed in cubby

444
00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:39,360
Speaker 1: holes to the side of the fireplace. The boys must

445
00:23:39,359 --> 00:23:42,359
Speaker 1: have been near roasted themselves as they labored to roast

446
00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:45,919
Speaker 1: the meats. Until the year fifteen thirty, the kitchen staff

447
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:50,320
Speaker 1: at Hampton Court worked either naked or in scanty, grimy garments.

448
00:23:50,960 --> 00:23:53,919
Speaker 1: Henry the Eighth addressed the situation not by relieving the

449
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 1: turnspits of their duties, but by providing the master cooks

450
00:23:57,359 --> 00:23:59,960
Speaker 1: with a clothing allowance with which to keep the junior

451
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:05,240
Speaker 1: staff decently closed and therefore even hotter. It's horrible. I

452
00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:07,359
Speaker 1: mean this, this lines up with everything I've read that

453
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:12,919
Speaker 1: the turnspit role was essentially the lowest rank in the kitchen.

454
00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:15,640
Speaker 1: It was the last job you'd want to have, because

455
00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:19,440
Speaker 1: it's like, it's not only sweltering hot, hard work, it's

456
00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:22,879
Speaker 1: also incredibly dull and repetitive. You know, you're not getting

457
00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:26,159
Speaker 1: much variety. You're just standing there by a really hot fire,

458
00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:29,480
Speaker 1: turning a crank at a steady pace for hours and

459
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:32,600
Speaker 1: hours at a time. It's kind of it's like Conan

460
00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:36,439
Speaker 1: the Barbarian, you know, running the mill exactly. Yeah, because

461
00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:39,840
Speaker 1: it's very important that the crank had to be turned

462
00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 1: at a steady rate. You couldn't have the person turning

463
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:45,119
Speaker 1: the crank take a break for a few minutes and

464
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: go do something else, because then the meat would burn

465
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:50,680
Speaker 1: on that side, so you had to keep it turning. Yeah.

466
00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:57,200
Speaker 1: So it's yeah, it's it's grueling, just monotonous manual labor

467
00:24:57,280 --> 00:24:59,879
Speaker 1: here and uh and even though it's not even just

468
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:03,840
Speaker 1: the big kingly houses, even lesser houses used them, and

469
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:07,120
Speaker 1: they were they were actually seen as acceptable well into

470
00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century in England, and uh and uh also

471
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:15,720
Speaker 1: in Scotland. B rights that Scottish highlander John McDonald born

472
00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:19,239
Speaker 1: seventeen forty one. He was an orphan and at the

473
00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 1: age of five he worked the spit in a household. Yeah,

474
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 1: and I think this comes through in common expressions within

475
00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:29,159
Speaker 1: the English language of the period, Like there was the

476
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:33,040
Speaker 1: expression turn spit to like refer insulting lee to someone.

477
00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:35,960
Speaker 1: It was essentially you would call somebody a turnspit to

478
00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:39,280
Speaker 1: suggest they were like lowly and not worth your time,

479
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 1: that they were wretched in some way. But around the

480
00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:46,720
Speaker 1: Tutor area, which was roughly like the sixteenth century, you know,

481
00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:50,120
Speaker 1: late fourteen hundreds through the end of the fifteen hundreds, uh,

482
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:54,600
Speaker 1: technology changed the picture somewhat. For this is when kitchens

483
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 1: in in England started using the rotisserie spit powered by

484
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:01,920
Speaker 1: belt and dog wheel. So maybe we should take a

485
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:03,920
Speaker 1: quick break and then when we come back we can

486
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 1: discuss more about the turnspit dog. All right, So here's

487
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:15,399
Speaker 1: where we're gonna look at the turnspit dog and the

488
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 1: wheel itself. So I guess I should mention a couple

489
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: of sources that I used for This one is a

490
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:24,280
Speaker 1: book by Jan Bondison called Amazing Dogs, A Cabinet of

491
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:28,440
Speaker 1: Canine Curiosities from Amberley Publishing, two thousand eleven. And another

492
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:31,159
Speaker 1: is a book by Brian D. Cummins, who is a

493
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:35,720
Speaker 1: cultural anthropologist who's focused on the relationships between humans and dogs,

494
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 1: and this book is called Our Debt to the Dog,

495
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:41,160
Speaker 1: How the Domestic Dog Helped Shape Human Societies from Caroline

496
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:46,840
Speaker 1: Academic Press. So, according to Cummins, the first published mention

497
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 1: of turnspit dogs in history comes from a treatise published

498
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:55,040
Speaker 1: in fifteen seventy six written by an author named Johannes

499
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:58,840
Speaker 1: or John Caius, who was quote Doctor of physic a

500
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 1: in the University of Cambridge. And this is sometimes claimed

501
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:04,760
Speaker 1: to be the first English book written about dogs. I

502
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:06,639
Speaker 1: think he actually wrote it in Latin, but it was

503
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:10,640
Speaker 1: quickly translated by an assistant into English. Um and Cummins

504
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:14,120
Speaker 1: points out that right from the beginning, Kaius identifies the

505
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 1: turnspit dog or what he spells the turns pete dog

506
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:21,280
Speaker 1: as a breed, which Cummins thinks is probably incorrect, and

507
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 1: we'll come back to that more later. Whether the turnspit

508
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:27,199
Speaker 1: dog was a distinct breed of dog or not. But

509
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 1: John Chias appears to have gotten a lot of things

510
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:33,360
Speaker 1: wrong about dogs in his book about dogs. He apparently

511
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:35,920
Speaker 1: didn't know much about dogs. But he's like, I'll write

512
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:39,920
Speaker 1: a book anyway. Um. But this, this being the first

513
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:42,119
Speaker 1: mentioned in literary history, I guess we should take a

514
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 1: look at what he says. And so the text reads

515
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:50,960
Speaker 1: of the dog called turnspeed in Latin vuver sater, there

516
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:54,639
Speaker 1: is comprehended, under the curs of the coarsest kind, a

517
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 1: certain dog in kitchen service, excellent for when any meat

518
00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:01,679
Speaker 1: is to be roasted, go into a wheel, which they

519
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 1: turning round about with the weight of their bodies, so

520
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 1: diligently looked to their business, that no drudge nor scullion

521
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 1: can do the feet more cunningly whom the popular sort

522
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 1: here upon call turns beats. Now that is that is interesting.

523
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:19,479
Speaker 1: Even if there is we'll discuss there maybe problems with it,

524
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: because it does imply that this is not just you

525
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 1: didn't just grab a random animal and throw it in

526
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:27,040
Speaker 1: and just see what it did in the wheel. Now

527
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: that the dog seems to have been trained to to

528
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:35,880
Speaker 1: to proceed on the wheel at a regular pace, so

529
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 1: as to properly cook the meat right. KaiA says that

530
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:41,960
Speaker 1: it's not just that the dog can turn the wheels.

531
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 1: The dog turns the wheel and the spit at a

532
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:47,200
Speaker 1: better rate than the human cooks in the kitchen do

533
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:49,600
Speaker 1: which I think a lot of people can probably relate

534
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:52,120
Speaker 1: to the idea of a dog being more reliable than

535
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: a human um. But but the premise here, I think,

536
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 1: is that a dog runs inside a wheel like a

537
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:01,600
Speaker 1: hamster wheel, in order to turn a belt that turns

538
00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 1: a spit to ensure the even cooking on all sides

539
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 1: of the roast. So beginning a few centuries later in

540
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds, more records of turnspit dogs show up

541
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 1: in the literature, including a formal breed categorization by Carl Linnaeus,

542
00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 1: the Swedish scholar who established a lot of important conventions

543
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:24,280
Speaker 1: of taxonomy and nomenclature in zoology and botany. And so again,

544
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 1: I think Linnaeus here is identifying the turnspit dog is

545
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 1: a distinct breed of dog. Bondison points out that Linnaeus's

546
00:29:31,320 --> 00:29:34,960
Speaker 1: name for the breed is Canus vertigious or dizzy dog,

547
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:39,720
Speaker 1: a name used in several English sources is the verna

548
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:44,080
Speaker 1: pat cur So here's bondison on on Linnaeus's description here

549
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 1: quote small, long bodied, and bandy legged. Most had drooping ears,

550
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:52,480
Speaker 1: but some had ears standing up. Some turnspit dogs had

551
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 1: gray and white fur, often with a white blaze down

552
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 1: the face. Others were black or reddish brown. There may

553
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 1: as well have been seven all other colors. Brian Cummin

554
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 1: says that the most common characteristics of the dog identified

555
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 1: as a breed are small size, short legs, muscular especially

556
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:14,080
Speaker 1: for their size and weight estimates are kind of all

557
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 1: over the place. They range from like fourteen to thirty

558
00:30:16,480 --> 00:30:22,240
Speaker 1: five pounds, good cardiovascular conditioning for obvious reasons, and generally

559
00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:25,240
Speaker 1: being terrier like. And that makes sense because a terrier

560
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 1: would already be a breed that is, uh would be

561
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 1: we're talking with breeds that are are small in stature.

562
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:34,440
Speaker 1: Why you utilize mainly as vermin um uh chasers, I

563
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 1: don't actually know, but that sounds right. I know, there's

564
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:40,760
Speaker 1: like the rat terrier, yeah, uh so. Charles Darwin even

565
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 1: made reference to the turnspit dog in On the Origin

566
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 1: of Species. I had forgotten about this, but so, of course.

567
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 1: One of Darwin's main arguments for his theory of evolution

568
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 1: by natural selection was the artificial breeding of animals such

569
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 1: as cattle and dogs. Showing the descent with modification was

570
00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:00,080
Speaker 1: possible by the guidance of human breeders, and thus it

571
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 1: could also be possible by the guidance of the natural environment.

572
00:31:03,760 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 1: That was the point of comparison he was trying to make,

573
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 1: And so Darwin writes that in domesticated strains of animals

574
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 1: we constantly see examples of adaptation quote, not indeed to

575
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 1: the animals or plants own good, but to man's use

576
00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:20,840
Speaker 1: or fancy. Some variations useful to him have probably arisen

577
00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:23,920
Speaker 1: suddenly or by one step. So it has probably been

578
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:27,240
Speaker 1: with the turnspit dog. So we know that in the

579
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:30,360
Speaker 1: middle of the eighteen hundreds, when Darwin's writing about this,

580
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:33,640
Speaker 1: it would have been a common enough, like a well

581
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:36,280
Speaker 1: known enough phenomenon to have a turnspit dog working in

582
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:38,720
Speaker 1: a kitchen that he could just make casual reference to

583
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:41,960
Speaker 1: it and people would know what he was talking about. Oh, yes,

584
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:44,240
Speaker 1: that dog that is so well adapted to turning a

585
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 1: wheel in kitchens. So but the question kind of becomes

586
00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 1: is the turnspit dog like a dog? Are these dogs

587
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:53,160
Speaker 1: bred for this work, or are you merely selecting dogs

588
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:55,479
Speaker 1: to fulfill the role of the turnspit dog? Right? And

589
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 1: I think it's possible that it's some combination of the two. Right,

590
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 1: that dogs with initial bits of characteristics were selected for

591
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:06,080
Speaker 1: the job early on, and then maybe they were bred

592
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 1: to bring out certain characteristics that made them especially good

593
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:11,680
Speaker 1: wheel turners. Right. And and this would be the same

594
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:14,680
Speaker 1: process that you would get, say, a good rat chasing dog.

595
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:18,479
Speaker 1: You can imagine like early on, people saying I need

596
00:32:18,560 --> 00:32:20,719
Speaker 1: some dogs to go catch those rats. Give me some

597
00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 1: short legged dogs, and then you know, the breeding commences

598
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 1: and you get increasingly breeds of short legged dogs that

599
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:32,040
Speaker 1: have a real tenacity for chasing rats. Right. If you've

600
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:34,240
Speaker 1: got a batch of them, maybe the two that catch

601
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:36,400
Speaker 1: the most rats, you breed them together and that makes

602
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 1: the next generation. At the time, an author named J. G.

603
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:43,479
Speaker 1: Wood mentions the turnspit dog in his Illustrated Natural History

604
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty three, but he writes that by his

605
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:49,720
Speaker 1: time the dog had become rare, and while it had

606
00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 1: previously been very common and then existed only in isolated regions,

607
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 1: but in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, turnspit dogs were

608
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:01,720
Speaker 1: extremely common in Great Britain. Bondison writes that they were

609
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:04,880
Speaker 1: especially common in the west of England and particularly in

610
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:08,880
Speaker 1: the city of Bristol, and in Wales, especially South Wales.

611
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 1: Bondison writes, quote in sixt thirty nine, when the cornishman

612
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:16,320
Speaker 1: Peter Mundy visited Bristol, he was amazed that there was

613
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 1: quote scarce a house that hath not a dog to

614
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:22,160
Speaker 1: turn the spit in a little wooden wheel. So he's

615
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:25,240
Speaker 1: not just talking about palaces or like ends with big

616
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:28,120
Speaker 1: kitchens there. He's saying scarcely a house. So that's where

617
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:30,880
Speaker 1: it was apparently most common, but that was less common.

618
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:34,080
Speaker 1: There are still records that there were turnspit dogs outside

619
00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:36,640
Speaker 1: of Great Britain, in places like France, where they were

620
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 1: shin tourn A Broches, or in Switzerland and Germany and Holland,

621
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 1: and in North America. There even references to turn spit

622
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:48,960
Speaker 1: dogs in Ben Franklin's own Pennsylvania Gazette. But I mean

623
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:53,000
Speaker 1: we should recognize that something. So Cummins characterizes the turnspit

624
00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 1: dogs work as often quite wretched for the dog, so

625
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:01,040
Speaker 1: they they'd be having to power a wheel by walking

626
00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:04,200
Speaker 1: essentially inside the wheel for hours at a time. These

627
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 1: roasts take a long time to cook. Uh, And they

628
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:09,279
Speaker 1: were near the heat of the fire, which meant that

629
00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 1: their work was sweltering, and they were often dehydrated. And

630
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:15,879
Speaker 1: they can't take breaks because the wheel has to keep going. Well,

631
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 1: they can in some cases. I'll get to that in

632
00:34:17,560 --> 00:34:20,920
Speaker 1: a second. Generally the dog wheel was hung suspended from

633
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:23,799
Speaker 1: the ceiling next to the fireplace. Yeah. I believe their

634
00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 1: woodcuts that kind of show this as well, Like it

635
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 1: almost looks like something you would see on a cracker

636
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:33,319
Speaker 1: barrel wall, right, you know, exactly, Yeah, except it has

637
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 1: a living dog and it turning a crank um. Yeah.

638
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:38,680
Speaker 1: This is one of the things that's so interesting about

639
00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:41,400
Speaker 1: this is all these other categories we've looked at or

640
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 1: at least you know, disgusting in passing, in which we

641
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:46,760
Speaker 1: have reread a dog to to fulfill a specific task.

642
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 1: Those tasks are exclusively i think in the wild, though,

643
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:54,239
Speaker 1: you know, like it's some version of the thing they

644
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:57,759
Speaker 1: would do, be it hunting a rat, or fetching a

645
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 1: bird that's been shot out of the sky with with

646
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:05,280
Speaker 1: bow or or buckshot, you know, or or even swimming

647
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: after fishing lures or or even pulling a sled. At

648
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 1: least it is it is out in an environment. It

649
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 1: is running across the countryside in this kind of artificially

650
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:19,239
Speaker 1: uh constructed pack structure. Well, yeah, you know, I would

651
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:22,319
Speaker 1: say even for more indoor dogs, like companion dogs that

652
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:24,520
Speaker 1: sit on your lap and cuddle with you, I mean

653
00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:28,080
Speaker 1: that does seem more analogous to some kind of natural behaviors,

654
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:31,799
Speaker 1: you know, like din snuggling behaviors. Uh, this sort of

655
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:34,840
Speaker 1: like being trapped in a kitchen in a wheel turning

656
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: the wheel does seem more estranged from the natural habitat

657
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:41,960
Speaker 1: and behaviors of a dog in the wild than any

658
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:44,200
Speaker 1: of these other uses I can think of. It is

659
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 1: at best almost animal cruelty and probably just animal cruelty.

660
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean in many cases surely. I mean

661
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:54,120
Speaker 1: it's hard to know because on one hand, like a

662
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 1: lot of dogs do seem to kind of like enjoy

663
00:35:56,600 --> 00:35:59,319
Speaker 1: having a task to do, But this seems like it's

664
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 1: really hard work that is sustained for a long time.

665
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 1: That like, there are lots of stories of the dogs

666
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:07,000
Speaker 1: not wanting to do it, like they would try to

667
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:09,759
Speaker 1: flee like they would because dogs are intelligent, yeah, and

668
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:11,440
Speaker 1: so One of the details I was reading is that

669
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 1: you would have the turnspit dog that I get. I mean,

670
00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:16,400
Speaker 1: it's not in the wheel all the time. One presumes

671
00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:17,880
Speaker 1: that it's just sort of either hanging out in the

672
00:36:17,960 --> 00:36:20,520
Speaker 1: kitchen or around the house. And then if the dog

673
00:36:20,600 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 1: begins to observe the telltale signs of a roast being prepared, uh,

674
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 1: if we'll run off and hide because there's no it

675
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:31,759
Speaker 1: knows what's coming. Yeah, and there are explicit tales of

676
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:35,080
Speaker 1: cruelty in some cases, at least, like where authors at

677
00:36:35,080 --> 00:36:37,680
Speaker 1: the time right that some cruel cooks if a dog

678
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:40,839
Speaker 1: didn't keep the wheel turning at a satisfactory rate, that

679
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 1: mean cook would put a hot coal into the wheel

680
00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:45,160
Speaker 1: with the dog, so the dog would be made to

681
00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:48,560
Speaker 1: run to escape the coal, which continually tumbled in the

682
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:52,080
Speaker 1: wheel after it was Obviously it's horrible. On the other hand,

683
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:55,239
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like it was always equally bad everywhere.

684
00:36:55,320 --> 00:36:58,520
Speaker 1: Like some luckier dogs worked in pairs, trading off in

685
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 1: shift so that one could rest while the other worked.

686
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:04,239
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe they would have a rest today while the

687
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 1: other worked for a day, or they could trade off,

688
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:08,520
Speaker 1: you know, and I don't know by the hour or

689
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 1: something like that. Right, so there is there there is

690
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:13,960
Speaker 1: the possibility for a less cruel model of it. And

691
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 1: at the same time, as we discussed later, there there

692
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:20,440
Speaker 1: were individuals who who who specifically pointed out the practice

693
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:23,600
Speaker 1: as cruelty, yes, and as as one rare piece of

694
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 1: good news in this story. In the seventeen fifty six Sinographia,

695
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 1: Carl Linnaeus, again the Swedish scholar, wrote the when he

696
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:33,560
Speaker 1: was writing about turnspit dogs that as a reward for

697
00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 1: their hard work, turnspit dogs would often get to eat

698
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:39,080
Speaker 1: a piece of the steak. That's good, you know, I

699
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 1: guess well. I doubt that the cook who's putting the

700
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:43,920
Speaker 1: hot coal in there with them is also giving them

701
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:47,320
Speaker 1: a taste of the roast. But I imagine kitchen to kitchen,

702
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:49,640
Speaker 1: it would vary. To give a bit of flavor about

703
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:52,239
Speaker 1: what this was like to see in person from from

704
00:37:52,280 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 1: people who were there witnessing it firsthand. I want to

705
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 1: read one often cited passage that comes from a work

706
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:02,360
Speaker 1: called Anecdotes of Dog by Edward Jesse from the nineteenth century.

707
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:05,520
Speaker 1: Uh So, here's what Jesse writes, How well do I

708
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:08,919
Speaker 1: recollect in the days of my youth? Watching the operations

709
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 1: of a turnspit at the house of a worthy old

710
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:15,879
Speaker 1: Welsh clergyman in Worcestershire. As he had several borders as

711
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:19,520
Speaker 1: well as day scholars, his two turnspits had plenty to do.

712
00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:23,279
Speaker 1: They were long bodied, crooked legged, and ugly dogs with

713
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:26,399
Speaker 1: a suspicious, unhappy look about them, as if they were

714
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:29,240
Speaker 1: weary of the task they had to do and expected

715
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:32,360
Speaker 1: every moment to be seized upon to perform it. Cooks

716
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:35,240
Speaker 1: in those days were very cross, and if the poor animal,

717
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:38,439
Speaker 1: wearied with having a larger joint than usual to turn,

718
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:41,200
Speaker 1: stopped for a moment, the voice of the cook might

719
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:44,319
Speaker 1: be heard rating him in no very gentle terms. When

720
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:46,919
Speaker 1: we consider that a large solid piece of beef would

721
00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:49,800
Speaker 1: take at least three hours before it was properly roasted,

722
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:52,480
Speaker 1: we may form some idea of the task a dog

723
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:55,160
Speaker 1: has to perform in turning a wheel. During that time,

724
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 1: a pointer has pleasure in finding game, The terrier worries

725
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:02,719
Speaker 1: rats would consider durable glee. The greyhound pursues hairs with

726
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:06,279
Speaker 1: eagerness and delight, and the bulldog even attacks bulls with

727
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 1: the greatest of energy. While the poor turnspit performs his

728
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:13,560
Speaker 1: task by compulsion, like a culprit on a treadwheel, subject

729
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:15,960
Speaker 1: to scolding or beating. If he stops a moment to

730
00:39:16,040 --> 00:39:18,920
Speaker 1: rest his weary limbs and then kicked about the kitchen

731
00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:22,319
Speaker 1: when his task is over, that has some stark condemnation.

732
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 1: And and of course, and totally it does. It does

733
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:29,360
Speaker 1: bring to mind all of the popular chef TV reality

734
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:34,040
Speaker 1: shows in which the chef is is just nasty to humans. Uh,

735
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:36,680
Speaker 1: you know, one can imagine how nasty a chef could be.

736
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 1: Uh of this stereotypical TV chef could be to the poor,

737
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:44,320
Speaker 1: the four spit dog. I wonder why is that such

738
00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:49,000
Speaker 1: a common stereotype of the angry, yelling chef who's meaned

739
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:52,279
Speaker 1: all the cooks working for them? Is that? Is that

740
00:39:52,800 --> 00:39:56,160
Speaker 1: just an accident a cultural contingency? Or does is does

741
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:58,719
Speaker 1: that grow naturally out of the kind of work that

742
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 1: happens in kitchens, with the heat and the rapid pace

743
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:04,600
Speaker 1: of work and everything. I don't know. It'd be interesting

744
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:06,759
Speaker 1: to hear from people, because I know it, and I've

745
00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:11,640
Speaker 1: heard shows where people were talking about like regional differences. Um,

746
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:14,960
Speaker 1: goodness me, I'm terrible remembering what podcast I've listened to before?

747
00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 1: What what radio shows. But I specifically remember listening to

748
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:21,200
Speaker 1: a show. No it was a documentary, it was it

749
00:40:21,239 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 1: was visual about I believe it was a British couple

750
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:29,759
Speaker 1: that had moved to Thailand to open a Thai restaurant

751
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 1: and they're using Thai chefs, and I believe it was

752
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:37,000
Speaker 1: the wife was was Thai and the husband was was

753
00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:40,280
Speaker 1: British and so he was used to the more British

754
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 1: kitchen culture. And when they when they were setting up

755
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:45,960
Speaker 1: a shop in Thailand, like she advised him, look, you

756
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 1: can't yell at the staff like you you did back

757
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:51,480
Speaker 1: in Britain. It's a different culture here. If you yell

758
00:40:51,560 --> 00:40:53,440
Speaker 1: at them, they just won't come back to work the

759
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 1: next day. So that anecdote in that show would lead

760
00:40:57,040 --> 00:40:59,040
Speaker 1: me to believe that it does gonna. It is gonna

761
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 1: vary greatly for culture to culture, and maybe what we

762
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:05,359
Speaker 1: see on TV is is largely a product of sort

763
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:08,279
Speaker 1: of the you know, the big city high cuisine and

764
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:11,400
Speaker 1: um you know, major metropolitan parts of Europe and the

765
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:15,320
Speaker 1: United States, or maybe even something specifically about like angry

766
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:20,280
Speaker 1: British food cuisine culture, because almost all the angry chefs

767
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:22,400
Speaker 1: I can think of, or like British guys. Yeah, I

768
00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:25,320
Speaker 1: want to see one of the gentle chef, but maybe

769
00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:26,840
Speaker 1: it just takes forever for the for the food to

770
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:28,960
Speaker 1: come out. Well, I mean, you never really know what

771
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:30,719
Speaker 1: they were like actually in their work. But I mean,

772
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: as far as TV personas come along, there are some

773
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:35,719
Speaker 1: gentle chefs. I think of Paul Prudom, you know he

774
00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 1: he always seemed like such a lovely, gentle soul. But

775
00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:41,360
Speaker 1: I wanted to turn back to Turnspit dogs for a

776
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:43,759
Speaker 1: second here. Uh So, there's a fact about them that

777
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:46,879
Speaker 1: cited in multiple sources that I thought was interesting, which

778
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:50,480
Speaker 1: is that apparently it was a well known custom on

779
00:41:50,640 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 1: Sundays to take turnspit dogs out of the kitchen and

780
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:57,120
Speaker 1: bring them to church with you. Uh not just to

781
00:41:57,200 --> 00:42:00,359
Speaker 1: have his companions at church, but specifically to be used

782
00:42:00,440 --> 00:42:05,080
Speaker 1: quote as foot warmers. Footwarmers, I guess, so you put

783
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:07,120
Speaker 1: your feet on the dog and the dog is warm.

784
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:10,440
Speaker 1: Maybe I assume it's cold in church, and that I

785
00:42:10,480 --> 00:42:12,880
Speaker 1: don't know, lessens the pain of going to church somewhat,

786
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 1: I guess, And it sounds like a step up for

787
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:18,600
Speaker 1: the dog, but not that that's saying much though. This

788
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 1: actually led to a number of popular church jokes at

789
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:26,120
Speaker 1: the expense of the poor turnspit dogs. Bondison notes a

790
00:42:26,160 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: couple of these. I'll read a quote from from jam

791
00:42:28,719 --> 00:42:33,160
Speaker 1: Bondison quote. According to an eighteenth century joke, the Bishop

792
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 1: of Gloucester once preached to a church in Bath, uttering

793
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:39,960
Speaker 1: the line it was then that Ezekiel saw the wheels.

794
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 1: This is the passage from the prophet ezekiels the wheels

795
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:46,640
Speaker 1: coming in the sky and uh, and Boniston continues at

796
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:49,720
Speaker 1: the mention of this dreaded word, all the turnspit dogs

797
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:53,239
Speaker 1: ran for the door, their tails between their legs. And

798
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:56,440
Speaker 1: then Bondison mentions that another version of the story has

799
00:42:56,480 --> 00:42:59,879
Speaker 1: the bishop talking about the horrors of hell, where there's

800
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:02,960
Speaker 1: roasting and turning on a spit, and again the mention

801
00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:05,760
Speaker 1: of these words sends all the foot warmer dogs running

802
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,840
Speaker 1: to escape. And it's it's a clever joke, but it

803
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 1: does get back to the idea that the dogs. Dogs

804
00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:14,120
Speaker 1: are intelligent, and dogs would pick up on the cues.

805
00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:17,480
Speaker 1: They might well pick up on the particular words like this.

806
00:43:18,040 --> 00:43:20,759
Speaker 1: But but even on I think even the smaller signs

807
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:24,840
Speaker 1: like they're just just little clues that everyone is preparing

808
00:43:24,920 --> 00:43:27,600
Speaker 1: for a feast right now, Robert, I think you turned

809
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:30,640
Speaker 1: up some examples of other animals that were used in

810
00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:33,960
Speaker 1: a similar fashion. Yeah. Yeah, So this is something that

811
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:37,839
Speaker 1: b brings up in their book because, like we've been

812
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:41,640
Speaker 1: touching on, the dog was awfully smart, perhaps too smart

813
00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 1: for the work, and could run and hide. Uh. So

814
00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:48,680
Speaker 1: there were some who said that the turnspit goose was

815
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:51,960
Speaker 1: the preferred method, uh that you would get you would

816
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:53,920
Speaker 1: get a goose in there, and it would perform better

817
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:57,640
Speaker 1: and longer, uh and would be less prone to outthink

818
00:43:57,719 --> 00:44:01,280
Speaker 1: the chefs. So we have thus far we have turnspit children,

819
00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:05,279
Speaker 1: turnspit dogs, and the turnspit goose. But of course there

820
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 1: was like there was an arc of the turnspit dog.

821
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:12,080
Speaker 1: The turnspit dog is a convention came and went. Jan

822
00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:15,960
Speaker 1: Bondison writes that in seventeen fifty, uh, turnspit dogs would

823
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:19,080
Speaker 1: be found all over the place in Great Britain, extremely common.

824
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 1: By eighteen fifty, people still knew about them. It was

825
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:24,759
Speaker 1: like a thing you could make reference to and and

826
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 1: people knew what it was. But they'd become more scarce

827
00:44:27,760 --> 00:44:30,760
Speaker 1: at that point, and by nineteen hundred they had almost

828
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:33,880
Speaker 1: completely vanished. There there were just a few here and

829
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:37,400
Speaker 1: there left. Uh. And of course the main reason is

830
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:42,719
Speaker 1: the increasing availability of mechanical alternatives like clock jacks, which

831
00:44:42,719 --> 00:44:44,920
Speaker 1: we will talk about more in a bit. But there

832
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:48,359
Speaker 1: was also an accompanying shift in social norms. I think,

833
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:52,000
Speaker 1: not just against animal cruelty, which was a thing that

834
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:55,560
Speaker 1: changed somewhat in social conventions over time, but by the

835
00:44:55,600 --> 00:45:00,000
Speaker 1: middle of the nineteenth century, when turnspit dogs were increasingly rare,

836
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:02,960
Speaker 1: error to be seen with a turnspit dog in your

837
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:06,440
Speaker 1: kitchen came to be interpreted as a sign of poverty,

838
00:45:06,680 --> 00:45:10,279
Speaker 1: of sort of backwardness, or old fashioned nous, or just

839
00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:13,160
Speaker 1: of eccentricity. It was the kind of thing you might have,

840
00:45:13,239 --> 00:45:15,239
Speaker 1: like you're saying at the at the cracker barrel wall,

841
00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:18,200
Speaker 1: you know, people putting up weird stuff. You're having a

842
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:22,399
Speaker 1: strange attraction at their inn or restaurant. Uh, you could

843
00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:24,800
Speaker 1: have a turnspit dog. Would be like, isn't that quaint?

844
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:28,200
Speaker 1: The old school turnspit dog? Like this would be even

845
00:45:28,239 --> 00:45:30,640
Speaker 1: like today, of course, even more so, like this would

846
00:45:30,640 --> 00:45:33,560
Speaker 1: be a moment in a horror film. Yeah, yeah, you know,

847
00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 1: the cup of young cuck ball. There car breaks down

848
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:39,400
Speaker 1: and they're invited into the you know, the warm uh,

849
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:42,960
Speaker 1: you know, the living room of this eccentric individual, and

850
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:45,520
Speaker 1: they're on the wall is a turnspit dog running in

851
00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 1: its wheel to operate the rotissory. Right, it's a sign

852
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 1: you should turn around and go back. Now we'll come

853
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:54,840
Speaker 1: back to the question of whether the turnspit dog was

854
00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:59,040
Speaker 1: actually a breed of dog or not. But Bondison argues

855
00:45:59,200 --> 00:46:02,040
Speaker 1: that the disc use of the wheel turned spits over time,

856
00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:04,360
Speaker 1: and you know again by the beginning of the twentieth

857
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:07,840
Speaker 1: century that almost completely vanished. That the disuse of this

858
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:11,720
Speaker 1: technology led to the extinction of the breed of dog

859
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:14,799
Speaker 1: known as the turnspit dog, since the looks and the

860
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:18,040
Speaker 1: temperament of the dog made them mostly unattractive as pets.

861
00:46:18,400 --> 00:46:21,400
Speaker 1: In fact, one of the extremely few records of turnspit

862
00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:24,160
Speaker 1: dogs being kept as pets after the decline of their

863
00:46:24,239 --> 00:46:27,800
Speaker 1: role in the kitchens is that Queen Victoria herself kept

864
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:32,280
Speaker 1: three quote turnspit tykes as personal pets at winds Or Castle.

865
00:46:33,080 --> 00:46:35,920
Speaker 1: So whatever you think of Queen Victoria otherwise she she

866
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:38,760
Speaker 1: took in some turnspit tykes. Well, yeah, that was pretty decent.

867
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:41,200
Speaker 1: And you know what, it also speaks we touched on

868
00:46:41,239 --> 00:46:43,640
Speaker 1: the cleverness that would still be innate in the turn

869
00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:47,000
Speaker 1: spit dog, but also like it also shows that the

870
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:51,520
Speaker 1: dogs other long standing ability uh could not be bred

871
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:55,080
Speaker 1: out of it its ability to bond with humans, to

872
00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:58,200
Speaker 1: you know, to look up at humans with those uh,

873
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:01,760
Speaker 1: those eyes that seem almost you know, watery with devotion

874
00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:05,920
Speaker 1: and emotion and and and enabling this bond to form

875
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:08,879
Speaker 1: and and indeed, a bond to form with the most

876
00:47:08,920 --> 00:47:14,040
Speaker 1: powerful individual insaid country, the bond between them and the

877
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:17,920
Speaker 1: lowest domesticated animal. Well, you know, you you could identify

878
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:20,520
Speaker 1: many of the great powers of the dog as a species.

879
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:22,759
Speaker 1: You know, they have an amazing sense of smell. You

880
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:26,000
Speaker 1: can you can see their determination and dedication and hard

881
00:47:26,080 --> 00:47:29,799
Speaker 1: work in many cases to the tasks they set to.

882
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:32,080
Speaker 1: But I think it could easily be argued that the

883
00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:36,200
Speaker 1: ultimate superpower of the dog is their ability to form

884
00:47:36,239 --> 00:47:40,719
Speaker 1: emotional connections with humans more so than any other After all,

885
00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:44,399
Speaker 1: they've they've lived alongside us so long, longer again than

886
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:47,399
Speaker 1: any of the domesticated animals. Alright, on that note, we're

887
00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 1: going to take another break, and when we come back,

888
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:58,120
Speaker 1: we're gonna get into the legacy of the turnspit dog. Alright,

889
00:47:58,120 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 1: we're back, all right. I think we should talk a

890
00:47:59,680 --> 00:48:02,520
Speaker 1: bit of out the legacy of the turnspit dog in

891
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:06,400
Speaker 1: English literature, because references to them show up in English

892
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:09,840
Speaker 1: literature roughly from like the fifteen hundreds, when the turnspit

893
00:48:09,880 --> 00:48:14,000
Speaker 1: dog first became popular, uh, roughly to the eighteen hundreds.

894
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:16,800
Speaker 1: It kind of cuts off after in the twentieth century.

895
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:20,000
Speaker 1: And it makes sense, right because if, especially in in

896
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:22,200
Speaker 1: in Britain, if this was something that was to be

897
00:48:22,280 --> 00:48:25,439
Speaker 1: found in pretty much every household or in a lot

898
00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:28,360
Speaker 1: of households anyway, it would be a common frame. There

899
00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:29,840
Speaker 1: would be a common frame of reference. It would be

900
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:32,959
Speaker 1: a common even in perhaps a metaphor for expressing something

901
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 1: about the human condition. And so it might not surprise

902
00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:37,600
Speaker 1: you that, since it goes back to the hundreds, it

903
00:48:37,680 --> 00:48:41,680
Speaker 1: shows up in Shakespeare. In Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, Dromeo

904
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:45,960
Speaker 1: of Syracuse says, I amazed ran from her as a witch,

905
00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:48,719
Speaker 1: and I think, if my breast had not been made

906
00:48:48,719 --> 00:48:52,000
Speaker 1: of faith, in my heart of steel, she had transformed

907
00:48:52,040 --> 00:48:54,920
Speaker 1: me into a curtail dog and made me turn in

908
00:48:54,960 --> 00:48:59,040
Speaker 1: the wheel. So curtailed dog there refers, I think to

909
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:02,880
Speaker 1: the docking of tail and curtailed like cut off, and

910
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:05,400
Speaker 1: and that seems to have something to do with the

911
00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:08,839
Speaker 1: social class or status or value of the dogs, like

912
00:49:08,920 --> 00:49:12,560
Speaker 1: the uh, the more valuable breeds that would would have

913
00:49:12,600 --> 00:49:14,840
Speaker 1: belonged to rich people. I think we're more likely to

914
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:18,640
Speaker 1: have the full tail, whereas the tail was curtailed in

915
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:22,280
Speaker 1: breeds that were maybe for working, like in the kitchen.

916
00:49:22,640 --> 00:49:25,280
Speaker 1: That's where we get the word curtail. Yes, oh my goodness,

917
00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:28,120
Speaker 1: all right, I'm all sorts of discoveries are taking place

918
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:30,319
Speaker 1: with the stopping. Well, actually, I want to go back.

919
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that's where we get the word curtail.

920
00:49:32,640 --> 00:49:35,200
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that means cut short. But like yeah,

921
00:49:35,239 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 1: but let's just say that is where we get but

922
00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:42,120
Speaker 1: by Brian Cummins account. Usually a curtail dog in Shakespearean

923
00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:45,680
Speaker 1: references is a reference to a turnspit dog. There's another

924
00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:48,640
Speaker 1: quote in The Mary Wives of windsor quote Hope is

925
00:49:48,640 --> 00:49:51,680
Speaker 1: a curtail dog in some affairs, and Cummins links this

926
00:49:51,840 --> 00:49:54,719
Speaker 1: to the futility of hope in some cases, like to

927
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:57,200
Speaker 1: the futility of the work in the turnspit wheel that

928
00:49:57,280 --> 00:49:59,520
Speaker 1: it just goes on and on. Another one is that

929
00:49:59,640 --> 00:50:02,680
Speaker 1: some thirst have even alleged that the saying every dog

930
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:07,640
Speaker 1: has its day comes from the turnspit dog tradition. I

931
00:50:07,640 --> 00:50:10,360
Speaker 1: think this is not proven. I can't find strong evidence

932
00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:14,360
Speaker 1: linking the saying to the roasting spit. But the idea

933
00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:17,480
Speaker 1: is that since many kitchens would have two dogs, in

934
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:20,120
Speaker 1: some cases, they would trade off every other day, so

935
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:21,760
Speaker 1: you'd have a day where you work in the wheel

936
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:23,919
Speaker 1: and then you'd have a day of rest. And from

937
00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:26,919
Speaker 1: what I can tell, this English expression does probably show

938
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:30,200
Speaker 1: up during the Tudor period in the fifteen hundreds, which

939
00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:33,240
Speaker 1: is also the time when turnspit dog wheels became common

940
00:50:33,280 --> 00:50:35,600
Speaker 1: in England, but again I can't prove that's where the

941
00:50:35,640 --> 00:50:39,000
Speaker 1: phrase comes from. Interesting, Yeah, and it's like there's this

942
00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:45,080
Speaker 1: handy example of of of of cruelty in every household,

943
00:50:45,400 --> 00:50:48,040
Speaker 1: and of course it makes its way into language or

944
00:50:47,640 --> 00:50:51,440
Speaker 1: in this case potentially Yeah. Unfortunately, it's like every reference

945
00:50:51,480 --> 00:50:54,520
Speaker 1: to it in English literature is to the fact that

946
00:50:54,640 --> 00:50:57,319
Speaker 1: it is wretched work, that it's something you don't want

947
00:50:57,360 --> 00:50:59,400
Speaker 1: to have to do, that it's hard, that it can

948
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:02,520
Speaker 1: be cruel. In fact, even not just not just hard

949
00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:07,400
Speaker 1: work and cruel but Sisyphean literally because Bondison also quotes

950
00:51:07,600 --> 00:51:12,120
Speaker 1: a quote a rare collection of poems entitled Norfolk Drollery,

951
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:15,840
Speaker 1: And here's the quote. This I confess he goes around

952
00:51:15,920 --> 00:51:19,520
Speaker 1: around a hundred times and never touches ground. And in

953
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:22,160
Speaker 1: the middle circle of the air he draws a circle

954
00:51:22,280 --> 00:51:26,320
Speaker 1: like a conjurer with eagerness. He still does forward tend

955
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:30,200
Speaker 1: like Sisyphus, whose journey has no ends? Of course, is

956
00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:33,440
Speaker 1: the what the titan that is punished by having to

957
00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:35,439
Speaker 1: push the rock up the hill and then it rolls

958
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:37,439
Speaker 1: back down. Yeah, I don't know if it's a titan.

959
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:40,040
Speaker 1: You're probably right about that. Yeah, but in Greek mythology,

960
00:51:40,280 --> 00:51:42,279
Speaker 1: having to push the boulder up the hill only to

961
00:51:42,360 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 1: have it roll back down again every time, he's somebody

962
00:51:44,680 --> 00:51:47,600
Speaker 1: who ticked off a guy. That's sure. But that's interesting

963
00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:50,600
Speaker 1: because then why why a mythology is usually the handy

964
00:51:50,840 --> 00:51:53,200
Speaker 1: metaphor to turn to. It's like, for this period of

965
00:51:53,200 --> 00:51:57,120
Speaker 1: time you had to replace Sisiphus. You'd replaced myth because

966
00:51:57,160 --> 00:52:00,239
Speaker 1: you had the real life Sysiphus installed in your home.

967
00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:02,919
Speaker 1: That's the epic struggle that everybody can relate to because

968
00:52:02,960 --> 00:52:05,520
Speaker 1: they've seen one of these in the kitchen. Uh. And

969
00:52:05,640 --> 00:52:07,879
Speaker 1: it turns out we mentioned this earlier, but there were

970
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:12,200
Speaker 1: other similar dog powered machines in human history. For some reason,

971
00:52:12,239 --> 00:52:15,560
Speaker 1: always especially in whales. I don't know why, but whales

972
00:52:15,680 --> 00:52:19,880
Speaker 1: in western England seemed like the epicenter for dog powered machines.

973
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:24,640
Speaker 1: So you had dog powered butter turns, dog powered fruit presses,

974
00:52:24,760 --> 00:52:28,439
Speaker 1: dog powered grain wheels, even water wheels to draw water

975
00:52:28,520 --> 00:52:30,839
Speaker 1: up from a well. And then later I was reading

976
00:52:30,840 --> 00:52:33,640
Speaker 1: about how in England and in the United States there

977
00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:37,400
Speaker 1: were a few examples of dog powered printing presses. Wow, Like,

978
00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:40,080
Speaker 1: I mean, it really sounds like we're almost getting into

979
00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:44,360
Speaker 1: the room of dog punk. I think, yeah, well, that

980
00:52:44,400 --> 00:52:47,680
Speaker 1: could be a great like whole family plus dog halloween costumes,

981
00:52:48,400 --> 00:52:51,520
Speaker 1: some kind of dog punk outfit actually, and that's someone

982
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:53,640
Speaker 1: should do this. You could have a scenario where it's

983
00:52:53,640 --> 00:52:55,880
Speaker 1: like a dog punk world, but of course the dogs

984
00:52:55,920 --> 00:52:58,400
Speaker 1: are heroes and they of course escape and rebel, so

985
00:52:58,480 --> 00:53:01,480
Speaker 1: sort of like dog punk me eats Rats of nim

986
00:53:01,560 --> 00:53:05,360
Speaker 1: basically rights itself. Yeah. Uh. So we we talked before

987
00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:08,560
Speaker 1: about the question of whether the turnspit dog was actually

988
00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:11,200
Speaker 1: a breed of dog. There's been a lot of speculation

989
00:53:11,239 --> 00:53:15,000
Speaker 1: about which dog breeds most resemble or are most closely

990
00:53:15,080 --> 00:53:19,400
Speaker 1: related to, the turnspit dog. According to Bondison, the docks

991
00:53:19,520 --> 00:53:22,400
Speaker 1: in and the Bassett hound have been proposed, but Boniston

992
00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:26,680
Speaker 1: thinks these are bad candidates. Maybe better candidates for relations

993
00:53:26,719 --> 00:53:31,959
Speaker 1: are the glen of Imal terrier, which greatly resembles historical

994
00:53:32,080 --> 00:53:34,840
Speaker 1: reports of the turnspit dogs, though has a more terrier

995
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:37,160
Speaker 1: like head. And this was but this was also a

996
00:53:37,160 --> 00:53:40,799
Speaker 1: dog that was definitely used to hunt vermin. Yes, so

997
00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:42,960
Speaker 1: we're getting into that area to where perhaps this is

998
00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:44,799
Speaker 1: a dog that had a dual role, like we have

999
00:53:44,840 --> 00:53:47,800
Speaker 1: these rat catcher dogs. I need something to turn this wheel.

1000
00:53:48,000 --> 00:53:49,919
Speaker 1: Go grab one of those rat catcher dogs and throw

1001
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:52,560
Speaker 1: in the wheel. Yeah. I think that's highly plausible, especially

1002
00:53:52,600 --> 00:53:54,919
Speaker 1: early on, you know, and maybe they were bred more

1003
00:53:55,040 --> 00:53:58,200
Speaker 1: for wheel duties as time went on. Another bit better

1004
00:53:58,239 --> 00:54:02,560
Speaker 1: candidate also is apparently the well corgy, which is ironic

1005
00:54:02,680 --> 00:54:06,200
Speaker 1: because of the famous Welsh corgy Corgis, who are royal

1006
00:54:06,239 --> 00:54:09,640
Speaker 1: companions at the castles of the British monarchy, which might

1007
00:54:09,680 --> 00:54:11,840
Speaker 1: sort of fit with the story of the nineteenth century

1008
00:54:11,880 --> 00:54:15,640
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria taking in turnspit dogs as pets. I mean

1009
00:54:15,680 --> 00:54:18,719
Speaker 1: because perhaps you end up with another selective breeding situation.

1010
00:54:19,160 --> 00:54:21,839
Speaker 1: The cutest of the turnspit dogs are taken in by

1011
00:54:21,840 --> 00:54:24,839
Speaker 1: the queen, and you get you get Corgis. I can

1012
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:27,279
Speaker 1: see it, though I don't know how far back Corgis go.

1013
00:54:27,880 --> 00:54:31,760
Speaker 1: Might that may not actually match up with the corgy lineage,

1014
00:54:31,760 --> 00:54:34,520
Speaker 1: and perhaps we'll hear from Corky breeders in that right.

1015
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:38,640
Speaker 1: So Cummins ultimately argues that, given all of the disparate

1016
00:54:38,680 --> 00:54:41,920
Speaker 1: reports about size, appearance, coat, and so forth, that the

1017
00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:46,120
Speaker 1: turnspit dog, in his mind, probably was not a distinct

1018
00:54:46,320 --> 00:54:49,600
Speaker 1: breed of dog, but rather was any small dog that

1019
00:54:49,680 --> 00:54:52,040
Speaker 1: could be trained to turn the wheel, though he believes

1020
00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:55,319
Speaker 1: they were mostly derived from terrier breeds. So we've got

1021
00:54:55,360 --> 00:54:58,040
Speaker 1: these different I think it's not fully settled whether the

1022
00:54:58,080 --> 00:55:01,120
Speaker 1: turnspit dog was a breed dog or was in in

1023
00:55:01,200 --> 00:55:04,160
Speaker 1: the large part, maybe sort of a breed of dog,

1024
00:55:04,320 --> 00:55:07,680
Speaker 1: or just was was a class of types of dogs. Yeah,

1025
00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:09,440
Speaker 1: like we might be in that area where it was

1026
00:55:09,920 --> 00:55:12,720
Speaker 1: on its way in some regions towards becoming a breed.

1027
00:55:13,400 --> 00:55:17,359
Speaker 1: But ultimately and thankfully the practice does go away. There

1028
00:55:17,520 --> 00:55:22,840
Speaker 1: is one known taxidermy turnspit dog at the Abergavenny Museum

1029
00:55:22,840 --> 00:55:25,760
Speaker 1: in Wales. It's a named whiskey. I've included a picture

1030
00:55:25,840 --> 00:55:27,879
Speaker 1: for you to look at here, Robert. I mean it's

1031
00:55:27,880 --> 00:55:31,080
Speaker 1: a small dog with short kind of bent ter crooked legs,

1032
00:55:31,280 --> 00:55:32,840
Speaker 1: and it is a cute dog. I could see a

1033
00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:36,879
Speaker 1: dog like this, Uh, you know, earning its way out

1034
00:55:36,880 --> 00:55:39,799
Speaker 1: of the wheel and into the hearts of a queen. Now,

1035
00:55:40,239 --> 00:55:43,359
Speaker 1: b rights that turnspit dogs were used in America into

1036
00:55:43,400 --> 00:55:46,480
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, and uh, and that you had an

1037
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:49,240
Speaker 1: early animal rights advocate by the name of Henry Berg

1038
00:55:49,640 --> 00:55:52,840
Speaker 1: who lobbied against their use, and he ultimately succeeded in

1039
00:55:52,880 --> 00:55:57,080
Speaker 1: bringing some shame to the practice, but with limited consequences. Yeah,

1040
00:55:57,120 --> 00:55:59,160
Speaker 1: there were there were at least some cases where he,

1041
00:55:59,239 --> 00:56:02,520
Speaker 1: like I identified turnspit dogs that were being used in

1042
00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:06,279
Speaker 1: some cities as like as where there was obvious cruelty,

1043
00:56:06,520 --> 00:56:09,080
Speaker 1: and he like took the people who were who owned

1044
00:56:09,080 --> 00:56:11,560
Speaker 1: the dogs to court. Yeah, and he would make surprise

1045
00:56:11,680 --> 00:56:14,239
Speaker 1: visits and kitchens to catch the dogs and they're use

1046
00:56:14,640 --> 00:56:18,440
Speaker 1: and reportedly be rights. In some cases he found that

1047
00:56:18,480 --> 00:56:22,160
Speaker 1: the dogs had been replaced by young black children. It's horrible.

1048
00:56:22,239 --> 00:56:24,760
Speaker 1: It commins rights about that too. That in some cases

1049
00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:28,440
Speaker 1: when the dogs were removed. Uh that human children were

1050
00:56:28,520 --> 00:56:31,400
Speaker 1: used in the role, especially black children, and that Berg

1051
00:56:31,520 --> 00:56:34,319
Speaker 1: tried to to advocate on behalf of the children who

1052
00:56:34,320 --> 00:56:37,040
Speaker 1: were put through this cruelty too in some cases, arguing

1053
00:56:37,120 --> 00:56:39,600
Speaker 1: that like, will children not be given the same rights

1054
00:56:39,640 --> 00:56:42,680
Speaker 1: as an animal? Yeah, thankfully. However, you know, even though

1055
00:56:42,680 --> 00:56:46,120
Speaker 1: we started with children and then dogs into the picture,

1056
00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:50,000
Speaker 1: then geese into the picture, thankfully, going back to children

1057
00:56:50,080 --> 00:56:52,880
Speaker 1: is not the change that ultimately brought the end of

1058
00:56:52,880 --> 00:56:56,640
Speaker 1: the turnspit dog. Right, just as dogs replaced some human

1059
00:56:56,680 --> 00:57:02,400
Speaker 1: turnspits early on automotive power ultimately replace the majority of dogs.

1060
00:57:02,680 --> 00:57:05,480
Speaker 1: And and it started not the majority, but it started

1061
00:57:05,520 --> 00:57:09,000
Speaker 1: somewhat as early as the sixteenth century and would just

1062
00:57:09,080 --> 00:57:12,080
Speaker 1: go on to replace dogs more and more for spit

1063
00:57:12,120 --> 00:57:16,120
Speaker 1: turning as time went on. So Bondison writes that Leonardo

1064
00:57:16,160 --> 00:57:19,360
Speaker 1: da Vinci, of course, invented an automatic spit turning device

1065
00:57:19,400 --> 00:57:21,920
Speaker 1: that was called a smoke jack, and it worked sort

1066
00:57:21,960 --> 00:57:25,280
Speaker 1: of on the principle of a windmill, except inside a chimney.

1067
00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:29,240
Speaker 1: So smoke and hot air rising from the fireplace up

1068
00:57:29,240 --> 00:57:32,880
Speaker 1: into the chimney would rotate a turbine with several blades

1069
00:57:33,240 --> 00:57:35,400
Speaker 1: and then the turbine driven by the smoke and the

1070
00:57:35,680 --> 00:57:39,760
Speaker 1: rising gases would generate rotational energy that could be transferred

1071
00:57:39,840 --> 00:57:42,680
Speaker 1: by belt or chain to the roasting spit. Yeah, it's

1072
00:57:42,680 --> 00:57:45,600
Speaker 1: a clever, clever invention. It would later see some use.

1073
00:57:46,040 --> 00:57:47,720
Speaker 1: One of the drawbacks to it, of course, is that

1074
00:57:47,840 --> 00:57:50,040
Speaker 1: you do have to, uh, you have to feed a

1075
00:57:50,040 --> 00:57:51,640
Speaker 1: lot of fuel to the fire. You have to keep

1076
00:57:51,640 --> 00:57:54,280
Speaker 1: the fire up, you have to keep that updraft powerful

1077
00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:57,040
Speaker 1: enough to turn it in machinery. Yeah, there were several

1078
00:57:57,240 --> 00:58:00,280
Speaker 1: problems with the smoke jack model. Uh. The it was

1079
00:58:00,360 --> 00:58:03,880
Speaker 1: improved upon incrementally in later decades after da Vinci's invention

1080
00:58:03,920 --> 00:58:07,280
Speaker 1: of it. Bondiston notes that records indicate smoke jack's were

1081
00:58:07,280 --> 00:58:09,720
Speaker 1: in use in England during the time of Samuel Peeps,

1082
00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:13,680
Speaker 1: who was an English naval administrator and prolific diarists who

1083
00:58:13,760 --> 00:58:16,000
Speaker 1: whose journals give us a window into much about what

1084
00:58:16,040 --> 00:58:18,640
Speaker 1: English life was like at the time, which was like

1085
00:58:18,720 --> 00:58:22,280
Speaker 1: sixteen thirty three to seventeen oh three. But even these

1086
00:58:22,360 --> 00:58:25,760
Speaker 1: later improved models of smoke jack's were still dirty, they

1087
00:58:25,760 --> 00:58:28,680
Speaker 1: were unreliable, and yeah, they required a very hot fire

1088
00:58:29,080 --> 00:58:31,120
Speaker 1: and a lot of you know, putting off, so a

1089
00:58:31,120 --> 00:58:33,600
Speaker 1: lot of fuel essentially to get them spinning at the

1090
00:58:33,720 --> 00:58:36,960
Speaker 1: right rate. But even with those limitations, they could do

1091
00:58:37,040 --> 00:58:39,600
Speaker 1: the work of a lot of dogs, Bondison writes. Quote

1092
00:58:39,720 --> 00:58:43,480
Speaker 1: in the early nineteenth century, Lowther Castle near Penrith had

1093
00:58:43,480 --> 00:58:47,600
Speaker 1: a particularly advanced smoke jack drive, driving eight horizontal and

1094
00:58:47,720 --> 00:58:51,080
Speaker 1: four vertical spits, saving the labor of not less than

1095
00:58:51,160 --> 00:58:55,360
Speaker 1: twelve turnspit dogs. But another automated solution, and I think

1096
00:58:55,400 --> 00:58:59,520
Speaker 1: the one that ultimately really replaced turnspit dogs, was also

1097
00:58:59,640 --> 00:59:03,360
Speaker 1: in assistance by the sixteenth century, and this was the

1098
00:59:03,400 --> 00:59:07,600
Speaker 1: clock jack, sometimes called the meat jack, had other names

1099
00:59:07,640 --> 00:59:11,640
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah. The clock jacks used a suspended weight

1100
00:59:11,760 --> 00:59:14,160
Speaker 1: or a spring that you would wind up at the

1101
00:59:14,200 --> 00:59:17,800
Speaker 1: beginning of the cooking process to store potential energy that

1102
00:59:17,800 --> 00:59:21,280
Speaker 1: would slowly be released with a steady rotation mechanism, and

1103
00:59:21,320 --> 00:59:24,880
Speaker 1: it worked much better than any of the other known methods. Yeah.

1104
00:59:24,920 --> 00:59:27,800
Speaker 1: Basically consisted of a weight suspended from a cord and

1105
00:59:27,800 --> 00:59:30,439
Speaker 1: wound around a cylinder. The weight slowly descended the power

1106
00:59:30,480 --> 00:59:33,400
Speaker 1: transferred through a series of cogs and pulleys and powered

1107
00:59:33,440 --> 00:59:37,040
Speaker 1: one or even multiple spits. Uh. Sometimes there was even

1108
00:59:37,080 --> 00:59:41,080
Speaker 1: a bell included which would ring when it stopped when

1109
00:59:41,080 --> 00:59:44,480
Speaker 1: the food was done even uh So some commentators have

1110
00:59:44,600 --> 00:59:47,520
Speaker 1: likened it to a modern microwave in that respect. Oh

1111
00:59:47,560 --> 00:59:50,640
Speaker 1: that's interesting, But did it have a popcorn function? No?

1112
00:59:50,800 --> 00:59:53,880
Speaker 1: I didn't, I bet not, So you might be asking

1113
00:59:53,920 --> 00:59:57,320
Speaker 1: the question, Wait a second. If clock jacks existed since

1114
00:59:57,440 --> 01:00:01,520
Speaker 1: the sixteenth century, as long as smoke jack's and almost

1115
01:00:01,520 --> 01:00:05,720
Speaker 1: as long as the turnspit dogs, like, why were inferior

1116
01:00:05,800 --> 01:00:09,000
Speaker 1: turnspit engines such as dogs or smoke jacks or whatever

1117
01:00:09,200 --> 01:00:11,760
Speaker 1: used at all? And the main answer here has cost.

1118
01:00:11,840 --> 01:00:15,240
Speaker 1: You know, clock jacks, especially early on, were expensive. They

1119
01:00:15,440 --> 01:00:18,800
Speaker 1: these were mechanisms that had intricate, you know, clockwork issue

1120
01:00:18,840 --> 01:00:22,120
Speaker 1: designs which were too expensive for standard homes and ends.

1121
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:24,960
Speaker 1: But I think as time went on, as they became

1122
01:00:25,040 --> 01:00:28,560
Speaker 1: cheaper to produce or mass produce, you could get them

1123
01:00:28,600 --> 01:00:31,760
Speaker 1: cheaper and more people would replace their turnspit dogs with

1124
01:00:31,920 --> 01:00:34,960
Speaker 1: an automatic system like a clock jack. And indeed Be

1125
01:00:35,120 --> 01:00:38,600
Speaker 1: points out that by around seventy eight, the meat jack

1126
01:00:38,680 --> 01:00:41,760
Speaker 1: was just highly praised as as a method to keep

1127
01:00:41,800 --> 01:00:45,439
Speaker 1: the meat turning. Uh. And you actually would find them

1128
01:00:45,720 --> 01:00:49,960
Speaker 1: in nearly half of English households. Uh. And that's of

1129
01:00:50,040 --> 01:00:53,360
Speaker 1: all households, not just the rich. Ones, but they just

1130
01:00:53,480 --> 01:00:57,400
Speaker 1: all English households. Uh. You know these culinary robots as

1131
01:00:57,440 --> 01:00:59,880
Speaker 1: being caused them. Uh, they did the job. They did

1132
01:01:00,040 --> 01:01:03,360
Speaker 1: invoke even a tinge of shame. Uh. And it wouldn't

1133
01:01:03,440 --> 01:01:06,160
Speaker 1: run off and hide like a turnspit dog. And we

1134
01:01:06,240 --> 01:01:08,720
Speaker 1: know this. We know that it was in in pretty

1135
01:01:08,800 --> 01:01:13,000
Speaker 1: much half of all households based on probate inventories of

1136
01:01:13,040 --> 01:01:15,480
Speaker 1: the deceased, so this would be where you know they go.

1137
01:01:15,560 --> 01:01:17,600
Speaker 1: They had records of what were in the households of

1138
01:01:17,640 --> 01:01:20,480
Speaker 1: people who had died, and so they knew like this

1139
01:01:20,560 --> 01:01:23,600
Speaker 1: house had had a head of clockjack, this house had

1140
01:01:23,600 --> 01:01:26,120
Speaker 1: a clockjack, and ultimately we can say like half of

1141
01:01:26,200 --> 01:01:29,760
Speaker 1: England had a clock jack in their house, thus driving

1142
01:01:29,760 --> 01:01:33,280
Speaker 1: away the necessity of the turnspit dog. So you would

1143
01:01:33,280 --> 01:01:36,080
Speaker 1: hope that that what would have happened historically is that

1144
01:01:36,120 --> 01:01:38,720
Speaker 1: there was a great awakening of people, you know, turning

1145
01:01:38,720 --> 01:01:42,560
Speaker 1: away from animal cruelty and human cruelty for these these

1146
01:01:42,680 --> 01:01:46,240
Speaker 1: biologically powered spits and saying hey, there's a better way.

1147
01:01:46,280 --> 01:01:48,400
Speaker 1: But no, it sounds like probably it was more like

1148
01:01:48,480 --> 01:01:52,160
Speaker 1: technology and economics that played the main role in replacing

1149
01:01:52,200 --> 01:01:55,880
Speaker 1: dogs and humans to turn spits. Yeah, and so you

1150
01:01:55,880 --> 01:01:57,640
Speaker 1: you had. You know, a number of these gadgets came

1151
01:01:57,640 --> 01:02:00,960
Speaker 1: into play, not only the clockwork jack, also the smoke jack,

1152
01:02:00,960 --> 01:02:04,720
Speaker 1: which who mentioned earlier had become the designs had become better. Uh.

1153
01:02:04,840 --> 01:02:06,960
Speaker 1: Still there were certain design problems with it, but you

1154
01:02:07,000 --> 01:02:11,600
Speaker 1: saw them implemented. Other English inventors experimented with steam water

1155
01:02:11,880 --> 01:02:16,400
Speaker 1: clock were various, like even more elaborate clockwork wonders. Uh spit.

1156
01:02:16,520 --> 01:02:18,840
Speaker 1: Roasting meat was just such a central part of the

1157
01:02:18,880 --> 01:02:22,400
Speaker 1: English way of life that it attracted the sort of

1158
01:02:22,520 --> 01:02:27,320
Speaker 1: endless innovation that we see now, and things like coffee preparation. Yeah,

1159
01:02:27,320 --> 01:02:29,640
Speaker 1: like everybody's got to have their coffee, and so you

1160
01:02:29,760 --> 01:02:32,880
Speaker 1: see so many endless varieties of ways to make a

1161
01:02:32,880 --> 01:02:36,040
Speaker 1: cup of coffee and still continue to see new innovations

1162
01:02:36,600 --> 01:02:40,720
Speaker 1: in coffee percolation design, right. Uh. And then of course

1163
01:02:41,080 --> 01:02:43,360
Speaker 1: once electricity came along, I think that was a huge

1164
01:02:43,400 --> 01:02:46,800
Speaker 1: game changer, right because now rotisseries pretty much all of

1165
01:02:46,840 --> 01:02:49,080
Speaker 1: them are going to be electrically powered. Right. And the

1166
01:02:49,120 --> 01:02:51,520
Speaker 1: other big factor to be points out is that, uh,

1167
01:02:52,440 --> 01:02:54,760
Speaker 1: you know, with with with all these jacks, we had

1168
01:02:55,040 --> 01:02:59,480
Speaker 1: an increasingly high tech invention based around rather old cooking

1169
01:02:59,480 --> 01:03:03,520
Speaker 1: method allogy the like open hearth cooking, cooking something in

1170
01:03:03,520 --> 01:03:06,480
Speaker 1: front of that big open fireplace. But then this went

1171
01:03:06,480 --> 01:03:09,200
Speaker 1: out of style during the mid nineteenth century, and so

1172
01:03:09,360 --> 01:03:12,440
Speaker 1: did the meat jack and its related meat turning robots.

1173
01:03:13,600 --> 01:03:16,479
Speaker 1: Though of course this just spit roasting itself, of course,

1174
01:03:16,520 --> 01:03:19,800
Speaker 1: did not go away. Spit roasting itself lives on, as

1175
01:03:19,880 --> 01:03:23,800
Speaker 1: to do various mechanical rotisseries. You can you can buy

1176
01:03:23,840 --> 01:03:26,480
Speaker 1: them for your backyard grill. You can buy you can

1177
01:03:26,560 --> 01:03:28,440
Speaker 1: you know, certainly you can see them at the grocery store,

1178
01:03:28,480 --> 01:03:33,680
Speaker 1: the butcher shopper anywhere. Uh, chickens or other meats are are,

1179
01:03:33,920 --> 01:03:37,480
Speaker 1: you know, turning about and cooking their own juices. But

1180
01:03:37,600 --> 01:03:41,600
Speaker 1: thankfully you will not find dogs turning tiny wheels to

1181
01:03:41,640 --> 01:03:44,080
Speaker 1: power them. I gotta say this one was interesting, but

1182
01:03:44,120 --> 01:03:46,600
Speaker 1: it tugged on my heart strings. Yeah, I mean, and

1183
01:03:46,720 --> 01:03:48,640
Speaker 1: they certainly. I mean in a way it's this is

1184
01:03:48,760 --> 01:03:51,880
Speaker 1: human techno history, right, you have you have to consider

1185
01:03:51,920 --> 01:03:54,320
Speaker 1: the light in the dark. Yeah, but I mean also

1186
01:03:54,680 --> 01:03:58,880
Speaker 1: just seeing the way changes in technology and culture are

1187
01:03:59,000 --> 01:04:01,880
Speaker 1: constantly interacting with each other as time goes on, the

1188
01:04:01,920 --> 01:04:07,040
Speaker 1: way the technology influences what's culturally appropriate and acceptable and

1189
01:04:07,160 --> 01:04:10,000
Speaker 1: that and then then cultural values affecting what kind of

1190
01:04:10,040 --> 01:04:13,920
Speaker 1: technologies in demand. Yeah, and then also I'm so interested

1191
01:04:13,920 --> 01:04:17,480
Speaker 1: in the fact that you had uh some very old

1192
01:04:17,560 --> 01:04:21,080
Speaker 1: technologies that were remaining the same, but this one aspect

1193
01:04:21,120 --> 01:04:24,560
Speaker 1: of the process kept getting altered, you know, like the

1194
01:04:24,600 --> 01:04:29,080
Speaker 1: cauldron and the spit itself. Uh, there's nothing modern about

1195
01:04:29,080 --> 01:04:31,720
Speaker 1: that that the hearth itself did not change for so long,

1196
01:04:32,080 --> 01:04:36,200
Speaker 1: but there was like a one pivot in the process

1197
01:04:36,360 --> 01:04:38,920
Speaker 1: that was where you saw all this innovation and then

1198
01:04:39,000 --> 01:04:42,040
Speaker 1: ultimately everything else changes as well. Fortunately, now in the

1199
01:04:42,040 --> 01:04:44,320
Speaker 1: twenty one century, we can cook all of our food

1200
01:04:44,320 --> 01:04:48,680
Speaker 1: in the microwave. Yes, and hopefully I think the plan

1201
01:04:48,840 --> 01:04:51,600
Speaker 1: is so this November, of course, we are doing a

1202
01:04:51,600 --> 01:04:54,240
Speaker 1: lot of food based episodes that you know, we'll do

1203
01:04:54,280 --> 01:04:56,960
Speaker 1: food based episodes the rest of the year as well

1204
01:04:57,320 --> 01:04:59,959
Speaker 1: as well. We have already, but we wanted to really

1205
01:05:00,200 --> 01:05:03,360
Speaker 1: focus in on food given that this is a period

1206
01:05:03,400 --> 01:05:07,480
Speaker 1: of feast uh traditionally and especially in America. So hopefully

1207
01:05:07,520 --> 01:05:09,800
Speaker 1: we're gonna get to the microwave this month as well.

1208
01:05:10,080 --> 01:05:14,440
Speaker 1: It'll melt your brain in the best way, all right. Uh, Well,

1209
01:05:14,480 --> 01:05:17,040
Speaker 1: I'm sure everybody has some thoughts on this. Uh, you know,

1210
01:05:17,040 --> 01:05:20,200
Speaker 1: whether you're a fan of spitted turning meat, or a

1211
01:05:20,240 --> 01:05:23,480
Speaker 1: fan of dogs, or like you know all of us, uh,

1212
01:05:23,600 --> 01:05:27,400
Speaker 1: you know someone who is you know, starkly offended by

1213
01:05:27,440 --> 01:05:29,959
Speaker 1: the prospect of putting children to work, five year olds

1214
01:05:29,960 --> 01:05:32,120
Speaker 1: to work in a in a in a kitchen, uh,

1215
01:05:32,160 --> 01:05:35,480
Speaker 1: performing manual labor. Uh. We would love to hear from you.

1216
01:05:35,480 --> 01:05:37,479
Speaker 1: You can reach out to us a number of different ways.

1217
01:05:37,880 --> 01:05:41,160
Speaker 1: You can also find the podcast at invention pod dot com.

1218
01:05:41,480 --> 01:05:43,360
Speaker 1: That's where they all are, but you can also find

1219
01:05:43,360 --> 01:05:47,400
Speaker 1: the podcast everywhere you find podcasts these days, wherever it is.

1220
01:05:47,440 --> 01:05:50,560
Speaker 1: Just make sure you subscribe uh and check out the episodes,

1221
01:05:50,600 --> 01:05:52,640
Speaker 1: and if you dig them, leave us some stars. Leave

1222
01:05:52,680 --> 01:05:55,320
Speaker 1: us a nice review that really helps us out huge

1223
01:05:55,320 --> 01:05:59,040
Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.

1224
01:05:59,280 --> 01:06:00,680
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

1225
01:06:00,720 --> 01:06:03,440
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1226
01:06:03,440 --> 01:06:05,480
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1227
01:06:05,520 --> 01:06:13,560
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at invention pod dot com.

1228
01:06:13,560 --> 01:06:16,680
Speaker 1: Invention is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts

1229
01:06:16,680 --> 01:06:18,600
Speaker 1: for my Heart Radio is the i heart Radio app,

1230
01:06:18,680 --> 01:06:21,240
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.