Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Look inside your spice cabinet and you're likely to find
Speaker 1: all kinds of herbs and seasonings to punch up that
Speaker 1: pot pie or add some sparkle to your stew. Thanks
Speaker 1: to centuries of international trade and exploration, spices once only
Speaker 1: available in specific countries are now found throughout the world,
Speaker 1: allowing people to discover flavors that they never could have
Speaker 1: dreamed of before. But not everything in the kitchen has
Speaker 1: been good for us. Some spices have been right dangerous,
Speaker 1: including one you might have in your pantry right now.
Speaker 1: We typically see and taste the ground up version of
Speaker 1: this spice, which is part of the genus Myristica. The
Speaker 1: tree it comes from, Myristica fragrance produces two spices from
Speaker 1: its fruit. Mace is cultivated from the seed covering, but
Speaker 1: the seed itself is sprinkled into everything from pumpkin pies
Speaker 1: to the occasional meatloaf. I'm talking, of course, about nutmeg.
Speaker 1: It's a spice noted for its strong fragrance and reddish
Speaker 1: brown color. Asian countries such as China and India have
Speaker 1: used nutmeg and their cooking for thousands of years. It
Speaker 1: is believed that China was among the earliest nations to
Speaker 1: grow nutmeg outside of the Indonesian islands of the Banda Sea.
Speaker 1: In the early fifteen hundreds, as Europe was exploring the
Speaker 1: rest of the world, nutmeg was one of the many
Speaker 1: spices brought back for trade and consumption. Portuguese General Alfonso
Speaker 1: Day Albuquerque traveled to Southeast Asia in fifteen eleven. His
Speaker 1: targets the city of Malacca, which was a major Asian
Speaker 1: trade center at the time. He took it over and
Speaker 1: placed it under control of the King of Portugal before
Speaker 1: learning of a series of islands just off the coast.
Speaker 1: He sent several ships to investigate, and when they got there,
Speaker 1: his men discovered a treasure trope of spices. They loaded
Speaker 1: up their ships with mace, nutmeg, and clothes, all of
Speaker 1: which were brought back to Portugal and spread throughout Europe.
Speaker 1: One years later, the Dutch East India Company set their
Speaker 1: sights on Banda and massacred the local population. Out of
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand indigenous people living there, only a thousand survived.
Speaker 1: The rest were murdered, starved, or captured and sold as slaves.
Speaker 1: Few managed to get away, and all of this was
Speaker 1: done so that the Dutch could build a monopoly on
Speaker 1: the nutmeg trade. Unsurprisingly, the British also made their way
Speaker 1: to Banda and for a short time took control. Nutmeg
Speaker 1: trees were uprooted and moved so the spice could be
Speaker 1: grown in colonial health countries. Since then, nutmeg has gone
Speaker 1: from a spice mostly found in Asia to a commodity
Speaker 1: sold in grocery stores all over the world. But was
Speaker 1: a time when nutmeg wasn't just for putting on your
Speaker 1: egg nog at Christmas. For example, it was used as
Speaker 1: medicine by those living on the Arabian Peninsula. They would
Speaker 1: mix it with things like juice from the quince fruits
Speaker 1: to alleviate stomach problems or other minor ailments. Doctor has
Speaker 1: also found that consumption of fresh ground nutmeg in high
Speaker 1: enough doses could trigger psychoactive effects such as hallucinations. Around
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty, nutmeg was being used in animal testing to
Speaker 1: calculate how it behaved as a drug. Scientists noted a
Speaker 1: variety of results, including trouble walking, slower reflexes, and pupil dilation.
Speaker 1: Two adult humans died after experiencing severe drowsiness brought on
Speaker 1: by nutmeg ingestion, and the cause of these effects is
Speaker 1: a compound called myristas in and how the body breaks
Speaker 1: it down. That process affects the central nervous system in
Speaker 1: a similar way to LSD, causing dizziness, hallucinations and a
Speaker 1: spike in the brains nor epinephri in response. Take enough
Speaker 1: nutmeg and you could find yourself on one heck of
Speaker 1: a trip lasting as much as two days. But ing
Speaker 1: too much of the earthly spice and that trip can
Speaker 1: turn bad quickly. In fifteen seventy six, a pregnant english
Speaker 1: woman eight about twelve nutmegs to get herself drunk. Hers
Speaker 1: became the first recorded case of nutmeg poisoning. Since then,
Speaker 1: more cases have been reported, especially during the drug fueld
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies. Sadly, those affected most by nutmeg poisoning
Speaker 1: have been teens and younger adults. Looking for a cheap
Speaker 1: and easy alternative to harder substances like marijuana. No substance, though,
Speaker 1: is inherently good or evil. Cocaine used to be taken
Speaker 1: in small doses and was considered medicinal. It was even
Speaker 1: part of the original coca cola recipe, but eventually it's
Speaker 1: devastating effects were too great to ignore, and it was
Speaker 1: officially declared illegal in the United States in nineteen fourteen.
Speaker 1: Will nutmeg follow the same path. It's doubtful, but anything's possible.
Speaker 1: For now, It's probably best to use measuring spoons when
Speaker 1: dealing with such a potent and flavorful spice, and maybe
Speaker 1: don't drink so many eggnogs. It doesn't matter if a
Speaker 1: volcano hasn't erupted in a hundred years or ever. For
Speaker 1: that matter, its existence within spitting distance of a major
Speaker 1: metropolitan area is caused for concern for the people who
Speaker 1: live there. After all, it may never go off, but
Speaker 1: there's always the chance right Take Sitka, Alaska, for example.
Speaker 1: Sitka was originally colonized by Russian explorers in sevent They
Speaker 1: had named the city fort of Archangel Michael, but that
Speaker 1: settlement was destroyed a few years later. By the Tinglet
Speaker 1: the indigenous people living there. After days of fighting, in
Speaker 1: August of eighteen o four, the Russians forced the Tinglet
Speaker 1: to surrender and new Archangel was formed on the same spot.
Speaker 1: It became known as the capital of Russian America. In
Speaker 1: the background of all that violent turmoil was Mount Edgecombe.
Speaker 1: But Mount Edgecombe wasn't just a mountain. It was actually
Speaker 1: a dormant, previously active volcano, rising three thousand, two hundred
Speaker 1: feet out of the ground west of the city. It's
Speaker 1: hard to miss on a bright sunny day, it's perfectly visible,
Speaker 1: with its snow covered peak blending into a grayish brown
Speaker 1: hue halfway down. And of course, because it was active
Speaker 1: in the past, the residents of Sitka have always lived
Speaker 1: with a kind of weariness about it going off again.
Speaker 1: The last thing they'd ever want is to see plumes
Speaker 1: of smoke shooting out of its center. So they must
Speaker 1: have been terrified when they noticed exactly that happening in
Speaker 1: the spring of nineteen seventy four. Looking out their windows,
Speaker 1: they watched as waves of black smoke billowed out of
Speaker 1: the old volcanoes central event. This was it. The day
Speaker 1: had finally come. The massive volcano in the distance, looming
Speaker 1: over Sitka ominously for thousands of years, was finally going
Speaker 1: to pop and destroy everything in its path. The Coastguard
Speaker 1: called in a helicopter to swoop over the site and
Speaker 1: see what was going on. They also sent a whale
Speaker 1: boat to investigate closer to shore. Minutes later, a transmission
Speaker 1: from the chopper pilot came in over the radio. He
Speaker 1: hadn't seen lava crawling down its sides, nor burbling magma
Speaker 1: in the center of the pit. All he had seen
Speaker 1: was a flaming pile of tires and a spray painted
Speaker 1: sign that read April Fool. The whole ordeal had been
Speaker 1: nothing but a joke. It's mastermind, Sitka shop owner Porky
Speaker 1: Oliver Bicar, who had woken up early that April first
Speaker 1: with a song in his heart and a plan in
Speaker 1: his head. Porky had actually chartered three separate helicopters to
Speaker 1: help him pull off his dastardly scheme, but when they
Speaker 1: heard what had entailed, they all declined to participate. He
Speaker 1: wound up recruiting the help of his friend and local
Speaker 1: bar owner Harry Sulzer, who knew a guy with a
Speaker 1: helicopter who loved Porky's idea and wanted to pitch in.
Speaker 1: While he waited for his flying chariot to arrive, Porky
Speaker 1: got to work making two rope slings capable of holding
Speaker 1: about fifty car tires each. He also collected fuel for
Speaker 1: the fire, like stern and diesel oil, as well as
Speaker 1: oily rags and a bunch of smoke bombs. Once the
Speaker 1: helicopter finally arrived, Porky and several of his buddies all
Speaker 1: put their supplies on board and flew over the center
Speaker 1: of the volcano. They dropped the tires in first, then
Speaker 1: the chopper landed to let them out. They poured oil
Speaker 1: and stern o all over those tires before spray painting
Speaker 1: April Fool in fifty foot letters directly onto the snow.
Speaker 1: Porky then lit the spark and watched as his creation
Speaker 1: went up in a blaze of glory. The f a,
Speaker 1: a controller guiding the chopper home, was reported to have said,
Speaker 1: the son of a gun looks fantastic, but the coast
Speaker 1: Guard commander hadn't been in on the joke, hence his
Speaker 1: request to have his own helicopter and a whale boat
Speaker 1: investigate the smoke. He had even called his admiral in
Speaker 1: Juno about it. Sitka radio phone lines and police lines
Speaker 1: were inundated with calls from citizens wondering if this was
Speaker 1: really happening. The vice president of Alaska Airlines called the
Speaker 1: city and asked that the plane currently departing the airport
Speaker 1: fly over the volcano so passengers could get a good
Speaker 1: look at Porky's prank. Not everyone, though, was happy about
Speaker 1: the joke, but Porky sure was. He had fooled them all.
Speaker 1: In fact, he had done such a good job of
Speaker 1: it that, according to some stories, after Mount St. Helen's
Speaker 1: erupted in, one of Porky's neighbors wrote to him and
Speaker 1: told him, this time you've gone too far. I hope
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
Speaker 1: of lore dot com and until next time, stay curious
Speaker 1: ye