Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Styles change over time, be it art or
Speaker 1: music or food. What is popular in one era often
Speaker 1: doesn't carry over into the next. People may be aware
Speaker 1: of the twist and the hustle, but you won't find
Speaker 1: them busting those moves on the dance floor these days.
Speaker 1: Our taste in cuisine also evolves over the years. New
Speaker 1: cooking tools can lead to new ways of preparation, and
Speaker 1: as animals and plant populations shift, so can our diets.
Speaker 1: For example, a modern day staple we enjoyed today got
Speaker 1: its start in China around three b C. At the time,
Speaker 1: it was a sauce made of fermented fish, like anchovies.
Speaker 1: Other parts of Asia enjoyed a similar product made of
Speaker 1: fermented beans. Eventually, though, fish traders in the seventeenth and
Speaker 1: eighteen centuries brought these sauces to areas like the Philippines
Speaker 1: and India, where British travelers encountered them. From there, they
Speaker 1: were brought back to England by merchants who tried to
Speaker 1: duplicate their recipes. At first, ingredients that were popular in
Speaker 1: the regions, such as oysters, walnuts, and shallots were added. Eventually,
Speaker 1: mushrooms took over as the main ingredients, pushing out the
Speaker 1: beans and anchovies from the original Asian recipes. Those new
Speaker 1: English versions didn't resemble the sauces from China or Vietnam,
Speaker 1: though they were darker and more running in consistency, and
Speaker 1: how did folks use them well? People often dumped it
Speaker 1: into soup or poured it over meat to add flavor,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't until eighteen twelve when a new ingredient
Speaker 1: found its way into the recipe. Tomatoes. Now, tomatoes had
Speaker 1: been introduced to England back in the fifteen hundreds, but
Speaker 1: didn't become popular for centuries. Herbalist John Gerald had published
Speaker 1: a book in fifteen nineties seven called herbal in which
Speaker 1: he described a tomatoes flavor as rank and stinking. It
Speaker 1: didn't help that wealthy folks eating from pewter plates had
Speaker 1: also gotten sick from eating tomatoes, so the fruit gained
Speaker 1: the nickname the poison apple, even though it wasn't really
Speaker 1: to blame. Turns out, the tomatoes high acid content had
Speaker 1: caused the lead in the pewter plates to leach into
Speaker 1: the food. By eighteen twelve, though, the tomato's reputation had
Speaker 1: undergone a considerable overhaul. But it was the American scientist
Speaker 1: and corticulturalist James Mees who introduced tomato pulp into the mix.
Speaker 1: He referred to tomatoes as love apples and added spices
Speaker 1: and brandy into his own recipe, which helped it stay
Speaker 1: fresh longer. Over the next few decades, tomato based recipes
Speaker 1: found their way into cookbooks and newspaper columns. Unfortunately, this
Speaker 1: new ingredients added a whole new problem to the manufacturing process.
Speaker 1: You see, tomatoes were a seasonal food and could only
Speaker 1: be grown during a short period of time each year,
Speaker 1: and because there was no way to properly store the
Speaker 1: pulp long term, much of it wound up going bad.
Speaker 1: To combat spoilage, chemical preservatives were added, such as coal
Speaker 1: tar and sodium benzoate. In eighteen seventy six, though, one
Speaker 1: man came up with a plan to produce his own
Speaker 1: brand of tomato paste, one that could last on shelves
Speaker 1: without the need for artificial preservatives. His name was Henry,
Speaker 1: and his was a whole new recipe. Unlike his competitors,
Speaker 1: who relied on tomatoes scraps for their base, Henry instead
Speaker 1: used whole ripe tomatoes. He also incorporated more vinegar to
Speaker 1: aid in preservation. Henry sauce was simple, natural and delicious,
Speaker 1: and it came in a clear bottle. Customers liked scene
Speaker 1: what was inside before they bought it. Twenty years later,
Speaker 1: Henry began advertising his company with the slogan fifty seven Varieties,
Speaker 1: a number seemingly chosen at random. He didn't sell fifty
Speaker 1: seven varieties of anything, but he did manage to sell
Speaker 1: five million bottles. By the turn of the century. Henry
Speaker 1: Heights soon dominated the market, and his condiment became an
Speaker 1: American staple. It may not be made with mushrooms or
Speaker 1: fish anymore, but it stood the test of time as
Speaker 1: a versatile addition to most meals. But hidden in its
Speaker 1: name is a hint at those older Asian recipes in China,
Speaker 1: for example, it was originally called kite in the United States,
Speaker 1: though it's known by a familiar and similar sounding name
Speaker 1: catch up. If you're my age, you have distinct memories
Speaker 1: of journalists standing outside Bagdad in two thousand three, talking
Speaker 1: into the camera as the sky behind them lit up
Speaker 1: with explosions that were part of the Iraq War. If
Speaker 1: you're older, maybe you'll always remember morally safer accompanying a
Speaker 1: group of U. S Marines into a South Vietnamese village.
Speaker 1: The job of war correspondent is instantly recognizable as a
Speaker 1: dangerous one, usually because the risk is presented right there
Speaker 1: on the screen. But when Spencer held the job, there
Speaker 1: was no such thing as network news, let alone cable television.
Speaker 1: He had started his time away from home with the
Speaker 1: British Army, joining up in eight at the age of
Speaker 1: twenty one. It was a whirlwind too, traveling to places
Speaker 1: like Cuba, the United States and India. But by his
Speaker 1: time with the military was over and he picked up
Speaker 1: a new job, war correspondent for the Morning Post out
Speaker 1: of London. In eight they sent him to South Africa
Speaker 1: to report on the events of the Second Boer War.
Speaker 1: And yes, I know that term makes it sound like
Speaker 1: he was battling wild Higgs, but the boar spelled b
Speaker 1: o e Er were actually the descendants of Dutch colonists
Speaker 1: who had set up their own kingdoms in South Africa.
Speaker 1: The British were there to challenge their power in the region,
Speaker 1: and Spencer was along to write about it so readers
Speaker 1: back home in England could stay up on the events
Speaker 1: of the war. But in October of that year, his
Speaker 1: journey hit a snag. You see, he was on a
Speaker 1: British military train, surrounded by soldiers and officers as they
Speaker 1: headed towards Colenso when an explosion brought everything to a stop.
Speaker 1: It turns out it was a boulder planted on the
Speaker 1: tracks by the Boar forces to stop them so that
Speaker 1: they'd be easier targets for their guns. In the chaos
Speaker 1: of the battle, Spencer jumped out of the train and
Speaker 1: began barking orders at the troops. Soon enough, the tracks
Speaker 1: were cleared, and entirely thanks to his efforts, the men
Speaker 1: on board were able to escape the ambush safely, all
Speaker 1: except Spencer, that is. You see in the confusion, he
Speaker 1: was captured and taken to a prisoner of war camp
Speaker 1: run by the Boars in the city of Pretoria, and
Speaker 1: that should have been the end of his story. In fact,
Speaker 1: there's a good chance he could have died there, but
Speaker 1: he didn't. No. Over the following two months, Spencer and
Speaker 1: a pair of other British prisoners began to plan their escape.
Speaker 1: They studied the defenses of the prison, they memorized the
Speaker 1: landscape around the site, and they became intimately familiar with
Speaker 1: the timing of each guard shift, making special note of
Speaker 1: when the changes in shift happened every night when the
Speaker 1: time was right. In December, the men put their plan
Speaker 1: into motion, but tragically, Spencer was the only one to
Speaker 1: make it out alive. From there, he traveled many miles
Speaker 1: on foot, a journey of long, grueling days and nights,
Speaker 1: before reaching the home of a British man who lived
Speaker 1: in a bore mining town, and that man helped him
Speaker 1: get onto a train headed to safety. I'm happy to
Speaker 1: report that Spencer made it all the way to the
Speaker 1: British consul in Portuguese East Africa, and from there eventually
Speaker 1: made it home. The Morning Post got their story and
Speaker 1: the British public discovered they had a new hero on
Speaker 1: their hands, on one with courage and the will to
Speaker 1: press on through despite the trouble he was in. It
Speaker 1: was courage that they would need two decades later when
Speaker 1: the world erupted into a deadly World War, and two
Speaker 1: decades after that when a Second World War arrived, and
Speaker 1: through it all, Spencer was there, serving his people and
Speaker 1: demonstrating why he survived his experience in South Africa all
Speaker 1: those years before. Of course, I can't blame you for
Speaker 1: believing that you've never heard of Spencer, because that was
Speaker 1: his middle name, well one of them. Anyway, his full
Speaker 1: name reveals him to be a man the entire world
Speaker 1: has heard of, even if his time as a war
Speaker 1: correspondent is mostly forgotten. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. I
Speaker 1: hope 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 Mankey 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. Yeah,