Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. Listener mail. My name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Monday. So we're bringing you
Speaker 1: some messages that have come into the show mailbox over
Speaker 1: the past few weeks. Let's see, we are still getting
Speaker 1: messages about the vegetable lamb of Tartary. People never give
Speaker 1: up on that one. Lets people love the vegetable lamb.
Speaker 1: People love it. They're constantly coming up to us saying,
Speaker 1: why aren't we getting more vegetable lamb? Uh? Rob? Do
Speaker 1: you want to do? This? One? From me? In or sex?
Speaker 1: Dear Robert and Joe, I'm about six weeks behind on episode,
Speaker 1: so apologies if someone already wrote in about this, but
Speaker 1: I was listening to your episode on the Lamb of
Speaker 1: Tartary and it was reminded of a group of plants
Speaker 1: that does grow itself an animal. The ophrisk genus of
Speaker 1: orchids are known as b orchids, and each one grows
Speaker 1: flowers that are little replicas of the female be or
Speaker 1: other pollinator. The flowers not only look and feel like
Speaker 1: the female, but also release the sex hormone of fertile females.
Speaker 1: This fac similar lures in males to try to mate
Speaker 1: with the flower, thereby transferring pollen and fertilizing the orchid.
Speaker 1: Each species of this orchid is adapted to lure in
Speaker 1: males of only one particular pollinator species, though rarely individuals
Speaker 1: of a closely related species will be duped as well. Amusingly,
Speaker 1: males do eventually learn to distinguish between the flowers and
Speaker 1: true females of their species, so it tends to be
Speaker 1: the younger, inexperienced males that are tricked. It actually makes
Speaker 1: me feel a little bad for it. This is obviously
Speaker 1: a far cry from the fully functioning mammal on a
Speaker 1: tether of the lamb of chardary, but is nonetheless a
Speaker 1: fascinating example of very specific evolutionary pressures causing a plant
Speaker 1: to grow a kind of animal. It's stem as always,
Speaker 1: thanks for your wonderful show, and please keep up the
Speaker 1: good work. I well, that is ah, that is a
Speaker 1: great example. Ian and actually, um, I while we were
Speaker 1: recording those episodes, or maybe shortly before, I went to
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Botanical Garden and I was walking around like
Speaker 1: looking particularly at ferns, thinking I might see some sort
Speaker 1: of wooly mass that resembles a sheep, but also looking
Speaker 1: at a lot of orchids, and yeah, there's so many
Speaker 1: fabulous um forms in the orchids. Uh some that at
Speaker 1: least to the human imagination may look like like little
Speaker 1: creatures or a little little humanoids little angels at times.
Speaker 1: And yeah, this is a great example of of a
Speaker 1: a targeted uh mimicry that is employed by the flower.
Speaker 1: Rob do you know about the orchid that looks kind
Speaker 1: of like a sinister clown? I don't know this one.
Speaker 1: It looks kind of like like the violator from Spawn
Speaker 1: or something, So look up uh Ophrius ariadne or the
Speaker 1: species name is A r I A d in a E. Oh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is interesting looking. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't get as much of a spawn feel from this
Speaker 1: as more it looks like some sort of uh A
Speaker 1: fluffy winged Pokemon type of creature. Okay, but I like it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it depends exactly how the pattern
Speaker 1: works out and if you squint when you're looking at
Speaker 1: it and stuff. But I can sometimes see like a
Speaker 1: like a like a mean looking kind of rotund clown
Speaker 1: that's telling me I'm going to go to hill. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I see like a slightly burly little fella
Speaker 1: with very fuzzy arms or wings. H it almost looks
Speaker 1: like I can see two eyes for sure, and almost
Speaker 1: kind of like a beak going on there. It's kind
Speaker 1: of making a Muppet face like kind of you know
Speaker 1: when when Kermit the Frog is a little perturbed like that,
Speaker 1: kind of like scrunched in face. Oh yeah, I know
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, the kind of when the when
Speaker 1: the puppet bind. Yeah, oh one o. The But the
Speaker 1: clown orchid is in the same genus, the Ophrius genus, Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Well it's a it's a remarkable looking specimen. I don't
Speaker 1: know that I've seen one in person, though, to be clear,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's officially called the clown orchid. That's
Speaker 1: just what it looked like to me. All Right, Well,
Speaker 1: we've we've got the last of the vegetable Lamb listener
Speaker 1: mail out of the way. What's next on the on
Speaker 1: the schedule? Here's so so many listeners got in touch
Speaker 1: about cauldrons, uh, specifically about our segment on the ceramic
Speaker 1: cooking cauldrons of the Joeman culture and prehistoric Japan. Now
Speaker 1: you remember these these were ceramic pots that were used
Speaker 1: for cooking by these hunter gatherers who lived in Japan.
Speaker 1: Uh and these pots had intriguing features. For example, they
Speaker 1: had decorative textures that were made by pressing ropes into
Speaker 1: the wet clay um, so you see kind of a
Speaker 1: fibery texture along the the outside of the finished pots.
Speaker 1: But also a mysterious fact that we discussed was that
Speaker 1: the earliest pots in this pottery school appear to be
Speaker 1: rounded on the bottom rather than flat. So these were
Speaker 1: cooking vessels that would not stand up by themselves on
Speaker 1: a flat surface. So onto the messages addressing that this
Speaker 1: first one comes from Cat, and she says, just listen
Speaker 1: to episode one of Cauldrons, and I have some clues
Speaker 1: to throw your way regarding questions you posited in the episode. First,
Speaker 1: why were the earliest cauldrons rounded rather than flat bottomed?
Speaker 1: Speaking as a crafter, I answer for strength. Angles in
Speaker 1: pottery are weak points and frequent points of failure. Speaking
Speaker 1: as a cook, I answer for evenness of heating throughout
Speaker 1: the same reason why Chinese and Japanese cooking still makes
Speaker 1: use of the walk, you can get a lot more
Speaker 1: control of temperature in a rounded vest. All speaking as
Speaker 1: someone who has to wash her own dishes for ease
Speaker 1: of maintenance, food scraps don't have corners to cling in
Speaker 1: after the cooking is done, and so the pot can
Speaker 1: last longer before the accumulated residue of previous meals begins
Speaker 1: to be evident in the background flavor. And speaking as
Speaker 1: someone who backpacks portability and travel security, you can stick
Speaker 1: a rounded pot upside down on a backpacks protrusion and
Speaker 1: be reliably sure it will stay there without needing to
Speaker 1: be tied down or risking the weak point of some
Speaker 1: kind of handle. That last point is really interesting, Cat,
Speaker 1: because as we talked about it, you might have expected
Speaker 1: that pottery was invented by people who had already settled
Speaker 1: down into a stable like uh fixed existence in geography
Speaker 1: and started practicing agriculture. But no, the evidence is that
Speaker 1: the Joman culture was making pottery for cooking in while
Speaker 1: they were still hunter gatherers. Cat continues, Also, I would
Speaker 1: like to know if the upper rims of these really
Speaker 1: ancient pots have been found or not, because it could
Speaker 1: well be that they were hung or suspended over fires,
Speaker 1: as later metal cauldrons came to be, in which case
Speaker 1: the rounded bottom definitely allows for even heating throughout the contents,
Speaker 1: as opposed to the scorching that a flat bottom pan
Speaker 1: gives when hung over fire. This is me speaking as
Speaker 1: a camp cook, by the way. Next, I want to
Speaker 1: deposit a scenario. A tribe of gatherers makes their seasonal
Speaker 1: camp on a river bed in a fertile valley. In
Speaker 1: the months since they were last there, the river has
Speaker 1: flooded somewhat, and they discover that the hollow pit where
Speaker 1: they had made the communal fire they kept going for
Speaker 1: months to ago last year was sort of washed out
Speaker 1: by the current. But here's the thing. The clay bottom
Speaker 1: of the pit where the coals had sat that earth
Speaker 1: is still solid, hollowed out on one side, but like
Speaker 1: a rounded rock when someone knocks on it with their knuckles.
Speaker 1: Now imagine that this happens every year when they come back,
Speaker 1: a new fire pit in the bottom land clay, a
Speaker 1: new hollowed out rock where no such rock existed before.
Speaker 1: Maybe eventually a flood that's a little tamer than the
Speaker 1: others and only washes out half of the hard baked clay,
Speaker 1: and suddenly some woman for it's reliably the women spending
Speaker 1: all of their days that these fires after all, works
Speaker 1: out what happened and maybe how to do it on
Speaker 1: purpose too. In short, my theory is that the first
Speaker 1: pottery came about, as most all human innovations did, just
Speaker 1: to see if a natural effect could be done deliberately
Speaker 1: the uses to which they would put it. I figured
Speaker 1: that happened later once the new hardened hollow rock that
Speaker 1: the first lady crafted came out of the fire intact. Anyway,
Speaker 1: thanks for your time, for your fascinating research, and for
Speaker 1: your podcast. Cat, very good points. Cat, Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: love all the personal experience with with camp cooking and
Speaker 1: stuff as well. I can't remember did we talk about
Speaker 1: the idea that these pots may have been suspended over
Speaker 1: fires by by ropes or fibers or leather straps or
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know if we got into that
Speaker 1: as much, but certainly when you when you look back
Speaker 1: at the early history of this style of cooking, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're you're dealing with like even even if even in
Speaker 1: the period before h pottery, Yeah, you're talking about either
Speaker 1: cooking in the ground or cooking suspended above the fire, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So very much something to take into account. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: that does seem like a possibility to me, and that
Speaker 1: that would explain why it could be rounded on the bottom,
Speaker 1: or it could be that it sat in some kind
Speaker 1: of holder. All right, This next to when it comes
Speaker 1: to us from Sean. Sean writes, Hi, Joe and Rob
Speaker 1: just finished The Cauldron Part one episode and had three thoughts.
Speaker 1: Number One, you mused about the transition from open flame
Speaker 1: cooking to wet cooking. Perhaps there was a noticeable decrease
Speaker 1: in sickness and death among those whose liquid was solely
Speaker 1: or mostly from soup or broth, since boiling would kill
Speaker 1: microbes in the water, So perhaps it was adopted partially
Speaker 1: because it seemed to be safer. That's an interesting idea,
Speaker 1: and so my brain immediately went to, like, well, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, if you're eating soup, does that necessarily mean
Speaker 1: you need to drink less water? But then I guess
Speaker 1: I'm probably thinking about like a soup that is salty
Speaker 1: to a modern canned soup extent. If if you're eating
Speaker 1: like suit you know, largely liquid based food, soups and
Speaker 1: broths that are not heavily salted. Yeah, that's probably replacing
Speaker 1: a huge amount of the need for water you would
Speaker 1: need to drink otherwise. So yeah, you could be essentially
Speaker 1: turning your water needs into into mostly or entirely cooked water,
Speaker 1: which would lower the risk of water boarn illness. Yeah. Plus,
Speaker 1: I think we touched on like you go into the
Speaker 1: history of tea, for example, and you know, you go
Speaker 1: back far enough and the line, the dividing line between
Speaker 1: drink and soup and broth becomes a little less clear. Alright,
Speaker 1: Seawan's point number two. Have you heard of the iron
Speaker 1: and fish? You can read about it on Wikipedia, But
Speaker 1: essentially impoverished Cambodian women are anemic. Studies were conducted that
Speaker 1: found adding an iron ingot to the soup increased iron,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't until the fish shape, supposed to be
Speaker 1: lucky was widely adopted. Not exactly rock cooking, but that's
Speaker 1: where my thoughts went. So I guess the the idea
Speaker 1: here is a piece of iron shaped like a fish
Speaker 1: that goes into your pot. Yeah, I looked this up.
Speaker 1: So this would be a situation where when you're making
Speaker 1: a soup, you put the iron fish into the pot
Speaker 1: and it leaches iron into the food, increasing your iron intake.
Speaker 1: And I haven't looked into this deeply, but just at
Speaker 1: a glance, it looked like this was useful in helping
Speaker 1: people whose anemia was related to dietary iron deficiency, but
Speaker 1: it was not useful in helping people who's anemia had
Speaker 1: other causes. It would be interesting to see if there
Speaker 1: any studies out there about making like non food items
Speaker 1: or sort of marginally food items animal shaped and effect
Speaker 1: that has on our psychology. Like I think about the
Speaker 1: Swedish fish, for example, the red candy that has shaped
Speaker 1: like a fish does not contain fish. Uh if memory service,
Speaker 1: it's actually vegan um, But there's something about it being
Speaker 1: shaped like the fish makes it more okay. If it
Speaker 1: were just shaped like a coin, I would be less
Speaker 1: inclined to eat it somehow, and I can't explain why.
Speaker 1: That is. You are right, I thought, surely the Swedish
Speaker 1: fish contains gelatin, which would not be vegan, but I
Speaker 1: looked it up. That is, you are right, it is vegan. Yes,
Speaker 1: I've known vegans to swear by it. I'll still eat
Speaker 1: the occasional Swedish fish, all right. And then point number
Speaker 1: three from Sean. Lastly, Disney's The Black Cauldron does not
Speaker 1: do justice to the books, but the art is wonderful
Speaker 1: and the backstory is amazing. You can find lots on YouTube.
Speaker 1: I went down the rabbit hole over a week or so. Anyway,
Speaker 1: thanks for the fascinating topics and wide ranging discussions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've never actually watched The Black Cauldron all the way through,
Speaker 1: and I can't get the boy interested in it, and
Speaker 1: I haven't pressed him hard on it because I've always
Speaker 1: heard this that it's kind of a lackluster Disney film,
Speaker 1: even though it does have some cauldron imagery in it,
Speaker 1: and you have that with the Horned King that plays
Speaker 1: an important role in it, that is a very cool
Speaker 1: looking villain. Yeah, I've never seen it either. Okay, Ethan says, hello,
Speaker 1: Robin Joe. I'm Ethan from Indiana. Longtime fan of the
Speaker 1: show and listen to it almost every day. I was
Speaker 1: listening to this this week's episode on the Cauldron and
Speaker 1: the topic of stone boiling, and it immediately brought to
Speaker 1: mind a video I had seen of about traditional nomadic
Speaker 1: Mongolian food. In this dish called bodog, they cut the
Speaker 1: head off of a goat gut the organs they don't want,
Speaker 1: and then fill the inside of the goat with broth, vegetables,
Speaker 1: and various other soup ingreedy. It's through the severed neck
Speaker 1: of the goat. The final edition is a handful of
Speaker 1: searing hot stones from a fire that are dropped into
Speaker 1: the neck, which is then tied off to create a seal.
Speaker 1: Once tied, they will shave slash skin the body, opening
Speaker 1: up the neck every now and again to release pressure
Speaker 1: or to stir the inside. In the episode discussion, stone
Speaker 1: boiling seemed like such an ancient and bygone day method
Speaker 1: of cooking, so I found it fascinating that it's still
Speaker 1: being practiced in some regions and that this archaic method
Speaker 1: has stood the test of time. Uh. And then Ethan
Speaker 1: provides a link to the video says, thanks for the
Speaker 1: fun discussions you've shared and I look forward to many more. Cheers, Ethan.
Speaker 1: So Ethan, I checked out this video and this is
Speaker 1: really interesting. Yeah. So it appears to be a traditional
Speaker 1: practice where you would take an animal like a goat,
Speaker 1: and I think you would remove some of the some
Speaker 1: or a lot of the meat and sort of trim
Speaker 1: it up, and then you would place the meat back
Speaker 1: inside the hide to stew, along with the vegetables and
Speaker 1: the broth and the seasonings and stuff, and you'd seal
Speaker 1: it up and then yeah, you you sort of singe
Speaker 1: off the outside of the skin and then you serve
Speaker 1: it up as a communal meal. You sort of cut
Speaker 1: it open at a big table if everybody's standing around.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how universal this practices, but in
Speaker 1: the video that Ethan shared, there was an interesting thing
Speaker 1: where the when the stew sack is cut open before eating,
Speaker 1: all the people fish out the hot stones and they
Speaker 1: distribute them to the guests and everybody holds them in
Speaker 1: their hands, and they must still be pretty hot, because
Speaker 1: they sort of keep tossing the hot stones, uh, tossing
Speaker 1: them or passing them back and forth from palm to palm.
Speaker 1: And it can't be certain, but it looks like this
Speaker 1: is this is implied to be a regular part of
Speaker 1: the experience of eating bodug, like it's part of the meal.
Speaker 1: You'd feel the stone as a type of culinary experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very interesting. Well, thanks for writing in, Nathan. All right,
Speaker 1: here's another called rim message. This one comes to us
Speaker 1: from Tyler Hi Robert and Joe. After listening to your
Speaker 1: most recent episode on Caldrons, I was wondering if in
Speaker 1: any of the research you have done on Chinese mythology,
Speaker 1: you have run across the sculpture garden at Hopper Villa
Speaker 1: in Singapore. Along with many scriptural dioramas depicting events in
Speaker 1: Chinese mythology, there is an exhibit depicting many different circles
Speaker 1: of hell Um. I had the opportunity to visit happar
Speaker 1: when I was living in Singapore, and the whole place
Speaker 1: is very strange and a lot of fun. Here is
Speaker 1: a link to the site, but you may have better
Speaker 1: luck getting a feel for the place through an image search. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they do, in fact include this link, which is
Speaker 1: h A W P A r v I l l
Speaker 1: A dot s G and um. It is a very
Speaker 1: nice website that yeah, it doesn't it kind of seems
Speaker 1: to sort of gloss over the grizzlier details of the
Speaker 1: of the of the of the hell exhibit, or at
Speaker 1: least some of the photos you'll find it an image search. Uh.
Speaker 1: Tyler writes, I have included a couple of photos I
Speaker 1: took while there. I love the podcast and you guys
Speaker 1: always do a great job, all the best, Tyler. One
Speaker 1: of these photos captures an awesome turtle man. It's like
Speaker 1: a turtle shell, like surfing on a wave, but instead
Speaker 1: of a turtle's head coming out of the neck hole
Speaker 1: is the upper body of a man. Nice. It looks
Speaker 1: like there's some giant crabs in here as well. And
Speaker 1: then there is looks looks like there is a large
Speaker 1: demon with a man on a meat hook or skewer
Speaker 1: of some sort, possibly dunking him into some sort of
Speaker 1: a foul river or v This turtle man, though, does
Speaker 1: not look like hell imagery. This looks like a blast. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously I've never been to this. Uh, this
Speaker 1: this exhibit, so I don't know what part of the
Speaker 1: exhibit this is a photo from. This may be from
Speaker 1: part of it that is not connected to the various
Speaker 1: hells and is tied with some other mythology. But it
Speaker 1: looks like there's some other sort of aquatic hybrid people
Speaker 1: in the background as well. Yeah, this looks great. So
Speaker 1: thanks to Tyler for writing in and sharing these images
Speaker 1: with us. Yeah, this is a fascinating place. I think
Speaker 1: I'd maybe heard of it in the past. Uh, But
Speaker 1: like I said, I certainly haven't been there, but it
Speaker 1: looks looks amazing. All right, let's see, maybe we do
Speaker 1: one more about cauldrons, This one from Lee. Lee says, Hello,
Speaker 1: Rob and Joe just finished listening to the Cauldron episode.
Speaker 1: The episode reminded me of a trick we learned when
Speaker 1: in The Scouts boiling water in a paper cup a
Speaker 1: regular paper cup. It can be waxed, but not plastic
Speaker 1: or styrofoam, filled with water and placed in a fire
Speaker 1: and will maintain its integrity while the water boils. We
Speaker 1: took it one step further and placed an egg in
Speaker 1: the cup of water before placing it in the fire.
Speaker 1: The result was one hard boiled egg. The coup will burn,
Speaker 1: but only down to the water level. This memory got
Speaker 1: me thinking about early cooking vessels as you were talking
Speaker 1: about them. I have no real support for this, but
Speaker 1: please allow along. If early buckets for hauling water were
Speaker 1: made from animal hide, they likely were bowl shaped, since
Speaker 1: stitching a flat bottom would result in leaks. Handles to
Speaker 1: facilitate carrying would likely result in draw string closure of
Speaker 1: sorts to the top. Think a marble bag. If these
Speaker 1: wet water bags were suspended over a fire, the water
Speaker 1: could be boiled since the wet bag wouldn't burn. The
Speaker 1: longish carry handles could hold the bag from the tripod
Speaker 1: or other device and be long enough to keep the
Speaker 1: handles from the fire. If this design carried over to
Speaker 1: a vessel made of river bank clay, it could explain
Speaker 1: the round bottom of early clay cooking vessels. Again, no proof,
Speaker 1: just food for thought. Love the show, look forward to
Speaker 1: every episode. Lee. Uh, that's interestingly, I had no idea
Speaker 1: that you could boil water in a wet cup. I've
Speaker 1: never tried it, and I don't know if the same
Speaker 1: would apply to a piece of hide, but that it
Speaker 1: seems to make sense that it might, at least because
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, one you introduce water into a heating equation, um,
Speaker 1: you know that's going to water just absorbs so much heat.
Speaker 1: I can see how it would potentially prevent the burning
Speaker 1: through of a material that might otherwise be burned through
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. Yeah, yeah, that's fascinating. Now I have to say,
Speaker 1: as a as a former Scout and uh, the parent
Speaker 1: of a current Scout, I don't think I have ever
Speaker 1: conducted this, uh this this wax paper cup egg experiment,
Speaker 1: but I trust the listener's experience here. I'll have to
Speaker 1: try it myself. I just looked it up. Can you
Speaker 1: boil water in a paper cup? But the the Internet
Speaker 1: seems to be pretty unanimous. Yes, you can, basically because
Speaker 1: the ignition temperature of the of the paper is going
Speaker 1: to be higher than the boiling point of the water,
Speaker 1: so that the heat that's going into the the wet
Speaker 1: bottom of the paper cup is just continually heating up
Speaker 1: the water. I think it would have to evaporate the
Speaker 1: water before the cup would be able to get hot
Speaker 1: enough to catch on fire. All right, Well, we appreciate
Speaker 1: everyone everyone who wrote in about our Cauldron episodes, and
Speaker 1: I'm assuming we'll get some more listener mail related to
Speaker 1: those episodes plus the subsequent Cauldron episodes. Uh so, right in,
Speaker 1: let us know what you think, what you've experienced, what
Speaker 1: you've heard. We'd love to hear from you. As a reminder,
Speaker 1: listener Mail episodes run most Mondays, and then on most
Speaker 1: Wednesdays we do a short form um episode that is
Speaker 1: an artifact or a monster fact. On Tuesdays and Thursdays
Speaker 1: we do our core episodes of stuff to Blow your mind,
Speaker 1: and on Friday's we do weird how cinema. That's our
Speaker 1: time to set aside most serious concerns and just talk
Speaker 1: about a weird film. You'll find it all in the
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed huge thanks as
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
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