Speaker 1: Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 1: Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
Speaker 1: friend man guest Shot Ticketer. Although today we're in different
Speaker 1: places because it's Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving, Mango, they will so
Speaker 1: I'm in a house full of family and kids, so
Speaker 1: hopefully my Henry and Ruby won't start banging the piano
Speaker 1: during this, but Happy Thanksgiving to YouTube, well we'll We'll
Speaker 1: roll with it either way. And good news Mango guests
Speaker 1: who finished that Thanksgiving sweater he's been knitting for like
Speaker 1: what three weeks now? I think no way, Tristan actually
Speaker 1: finished it. That's right, Yeah, that's the man on the
Speaker 1: other side of the soundproof glass, our friend and producer
Speaker 1: Tristan McNeil and Mango. It really is actually a beautiful sweater.
Speaker 1: It's this it's a turkey reading on top of this
Speaker 1: cornucopia and under it it says gobbled book. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't fully get it, but I'll send you a
Speaker 1: picture that sounds glorious. And joining us for the second
Speaker 1: time on Nine Things and actually her third time on
Speaker 1: the show is the brilliant co host of food Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbam, Lauren, welcome back. Oh, thank you so much. Well,
Speaker 1: welcome to your own show too. Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving. Alright,
Speaker 1: so it's no surprise that our facts today would be
Speaker 1: focused on Thanksgiving. So let's let's get straight to them
Speaker 1: so everybody can start feasting. Lauren, you want to kick
Speaker 1: us off, Yeah, absolutely, so, Okay, my first fact is
Speaker 1: about what the Pilgrim's probably eight, because you know, like
Speaker 1: that that's a good first question to kick us off, like, like,
Speaker 1: what was the original Thanksgiving about? Uh? Short answer is
Speaker 1: that no one really knows. Long answer is that it
Speaker 1: might not have been turkey but instead el huh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you know, like like maybe turkey too, but
Speaker 1: it probably wasn't the focus of the feast. There's probably
Speaker 1: eels and lobster, clams and muscles, maybe some venison and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. No potatoes, though potatoes hadn't even made
Speaker 1: it to North America, neither white potatoes nor sweet potatoes.
Speaker 1: We have a little bit of time to try to
Speaker 1: pull together some some eel for this, so thank you
Speaker 1: very much for that first fact. That's a good one,
Speaker 1: all right, Mango, what's your first factum? My first facts
Speaker 1: about plumbers. So if you think Black Friday is bad
Speaker 1: because all the clogging at the malls, you should be
Speaker 1: glad you're not a plumber. According to Rotor Ruter, the
Speaker 1: day after Thanksgiving is referred to as Brown Friday because
Speaker 1: it's year. Plumbers are actually twice as busy on Brown Friday,
Speaker 1: and emergency calls go out all weekend. And while some
Speaker 1: of the work is definitely bathroom related, you know, having
Speaker 1: more guests does tend to overwork the toilets, the majority
Speaker 1: of the work is actually about cleaning out clogged up sinks. Okay, wow,
Speaker 1: Brown Friday, I had never heard that before. All right, well,
Speaker 1: my first facts be King of Leftovers. Actually, the first
Speaker 1: frozen dinner was created because of Thanksgiving leftovers. This was
Speaker 1: back in nineteen fifty three. Someone at Swanson Foods ordered
Speaker 1: a little too much turkey. Now we're talking two hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty tons of excess bird to be exact on this.
Speaker 1: So they had to find a way to use that meat.
Speaker 1: So enter a salesman named Jerry Thomas, and he ordered
Speaker 1: five thousand aluminum trays. Then he pulled together this assembly
Speaker 1: line of people to scoop cornbread, dressing and peas and
Speaker 1: sweet potatas into the trays, you know, along with all
Speaker 1: that turkey and the frozen dinner was born like that.
Speaker 1: Al right, so you're second fact, Lauren, what you got?
Speaker 1: Oh okay about the wishbone? You know, the tradition of
Speaker 1: splitting the wishbone over the dinner table. Yeah, that actually
Speaker 1: stems from an ancient Etruscan ritual. Trust. Yeah, they believe
Speaker 1: that chickens were oracles that could predict the future. Obviously,
Speaker 1: and there's a word for this, it's called electriomancy or
Speaker 1: rooster divination. Yeah. They would they would put a chicken
Speaker 1: in the middle of the circle that they had drawn
Speaker 1: in the on the ground, and that was divided up
Speaker 1: into wedges, and based on where the chicken pecked, they
Speaker 1: would they would translate that into these messages about what
Speaker 1: to do, uh, you know, how to answer their big questions.
Speaker 1: And because chickens don't last forever, they would also when
Speaker 1: the chicken, you know, when the oracle chicken passed, they
Speaker 1: would take the wishbone and dry it out and preserve
Speaker 1: it so that they could have access to that poultry power. Later.
Speaker 1: Supposedly they passed this onto the Romans and at that point,
Speaker 1: the chicken supply was kind of dwindling, so they had
Speaker 1: a tradition of breaking the wishbone in two to you know,
Speaker 1: pass the past the magic along to more people, and
Speaker 1: the Romans brought it to the British aisles and the
Speaker 1: British brought it here. Wow, it's funny that that's one
Speaker 1: of those things that got passed down for so long.
Speaker 1: I had no idea the origin was so far back.
Speaker 1: That's really good. All thanks to Rooster Nancy. That's that's right,
Speaker 1: that's right. Alright, mango, what's your next fact? So this
Speaker 1: is one of Thomas Jefferson, So you know, as admire
Speaker 1: it as Jefferson was, did you know that he actually
Speaker 1: refused to acknowledge Thanksgiving that yeah, friendly, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: now everyone knows that Lincoln is one who actually made
Speaker 1: it a federal holiday, but before that, every president kind
Speaker 1: of had to declare the celebration every year, and Jefferson
Speaker 1: just refused. I mean, historians think it was because he
Speaker 1: was so committed to the idea of separation of church
Speaker 1: and state, because Thanksgiving this more religious and uh, prayer
Speaker 1: filled holiday back then. But he actually called Thanksgiving quote
Speaker 1: the most ridiculous idea ever conceived, it's not actually been.
Speaker 1: Before we go on. I I did want to say
Speaker 1: Stacy told me that fact, but she actually brought me
Speaker 1: this extra fact nugget on presidents, and it's about William
Speaker 1: Howard Taft and that he preferred to serve roasted possum
Speaker 1: with quote decorative potatoes in their mouths potato. I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, guys, but I'm glad I'm not eating
Speaker 1: eel and decorative tatoes inside a possum today. So alright, Well,
Speaker 1: my next fact also has to do with a um
Speaker 1: with a president. So from nineteen thirty nine to nineteen
Speaker 1: forty one, we actually had Frank's Giving, and I'll explain why.
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty nine, FDR moved Thanksgiving up a week.
Speaker 1: This because it had previously been on the last Thursday
Speaker 1: of the month, and in nineteen thirty nine that happened
Speaker 1: to fall on the very last day of the month,
Speaker 1: and that made retailers really anxious and angry because they
Speaker 1: knew that that would be cutting into the holiday shopping season,
Speaker 1: and so he decided to move it up by a week.
Speaker 1: Well you think, maybe no big deal, but actually many
Speaker 1: of FDR's political foes were furious about this. In fact,
Speaker 1: one of them even compared him to Hitler. There's a
Speaker 1: quote from the Kansas governor at the time, Alf land
Speaker 1: and who who happened to be FDR's political opponent for
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirty six election. But he said quote, more
Speaker 1: time should have been taken in working it out so
Speaker 1: as to assure wholehearted cooperation, and instead of springing it
Speaker 1: upon an unprepared country with the omnipotence of a Hitler.
Speaker 1: Pretty strong words there, Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, so
Speaker 1: until it was officially signed into legislation as the fourth
Speaker 1: Thursday of November, there were a couple of years where
Speaker 1: states and conservative control continued to celebrate Thanksgiving on the
Speaker 1: last Thursday of the month, and then the New Dealers
Speaker 1: celebrated it the week before, so the earlier holiday was
Speaker 1: actually known derisively as Frank's Giving. All right, we've got
Speaker 1: one more fact each, Lauren, Okay, this one is about
Speaker 1: Julia Child. If if any of y'all part time genius
Speaker 1: listeners out there, uh, listen to food stuff as well,
Speaker 1: you'll know that she's kind of one of my personal heroes.
Speaker 1: And this this is so charming. So even during the
Speaker 1: height of her fame in the nineteen seventies and eighties,
Speaker 1: Julia Child kept her home telephone listed in the phone
Speaker 1: book in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and she would answer calls from
Speaker 1: people who were wondering what to do, like having trouble
Speaker 1: with a recipe up to an including on Thanksgiving, like
Speaker 1: she would be cooking dinner and uh, someone would call
Speaker 1: in panicked about their turkey. She would hand her whisk
Speaker 1: off to somebody else and just kind of talk them
Speaker 1: down like whether or not it was actual like like
Speaker 1: recipe advice or just going like, I don't know, now,
Speaker 1: it's totally turkey, doesn't even have to be served warm,
Speaker 1: do whatever you want, and just just you know, making
Speaker 1: everyone's day a little bit nicer. And she she refused
Speaker 1: to turn off the phone for for anything. She just
Speaker 1: always always would try to help people out. That is unbelievable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great fact. Well, you know, I know we
Speaker 1: don't have Julia Child to call anymore, but we do
Speaker 1: still have the butter Ball hot Line. Now, I'm assuming
Speaker 1: most of our listeners are aware of the Butterball hot Line,
Speaker 1: but just in case they aren't, it's been an operation
Speaker 1: for more than thirty years now, and so in November
Speaker 1: and December they're about fifty or sixty experts that are
Speaker 1: on the lines to answer the more than one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand questions that come into the hot line. People call
Speaker 1: one eight hundred butter ball. And the most common question,
Speaker 1: of course, is my turkey is still frozen, so what
Speaker 1: do I do? But the reason I wanted to point
Speaker 1: this out is I always like looking at the list
Speaker 1: of the weirdest questions that come in, and there was
Speaker 1: one that came in recently that was I left my
Speaker 1: turkey in a snow bank to keep it cold, and
Speaker 1: now I can't find it. What should I do? There
Speaker 1: are for turkeys? Is that A that's a good question. Alright, Well, mano,
Speaker 1: Sorry I had to jump in front of you there,
Speaker 1: But after she shared the a Julia Child fact, I
Speaker 1: just thought it was time to talk about butter ball.
Speaker 1: So you've got you've got one more fact. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and it's a good one. So, um, did you realize
Speaker 1: that Big Birds costume is entirely made of turkey feathers?
Speaker 1: According to CNN, those beautiful big feathers come from the
Speaker 1: rear end of a turkey and Sesame Street actually has
Speaker 1: strict approval on what feathers get used. Apparently one out
Speaker 1: of ten feathers gets rejected. And also to make that
Speaker 1: beautiful plumage, it about several thousand feathers, along with extras
Speaker 1: for when the costume woltz. And uh, just to be clear,
Speaker 1: one of the many things I'm thankful for is big bird.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, Ah, that's pretty great and it may be
Speaker 1: my favorite fact for today. And and I kind of
Speaker 1: want to name you the winner, but I actually feel
Speaker 1: like Tristan Sweater is stolen the show, so I think
Speaker 1: I want to give him the trophy. Are you guys
Speaker 1: okay with that? Totally? I'm here, I'm here with him
Speaker 1: in the studio, and I've got to say it's it's
Speaker 1: actually glowing a little bit. I'm not sure how he
Speaker 1: did that. Man. Well, congratulations Tristan, and listeners were certainly
Speaker 1: thankful for you, and hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with a full length episode tomorrow.