WEBVTT - 9 Starch-tastic Facts about Potatoes! 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:06.200 Welcome to Part Time Genius, a production of I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:14.240 Guess What Mango? What's that? Will? All? Right? So I 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:17.320 know we both love Mr potato At least I remembered 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.040 that you loved Mr potato Head. Did you remember that 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:22.360 I love Mr potato Head? I did not remember that 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:26.239 at all. Yeah, big fans, big, And you know who 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.360 invented Mr potato Head. It was George Learner, created back 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:34.800 in nineteen So my favorite thing about Mr potato Head 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:37.040 was that it was initially just a bag of like 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:40.479 base parts, and kids would supply their own potatoes to 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:44.400 jab these face parts into it. Right, that is exactly right. 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:46.600 You could use any like use your imagination here. You 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:50.640 could use carrots, turnips, or really any root vegetable that 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:53.600 you want to But potatoes were chosen. This was interesting. 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:56.520 Actually I didn't know exactly why. But one, they're cheap. 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:59.639 Of course, they were affordable, and they were available year 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:02.800 round on plus. I guess you could argue they're funnier 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:04.760 than Mr turnip Head, but I don't know that. It 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:08.200 seems debatable. But the craze then took off when Hasbro 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.920 made this big TV commercial for the product and they 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:13.399 sold it was something like four million dollars worth of 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:15.560 these toy parts within a few months. Now, that was 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:18.800 a fortune then. And the interesting thing though, is that Mr. 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:22.840 Potato had actually wasn't the first potato toy on the market. 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:24.160 I don't know if you knew this. I did not 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:26.360 know that what was before it. Well, it was the 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:29.319 first with three D pieces, so they added a D 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:31.800 to what was being done out there in the world. 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.280 It was competing with these these potato head toys at 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:38.000 the time that we're using two D pieces, like more 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:41.120 like paper product type stuff, and so you would stick 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:44.240 these just onto the vegetable. But what's interesting is that 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:48.120 in nineteen thirty one, this was a full eighteen years earlier, 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:50.920 So think about this, like potato toy technology was not 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.560 fully evolved yet. But the Soviet Union, of course they 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:57.320 had to be first. They launched this guide for kids 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.880 on how to play with potatoes. So basically it was 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:04.400 like this. It was a pretty delightful guide on how 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:07.360 you could use a pen knife and match dicks and 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:10.359 you could turn a bunch of potatoes into these little playthings. 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:13.600 And so there's this illustration on how to make two 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:16.600 little potato kids and have them see sawing on this 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:19.400 bigger potato. And then there was another one on how 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:22.519 to turn five or six potatoes into a race car 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:25.919 with a tiny potato driver, or this little potato man 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:29.800 walking his potato pig on a string leash. It's it, honestly, 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.600 it is a pretty delightful guide. So but but you know, 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:35.320 seeing this charming guide made me think of how much 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:40.480 joy potatoes bring the world, whether it's through ridiculous Soviet sculptures, 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:43.639 this is not this is real megati potatoes. But we 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:46.960 there's now more than ever we need potatoes to bring 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:50.160 the world joy or a bag of supersized fries, which 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:51.959 I know you and I are both big fans of. 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:54.120 I don't know if you remember this in college when 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:56.240 you thought you were a vegetarian and yet then you 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.560 realize that the potatoes had been cooked in and animal fat. 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:03.279 But but I thought we'd make a whole show about potatoes. 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:27.119 I am all about this. Let's five in ye ai 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:30.120 their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson, 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:32.040 and as always I'm joined by my good friend man 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:35.080 guess how Ticketer on the other side of that soundproof glass, 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:38.560 wearing a shirt that says am my readings. I think 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:42.320 it says taters over haters. Is that what it says? Yes, 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:45.160 I don't know what that means, but I love it 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:47.040 and I feel like I need one as well. That's 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:50.720 our good pal Ramsey. So some ango, what's up this week? 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:56.000 So I want to apologize to the listeners for this tease. 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:58.480 We had a few I guess like a month ago 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.840 or and thank them for being so patient because you 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:04.960 and I got to make an episode right before my 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:09.560 dad passed away, and my dad just loved it and 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:12.760 he's listening from the hospital, and you know, I had 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:15.119 every intention of just plomming through and turning the show 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:18.400 weekly again. But your parents are incredible and we are 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.440 just so lucky, Like both our parents were so important 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:24.120 in giving us love and support, and we got to 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.320 go to this incredible college and then we chose the 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:34.600 dumbest possible career and I'm just grateful that we get 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:36.479 to do this. So so thank you for making time 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:41.480 this week to talk about potatoes whatever ridiculous topics. So 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:43.280 where do you want to start? Do you want to 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:45.640 talk about how the universe might be shaped like a 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:51.039 Pringle ship or how the Alaskan gold rush h during 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:54.200 a desperate miners used to actually trade gold for potatoes 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:56.840 because it was so nutritious. Or what are you gonna 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.440 start with these? That's there's some good teases there I 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:01.800 feel like should be considered. But I'm actually going to 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:05.200 start with a fact about France back and then seventeen 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:09.960 hundreds when the potato mango it was actually declared illegal. 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.839 M okay, yep. So potatoes came to Europe by way 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:16.680 of the Spaniards, who themselves had brought the vegetables back 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:20.039 from the Inca Empire in South America, of course, and 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:24.760 immediately there's this real distrust of the vegetable. Distrust. Yeah, 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:27.880 I mean partially because potatoes are not mentioned in the Bible. 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:29.960 I don't know if you know this fact, and partially 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:33.800 because they grow underground, so people are weirdly suspicious of 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:38.560 them and at the time they're mostly fed to pigs. Wait. Wait, yeah, 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:41.280 you've done like a word search and found that potatoes 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.520 aren't aren't found in the Bible. That they are not. No, 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:46.560 I did the full search. No, I actually just read 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:48.400 through it. I should have done a search all but 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:50.400 I just kind of read through the whole thing. I 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:54.640 didn't find it once. So anyway, basically nobody will touch 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:59.080 these things, even hungry commoners. And then potatoes get blamed 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:02.680 for things like when leprosy spreads, of course everybody blames 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.680 it on the potatoes. And in all this mayhem, the 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.039 French Parliament decides to ban the vegetable. Now this was 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:14.120 around seventy and the potato is actually banned until seventeen 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:17.720 seventy two, So good twenty four years of no potatoes. 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:20.800 So I've actually read this thing in medtalphilast years ago 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:24.560 that early farmers would plant potatoes on Easter and sprinkle 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:26.919 them with holy water because they wanted the plant to 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.400 grow safely and not be dangerous. But how do potatoes 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:34.400 make their way into favor in culture? So there's this 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:38.640 army officer, Antoine Parmentier, and he gets captured by the 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.760 Prussians in the Seven Year War and so basically he's 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:45.320 fed potatoes at this prison, and he doesn't notice any 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.120 ill effects, like he's supposed to get leprosy and get 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:50.839 all sick and all these other things. He stays healthy 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:53.880 pretty much the whole time. But also he notices that 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:56.880 France at the time has stopped exporting grains, and the 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:00.360 Prussian army actually uses potatoes as a replace he spent 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.360 for it in their diet. So Permentier looks at all 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:05.839 of this, and as he learns more, he realizes that 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:09.120 potatoes don't take that much effort to grow. So when 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.240 he's released back to France, he starts this campaign to 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:16.600 rehabilitate the potatoes image. He throws these dinner parties where 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:19.960 he serves all these potato courses to celebrities, like then 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:22.680 Franklin came to one of these things. He gives potato 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:26.840 flowers to Marie Antoinette, and she then popularizes these things 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:30.360 by wearing them in a hat. So people start getting 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.480 curious and you know, trying to figure out what's going 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:35.920 on with this leprosy fruit, which is the potato. But 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:39.680 then he pulls off his greatest stunt, which I haven't 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:44.040 even mentioned yet. So what's his greatest stunt. He plants 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:47.320 a potato patch. He puts a ring of armed guards 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:50.320 around it, so everyone starts thinking of them as like 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:52.880 this luxury. I mean, this really is pretty smart. I 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:56.440 think of them as this, you know, very valuable thing. 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.680 But then he quietly tells the guards to accept bribes 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:03.400 and allow people to start stealing the potatoes. So in 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:07.280 seventeen seventy two, all these peasants steel potatoes and treat 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:10.640 them like this precious food. And then the Paris Faculty 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:15.560 of Medicine finally declares the potato edible and makes them 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:19.080 legal Again, isn't that amazing? French science is just on 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:22.160 top of it. I know what they're doing. So its 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:25.720 Parmentier like famous in France for doing this. I mean, 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:28.000 I guess kind of and he, you know, the potato 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:32.199 helped France get through some difficult famines, and Louis the 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:35.880 sixteenth rewarded him for his work, actually declaring how important 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:39.720 Parmentier was keeping the masses fed. And when he died, 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:43.800 Parmentier's casket was actually placed in a plot circled with 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:47.400 potato plants, and in the middle there's this bronze statue 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:50.400 of him handing a potato to a commoner who's standing 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:56.160 below him. So, just so you know, I would also 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:58.959 like a statue of me handing out potatoes to commonders, 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:01.800 just so I can remembers like a man of the people. Yeah, no, 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:04.320 I kind of expected this. So there's already one in 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.959 the works. I've started up paying thing and in installments 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:09.400 so that it will be ready. It's going to be 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:13.240 very expensive. But anyway, enough about Parmentier. What fact are 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:16.360 you going to start with? I've got one about baseball. 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:20.000 So you've heard of the old baseball trick where a 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.800 first baseman might walk up to the picture and fake 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.000 hand in the baseball, but actually he keeps the ball 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:27.319 in the glove and when he walks back to the 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:29.079 bag of the base runner steps off the base tick 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:31.280 lead he sort of tagged them out. Yeah, of course, 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:33.440 and it's it's it's like this old trick that mostly 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:35.439 gets used. I don't know, I feel like in kids 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.760 movies about baseball, Like you remember this Rookie of the Year, 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:40.240 I mean, one of the greatest films of all time. 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:42.520 I think, yeah, it is a very Rookie of the 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:46.040 Year play. But but this minor league catcher for the 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:49.360 Williams Sports Bills, his name is Dave Bresnahan, he was 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:52.559 completely obsessed with this trick play. And this was in 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:57.600 the late eighties, and Bresnahan was actually obsessed with a 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.920 variation of that trick using a fake base ball. I 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:03.640 love that anybody was obsessed with this trick. But anyway, 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:06.160 how does that work? Yeah, so in this case, the 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.040 catcher replaces the ball in his glove with the potato, 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:11.839 because you know how people always confuse like baseballs for 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:16.040 potatoes always, So the way the trick works is that 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:19.199 the catcher accidentally throws the potato into outfield like it's 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.360 an error. And then you know, when the base runner 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:24.560 tries to steal home, the catcher shows that he actually 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:26.520 has the baseball hidden his glove the whole time and 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:29.360 tags him out. And do people they actually did this 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:32.800 in baseball games. So according to the l A. Times, 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:34.880 which is where I read about the story, I guess 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:37.280 a few people got away with it in their earliest 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.920 days of baseball. It was called the Tator trick um 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:43.880 and anyway, So so Presenthan decides he's going to pull 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:45.840 off the Tator trick in a real game, and he 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.120 goes all out. He pays an artist to carve a 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:52.599 potato and paint seems on it like it's a real baseball. 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.360 He even picks the perfect game. He wants to do 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:58.240 it against the Phillies farm team in reading because the 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:00.319 Philly fanatic will be there and that means still be 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:03.560 more of a crowd, and he starts trying to lay 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.840 the groundwork. Like in games before the big one, he 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:09.200 starts trying to pick off players at third, so he's 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:11.800 kind of getting this reputation as a catcher who picks 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:15.720 off players. Anyway, the big day arrives and in the 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:18.640 sixth inning he gets into the perfect situation. There are 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:22.280 two outs and a man on third, and Presidenthan knows 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:24.880 this is his moment, so he comes up with this excuse. 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:27.120 He tells the Empire that the webbing on his glove 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:29.120 is off and he needs to replace his glove, and 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:33.600 then he walks the dugout, grabs this ridiculous carved potato, 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:37.120 and then walks back. So does anybody notice that he's 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:40.480 doing this? The whole team like, I don't think the 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.160 manager new, But the whole team starts laughing, and they're 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:45.920 having a hard time like controlling themselves because they know 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:48.959 what's up. And Presidenthan himself is trying to keep it together. 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:51.360 But but when the runner on third takes a lead 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:53.800 and the pitch lens in his glove, he snaps into 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:56.720 action and he makes the switch and he throws this 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:01.400 potato to third, but in dead of overthrowing the potato 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:05.000 past the third basement into the field, he accidentally underthrows 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:08.040 it and it bounces and the potato breaks into three 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.360 pieces and it lands right in for the third base umpire, 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:16.079 but the player doesn't notice, and you know, he charged 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:18.480 his home and Resonahan shows him the ball and tags 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:20.920 him out, and then he walks to the dugout. And 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:24.200 here's the thing, right, reson Han assumes if his team 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:26.480 follows him, the other team will walk off too and 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.319 the game will just move on and continue. So does 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:34.760 this work? Not at all? The officials are super confused. 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.320 His teammates stay on the field, and the meantime, the 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:40.640 third base goes to inspect this you know, broken up potato, 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:43.240 and when he realized what's happened, the officials just award 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:46.800 the runner home plate. And then Reresonehan gets pulled from 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.520 the game for his shenanigans and the next day he's 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:53.280 fined fifty dollars and cut from the team. Oh my gosh, 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:55.640 that we have way more sad than I expected. That's 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:59.679 a funny trick. Presdonhan actually didn't mind that much because 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.240 he was not that great a player, and the fans 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:06.240 loved it, so he became such a like fan favorite 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:08.760 or this legend that the team ended up retiring his 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:12.280 jersey at the sold out game and uh, and they 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:14.840 charged a dollar for tickets where not only could you attend, 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:18.440 but you also got a potato with your ticket and 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:21.240 uh and actually the largest chunk of that potato he 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:23.960 threw uh in that Phillies game is in a jar 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:27.600 of alcohol sitting on display in a baseball history museum 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:31.079 in California. So, like, I think the actually feels like 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:33.440 he went out and end. Yeah, he came out on top. 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:38.040 That's pretty fun. So what do you have this next? Alright? 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:41.200 How about um a quick one from the Farmer's Almanac. 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:43.000 I know you're a fan of the Farmer's Almanac. I 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:46.400 feel like that's where my favorite of almanacs. Oh, definitely, definitely. 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.760 So if you've got a knife with some small rust spots, 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:53.520 you can actually use a potato to fix that. So 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:55.800 how's that work? Do you like, use the potatoes sproper 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:57.719 way the rust or what I mean? That would be 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:00.160 one way, but according to the Almanac and had a 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:03.559 few other online sources, it's actually even easier than that. 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:06.600 So you just insert the knife into the potato, let 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:09.360 it sit, and the oxalic acid and the potato will 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:11.600 work on the rust and soften it so that it 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.839 then rents his away. How great would it be if 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:17.719 that was like the best way to clean all your utensils, 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:19.920 Like you sad them into potatoes and leave them overnight 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:22.160 to clean them. Be the best feeling. Just get to 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:26.960 keep stabbing potatoes. I'd have so many potatoes around. Um. 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:30.120 Speaking of a lot of potatoes, here's a trend I 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:32.200 kind of want to bring back from two thousand twelve 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:35.760 in Japan, and it's the McDonald's potato party. I mean, 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:38.880 we've established you do love McDonald's french fries, I know, 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:41.280 with sweet and sour sauce's. It's like one of the 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:45.560 many works and loves I have. But about a decade ago, 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:48.400 the McDonald's in Japan started running a sale kind of 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:51.920 like the dollar menu, where large fries were suddenly deeply discounted, 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:55.760 And so some teens ordered twenty three large fries and 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:58.040 made a mountain of them on a bunch of trays 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:02.760 and posted to social media. People just went crazy, I guess. 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:05.920 And and this is according to give moto. The McDonald's 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:09.400 Japan use a more polite form of Japanese, so even 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:11.600 though it's not fancy, you're supposed to act with like 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:15.000 a little bit more decorum, I guess. And the photo 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:19.720 gets retweeted thousands of times, and people are angry that 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:22.520 kids are acting silly and being a bother to the McDonald's. 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:24.520 And some people are just stunned to see that many 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:28.080 fries in one place. But the biggest chorus around these 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:30.840 photos is this argument that if you order that many fries, 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:34.240 you have to eat them or is disrespectful. And I 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:37.680 would agree with that, but but did this become a trend? Yeah, 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:40.560 Like potato parties started popping up all over the place, 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:43.520 and some kids saw the twenty three fry order as 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.880 a challenge, obviously, so in Okinawa, some kids ordered forty 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:50.720 large fries. At the McDonald's near Okayama Station, a small 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:54.400 group of kids ordered sixty large fries, and that photo 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:58.280 got retweeted tens of thousands of times apparently, And so like, 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.920 you know, the kids are supposed to finish these fries, 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:04.360 and they actually do, like like I think it takes 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:09.360 them about three hours, but the employees get super upset. 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.600 Apparently the fries took up a whole large table on 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:15.760 their own, and then all the people watching these kids 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:18.880 house these fries take up another large table, so you know, 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:21.120 it felt like they were losing business. And and one 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.360 employee from the restaurant took to Twitter and just asked 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:30.880 for it to quote please stop, please stop. That said, 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:33.440 if you are handing trays and trays of fries over 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:35.160 to kid, you've got to expect there's gonna be a 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:38.560 little chaos. When you said the three hours, though, the 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:41.040 only thing I could think of is like, while the 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:45.560 fries are delicious, after about thirty minutes, if they're sitting there, 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:49.400 they go from really good to pretty gross pretty fast. 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:52.480 I wonder they must have just kept ordering them rather 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:54.800 than ordering a bunch at one time, because I don't know, 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:57.240 I'd have to see how that works. But how did 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.120 the trend finally die down? So McDonald's just up the 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.240 price on the fries to their regular price and it 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:07.000 kind of stopped really soon after that, which is a 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:11.840 pretty simple fix. Yeah, alright, so here's a weird. When 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:14.760 I was watching this little documentary about potato chips and 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.760 ed her from hers potato chips, and he said that 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.160 if they still made potato chips the way they used 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:22.880 to this was about fifty years ago when the company started, 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:27.199 they would have to charge twenty five dollars a bag bag. 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:29.320 Why why is that? I mean, that's just how much 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:32.080 the industry has automated since then. It's actually kind of 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:34.760 amazing to to watch how it all works. So when 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:37.560 a truck full of potatoes goes to the Hers factory, 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.439 the trailers pulled onto a scale where the potatoes are 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:43.280 then weighed, and then it lifts the potatoes and dumps 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:47.199 the potatoes onto a conveyor belt, and the whole process starts, 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:49.880 kind of without humans. The whole thing is starting there, 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:52.800 and instead of watching to see which potatoes are colored 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:56.080 green and which ones are good, this computer sorts all 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.880 of this out and the imperfect potatoes and chips are 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:02.720 all weeded out along the way. Ed Her actually says 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:04.840 that when his mom was involved in the business and 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:08.280 used to supervise the bagging of these chips, they would 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.560 bag five the ten pounds of chips every hour, and 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.480 now with fewer people, more computers on the line, they 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:18.240 bag five to six tons of potato chips every hour, 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:22.679 which is insane. That is amazing, you know. Speaking of 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:25.879 potato chip bags, here's a quick interesting one. So people 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:30.280 absolutely hate that potato chip bags are over. In fact, 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:33.880 Korean college students in two thousand fourteen protested this fact 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:37.520 by taking a hundred sixty potato chip bags, finding them 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:40.080 together with plastic and tape, and using them to build 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:43.880 a raft to float across the river. And apparently plus 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:47.520 people watched that feet But um, the question remains, why 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:51.360 do potato chips have so much air in them? Yeah? 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:54.560 And do you do you have an answer to this? Yeah, 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:59.080 it is intentional. It is called Slackville, and that's the 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.480 industry term. Sasically, those bags are pumped full of a 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.760 little extra nitrogen to both keep the chips preserved, but 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:08.240 also because if the bags are packed with air, they 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:10.679 won't get mishandled and you won't end up with a 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:13.639 bag full of crumbs. It's basically a way to protect 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:17.000 you from getting a half bag of like fully round chips. 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:20.280 Oh that's interesting. I guess we always assume that it's 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:23.199 just too to you know, be cheap or cheat us 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:25.119 out of a certain number of chips or something. But 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:27.440 that's pretty interesting. All Right, We've got a couple more 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:29.879 facts to go, but let's pause for just a quick break. 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:45.760 Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking about 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:50.080 a really important summer topic, potatoes, of course. So Mango, 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:52.960 we've each got one fact ago, what do you want 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:55.320 to close with? Well, I know you're probably a little 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:58.000 late to celebrate this, but I want to point out 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:00.960 to you that in two thousand eight, the UN declared 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:04.280 it the International Year of the Potato. Okay, well, we're 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:07.640 just what fourteen years behind celebrating this historic event that's 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.760 never never too light, It's okay, Well, it's kind of 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:13.919 interesting why the UN decided to do this. Uh As, 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:15.960 as they put it, they wanted to shed new light 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.080 on a hidden treasure. And part of the reason is 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:23.600 that growing potatoes is surprisingly efficient in combating hunger. Because 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:27.720 potatoes aren't really traded across borders, because they're so easy 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:31.320 to grow across climates from low to high altitudes, and 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:34.479 because they're not really globally traded like most cereal crops, 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:37.000 they offer a lot of food security and farmers don't 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:40.080 have to worry about the prices fluctuating because of global markets. 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:43.680 Apparently that year, places like Peru encouraged locals to use 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:47.160 potato flour to reduce the reliance on wheat imports, and 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.440 both the Chinese and Indian governments leaned into potato production 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:52.960 to feed their growing populations. And I kind of like that, 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:55.760 after all that time, the UN finally gave the potato 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:59.400 it's due in this giant report. I agree. I kind 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:01.920 of like that to So how are you going to 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:04.239 close this up? All? Right? Well, I was torn. There 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:05.720 were a couple of facts I was looking at, but 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:07.880 I'm gonna save one of them for this. I think 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:09.760 we need to do a follow up with nine more 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:12.760 great facts about potatoes, because there's they're just so many. 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:17.520 But how about a fact about couch potatoes? So unlike 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:21.080 most etymology, which can be pretty frustrating because the origins 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:23.480 are always, you know, pretty murky, we've dealt with that 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:27.359 on on several topics before. There is an exact start 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:31.119 date for the word couch potato. It first appeared in 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:33.840 print back in nineteen seventy nine that you're both you 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:36.720 and I were born. This was in the l A Times, 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:40.600 while referencing afloat on a parade route. According to the 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:44.080 article quote the couch potatoes will be lying on couches 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:47.760 watching television as they are towed towards the parade route. 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:51.320