Speaker 1: I guess, well, what's that mango? So I know you
Speaker 1: know this, but my family loves the writer P. G. Woodhouse,
Speaker 1: Like his books are light and sweet and funny, and
Speaker 1: wherever you go in India, you'll find them on my
Speaker 1: family's bookshelves. And when I was in middle school and
Speaker 1: in high school, there was this great TV adaptation of
Speaker 1: Wooster and Jeeves, and it had a young Hugh Lori
Speaker 1: in it, young Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie played this
Speaker 1: rich simpleton. His name was Bertie Wooster. He was always
Speaker 1: getting into silly trouble and Stephen Fry played his genius
Speaker 1: butler who was always saving him. And his name was Jeeves,
Speaker 1: and he was actually a valet. Isn't it proounced valet mango?
Speaker 1: Not if you're British? Apparently there it's valet, But it's
Speaker 1: a gentleman's gentleman. The reason I'm bringing it up is
Speaker 1: that Jeeves in these stories is the proper one, and
Speaker 1: he's always shuddering at these like new fangled ideas that
Speaker 1: Bertie Wooster has. And in this one episode, Bertie gets
Speaker 1: his pajamas monogrammed and Jeeves just can't stand this, like
Speaker 1: he thinks it's super low class and toddrey to put
Speaker 1: your initials on things, and he keeps wondering if it's
Speaker 1: because like Bertie'll forget who he is or or whether
Speaker 1: he owns pajamas. So he kind of scoffs at it
Speaker 1: disapprovingly through the show, which is pretty funny because today,
Speaker 1: you know, if you've got a monogram on a shirt
Speaker 1: or especially a towel mango, I mean, that is seen
Speaker 1: as like real high class definitely. So the thing is
Speaker 1: they are all these like strange customs and sports and
Speaker 1: traditions that we sort of revere today's elite and we
Speaker 1: see them as high class, but actually they started out
Speaker 1: with much more humble origins. And today on the show,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take all that stuff down to peg and
Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about it. So let's dive in. Hey,
Speaker 1: their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Speaker 1: Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend
Speaker 1: Mangesh how Ticketer and on the other side of the
Speaker 1: soundproof glass, I just I can't stop looking over at
Speaker 1: him because he is looking so damper. He's in a
Speaker 1: top hat and tails. That is our friend and producer
Speaker 1: Tristan Michiel. I don't think I've ever seen him looking
Speaker 1: so fancy dressed up. No, it's amazing, man. And as
Speaker 1: you know, Tristan did say he'd be dressing up as
Speaker 1: a quote wealthy elite to that. That's what he's been
Speaker 1: saying all week for today's show, So I imagine that's
Speaker 1: what's going on here. I have to say, I don't
Speaker 1: know what you. I feel like he looks a little
Speaker 1: more like a stage magician maybe, but but whatever I mean,
Speaker 1: he looks good. I know if he had a pack
Speaker 1: of cards, you could go in one direction, and if
Speaker 1: he had like a monocle and caine, he'd looked like
Speaker 1: Mr Peanut, which feels like a little less elite to me.
Speaker 1: But I do admire Tristan style. Well. To be fair,
Speaker 1: people have drastically different ideas about what is elite. So
Speaker 1: you can ask a dozen people on the street and
Speaker 1: get twelve completely different answers. And you know, while things
Speaker 1: like wealth and privilege crop up, and most people's definitions,
Speaker 1: the specifics on how that wealth and privilege are displayed,
Speaker 1: you know, varied a lot over the years, and things
Speaker 1: that were once considered a lead or high class are
Speaker 1: now seen as tacky, and things that started out with
Speaker 1: this more mass appeal of since only been set aside
Speaker 1: for the rich. And I think it's that second kind
Speaker 1: of shift that will probably focus on today, you know,
Speaker 1: that lower class things that have sort of graduated to
Speaker 1: the upper cross. So I feel like this is maybe
Speaker 1: our Beverly Hillbillies episode, you could say. So, you know,
Speaker 1: we're gonna check out some of the food, the sports,
Speaker 1: the cultural norms that started out humbly and later became
Speaker 1: these symbols of wealth and status. So let's dive right in.
Speaker 1: You know, Mega, what what do you think is your
Speaker 1: first rags to riches story for the day. So I
Speaker 1: thought I kicked things off with the farmhouse origins of
Speaker 1: one of the world's fanciest sounding beers, and that, of
Speaker 1: course is the Belgian, says on, oh man, that does
Speaker 1: sound fancy, although maybe that was just your impeccable French
Speaker 1: accent there. I know, we pronounced valet valets. We've got
Speaker 1: it's pretty amazing. But you could say that Sazon's kind
Speaker 1: of taste kind of fancy too, like they're typically on
Speaker 1: the dry side in terms of deer. In fact, I
Speaker 1: was at a wedding some years ago where we drank
Speaker 1: Sayson for the wedding toast instead of champagne. But historically
Speaker 1: Szan's were most popular among the working class, and that
Speaker 1: was true right up until the nineteen fifties when they
Speaker 1: sort of fell out of favor all together. And if
Speaker 1: you cut to today, you know, there's kind of a
Speaker 1: Sason revolution that's been going on. About a dozen or
Speaker 1: so craft brewery started it and they started making it again.
Speaker 1: And of course the flip side is that the beer
Speaker 1: is now viewed as kind of niche and not as
Speaker 1: approachable as it should be to the average drinker. Well,
Speaker 1: and I feel like it doesn't help that Sezans aren't
Speaker 1: served usually in these regular pint classes. I mean it
Speaker 1: feels like that you really coming these wide stem glasses, right,
Speaker 1: like a brandy glass or something like that. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: can definitely be true. The presentation changes and sometimes people
Speaker 1: like to swirl them. But despite the fancy modern reputation,
Speaker 1: Sazan's actually have these really humble roots. So they first
Speaker 1: came on the scene during the eighteenth century when they
Speaker 1: were brewed by farmers and Wallonia, which is I guess
Speaker 1: this French speaking region of southern Belgium. But rather than
Speaker 1: being brewed for its taste or it's intoxicating effects, sazon
Speaker 1: began as a product of necessity more than anything else.
Speaker 1: And and that's really because the water in more rural
Speaker 1: regions wasn't portable at the time. It contained way too
Speaker 1: many of these pathogens that that made it unfit for drinking.
Speaker 1: So in order to keep their workers hydrated through those
Speaker 1: busy summer seasons, farmers started brewing sesans. All right, But
Speaker 1: but hadn't people have been doing that a long time?
Speaker 1: Like that's kind of the origin of beer in general, isn't.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could go all the way back to
Speaker 1: ancient Egypt. I think it was fuel for you know,
Speaker 1: the laborers there when water was either scarce or contaminated.
Speaker 1: So I feel like that's something that's been around for
Speaker 1: a long time. That's definitely true. And Willonian farmers definitely
Speaker 1: weren't the first to have this beer dependent workforce. To
Speaker 1: trouble for them was how to keep enough beer on
Speaker 1: hand to last through the hot summers. And you've got
Speaker 1: to remember this was all prior to refrigeration, So getting
Speaker 1: beered for men and not spoil was pretty tricky during
Speaker 1: the months when heat and all this airborne bacteria was
Speaker 1: at its peak. So sesons were kind of the solution
Speaker 1: to this problem. Like they were brewed during the cooler
Speaker 1: autumn and winter months and then stored until summer rolled around.
Speaker 1: And it's actually from the strong association with the certain
Speaker 1: time of year that the beer gets its name, since
Speaker 1: Sezan is actually French first season. Hm. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: that makes sense, but I'm curious though. Was was this
Speaker 1: beer any different from other kinds being made at the
Speaker 1: time or was it just the time of year that
Speaker 1: made its stand out. Yeah, saesons were actually set apart
Speaker 1: in a few ways. Like one thing is that they
Speaker 1: were much hottier than the other beers, and that's because
Speaker 1: the hops act as a natural preservative, and they also
Speaker 1: possessed these antiseptic properties, which again was super helpful in
Speaker 1: fighting off those pathogens. The other standout trade is that
Speaker 1: Sayson saw we're really adaptable, Like farmers typically used whatever
Speaker 1: they had on hand at the end of a harvest
Speaker 1: to make the next year's says on. So the base
Speaker 1: ingredients and the spices varied from farm to farm and
Speaker 1: even barrel to barrel. Like these differences made the beer
Speaker 1: hard to categorize, but it also made it a bit
Speaker 1: more personal. And since the average farm worker drank as
Speaker 1: much as uh, I think it's like five leaders of
Speaker 1: says on every single world day. Yeah, I'm guessing they
Speaker 1: didn't mind a little variety in that flavor. Five leaders
Speaker 1: a day, I mean imagining this couldn't have been that alcoholic, right,
Speaker 1: unless I'm actually picturing all these farmers just passed out
Speaker 1: in their fields by noon. But that's that's crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I read that most daisons were originally around three percenters though,
Speaker 1: which would be enough to give him a buzz, but
Speaker 1: you know, not so strong as to incapacitate them. And
Speaker 1: of course the alcohol content went up a little over
Speaker 1: time as other people began, you know, during thinking them too.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just the workers. In fact, many small farms
Speaker 1: from the era were eventually turned into family breweries, and
Speaker 1: the different saisons became kind of especially drink for their
Speaker 1: respective towns. All right, So if they were this popular,
Speaker 1: why did they disappear for a while, Because I think
Speaker 1: you said they kind of vanished, what was it in
Speaker 1: the in the fifties or so, Yeah, this was really
Speaker 1: due to industrialization. So by the fifties, refrigeration and like
Speaker 1: access to drinkable water, that all it eliminated this need
Speaker 1: for these summer specific ales. So demand dried up pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: and what was kind of the de facto beer of
Speaker 1: the working class became this artisanal product instead. And you know,
Speaker 1: even in today's saisons, you can still find traces of
Speaker 1: the beer's farmhouse roots because you know, aside from the
Speaker 1: notes of fruit and spice, you'll also taste this kind
Speaker 1: of like earthy funkiness in the bruise, and that really
Speaker 1: harkens back to those like grab bag ingredients that those
Speaker 1: Wallonian farmers were using. You know. Um, it's kind of funny,
Speaker 1: like the description that's used for that barnyard flavor is
Speaker 1: actually horse blanket. Like horse blanket is sup was like
Speaker 1: what makes sasan so appealing? I have to admit that
Speaker 1: horse blanket isn't generally a flavor. I think I would
Speaker 1: seek a horse blanket pringles horse. Alright, Well, since we're
Speaker 1: on the subject of elite dining, you know, I do
Speaker 1: want to talk about lobster for a minute, because this
Speaker 1: is one of those that I just found super interesting
Speaker 1: and didn't know a whole lot about before we were
Speaker 1: researching for the episode. But I believe it or not,
Speaker 1: there was actually a time when lobster meat was the
Speaker 1: lowest priced item on a New England menu, and it
Speaker 1: was about half the costs of chicken that was pound
Speaker 1: for pound at least, and five times cheaper than Boston
Speaker 1: baked beans. Of all things, cheaper than beans means something,
Speaker 1: as it does, so I actually read that lobsters used
Speaker 1: to be so abundant on the East Coast, and this
Speaker 1: is back in the six hundreds that it wasn't uncommon
Speaker 1: to find like two foot high piles of them just
Speaker 1: washed up on the beach. I mean, that is incredible
Speaker 1: to think about. Yeah, And you know, and people who
Speaker 1: stumbled on those lobster piles probably left them right where
Speaker 1: they were, because back then most people wanted nothing to
Speaker 1: do with lobsters. They were considered disgusting, and you know,
Speaker 1: partially because they look like insects, and partially because of
Speaker 1: their reputation as being these bottom feeders. And honestly, none
Speaker 1: of that is too far off. I mean, lobsters really
Speaker 1: are distant relatives of cockroaches and spiders, and in fact,
Speaker 1: their name actually comes from the Old English word lop,
Speaker 1: which which actually means spider. So I do like lobsters
Speaker 1: because they're so funny. I'm sure you remember how my
Speaker 1: roommate in college, Adam, and I wanted to get a
Speaker 1: pet lobster because it would be fun to walk around
Speaker 1: on a leash. And we even had a name, Hector
Speaker 1: the Lobster. But of course that's where our efforts stopped
Speaker 1: because we didn't really do things. We just talked about things.
Speaker 1: It didn't stop you guys from talking about it a lot, though,
Speaker 1: I remember that. So I do feel like we give
Speaker 1: lobsters this giant pass because they live in the ocean, right,
Speaker 1: Like like if you came across lobster the forest and
Speaker 1: it's not climbing out of a hole in the tree,
Speaker 1: you think it was like some kind of giant monster
Speaker 1: bug and dipping it in butter would be like the
Speaker 1: furthest thing for your mind. But you know, that's even
Speaker 1: before you get into how weird lobster anatomy is, like
Speaker 1: their brains are in their throats, their teeth are in
Speaker 1: their stomachs. There the whole thing is a mess. Like
Speaker 1: I can't argue with you on that, but you know,
Speaker 1: as unpopular as lobsters were in the seventeenth century, some
Speaker 1: people did eat them anyway. I mean, you look at
Speaker 1: Native Americans, for instance, they ate lobsters by wrapping them
Speaker 1: in seaweed and then baking them over hot rocks. But
Speaker 1: to be fair, lobster wasn't their first choice. I mean,
Speaker 1: they also used the meat to fertilize their crops and
Speaker 1: bait their fishing hooks, and they were doing that in
Speaker 1: hopes of catching something less disgusting than lobster. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: some colonists must have eaten them too. Write like, I know,
Speaker 1: food was scarce in those early days, so I can't
Speaker 1: imagine everyone had the luxury of being picky. What lobster
Speaker 1: was plentiful and as alid source of protein. So people
Speaker 1: did eat it, just not happily and always with a
Speaker 1: certain degree of embarrassment I guess when they were eating it.
Speaker 1: But you know, times were tough and only the wealthiest
Speaker 1: residents could afford chicken or pork, and that's how lobster
Speaker 1: became a poor person food. And so you know, lobsters
Speaker 1: were a common meal for people like prisoners or apprentices
Speaker 1: or enslaved people and even cats mango. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: what it was like. And this didn't go over well,
Speaker 1: of course, except with the cats, who weren't as worried
Speaker 1: about what other people thought. And you know, some indentured
Speaker 1: servants actually had a clause in their contracts saying that
Speaker 1: they could be fed lobster no more than three times
Speaker 1: a week. I mean, that's how undesirable it was. I
Speaker 1: mean it's insane because you think of like how people
Speaker 1: crave lobster today, right, yeah, and lobster is one of
Speaker 1: the top requested last meals for prisoners on death row now,
Speaker 1: so clearly these perceptions have changed significantly over the years.
Speaker 1: So I am curious what mark that change and thinking,
Speaker 1: because like, going from a trash meat to this like
Speaker 1: posh delicacy is a pretty big leap, even for something
Speaker 1: with ten legs, which, uh, you know, I only just
Speaker 1: realized they have ten legs. What they had ten legs? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've never been counting the clause. I guess they have
Speaker 1: two pictures and then those like eight legs beneath. And
Speaker 1: apparently this is pretty common. Like I saw this piece
Speaker 1: in Slate that almost every image of a lobster in
Speaker 1: a cartoon or drawing. And this is even on road signs,
Speaker 1: for like, lobster places all have eight legs instead of ten,
Speaker 1: and uh, it's anatomically incorrect everywhere you look. So you know,
Speaker 1: I I got his off track, but I did want
Speaker 1: to make a point of that. But that was that
Speaker 1: was very important to talk about, you know, to understand. Well,
Speaker 1: now you're gonna see it everywhere. But how did lobsters
Speaker 1: get so fancy? Tell me about that? All right, Well,
Speaker 1: it actually all comes down to railroads, believe it or not.
Speaker 1: So go back to the eighteen seventies, and trains gave
Speaker 1: rise to this seasonal tourism in America with wealthy residents
Speaker 1: of places like New York or d C. They would
Speaker 1: head off to you know, to Boston or to Maine
Speaker 1: to get away from that summer heat. And it was
Speaker 1: this travel boom that led to a realization for railroad managers, namely,
Speaker 1: you know that many passengers were clueless about how hated
Speaker 1: lobsters were by the people on the coast, and so
Speaker 1: this allowed the trains to serve up lobster as though
Speaker 1: it was this kind of like an exotic delicacy, even
Speaker 1: though it actually cost the railroad much less than other
Speaker 1: meats would have, and this russe seemed to work, and passengers,
Speaker 1: soon we're heading home from vacation raving to their neighbors
Speaker 1: about this delicious boiled lobster that they'd had while they
Speaker 1: were out on their fancy travels. And so word of
Speaker 1: mouth grew from there, and lobster canning became a thing,
Speaker 1: and it actually launched a whole industry around this. That's
Speaker 1: pretty incredible, you know. Uh, What's interesting about that though,
Speaker 1: it makes it seem like the popular opinion was really
Speaker 1: the only thing holding lobsters back, right, Like, it's almost like,
Speaker 1: add that there were people who are actually liking eating lobster,
Speaker 1: it suddenly made the food tastier. Yeah, I mean that
Speaker 1: that's true. But there actually was more to it than that,
Speaker 1: because once there was really a market for lobster, it
Speaker 1: gave the chefs an opportunity to start experimenting with different preparations.
Speaker 1: And so you fast forward a bit, and by the
Speaker 1: eighteen eighties they'd stumbled across a real game changer. So
Speaker 1: they discovered that lobster looked more appetizing and tasted a
Speaker 1: whole lot better if it was actually cooked alive rather
Speaker 1: than being killed and then cooked, and that's kind of
Speaker 1: when it went gourmet. So by the nineteen twenties, the
Speaker 1: demand outweighed supply for the first time in history, and
Speaker 1: the going rate for lobster rose to about what it
Speaker 1: is today now. That said, lobster was still viewed as
Speaker 1: food for the poor, and Maine and other parts of
Speaker 1: New England where you know, kids were embarrassed to go
Speaker 1: to school with lobster meat sandwiches, and that really only
Speaker 1: changed during World War Two because lobster wasn't subject to
Speaker 1: rationing like other forms of protein, and so that meant
Speaker 1: that people from all regions and social classes began to
Speaker 1: find out just how tasty these you know, these sea
Speaker 1: bugs could be. So did did that egalitarian streak last
Speaker 1: for long? No? I mean, by the time the war
Speaker 1: was over in the nineteen fifties, rolls around, lobster had
Speaker 1: fully become an American delicacy, and this was obviously seen
Speaker 1: as a meal fit for movie stars and the one
Speaker 1: percent rather than the prisoners and the poor people that
Speaker 1: it had been seen as before. So we've definitely been
Speaker 1: talking about this from a New World perspective. But I
Speaker 1: am curious what Europeans thought like, did they hate lobster
Speaker 1: as much as the North Americans? Did? You know? I
Speaker 1: was looking into that because I actually had no idea.
Speaker 1: And it seems like there's always been a market for
Speaker 1: European blue lobster. It's it's it's a lot more rare
Speaker 1: and expensive than the kind that we eat here, because
Speaker 1: you know, Europeans never had the same reservations about eating them.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was kind of the opposite. I mean,
Speaker 1: lobster was believed to have these medicinal qualities during the
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, even the Renaissance, and it was served pretty
Speaker 1: often at these upper class feasts. And I fought your
Speaker 1: story about wanting to walk a lobster on a leash
Speaker 1: actually has a bit of a legacy. Maybe you and
Speaker 1: Adam have been doing your reading on this, but I
Speaker 1: was reading about this French poet named Gerard d Nerval,
Speaker 1: and he supposedly had a pet lobster and he would
Speaker 1: sometimes put a leash on it and take it for
Speaker 1: walks at the Royal Palace in Paris. And you know,
Speaker 1: when he got weird looks, he'd respond by saying, quote,
Speaker 1: how is a lobster more ridiculous than a dog? A cat,
Speaker 1: a gazelle, a lion, or any other animal. I have
Speaker 1: an affinity for lobsters. They're easy going and serious, they
Speaker 1: know the secrets of the sea, and they don't bark.
Speaker 1: So other than the very last part of that, I
Speaker 1: don't understand any of that. But I love the quote. Well,
Speaker 1: I do feel like I'm in a good company, and
Speaker 1: I like how he's marketing them not just as an
Speaker 1: elite food, but also as an elite pet. Perhaps relutely.
Speaker 1: But now that we've covered fancy food and drink, what
Speaker 1: do you say we shift a little bit and talk
Speaker 1: about maybe a couple of athletic past times that had
Speaker 1: more modest beginnings. Absolutely, but first let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: You're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about
Speaker 1: sports that made the switch from low brow to high class.
Speaker 1: So all right, Mago, you're up first. What comes to
Speaker 1: mind when you think about posh sports. Well, we mentioned
Speaker 1: this in our Winter Olympics episode, but most of the
Speaker 1: cold weather sports are still pretty elite, and that's largely
Speaker 1: because of the travel costs, the expensive equipment that goes
Speaker 1: along with sports like skiing or ice skating. But you
Speaker 1: know one sport that seems needlessly elite to me is
Speaker 1: squash and uh, it's a little like racketball. It's a
Speaker 1: racket sport, but it's played with this hardball that you
Speaker 1: have to warm up. Have you ever seen this? I've seen.
Speaker 1: I've actually never played, So the first time I went
Speaker 1: onto the squash court, I watched this guy just like
Speaker 1: squishing the ball under his foot and just rolling it
Speaker 1: vigorously to warm the ball up, because the ball actually
Speaker 1: doesn't bounce until it's warm. It's pretty ridiculous. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then they played a lot in India, so I've seen
Speaker 1: it there. But but you know, there's nothing that sophisticated
Speaker 1: about the sport except where the courts are located, Like
Speaker 1: mostly they're in well to do neighborhoods or in these
Speaker 1: sort of elite country clubs, which is just where you're
Speaker 1: hanging out all the time. So it makes sense that
Speaker 1: you would have played at some point. But you know,
Speaker 1: in our Titanic episode, we mentioned that the ship actually
Speaker 1: had its own regulations squash corps for those first class passengers,
Speaker 1: and I feel like that's a pretty good testament to
Speaker 1: the game's reputation as being this elite sport. But since
Speaker 1: you bring it up today. I'm guessing squash didn't start
Speaker 1: out quite so fancy. Definitely not, so I do want
Speaker 1: to clarify. In Brooklyn, in bourm Hill, there's a New
Speaker 1: York Sports club. You can rent a squash court for
Speaker 1: five dollars, so you can get on the squash court
Speaker 1: from very I like, how worried you are that people
Speaker 1: are gonna think you're just hanging out a country class.
Speaker 1: I can't get into country class. So squash was actually
Speaker 1: derived from this game called rackets, which you know, had
Speaker 1: been invented by prisoners in the early nineteenth century, and
Speaker 1: the inmates at this Dinner's prison in London started getting
Speaker 1: their exercise by hitting a ball against the prison walls
Speaker 1: with tennis rackets, and from there the game sort of
Speaker 1: spread beyond the prison, with many of England's lower class
Speaker 1: citizens playing in the alleyways behind pubs, and then the
Speaker 1: game spread to schools where the first four wall courts
Speaker 1: were specifically built just for the game. And it was
Speaker 1: at one of these schools where students invented a spinoff
Speaker 1: rackets game called squash, and I guess rackets was played
Speaker 1: with this hard, hollow rubber ball that tends to be
Speaker 1: pretty predictable, you know when bounced off a wall, while
Speaker 1: the squash ball is is so much softer and it
Speaker 1: really makes for a greater variety of shots. So what
Speaker 1: made the students switch to the softer ball, Like where
Speaker 1: the school seeing it as a as a safety thing
Speaker 1: with the harder balls or what you know? That's what
Speaker 1: I was wondering at first, But it turned out the
Speaker 1: switch happened more organically. So this was in around the
Speaker 1: eighteen thirties. Students at Harrow School in London realized that
Speaker 1: rackets was much much more challenging when you played with
Speaker 1: a punctured ball because it just became like harder to
Speaker 1: predict where the ball would bounce, and you have to
Speaker 1: pay closer attention, You had to run around the court
Speaker 1: more and and you weren't just waiting for it to
Speaker 1: bounce back to you. And the squeezeable ball became sort
Speaker 1: of the defining feature of their game. And that's supposedly
Speaker 1: where the sport you know, got its name from. From
Speaker 1: the way the ball kind of squashes on impact with
Speaker 1: the wall. That makes sense. That's that's pretty cool, And
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that the new game kind of took off,
Speaker 1: and you don't hear too much about rackets these days,
Speaker 1: but squash does still seem pretty popular. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it was so popular that it clips its parents sport
Speaker 1: of the early twentieth century. And while squash now has
Speaker 1: this reputation of being sort of an uppercross sport, it
Speaker 1: is worth noting that more than twenty five million people
Speaker 1: play squash in a hundred eighty five different countries, and
Speaker 1: that includes a good deal of underprivileged kids to like, Like,
Speaker 1: there's this one program out in Harlem called Street Squash,
Speaker 1: and they promote the sport as kind of a youth
Speaker 1: enrichment program in low income communities. This is in New York,
Speaker 1: New Jersey and around that area. But the kids not
Speaker 1: only like developed hand eye coordination and teamwork, but they
Speaker 1: get a pretty good workout. You know. Part of the
Speaker 1: reason I picked up squash is that, you know, just
Speaker 1: forty five minutes of playing is really really intense. Um
Speaker 1: actually have the stats here what one hour of squash
Speaker 1: can burn between six hundred and a thousand calories, and
Speaker 1: that puts it well above the calory account for most
Speaker 1: other sports. Oh that's really interesting. All right, Well, I
Speaker 1: want to talk about another exercise, and it was an
Speaker 1: elite exercise that developed in a British internment camp. Believe
Speaker 1: it or not. Now, this was back during World War One.
Speaker 1: The was when the British government began to worry about
Speaker 1: German born residents and that they might defect and become
Speaker 1: German soldiers if they were deported from England. So instead,
Speaker 1: all these German men between the ages of seventeen and
Speaker 1: forty two were just rounded up and sent to these
Speaker 1: camps throughout the country. Now, one of these camps there
Speaker 1: was a German boxer and just kind of all around
Speaker 1: great athlete in his name was Joseph Pilates, and he
Speaker 1: had been pulled away from his life working for a
Speaker 1: British circus. Now you can probably guess that during his
Speaker 1: time in the camp, the fitness system that he created,
Speaker 1: it actually helped improve the lives of countless fellow inmates.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious, like Pilates was created at an internment camp,
Speaker 1: because like, you know that that's way more intense than
Speaker 1: I ever would have expected. You know, obviously today we
Speaker 1: see plates is kind of like this yuppie activity in
Speaker 1: a way for movie stars to flatten their stomachs. But
Speaker 1: how did Pilates convince these people at the camp to
Speaker 1: start doing stretches and controlled breathing exercises? You know, believe
Speaker 1: it or not, it didn't take that much convincing. I mean,
Speaker 1: the camp they were at was severely overcrowded, and so
Speaker 1: much so that it eventually required its own railroad just
Speaker 1: to handle the influx of detainees. And as you can imagine,
Speaker 1: these conditions and the general indignity of their situation, it
Speaker 1: drove a lot of inmates to depression. So many of
Speaker 1: them honestly kind of lost the will to live and
Speaker 1: quickly found themselves bedridden or even hospitalized in many cases.
Speaker 1: But the sight of this suffering really struck a chord
Speaker 1: in Pilates. And as a child, he had been incredibly sickly.
Speaker 1: He'd racked with everything from asthma and rickets to rheumatic fever,
Speaker 1: and this made him a natural target for bullies who
Speaker 1: made his life really unpleasant as an adolescent. And the
Speaker 1: way Pilate's recovered was devoting his life to fitness. So
Speaker 1: he took up gymnastics and bodybuilding, martial arts, you name it.
Speaker 1: The guy did it all, and his rehabilitation went so
Speaker 1: well that by the age of fourteen, he was so
Speaker 1: off and so fit that he was asked to pose
Speaker 1: for anatomical charts. And anyway, it's you know, pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: But when Pilate saw the other men in the camp
Speaker 1: in such dire straits, he decided to try and help
Speaker 1: them through the same means that he had helped himself.
Speaker 1: That's pretty amazing. So had he already developed all these
Speaker 1: exercises or were they something he came up with specifically
Speaker 1: in the camp. Well, I think that emphasis on breathing
Speaker 1: and core strengthening was already in place, but he also
Speaker 1: came up with new techniques, Like he noticed the way
Speaker 1: certain animals performed these fluid stretching movements while they're lying down,
Speaker 1: and it made him wonder like if the same moves
Speaker 1: could be applied to those who were stuck in bed.
Speaker 1: So to that end, Pilates gathered some straps, bunk bed springs,
Speaker 1: and you know a few other odds and ends and
Speaker 1: started to build this this really kind of a crude
Speaker 1: home fitness machine that could provide prisoners of workout while
Speaker 1: they were lying down. I mean, that is incredible, and
Speaker 1: obviously it feels like it must have worked, because we're
Speaker 1: still talking about lites today. But how did this actually
Speaker 1: impact the inmates there? Well, the morale and the camp improved,
Speaker 1: and supposedly the prisoners overall help improved. And in nineteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: a nasty case of influenza swept through England, as many
Speaker 1: us know from our history classes. And while of course
Speaker 1: tons of people died from the pandemic, not a single
Speaker 1: one of Pilate's trainees succumbed to the disease. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the fact that Pilates took his clear evidence of
Speaker 1: the effectiveness of his system. So he was then buoyed
Speaker 1: by this success, and so we continued developing his techniques
Speaker 1: after he was released, and a little bit later he
Speaker 1: made his way to the United States, and that's where
Speaker 1: his unique methods helped spark of fitness craze that was
Speaker 1: really focused on this connection between the muscle and the mind,
Speaker 1: and the yoga pants crowd was forever grateful, right, you know,
Speaker 1: But you know now that we've seen how the other
Speaker 1: half exercise. But what do you say we check out
Speaker 1: a couple of cultural norms that have shifted social class
Speaker 1: over the years, all Right, well, before we do that,
Speaker 1: let's take one more quick break. Okay. Well, so, one
Speaker 1: of the biggest status symbol shifts I've noticed in recent
Speaker 1: years is fashion, and there are a whole lot of
Speaker 1: movers and shakers supporting this, like CEO casual look these days,
Speaker 1: like instead of the Armani suits and Gucci dresses or whatever,
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley moguls have been supporting sneakers, jeans, t shirts,
Speaker 1: and not just at the gym, but in these professional
Speaker 1: settings and at high profile events. All right, So, but
Speaker 1: what are you suggesting? I mean that dressing down is
Speaker 1: being co opted by the elite. I mean it feels
Speaker 1: like plenty of people still dress casually. But you know,
Speaker 1: just because the wealthier loosening up a little doesn't mean
Speaker 1: the rest of us have to start dressing fancy, does it?
Speaker 1: Because that that makes me a little bit nervous if
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to start dressing up. No, that's definitely true.
Speaker 1: But what interested me is how different the results of
Speaker 1: dressing down are for high status people compared to the
Speaker 1: rest of us. What do you mean by that? Well,
Speaker 1: think about what would happen if you wore sweatpants and
Speaker 1: a hoodie to like a fancy investment meeting or or
Speaker 1: trying to get a mortgage or something right, like, you'd
Speaker 1: probably get some disapproving glances. But you know, there are
Speaker 1: these unridden rules and social norms that we feel compelled
Speaker 1: to go along with, and if we don't, we know
Speaker 1: it would reflect poorly on us. So we tend to
Speaker 1: pay attention to things like etiquette dress codes because we
Speaker 1: don't want to be excluded and we want to maintain
Speaker 1: our social standing. You know, people like you and I
Speaker 1: like we play by the rules as much as possible.
Speaker 1: But people with wealth and power have a lot more
Speaker 1: wiggle room when it comes to social norms, Like they
Speaker 1: can afford to risk this disapproval that comes with wearing
Speaker 1: red sneakers to a meeting or you know, jim clothes
Speaker 1: to a nice restaurant, and studies have shown that rather
Speaker 1: than hurting their reputation, it actually improves these people standings,
Speaker 1: like in the eyes of others. That's interesting to think about.
Speaker 1: So why do you think that is? Like when RK.
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg wears jeans and a T shirt to a meeting
Speaker 1: where everybody else is in a really fancy suit, like,
Speaker 1: why would his social standing go up? Well, it's really
Speaker 1: because of how aware we all are of the social
Speaker 1: expectations that typically, you know, someone of his wealth and
Speaker 1: influence would follow, Like we know that he knows we
Speaker 1: expect him to dress well and behave a certain way,
Speaker 1: so when he doesn't conform, it comes off as this
Speaker 1: display of power, like he can afford to risk losing
Speaker 1: status by dressing down because he just has that much
Speaker 1: status to spare. Yeah, I mean that that is interesting,
Speaker 1: But I mean, and I kind of can't believe I'm
Speaker 1: saying this, But isn't it possible we're being a little
Speaker 1: too hard on the Mark Zuckerberg's of the world, Like
Speaker 1: who's to say he's dressing down as some kind of
Speaker 1: a power play and not just because he likes comfortable clothes.
Speaker 1: That's fair, But you know, whether he's bucking expectations on
Speaker 1: purpose or not, he's still reaping the benefits of this
Speaker 1: high status nonconformity. Right. There's this study I read about
Speaker 1: in courts where researchers set up all these experiments to
Speaker 1: see how non conforming behaviors enhanced the perception of status
Speaker 1: and listen to the breakdown of what they found. So quote,
Speaker 1: in one study, participants perceived that a guest wearing a
Speaker 1: red bow tie at a black tie country club party
Speaker 1: was a higher status member of the club and a
Speaker 1: better golf player than a conforming individual wearing a black
Speaker 1: bow tie. This assumption is based on the belief that
Speaker 1: the red bow tie wear has enough status and autonomy
Speaker 1: to follow his preference even when they deviate from the norm. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, all that matters is that the public
Speaker 1: perceives someone is choosing not to conform, and since social
Speaker 1: expectations are so ingrained, most of us assume that someone
Speaker 1: like Zuckerberg actually knows what he's doing and is subverting
Speaker 1: expectations on purpose, you know, once you lay it all out.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of this other trend I read about,
Speaker 1: where having lots of kids is now viewed as something
Speaker 1: of a status symbol, because you know, looking back in history,
Speaker 1: it's been just the opposite. Really, Like, the long running
Speaker 1: stereotype is that, you know, the poor, the un edged
Speaker 1: catd they tend to have the most children, while affluent
Speaker 1: couples stop at maybe one or two kids. But I
Speaker 1: was looking at this sociology professor at the University of Maryland.
Speaker 1: His name is Steven Martin no relation to the Steve Martin.
Speaker 1: I know he's a very talented guy, but he's not
Speaker 1: a professor there. But those trends have been gradually shifting
Speaker 1: since the late nineties seventies, and now the families having
Speaker 1: the most kids are those with incomes in the top
Speaker 1: one to one and a half percent. And so is
Speaker 1: the idea that these people are having more kids as
Speaker 1: a way to show off how rich they are. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that's not the main appeal of having kids
Speaker 1: for them. But just like what you were saying about
Speaker 1: public perception and casual dressing, the average person might look
Speaker 1: at a big, well to do family and see it
Speaker 1: as a sign of good fortune, and you know, the
Speaker 1: inference being that parents must have plenty of time and
Speaker 1: money to go around if they choose to have so
Speaker 1: many kids. But I think the real takeaway is that
Speaker 1: it's finally time for that posh Brady Bunch remake everybody
Speaker 1: has wanted for so long. That's the main thing I've
Speaker 1: been thinking about recently that has to come out. Well.
Speaker 1: It is a strange thing to see, like kids almost
Speaker 1: be seen as a status symbol, right, Yeah, And you
Speaker 1: know I never would have guessed that just wearing sneakers
Speaker 1: and a hoodie into a boardroom might help you qualify
Speaker 1: as an elite. But let's go back to that term
Speaker 1: elite for just a second if you don't mind, because
Speaker 1: I think the word itself is an interesting example of
Speaker 1: these shifting perceptions. So at the top of the show
Speaker 1: we mentioned how it's been stretched to mean so many
Speaker 1: different things over the years, and I'd actually argue that
Speaker 1: the word has almost lost its meaning as a result
Speaker 1: of that. Like, you know, at one point, elite was
Speaker 1: just a word that meant the best or the best
Speaker 1: in a group, So it started out as kind of
Speaker 1: a generic compliment, and then over time it came to
Speaker 1: refer specifically to people who were wealthy or influential, though
Speaker 1: not necessarily in a derogatory way. But cut to today,
Speaker 1: and that word can be used really more as a slur,
Speaker 1: Like most people don't want to be perceived as elitist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, elite now seems to come with a feeling
Speaker 1: of like not one of us, Like squash isn't actually
Speaker 1: superior to handball or batman or other sports. You know,
Speaker 1: it's weird and fun, but it should actually be played
Speaker 1: by everyone, and the same for lobster rolls and says
Speaker 1: on like, don't let people tell you that these elite
Speaker 1: things aren't for you. That's certainly a way to look
Speaker 1: at things, but for now that what do you say?
Speaker 1: We head off to the fact off and share a
Speaker 1: few other shifting norms we came across this week. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it. So I and I did this great
Speaker 1: list of things that used to be status symbols, and
Speaker 1: at the top of their list was rotting pineapples. So
Speaker 1: apparently in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, pineapples and particularly
Speaker 1: like homegrown pineapples, were a massive investment. It costs about
Speaker 1: five thousand pounds at the time, so if you had
Speaker 1: any of these fruit, you definitely put on show instead
Speaker 1: of devouring it. And in fact, pineapples used to be
Speaker 1: displayed on mantles for months, just rotting there. But the
Speaker 1: best part is that if you weren't rich enough to
Speaker 1: have your own pineapple, there was a rental market for them,
Speaker 1: so you could actually pick them up for parties or
Speaker 1: just rent one for the evening. So strange, but maybe
Speaker 1: not as strange as this fact I'm about to share. So,
Speaker 1: according to the site British Path and the Victorian era,
Speaker 1: it was actually fashionable to have rotting teeth because it
Speaker 1: showed you were rich enough to afford sugar products and
Speaker 1: confection areas, and so this actually led to plenty of
Speaker 1: imitation to you would find upper class citizens that would
Speaker 1: often paint their teeth black just to fit in or
Speaker 1: show that they were spending their money on candy too.
Speaker 1: So here's a quick one. A friendly X rays just
Speaker 1: took over the world in the early twentieth century, and
Speaker 1: Americans were so enamored with them that the wealthy would
Speaker 1: just like line up to get their X ray taken
Speaker 1: and basically seen your own bones and owning your own antle.
Speaker 1: X ray picture became a crazy status symbol. That's so good,
Speaker 1: all right. Well, this is from the Telegraph. Apparently when
Speaker 1: lobster became too expensive in England, it was replaced with
Speaker 1: a different ugly creature, which is the monk fish. In fact,
Speaker 1: the article states it was branded as lobster but for
Speaker 1: the poor. And while it was considered an easy and
Speaker 1: cheap and you know, even tasty meal for fishermen and families,
Speaker 1: the fish was actually banned in French markets because it
Speaker 1: was considered too ugly and on appetizing for display. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: So our pal Nick Green found these great original rules
Speaker 1: for golf, and golf's obviously one of these elitist sports,
Speaker 1: but when you look back at the old rules, it
Speaker 1: actually makes the sport sounds so much less civilized. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this rule is that if the player's ball strikes
Speaker 1: his adversary or is caddy, the adversary loses the whole.
Speaker 1: If it strikes his own caddy, the player loses the whole.
Speaker 1: And this is from an eighteen twelve rule book at
Speaker 1: St Andrew's course, so it's like a prestigious golf course,
Speaker 1: but basically meant that if you were a ruthless player
Speaker 1: and you're good enough at aiming, you could turn golf
Speaker 1: into dodgeball with a much harder ball. Of course, I
Speaker 1: mean that just takes the sport to another level. I
Speaker 1: think more people would watch it if they were still
Speaker 1: trying this kind of thing. For that fact, Mango, I
Speaker 1: know we've shared a lot of really fun stuff today,
Speaker 1: but I feel like that bit of rare violence from you,
Speaker 1: even Mango talking about that, means you deserve the trophy.
Speaker 1: So congratulations, thank you so much. I truly appreciate it.
Speaker 1: All right. Well that's it for today, So from Gabe, Tristan,
Speaker 1: Mango and me, thanks so much for listening. Thanks again
Speaker 1: for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of how
Speaker 1: stuff works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people
Speaker 1: who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Speaker 1: And Christa McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made
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Speaker 1: Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gay Bluesier is
Speaker 1: our lead researcher, with support from the Research Army including
Speaker 1: Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eves Jeff
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Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
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Speaker 1: do we forget Jason Jason who