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Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.

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Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history

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Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right

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Speaker 2: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome

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Speaker 2: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Science and magic may seem

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Speaker 2: like opposites, but they've always been very close friends in

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Speaker 2: the ancient world. Religion, superstition, philosophy, and mathematics were all

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Speaker 2: intersecting fields of study. In ancient Greece and Persia. For example,

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Speaker 2: thinkers who practiced astrology also broke new ground in geometry.

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Speaker 2: In the modern age, we tend to keep the natural

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Speaker 2: and the supernatural separate. After all, science we can cured

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Speaker 2: disease and fly to the stars. Isn't that magical enough?

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Speaker 2: But for Jack Parsons, one of the pioneers of rocketry,

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Speaker 2: enchantments and experiments literally went hand in hand. Jack was

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Speaker 2: born on October second of nineteen fourteen in Pasadena, California.

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Speaker 2: His childhood was a lonely one, and he spent more

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Speaker 2: time with comic books and Jules Verne novels than with

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Speaker 2: other kids reading science fiction, Jack could dream of escaping

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Speaker 2: his life in the suburbs to explore the galaxy. As

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Speaker 2: he got older, he focused on how to get there

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Speaker 2: in real life. By the age of twelve, Jack had

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Speaker 2: found a kindred spirit in Edward Foreman, another boy who

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Speaker 2: loves science fiction. The two engage themselves in typical safe

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Speaker 2: preteen boy activities, namely creating their own rockets out of

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Speaker 2: aluminum foil and fireworks. Around this time, Jack also got

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Speaker 2: interested in magic in the Saint pulp magazines, where he

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Speaker 2: read sci fi stories. He also found incantations to summon demons.

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Speaker 2: They didn't necessarily work when he tried them, but it

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Speaker 2: did spark his interest in the occult. In nineteen thirty three,

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Speaker 2: nineteen year old Jack went to work at an explosives.

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Speaker 1: Plant, where he got a crash course in the chemistry

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Speaker 1: behind making things go boom. Armed with ingredients stolen from

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Speaker 1: the factory, Jack and Edward's backyard experiments became incredibly advanced.

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Speaker 1: At the time, the field of rocket science was treated

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Speaker 1: like science fiction. The Chinese had first developed rockets in

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Speaker 1: twelve thirty two and used them as weapons against the

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Speaker 1: invading Mongols. Rocket Tree hadn't really advanced much since then. Sure,

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Speaker 1: some scientists had proposed that rockets might one day be

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Speaker 1: able to reach outer space, but in the early nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirties that seemed like it was a far off possibility.

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Speaker 1: Rockets weren't even being studied in universities except for a

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Speaker 1: very small group of students. At cal Tech. Jack and

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Speaker 1: Edward met one of those students, a guy named Frank Molina,

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Speaker 1: and the three began pushing the boundaries of rocket science.

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Speaker 1: Scientists at cal Tech dubbed them the Suicide Squad for

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Speaker 1: how often they blew things up on campus. But between explosions,

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Speaker 1: Jack Parsons made great strides. He invented a new type

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Speaker 1: of rocket fuel, a breakthrough that would eventually help humans

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Speaker 1: get to the Moon. As the Nazis ramped up their

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Speaker 1: rocket research for use for long range explosives, the Suicide

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Speaker 1: Squad's experiments became important parts of the war effort. Jack, Edward,

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Speaker 1: and Frank created their own company, Aerojet, which eventually became

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Speaker 1: NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. In nineteen thirty nine, the same

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Speaker 1: year that Parsons co founded the Jet Propulsion Lab, he

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Speaker 1: first encountered a new religion called Thelema, a mix of

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Speaker 1: occult traditions, philosophy, and magic. Thelima was the brainchild of

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Speaker 1: the infamous magician Aleister Crowley. At the core of Thelema

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Speaker 1: was one concept, do what thou wilt, meaning you have

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Speaker 1: the freedom to follow your desires. Under Crowley, Themalites practice

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Speaker 1: free love, performed magical rituals, and lived a life of excess,

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Speaker 1: and of course, Jack was hooked. For the next few years,

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Speaker 1: Jack worked at the Jet Propulsion Lab, trying to achieve

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Speaker 1: his dream of reaching the stars. At nights, he would

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Speaker 1: use magic for the same purpose, leading rituals, participating in

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Speaker 1: dark masses, and worshiping the sun. These practices didn't make

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Speaker 1: him popular with serious scientists or with the US government.

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Speaker 1: The FBI actually investigated Jack, and he eventually lost his

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Speaker 1: security clearances. By nineteen forty four, the Jet Propulsion Lab

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Speaker 1: had forced him to resign, worried that his less than

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Speaker 1: savory actions might damage the company's reputation, and by nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty nine Jack was penniless, scraping by making explosives for

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Speaker 1: Hollywood Special Effects. On June seventeenth of nineteen fifty two,

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Speaker 1: Jack Parsons was experimenting with chemicals in his garage in Pasadena.

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Speaker 1: When it's believed that he dropped a tin of volatile compounds,

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Speaker 1: the resulting explosion ripped through the garage, killing Jack. He

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Speaker 1: was thirty seven years old. Jack Parsons was a conundrum.

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Speaker 1: He was a brilliant scientist and a devout magician. The

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Speaker 1: same dry that caused him to reach for the stars

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Speaker 1: also compelled him to cross the veil into the spirit world.

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Speaker 1: But maybe Jack's dual interests weren't totally at odds. After all,

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Speaker 1: you can't make a scientific breakthrough without a little magical thinking.

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Speaker 1: If you're a fan of fine dining, you know these

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Speaker 1: days it's only half about the food, right. Modern restaurants

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Speaker 1: are desperate to provide unique experiences, whether that means dining

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Speaker 1: next to wild animals, inside remote ice caves or in

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Speaker 1: total darkness. Heck, at this very moment, companies are racing

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Speaker 1: to sell you dinner at the edge of space. And

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Speaker 1: this trend isn't exactly new. We can trace it back

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Speaker 1: to Tudor England. That's the period of British history right

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Speaker 1: after the Late Middle Ages, and it's the moment when

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Speaker 1: a chef with a unique flare vision appeared on the

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Speaker 1: culinary scene. His name was Robert May, and he had

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Speaker 1: pretty much the exact biography that you would expect a

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Speaker 1: prodigy restaurant tour The son of a private chef, he

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Speaker 1: grew up in the kitchen and was employed as a

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Speaker 1: cook at the tender age of ten. As a teenager,

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Speaker 1: he spent five years in Paris studying European cuisine. He

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Speaker 1: returned to England at the age of twenty one and

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Speaker 1: immediately began working in the kitchens of the tutor aristocrats.

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Speaker 1: With his talent and experience, May probably could have made

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Speaker 1: a good living sticking to the typical dishes of the day,

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Speaker 1: but he wasn't interested in the typical. He wanted to

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Speaker 1: give his guests an experience that would stay with them

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Speaker 1: long after the meal was done. May was particularly inspired

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Speaker 1: by the medieval feasts of England's past, when royals would

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Speaker 1: dine at long tables way down with more food and

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Speaker 1: wine than they could stomach, serenaded by minstrels and heckled

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Speaker 1: by court jesters. He wanted to recreate that feeling of spectacle,

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Speaker 1: but update it for a new age. For what he

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Speaker 1: was a man dinner and a show wouldn't be enough, No,

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Speaker 1: his dinners would be the show. May began developing feasts

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Speaker 1: around breathtaking spectacle, which he lovingly called triumphs and trophies

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Speaker 1: in cookery. They were often as dangerous as they were exciting,

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Speaker 1: and nothing was off limits. For one dinner, he created

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Speaker 1: a pastry castle and a ship outfitted with tiny functioning cannons.

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Speaker 1: When his staff lit the fuses, the cannons fired, filling

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Speaker 1: the dining hall with smoke and the odor of gunpowder.

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Speaker 1: And another feast, he hollowed out eggshells and filled them

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Speaker 1: with rose water, then distributed them around the tables. Dinner.

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Speaker 1: Guests soon started hurling the fragile eggshells at each other,

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Speaker 1: causing them to burst and fill the room with perfumed water.

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Speaker 1: He particularly loved incorporating live animals into his dishes. Pie

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Speaker 1: crusts would be filled with live birds and frogs. When

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Speaker 1: guests cut into the crust, the animals came flapping and

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Speaker 1: hopping out onto the table, knocking over candles and started

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Speaker 1: the guests. These feasts, as you might imagine, were a sensation,

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Speaker 1: and for the next fifty years, Robert May toured the

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Speaker 1: country dazzling nobles and aristocrats with his taste for spectacle.

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Speaker 1: But as he turned seventy one, he started to think

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Speaker 1: more about his legacy. He realized that his feasts were

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Speaker 1: inherently transient things, and worried that his work would soon

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Speaker 1: be forgotten. So he did what all good celebrity chefs

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Speaker 1: do once they've hit it big. He wrote a cookbook.

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Speaker 1: It was called The Accomplished Cook and it was a

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Speaker 1: massive tome. And while May had made his career working

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Speaker 1: for aristocrats, his book had something for everyone, with approachable

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Speaker 1: dishes right alongside more aspirational ones. Like his spectacle feasts,

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Speaker 1: May's cookbook was ahead of its time in many ways.

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Speaker 1: He organized his recipes into logical categories, provided woodprint reliefs

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Speaker 1: of the dishes, and even included a self portrait inside

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Speaker 1: the front cover. These elements would eventually become typical of

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Speaker 1: recipe book, and they made The Accomplished Cook an overnight bestseller.

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Speaker 1: The book became a major self promotional tool for Robert May,

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Speaker 1: cementing him as one of the most significant chefs of

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Speaker 1: his age. So while it was ostensibly a recipe book

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Speaker 1: of European dishes, it can also be read as a

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Speaker 1: template for a celebrity chef, one part creativity, two parts talent.

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Speaker 1: Fold in lots of hard work and a heaping spoonful

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Speaker 1: of showmanship and mix it all together and you've got history.

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Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn

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Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.

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Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership

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Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show

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Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,

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Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the

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Speaker 1: World of Lor dot com. And until next time, stay curious.