Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday and Holly Fry and
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson. We talked about eponymous fruit this week,
Speaker 1: Uh huh, which you tickled me by saying you did
Speaker 1: not realize those were eponymous.
Speaker 2: No, the barb hair was the only one. I mean,
Speaker 2: it makes total sense that boison berry.
Speaker 1: But Clementines doesn't really flag that way to me either. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and uh, you know when you set this to
Speaker 2: me and I was like, eponamous fruits, I wonder what
Speaker 2: they are, probably Bartlet pair. And then I got to
Speaker 2: the first person's last name being Boys, and I was like,
Speaker 2: what that was not what I expected at all. I
Speaker 2: am sure I have had boys and berry preserves, it's
Speaker 2: just never been like in the rotation of their show,
Speaker 2: so good regular things that I eat.
Speaker 1: They're so good. Yeah, I love them. Yeah, we ate
Speaker 1: like I said, we ate them all. I think they
Speaker 1: were my dad's favorite for a long time, so they
Speaker 1: often went on like waffles or were served with pancakes
Speaker 1: or toasts. That was kind of a breakfast staple for us.
Speaker 2: So most of the jelly type stuff Preserve jams. All
Speaker 2: of that that we ate as children, Yeah, was homemade, right,
Speaker 2: homemade by my grandmother. And these it was a I
Speaker 2: feel like either muscadines or scuppernongs, which I don't think
Speaker 2: are the same thing, but are both grapes, but they
Speaker 2: don't taste like the grapes at the grocery store that
Speaker 2: are just like red and green table grapes. And any
Speaker 2: other jelly type thing that we ate at home was
Speaker 2: mostly like we got biscuits. Yeah, that came with the
Speaker 2: little container like the little jelly packets.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We also did a lot of boisonberry syrup at
Speaker 1: our house. Okay, Yeah, which, now that I'm saying the
Speaker 1: phrase boisonberry syrup, I'm like, I gotta make a cocktail
Speaker 1: with some boisonberry syrup.
Speaker 2: I gotta get on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I it would be great for cocktails, especially
Speaker 1: because it was not as thick as like a some
Speaker 1: other syrups you would have like on pancakes, so its
Speaker 1: viscosity is kind of better to mix with things without
Speaker 1: having to thin it. Oh. I have ideas. I have
Speaker 1: so many ideas.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited about this.
Speaker 1: I think that's we're gonna have boisonberry mohidos this summer.
Speaker 1: That's what I think is going to happen at our house.
Speaker 1: There was one very silly thing in this episode that
Speaker 1: tickled me in a way that maybe is just a
Speaker 1: me thing. The fact that there's a Small Fruit Division
Speaker 1: of the USDA just tickled me because in my brain,
Speaker 1: here's what happened. And I'm sure you have seen the
Speaker 1: graphical image of Joy Division, the cover of Joy Division's
Speaker 1: Unknown Pleasures album. It's actually a neutron stars like graph
Speaker 1: is what it is. But it's very popular and it
Speaker 1: gets it gets spoofed by a lot of other things.
Speaker 1: And in my head, there's a T shirt out there
Speaker 1: called Small Fruit Division and it looks like that, but
Speaker 1: it's made of fruits, so funny, weird, black and white.
Speaker 1: Do you know the cover I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it. Also love Joy Divisions.
Speaker 2: So you know, I have now clarified in my own
Speaker 2: mind that scuppernongs are a type of muscadine.
Speaker 1: There you go, yeah, there you go. Anyway, Small Fruit
Speaker 1: Division the other thing that I wanted to mention because
Speaker 1: we got into its origination point but not its end.
Speaker 1: Algeria did not get out from under France's thumb until
Speaker 1: night sixty two. It was a long time anyway, just
Speaker 1: deserves a mention because you know, colonizing, speaking of places
Speaker 1: in northern Africa colonized by France. We're going to Morocco
Speaker 1: in November.
Speaker 2: We sure are seems like a good enough place to
Speaker 2: drop in a mention of that. I just liked at
Speaker 2: the website this morning. The single room rate is currently
Speaker 2: sold out. Yeah, so people traveling solo currently sold out?
Speaker 2: Are still rooms for two travelers together if you are
Speaker 2: a couple or traveling with a friend. I would imagine
Speaker 2: if you are traveling by yourself and you're like, oh no,
Speaker 2: I wanted to go drop define destinations a note, and
Speaker 2: if anyone else is in that same boat, they may
Speaker 2: be able to, you know, work out a roommate situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, our friends have. One of my friends has done
Speaker 1: that on our trips before and that worked out just fine. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I absolutely understand the impulse to want to have
Speaker 2: a room for yourself. I have paid the solo room
Speaker 2: for yourself premium on trips that I've taken before. But
Speaker 2: you know, this tends to be a really fun kind
Speaker 2: group of people who you know, tries to support and
Speaker 2: be respectful of one another.
Speaker 1: On the trip.
Speaker 2: Defined destinations dot com if you want to learn more
Speaker 2: about that. That was my interjection about our Morocco trip. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I love those trips. Everybody kind of feels like family
Speaker 2: by the end of it, which is really nice. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we were able to add some slots to our trip
Speaker 2: to Iceland. I don't think that is possible with this
Speaker 2: one because some of the places we are staying, like
Speaker 2: the number of rooms is very fixed limited.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would like to talk about pairs for just
Speaker 1: do it. They're delicious. I love pairs, love them so much.
Speaker 2: I'm going to confess that I did not come to
Speaker 2: love pears until I was an adult because being in
Speaker 2: the sort of family that would be buying the regular
Speaker 2: oranges and not the clementines. In my childhood, we just
Speaker 2: we did not really have fresh pears. Ever, the only
Speaker 2: pears I really experienced as a child were canned pears,
Speaker 2: which are not Yeah they're fine, I don't mind them,
Speaker 2: I'll eat them, but they're not as good as a
Speaker 2: fresh pair. And the texture weirded me out of canned pears.
Speaker 2: When I was like, yeah, I didn't like that, and
Speaker 2: I can't I could not tell you where was the
Speaker 2: first time or when was the first time that I
Speaker 2: had a pair as a grown up, but I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: I have been missing out, I think because you know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of friendliness in my in my youth,
Speaker 2: I ate a lot of pear tarts very early.
Speaker 1: On business is dolugus. It's a very popular tart in
Speaker 1: French baking. Yeah, I'm literally thinking about it, and Drew like,
Speaker 1: my brain just went to that, like eye roll, buttery sweet.
Speaker 1: I love them. I love them. I wonder every time
Speaker 1: we do an eponymous foods, have I exhausted them? And
Speaker 1: I would have said I had last time, and then
Speaker 1: I just randomly was like, oh what about fruit the
Speaker 1: other night? Well, a lot, but not all of the
Speaker 1: eponymous foods that we have talked about are dishes, right,
Speaker 1: and not a plant? Not all of them, but yeah,
Speaker 1: the first one was the Granny Smith apple, So yeah,
Speaker 1: not all of them. But yeah, I always wonder are
Speaker 1: we done? The answer is no, so we'll see. There
Speaker 1: could be more. I don't know. There may be more
Speaker 1: spite houses. I don't know. Maybe those are also fun. Listen,
Speaker 1: I love a grudge. We need the fun.
Speaker 2: One of our episodes. This week was an unexpected episode
Speaker 2: to focus on two people instead of one person, which
Speaker 2: was not what I was expecting when I was going
Speaker 2: into it. So Thomas J. Dorsey, William Henry Dorsey. I
Speaker 2: was intending initially to focus just on William Henry Dorsey,
Speaker 2: and I thought just from a quick glance that there
Speaker 2: would be enough information to do that, And then I
Speaker 2: found that that was not exactly the case, because there
Speaker 2: just are some gaps on you know, what we know
Speaker 2: about him as a person, his life before his adulthood,
Speaker 2: stuff like that. And then I, you know, as I
Speaker 2: was looking at this, I was like, oh, and his
Speaker 2: father really part of establishing the catering industry as in Philadelphia.
Speaker 2: That's a whole additional story. And without his father's leaving
Speaker 2: him a trust, William would not really have been able
Speaker 2: to just spend his time largely focused on developing these collections, right,
Speaker 2: doing what he wanted, doing what he wanted to do, yeah,
Speaker 2: and really doing a you know, important work preserving the
Speaker 2: history of the black community of Philadelphia and elsewhere. I
Speaker 2: did not have any idea before I got into this
Speaker 2: that Philadelphia is seen as the birthplace of the catering
Speaker 2: industry in the United States.
Speaker 1: Yeah, me either. That's fascinating to me. I guess I
Speaker 1: had not ever thought of it in terms of there
Speaker 1: being a moment that it became an industry per se,
Speaker 1: do you know what I mean? Yeah, in my head,
Speaker 1: it's I hadn't really put a lot of thought into it.
Speaker 1: But I think I just presumed it kind of grew
Speaker 1: out of restaurants slowly just doing large scale delivery, yeah,
Speaker 1: instead of specifically being like, no, no, we're a caterer,
Speaker 1: not a restaurant. Yeah.
Speaker 2: A lot of the people that developed this industry in
Speaker 2: Philadelphia did start with having a restaurant, and their restaurant
Speaker 2: was a place that was sort of the focal point
Speaker 2: of where all the food came from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it makes.
Speaker 2: A lot of sense that, you know, if we go
Speaker 2: farther back into history, you might have and I guess
Speaker 2: we still have royalty who have a whole staff of
Speaker 2: kitchen workers who are preparing all the food for big
Speaker 2: banquets and things, and having people, whether they are paid
Speaker 2: kitchen help or paid kitchen help directed by a member
Speaker 2: of the family or an enslaved staff, like a lot
Speaker 2: of people doing this kind of work, and in this
Speaker 2: transition period after the abolition of slavery and or the
Speaker 2: abolition of slavery specifically in Philadelphia, and before the development
Speaker 2: of like enormous luxury hotels with paid staff in a
Speaker 2: slightly different context, right, there was this kind of window
Speaker 2: of catering as its own, newly developing industry. Of course,
Speaker 2: there are obviously still great caterers.
Speaker 1: This is yet another time when my brain automatically thinks
Speaker 1: of a Bob's Burgers thing and starts giggling. Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: we talked about restaurateurs. I think of Linda Belcher saying
Speaker 1: restaurosaur and I love it so much. Oh funny, I'm
Speaker 1: as funny. Culture is the best thing maybe on TV.
Speaker 1: Ever that isn't and or so you know, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love this idea of scrap booking being actually important because
Speaker 1: because we think about it as a thing that people
Speaker 1: do as a cute hobby that isn't given a lot
Speaker 1: of weight in terms of what it can be. And
Speaker 1: I really really liked this idea of the way Dorsey
Speaker 1: very carefully assembled these so that you would have the
Speaker 1: white perspective of an event next to the black perspective
Speaker 1: of an event, like I don't think there's a better
Speaker 1: way to teach right, right, how bias works right in media, Like,
Speaker 1: that's a really cool way to do it at a time,
Speaker 1: well before our digital age where people do those kinds
Speaker 1: of things now all the time, But there wasn't a
Speaker 1: lot of that going on at this point. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he also preserved a lot of clippings of things
Speaker 2: that we might not have any actual copies of the
Speaker 2: publication at this point, right, because Yeah, these three hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty eight scrap books took up a whole lot
Speaker 2: of room, but they took up a whole lot less
Speaker 2: room than every cop of every paper and every magazine
Speaker 2: that he was clipping out of. So it was simultaneously
Speaker 2: a lot of space and a way to preserve things
Speaker 2: that did not take as much space as if he
Speaker 2: had tried to, you know, have shelves and shelves and
Speaker 2: shelves of every single copy of every black newspaper in
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania or something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, listen, I watch a lot of Bravo. I want
Speaker 1: to know what happened between him and his wife.
Speaker 2: I don't do, and I didn't find any information about that.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of stuff that have in episodes that
Speaker 2: I've worked on lately where it seems like information about
Speaker 2: something might exist, but I just don't have it, and
Speaker 2: I don't I have no idea what happens between him
Speaker 2: and his wife. I'm really curious about what the story
Speaker 2: is regarding William's marriage to Virginia cash In. It seems
Speaker 2: most likely, based on just numbers, that Virginia's family had
Speaker 2: been enslaved in Georgia and that they escaped from slavery
Speaker 2: and went north. It is possible that that's not the case.
Speaker 2: It just is more likely that they had been enslaved
Speaker 2: in Georgia, and we know for sure that some of
Speaker 2: Virginia's family had had gone to Philadelphia. It's not specifically
Speaker 2: documented that Virginia had gone with them, but it does
Speaker 2: seem like the most likely scenario to me.
Speaker 1: Right. It does not.
Speaker 2: Seem as likely that he went all the way to
Speaker 2: Georgia and got married there and brought his wife back
Speaker 2: with him. Again, that's possible, But as soon as I
Speaker 2: read that, I was like, that seems what's the story there?
Speaker 2: Like that because the book that made that reference, it's like,
Speaker 2: doesn't even really say how the two of them would
Speaker 2: have even known each other. She just sort of comes
Speaker 2: out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that whole two completely different stories of where
Speaker 1: they got married. My initial thought was like, oh, were
Speaker 1: they doing it the way people often do it today,
Speaker 1: where you have, like us, the legal ceremony in one place,
Speaker 1: maybe a reception somewhere else to accommodate all of the
Speaker 1: people that But this scenario where they would have been
Speaker 1: in the Deep South when it was a slave state,
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like it would have really been an option
Speaker 1: to work that way. Yeah, it's I don't who knows.
Speaker 2: I have a lot of questions about that. And also,
Speaker 2: I mean people did escape from enslavement in the Deep South.
Speaker 2: That did happened, for sure, but it was a lot
Speaker 2: of the people who were liberating themselves were more in
Speaker 2: border states and were able to get to free territory
Speaker 2: more easily. So anyway, I just I have a bunch
Speaker 2: of questions. Yeah, yes, that I did not know the
Speaker 2: answer to. And had I had the answers to all
Speaker 2: of these questions, probably we would have wound up with
Speaker 2: one episode on Thomas and one episode on Williams, rather
Speaker 2: than one episode combining the both of them. But anyway,
Speaker 2: I do find them both very interesting. I find the
Speaker 2: whole catering industry part very interesting, and also all of
Speaker 2: the scrap booking part, which is really what had caught
Speaker 2: my eye when I said that I was going to
Speaker 2: do an episode on him.
Speaker 1: Marvelous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so whatever's coming up on your weekend, if you're
Speaker 2: going to have a delicious catered meal, or if you're
Speaker 2: gonna go do a little scrap booking or something else entirely,
Speaker 2: I hope it's great. We will be back with a
Speaker 2: Saturday Classic tomorrow. We'll have something brand new on Monday.
Speaker 2: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
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