1
00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:06,400
Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, the production of I Heart Radio, Hey

2
00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:11,360
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren bol obam here. From baby carrots to microgreens,

3
00:00:11,400 --> 00:00:15,400
Speaker 1: we humans are enamored of tiny vegetables. But then we

4
00:00:15,520 --> 00:00:19,279
Speaker 1: have a long history of fascination with things of diminutive scale,

5
00:00:19,600 --> 00:00:23,920
Speaker 1: from Egyptian tomb artisans to modern miniacs, that is, people

6
00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:28,160
Speaker 1: who make, collect or appreciate tiny versions of everyday objects.

7
00:00:29,520 --> 00:00:32,600
Speaker 1: There's evidence dating back to the third millennium BC of

8
00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:36,640
Speaker 1: Egyptian tombs outfitted with dinky models of livestock, boats and

9
00:00:36,720 --> 00:00:40,559
Speaker 1: furniture in an effort to ensure a comfy afterlife. By

10
00:00:40,600 --> 00:00:43,520
Speaker 1: the fourteen hundreds, miniature portraits had become all the rage,

11
00:00:43,720 --> 00:00:47,040
Speaker 1: with painters creating images around just three inches or seven

12
00:00:47,040 --> 00:00:52,120
Speaker 1: centimeters wide, and in the sixteen hundreds, German dollhouses complete

13
00:00:52,120 --> 00:00:56,040
Speaker 1: with pots and pans, became popular as informative playthings, an

14
00:00:56,080 --> 00:00:59,400
Speaker 1: idea that bloomed in the seventeen hundreds as wealthy English

15
00:00:59,440 --> 00:01:03,360
Speaker 1: families commissioned itty bitty replicas of their own homes outfitted

16
00:01:03,360 --> 00:01:07,800
Speaker 1: with itty bitty family heirlooms. Somewhere along the way, our

17
00:01:07,800 --> 00:01:11,559
Speaker 1: fascination with things in miniature came to include Etsy bitsy

18
00:01:11,680 --> 00:01:16,720
Speaker 1: vegetables too. The aforementioned baby carrots and microgreen's yes, along

19
00:01:16,760 --> 00:01:20,959
Speaker 1: with baby corn and similarly infantilized squash, are all commonplace

20
00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:24,600
Speaker 1: today everywhere, from fresh produce aisles and frozen meals to

21
00:01:24,800 --> 00:01:29,319
Speaker 1: take out and fancy restaurant fair alike. So why do

22
00:01:29,360 --> 00:01:34,440
Speaker 1: we love baby vegetables? Mary White, a Boston University anthropologist,

23
00:01:34,520 --> 00:01:38,119
Speaker 1: said in an interview with New York Magazine in in

24
00:01:38,240 --> 00:01:41,640
Speaker 1: terms of our psycho emotional relationship to tiny things, I

25
00:01:41,640 --> 00:01:43,399
Speaker 1: think it relates to the way you feel when you're

26
00:01:43,400 --> 00:01:46,840
Speaker 1: in a cathedral. The enormity and intricate detail of the

27
00:01:46,880 --> 00:01:50,760
Speaker 1: space are all inspiring, and humans can experience a flipped

28
00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:55,240
Speaker 1: version of that awe when looking at meticulously reproduced tiny things.

29
00:01:55,240 --> 00:02:00,160
Speaker 1: That something can be that small is a wonder. But

30
00:02:00,360 --> 00:02:03,840
Speaker 1: where do those tiny vegetables come from? It turns out

31
00:02:04,280 --> 00:02:07,960
Speaker 1: a veggie packaged, sold, or served as a baby may

32
00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:11,799
Speaker 1: actually be a young vegetable, or it may not. It's

33
00:02:11,840 --> 00:02:14,880
Speaker 1: also entirely possible that a baby vegetable is a dwarf

34
00:02:15,080 --> 00:02:20,000
Speaker 1: or hybrid version of a full sized vegetable. Take, for example,

35
00:02:20,120 --> 00:02:22,800
Speaker 1: those adorable little ears of corn that show up in

36
00:02:22,880 --> 00:02:26,800
Speaker 1: some of your favorite American Chinese dishes. Baby corn, also

37
00:02:26,880 --> 00:02:30,280
Speaker 1: known as corn letts, truly are just baby ears of

38
00:02:30,320 --> 00:02:34,080
Speaker 1: regular corn. The corn is harvested at an immature stage

39
00:02:34,280 --> 00:02:38,320
Speaker 1: from nearly any variety of regular sized corn plant. Typically

40
00:02:38,480 --> 00:02:41,280
Speaker 1: once an ear designated to be baby corn reaches up

41
00:02:41,320 --> 00:02:43,920
Speaker 1: to four inches that's around ten centimeters in length, and

42
00:02:43,919 --> 00:02:45,639
Speaker 1: it's about half an inch or a little over a

43
00:02:45,680 --> 00:02:49,000
Speaker 1: centimeter in diameter. It's picked from there. It can be

44
00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:52,280
Speaker 1: par cooked, in canned, pickled, or frozen, or sold fresh

45
00:02:52,360 --> 00:02:56,919
Speaker 1: in local markets. Baby back choi is another young vegetable

46
00:02:56,960 --> 00:03:01,080
Speaker 1: that's harvested early for its tender and mild quality. However,

47
00:03:01,120 --> 00:03:03,960
Speaker 1: there are also dwarf varieties of mock baby bok choy

48
00:03:04,200 --> 00:03:07,080
Speaker 1: that have a similar looking taste to their early harvested

49
00:03:07,120 --> 00:03:12,520
Speaker 1: adolescent cousins. Another specially developed varietal led to the debut

50
00:03:12,600 --> 00:03:16,919
Speaker 1: of baby broccoli, also commonly called broccolini in the early nineties.

51
00:03:17,639 --> 00:03:20,640
Speaker 1: This baby veggie is the offspring of regular sized broccoli

52
00:03:20,680 --> 00:03:25,520
Speaker 1: and guy lawn Chinese plant with similar qualities. Broccolini, like

53
00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:28,440
Speaker 1: a lot of vegetable youngsters, is known for its tenderness

54
00:03:28,480 --> 00:03:33,880
Speaker 1: and bite sized presentation. Size can also be determined by

55
00:03:33,919 --> 00:03:37,520
Speaker 1: the way of vegetable has grown. Baby artichokes and regular

56
00:03:37,520 --> 00:03:40,520
Speaker 1: size artichokes come from the same type of plant. They're

57
00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:43,720
Speaker 1: even harvested at the same time. The difference in size

58
00:03:43,840 --> 00:03:46,040
Speaker 1: lies in the fact that the baby version is grown

59
00:03:46,040 --> 00:03:48,200
Speaker 1: in the shade, while the regular version is grown in

60
00:03:48,240 --> 00:03:53,400
Speaker 1: the sun. But what about baby carrots? The name applies

61
00:03:53,440 --> 00:03:57,000
Speaker 1: to two entirely different things. Some baby carrots are harvested

62
00:03:57,040 --> 00:04:00,680
Speaker 1: early to create delicate, finger sized edibles, and a few

63
00:04:00,760 --> 00:04:05,160
Speaker 1: varieties are genetically predisposed to dibunitive size. But some baby

64
00:04:05,160 --> 00:04:08,119
Speaker 1: carrots aren't babies at all. They're chopped door whittled down

65
00:04:08,200 --> 00:04:12,600
Speaker 1: from regular sized carrots. So when did growers start whittling

66
00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:17,040
Speaker 1: carrots down into smooth, skinless, miniature versions of regular carrots.

67
00:04:17,839 --> 00:04:21,440
Speaker 1: The idea is generally credited to a California carrot farmer

68
00:04:21,520 --> 00:04:24,960
Speaker 1: named Mike Urasak, whose operation needed a way to deal

69
00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:27,920
Speaker 1: with the daily loss of four hundred tons of carrots

70
00:04:27,960 --> 00:04:30,640
Speaker 1: that were too misshapen to fit into the bags his

71
00:04:30,760 --> 00:04:35,520
Speaker 1: company used for retail sale. Your sack experimented with peeling

72
00:04:35,560 --> 00:04:38,279
Speaker 1: and shaping a few bags of crooked carrots into a

73
00:04:38,320 --> 00:04:41,320
Speaker 1: baby size and sent them to a customer. A grocery

74
00:04:41,400 --> 00:04:46,480
Speaker 1: chain that almost immediately demanded more. The process was later industrialized,

75
00:04:46,640 --> 00:04:50,120
Speaker 1: using machines to cut, peel, grind, and polish the carrots

76
00:04:50,120 --> 00:04:54,560
Speaker 1: into bite sized form. The advent of the too bite

77
00:04:54,600 --> 00:04:58,320
Speaker 1: perfectly sculpted baby cut carrot grew the United States carrot

78
00:04:58,320 --> 00:05:02,440
Speaker 1: consumption by leaps and bounds. In seven one year after

79
00:05:02,480 --> 00:05:06,280
Speaker 1: they hit the marketplace, people were buying thirty more carrots.

80
00:05:06,839 --> 00:05:09,440
Speaker 1: A decade later, the average American was eating a hundred

81
00:05:09,480 --> 00:05:13,200
Speaker 1: and seventeen percent more carrots than before and estimated fourteen

82
00:05:13,200 --> 00:05:16,840
Speaker 1: pounds that's six and the third kilos per year. By

83
00:05:16,880 --> 00:05:19,600
Speaker 1: the two thousands, the baby carrot had come to dominate

84
00:05:19,680 --> 00:05:24,200
Speaker 1: the fresh cut vegetable category. It's fairly easy to tell

85
00:05:24,200 --> 00:05:27,080
Speaker 1: the difference between a carrot that's naturally small and one

86
00:05:27,120 --> 00:05:30,480
Speaker 1: that's cut larger. Carrots ground down to baby carrot size

87
00:05:30,520 --> 00:05:33,400
Speaker 1: are labeled baby cut, while carrots that have been harvested

88
00:05:33,400 --> 00:05:38,200
Speaker 1: in their infancy are labeled baby carrots. There are about

89
00:05:38,240 --> 00:05:41,200
Speaker 1: fifty different types of vegetables that are grown or imported

90
00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:45,800
Speaker 1: as miniatures in the United States. Baby squash look improbably

91
00:05:45,839 --> 00:05:49,120
Speaker 1: perfect in miniature. They're one or two inch that's two

92
00:05:49,160 --> 00:05:51,840
Speaker 1: and a half to five centimeter round vegetables with scalloped

93
00:05:51,920 --> 00:05:55,760
Speaker 1: edges and delicate green, white or yellow skin. Some are

94
00:05:55,800 --> 00:05:59,120
Speaker 1: harvested so young that their embryonic flowers are still intact,

95
00:05:59,400 --> 00:06:05,000
Speaker 1: decrying a gentle and conscientious picking. Microgreens, the tender, young

96
00:06:05,120 --> 00:06:08,200
Speaker 1: leafy plants that often appear on salad plates, are produced

97
00:06:08,279 --> 00:06:11,679
Speaker 1: year round, and baby lettuces specifically come in a number

98
00:06:11,680 --> 00:06:14,640
Speaker 1: of varieties, from romaine green leaf and iceberg to the

99
00:06:14,720 --> 00:06:19,320
Speaker 1: dark red hue of red royal oak leaf lettuce. Harvested early,

100
00:06:19,480 --> 00:06:23,320
Speaker 1: these greens contain the same nutritional composition as their older counterparts,

101
00:06:23,520 --> 00:06:31,599
Speaker 1: but are known for their tender and delicate nature. Today's

102
00:06:31,640 --> 00:06:33,920
Speaker 1: episode is based on the article so That's where baby

103
00:06:33,960 --> 00:06:36,320
Speaker 1: veggies come from on House to works dot Com, written

104
00:06:36,360 --> 00:06:38,840
Speaker 1: by laure L Dove. Brain Stuff is production of by

105
00:06:38,839 --> 00:06:41,120
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and partnership with how stuff works dot Com,

106
00:06:41,160 --> 00:06:44,120
Speaker 1: and it's produced by Tyler Klein. Four more podcasts from

107
00:06:44,120 --> 00:06:47,120
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

108
00:06:47,200 --> 00:07:00,240
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. It