Speaker 1: Hell though, And welcome to Savor production of iHeartRadio. I'm
Speaker 1: Annie Reason and.
Speaker 2: I'm Learn vocal Baum, and today we have an episode
Speaker 2: for you about Skier.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, skar Skier. Yes yes.
Speaker 2: I didn't like roll my R at the end of
Speaker 2: that first one, so so sure.
Speaker 1: I am very bad at rolling R. So apologies in
Speaker 1: advance from me. Was there any particular reason this was
Speaker 1: on your mind, Lauren H Nope.
Speaker 2: I was just looking for a dairy related topic because
Speaker 2: that was sort of the topic category that was up
Speaker 2: in my wheel of topics, And uh, yeah, this one's
Speaker 2: been on the list for a while, possibly years, and
Speaker 2: I'm just like, let's look into.
Speaker 1: That probably years, to be honest. Uh. I love Skier,
Speaker 1: I remember, and I got introduced to it. I think
Speaker 1: it was twenty twelve.
Speaker 2: Yeah that sounds about right. Sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And a good friend of mine showed up at
Speaker 1: like a weekend get away that we were having with
Speaker 1: just this huge chub of Skier and she was like,
Speaker 1: You've got to try this, right Yeah, And I did
Speaker 1: and I loved it, and I went through a huge
Speaker 1: Skier phase. Like every day I would have some I
Speaker 1: usually put like berries and some nuts and little money
Speaker 1: on it, and I miss those days sometimes, but I
Speaker 1: kind of burnt out on it. Also, my Berry budget
Speaker 1: got a little out of hands. I's like, where is
Speaker 1: all this money going? Barrieres. Yeah, but I have started
Speaker 1: to get back into it recently, and I have some
Speaker 1: of my fridge now. But I'll just I just fondly
Speaker 1: remember her. She still to this day shows up if
Speaker 1: we do, like any kind of extended hanging out with
Speaker 1: a tub of skier. Yeah, that's great, I love it.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I'm not sure that I've ever had stuff
Speaker 2: from Iceland directly, but there's a couple American brands that
Speaker 2: I buy from and I just looked it up and
Speaker 2: twenty ten was my introduction to the American stuff.
Speaker 1: So I know this because I blogged about it.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, because twenty ten was a time when you
Speaker 2: blogged about your yogurt related escapade. Sure, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 2: love that, Yes you did.
Speaker 1: I think I did have someone I was in Europe.
Speaker 1: But I liked it. I just can't like specifically recall
Speaker 1: it very well. Yeah yeah, I mean, but go ahead. Oh,
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, like reading the descriptions
Speaker 1: of how varied it can be in terms of texture,
Speaker 1: it's a much bigger world than I knew say that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, so much, so much to explore. But
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I had a cup before we started
Speaker 2: recording here. So yes, it's just a thing that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yep, it's good. It's good stuff. You can see our
Speaker 1: past episodes on yogurt and cheeses, yes, oh my, which
Speaker 1: does bring us to our question. It does, heck it does.
Speaker 1: Scared what is it? Well?
Speaker 2: Scared is a type of fresh strained cheese that is
Speaker 2: eaten like a yogurt. It's soft and very thick and
Speaker 2: creamy and texture and often very tangy tart in flavor.
Speaker 2: It can have some like mild buttery cheese type flavors
Speaker 2: to it too. It's sometimes so thick that if, like,
Speaker 2: you turn a spoonful of it upside down, it will
Speaker 2: not fall off of the spoon. It is technically a cheese,
Speaker 2: not a yogurt, because it's traditionally made with not just
Speaker 2: lactic acid bacteria like yogurt is, but also with yeasts
Speaker 2: and sometimes rennet, which are cheese things.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's most often made with skim milk, but you can
Speaker 2: find varieties made with milk fat or made with like
Speaker 2: dairy alternatives like oat milk, and it's sold in everything
Speaker 2: from yes individual cups to multi serving tubs to pouches,
Speaker 2: in flavors from vanilla to blueberry, lingenberry, apple, peach, pear, limon, coconut, elderflour, chocolate, coffee,
Speaker 2: crem brulet. It's eaten as a breakfast or a snack
Speaker 2: or dessert by itself or with usually sweet toppings. You
Speaker 2: can use it as an ingredient in smoothies, coffee drinks,
Speaker 2: baked goods, frozen desserts, sauces and dips. It's like the thickest,
Speaker 2: tartest form of yogurt or the softest, freshest form of cheese.
Speaker 2: It's one of those foods that does feel healthy, but
Speaker 2: in like a fun, near decadence sort of way. It's
Speaker 2: like it's like yogurt's cousin who got really into protein supplements,
Speaker 2: but now it feels like genuinely great and it is
Speaker 2: living its best life and still knows how to treat itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, I have some that's calling my name right now.
Speaker 1: But it is like the I love the thickness of it,
Speaker 1: and I love it's so filling. It does feel very
Speaker 1: decadent even though, because you feel good after eating it.
Speaker 1: And I would say, I didn't even know the health
Speaker 1: all what we're going to get into later, but all
Speaker 1: of the like health marketing behind it, and I still
Speaker 1: felt that way after I ate it. I prefer the
Speaker 1: plane and then I like to add money, Okay, sweet
Speaker 1: or flavor or whatever, but I really like it just plain.
Speaker 2: Oh sure, yeah, we're just daydreaming about yogurt related products,
Speaker 2: all right. So, like other dairy products, scared is a
Speaker 2: way to concentrate and preserve the nutrients in milk, because
Speaker 2: milk spoils pretty quickly, and by spoil, I mean that
Speaker 2: microbes start to eat it before you have a chance
Speaker 2: to making it anywhere from unpleasant to unsafe. Humanity's main
Speaker 2: fix for this is introducing friendly microbes on purpose that
Speaker 2: will spoil the milk in a controlled and safe manner.
Speaker 2: In the case of Skier, what you do is you
Speaker 2: heat skim milk from which the fats have been removed
Speaker 2: by centrifuge, and then add what's called your skier culture,
Speaker 2: which is a blend of living bacteria and yeasts that
Speaker 2: you probably collected from your last batch of skier. You
Speaker 2: let the culture ferment the milk in two stages, warm
Speaker 2: like one hundred degrees fahrenheit or forty celsius, and then
Speaker 2: cooler around like seventy fahrenheit or twenty celsius. The microbes
Speaker 2: in the coldture will eat sugars in the milk and
Speaker 2: poop a lactic acid acetic acid and flavor. The acids
Speaker 2: are flavors as well, but they more importantly act to
Speaker 2: make the skear an unwelcome environment to unfriendly microbes and
Speaker 2: to encourage the proteins and the milk to stop floating
Speaker 2: around and clump together, you know, join up, become a team.
Speaker 1: Quack quack quack together. Yeah, come on.
Speaker 2: Acid does this in milk because and I'm summarizing here,
Speaker 2: the proteins and milk have a negative charge, so they
Speaker 2: repel each other and distribute themselves evenly throughout the water
Speaker 2: and milk. Acid will neutralize the proteins so there's nothing
Speaker 2: forcing them apart, so they clump together. And so adding
Speaker 2: acid to milk will separate the proteins and stuff the
Speaker 2: curds from the water and stuff the way. And usually
Speaker 2: when I do this lecture, I say the fats and stuff.
Speaker 2: But since the fats have been removed. I'm talking about
Speaker 2: the protein and stuff here. We are the fats and
Speaker 2: the proteins kind of go together though, so that's what
Speaker 2: we've got At any rate skeear. Once the skier reaches
Speaker 2: a pH of like four point zero or so, it
Speaker 2: is considered well enough clumped and ready for straining in
Speaker 2: order to remove a lot of the way leaving in
Speaker 2: weegh results in like a looser set on your final product,
Speaker 2: and you want skar to become pretty dense. Modernly, this
Speaker 2: is done again by centrifuge. I think that traditionally you
Speaker 2: just like stuck it in a draining tray or a
Speaker 2: cheese cloth and just let it keep draining for a while.
Speaker 2: But yeah, again, traditionally it is made mostly in the summer,
Speaker 2: when the cows that produce the milk have fresh green
Speaker 2: grass and other plants to graze on, and then the
Speaker 2: culture is kept alive during the winter like you would
Speaker 2: do with sour dough when you're not actively baking with it.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it is pretty ubiquitous in Iceland, which is
Speaker 2: again where it's from. Like, there are skier bars sort
Speaker 2: of like frozen yogurt bars where you can go and
Speaker 2: get a cup with all kinds of toppings or have
Speaker 2: it made into a smoothie. At least one company has
Speaker 2: franchises out in other countries as well. There's apparently an
Speaker 2: idiom along the lines of like not my cup of tea,
Speaker 2: but it's not my cup of skier.
Speaker 1: I like that. I love that.
Speaker 2: I've also read that one of Iceland's favorite ways to
Speaker 2: eat it is sort of as a dessert with cream
Speaker 2: poured over top and a sprinkling of sugar and like
Speaker 2: maybe berries, which sounds so nice.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: You take a product made of skim milk and you're like,
Speaker 2: let's add the cream back on? Why not? Yeah? Yes,
Speaker 2: And it's made with very little sugar. Let's add some
Speaker 2: sugar back in. That's what makes it good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I want to try that now.
Speaker 1: Yeah that sounds great. Well, speaking of what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2: By itself, scar is pretty good for you, high in
Speaker 2: protein and micronutrients, low in fats and sugar, generally even
Speaker 2: higher in protein than like Greek style yogurt and other
Speaker 2: things like that, So it'll help fill you up and
Speaker 2: keep you going. You know, make sure you get some
Speaker 2: fats at some point. They are important for your body
Speaker 2: to use to do stuff. The draining process does again
Speaker 2: have something to do with it being higher in protein
Speaker 2: because you're getting more of the non protein stuff out.
Speaker 2: But also traditional Icelandic cows produce particularly high protein milk,
Speaker 2: so huh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, interesting, Well, we do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 1: We do.
Speaker 2: It takes between three and four liters of milk to
Speaker 2: produce a single leader of skier, so pretty pretty high
Speaker 2: ratio there. The global market for Skier was worth about
Speaker 2: eight billion dollars a year as of twenty sixteen, and
Speaker 2: that is probably a good bit lower than it is today,
Speaker 2: but I couldn't find an updated number. It is gaining
Speaker 2: ground in the United States, where sales of yogurt have
Speaker 2: been dropping. For example, in twenty nineteen they dropped by
Speaker 2: about three percent. I've read that that's it seemed like
Speaker 2: that's about an average for the past several years. But
Speaker 2: that year twenty nineteen, skier sales leaped up twenty four percent. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that being said, there are only some twenty four to
Speaker 2: thirty thousand dairy cows in Iceland, certainly especially in the US.
Speaker 2: Not all the skier that we are consuming is from Iceland.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and that number is held for a couple decades,
Speaker 2: so I feel like they're kind of at dairy cow capacity, right.
Speaker 2: Some changes to the industry have helped up production a
Speaker 2: little bit, though. For example, the largest dairy co op
Speaker 2: in Iceland, ms Iceland Dairies, has been glomming on to
Speaker 2: more and more farms. They now work with over seven
Speaker 2: hundred family farms to collect and process some one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty million liters of milk for Skier every year.
Speaker 2: They also opened a skier museum in South Iceland called Skierland, which, okay,
Speaker 2: which like from the photos that I've seen, looks to
Speaker 2: me to be like mostly like do it for the
Speaker 2: gram kind of place. Though maybe I'm just being cynical,
Speaker 2: it does seem like it takes you through a good
Speaker 2: bit of the history of dairy and Iceland. So that's cool.
Speaker 1: Skerlands Skarland, love it. We'll have to look at some
Speaker 1: of those pictures. I'd be interested to see.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, they've got some little dioramas of like how
Speaker 2: a dairy would have looked in the past.
Speaker 1: That's cool, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Listeners, let us know, Oh my goodness, yes, uh huh.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, there is quite the history on this one.
Speaker 2: There is, and we are going to get into that
Speaker 2: as soon as we get back from a quick break
Speaker 2: for a word from our sponsors, and we're back.
Speaker 1: Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we are back
Speaker 1: with our standard cheese slash yogurt story. Yes, okay. So
Speaker 1: products like this most likely occurred accidentally, in some cases simultaneously,
Speaker 1: in several places, based on a variety of factors like environments.
Speaker 1: I'm going to say the environmental factors were probably particularly
Speaker 1: important for this one, since milk preservation could be such
Speaker 1: a headache was such a headache pre refrigeration, things like
Speaker 1: skier were a great way to make milk last. So,
Speaker 1: according to most sources, the Vikings bought Skier to Iceland
Speaker 1: over one thousand years ago in the ninth century CE,
Speaker 1: and the technique in the tradition of making skier, or
Speaker 1: the early ancestor of it, took root and flourish there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they also brought cattle, along with some other animals
Speaker 2: relevant to today's topic, like like sheep and goats.
Speaker 1: Rights. The early Vikings depended on skier as a long
Speaker 1: lasting protein source that could survive above the Arctic circle.
Speaker 1: The early process of making skier was probably similar to
Speaker 1: what some producers are still doing today. If you want,
Speaker 1: you can find articles from traditional producers where they talk
Speaker 1: about it. But I couldn't really pin down any historical evidence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, of it.
Speaker 1: But it sounds like probably that's what they were doing
Speaker 1: back then. At first, either cow or sheep's milk was used. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the way leftover in the process was used to preserve meat.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good. While the product didn't necessarily take off
Speaker 1: in the entire Nordic region, skier had become a staple
Speaker 1: in the Icelandic diet as early as eight hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy four CE. Three jars of skier from around this
Speaker 1: time are on display at the country's National Museum, which
Speaker 1: sounds really cool to such a nerd. Medieval Iceland epics
Speaker 1: mentioned skier, describing both it both as a drinkable substance
Speaker 1: and something that was strained and stored in a container,
Speaker 1: and this is believed to be due to differences in
Speaker 1: household recipes, which is what it pretty much was at
Speaker 1: the time different households, making it also one of the
Speaker 1: Skier scenes involves a lot of vomit. I read it. Oh,
Speaker 1: and then I found a whole other article about the
Speaker 1: history of how milk is gendered, and that was the
Speaker 1: whole thing.
Speaker 2: But that's separate, okay, cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of cool, I think this is really neat.
Speaker 1: And also the other show I've been on, Sminty, I'm on, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's not in the past.
Speaker 2: No, No, it's very much in the present.
Speaker 1: It's very much in the president. Anyway, we did an
Speaker 1: episode on Grila, the Christmas Witch from Iceland. But in
Speaker 1: that story, in the Icelandic Christmas legend of the Thirteen
Speaker 1: Yule Lads, the thirteen lads in question appear to cause
Speaker 1: mischief in the thirteen days leading up to Christmas, and
Speaker 1: the eighth one the Skier Goblin steels Skier.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, Skiergamore, Yeah, the skier Gobbler. Yeah, of course,
Speaker 2: of course.
Speaker 1: I love the I love that. Historically, Skier was typically
Speaker 1: made by women who would pass along their recipes to
Speaker 1: their daughters from generation to generation.
Speaker 2: Dairy products were mostly individual home based ventures in Iceland
Speaker 2: up through the end of the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen hundred, several women owned dairyes started popping
Speaker 1: up in Iceland, where they made.
Speaker 2: Skier butter was perhaps a more popular product for sale
Speaker 2: at the time, though In the nineteen twenties the Parliament
Speaker 2: encouraged the growth of the dairy industry by paying for
Speaker 2: a quarter of the setup cost of dairy farms, and
Speaker 2: by the end of the decade the first dairy co
Speaker 2: ops sprang up. The nineteen forties, the industrialization of skier
Speaker 2: making saw the rise of machines like rotating drums, helping
Speaker 2: with the slow work of draining the way, and over
Speaker 2: the next few decades, advances in like refrigeration and transportation
Speaker 2: technologies continued to industrialize the industry.
Speaker 1: Several protests jumping ahead yeah in Iceland have featured skier,
Speaker 1: including in two thousand and five, two thousand and nine
Speaker 1: and twenty fifteen sort of a throwing of tomatoes, throwing
Speaker 1: of milkshake situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, throwing pots of skier is apparently a time
Speaker 2: honored tradition because those three examples are like just to start,
Speaker 2: and I say that this is a pretty good form
Speaker 2: of protest personally.
Speaker 1: Yeah yes. Protests aside, skier saw a huge uptick and
Speaker 1: global popularity in the twenty tens.
Speaker 2: Like exports went from pretty much zero in two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine to being worth some sixty seven million dollars
Speaker 2: five years later. At this point, the aforementioned ms icelanderries
Speaker 2: was selling eight million pots locally and sixty million internationally.
Speaker 1: Who wow, it hit shelves in the UK for the
Speaker 1: first time. In twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: A brand from ms skier dot Is sold over a
Speaker 2: million pots its first year in the UK.
Speaker 1: A lot of the marketing focused on the health benefits
Speaker 1: of skiers, so that that was a big push. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: look how healthy it is. I think they got those
Speaker 1: people who know sports are gonna yell at me. They
Speaker 1: got some famous sports sports dudes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there have been like at least three big
Speaker 2: sports dudes. One of them is the guy who played
Speaker 2: the mountain on Game of Thrones.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, see I know that nerd rece Yes. Anyway,
Speaker 1: there was a big push behind that, and it did
Speaker 1: remind me of the early ads for yogurt, which again
Speaker 1: you can see our Yogurt episode It's for more on that.
Speaker 1: But those old commercials where they were they went to
Speaker 1: the country Georgia and were like, what's the secret to
Speaker 1: how they lived to one hundred years? It's yogurt.
Speaker 2: Yogurt yes, Skier kind of did a very similar thing
Speaker 2: and I think is still yeah like pushing that depending
Speaker 2: on the company. But yeah, Helsinki got its first Skier
Speaker 2: bar in twenty nineteen. Shout out regarding all of this,
Speaker 2: Shout out to the publication Dairy Industries International for their
Speaker 2: headline Reaching for the Seer.
Speaker 1: Yes, excellent. Well, another part of the reason for the
Speaker 1: search and global popularity likely has to do with the
Speaker 1: increased tourism to Iceland. People were trying it, like, oh
Speaker 1: this is good, Yeah, there you go as usual. The
Speaker 1: rise in popularity hasn't been without consequences. One of them
Speaker 1: is that Iceland just can't keep up with demand. The
Speaker 1: cows traditionally used don't produce as much milk as other
Speaker 1: breeds of cows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these aforementioned traditional cows, which have never been interbred,
Speaker 2: by the way, are smaller than a lot of other
Speaker 2: commercial dairy cow breeds. I mean, they are particularly suited
Speaker 2: to Iceland's conditions.
Speaker 1: They've also been.
Speaker 2: Bred to have like extra colorful coats, like lots of
Speaker 2: like brindle type patterning. They are so cute. Look up pictures.
Speaker 1: Done after this is over immediately, But yeah, there has
Speaker 1: been a lot of hand ringing about whether or not
Speaker 1: they should bring in larger cows, but then concerned that
Speaker 1: they may these new cows may entirely displace the traditional
Speaker 1: Icelandic cow population. Because of this and seeing the opportunity,
Speaker 1: companies in other countries started making more skier, which then
Speaker 1: sparked a conversation about skiers definition, where it is made
Speaker 1: and can legally be made, and a trademark battle that
Speaker 1: some of the press dubbed skier wars. We're getting a
Speaker 1: lot of good puns already, and I have to say
Speaker 1: those skier wars are complicated. In twenty seventeen, a Swedish
Speaker 1: court denied a partner of the company ms Iceland Dairies
Speaker 1: their petition to trademark the word skier as a brand,
Speaker 1: ruling that skier is too ubiquitous. There was and continues
Speaker 1: to be some back and forth on this, and from
Speaker 1: what I can gather, no real global consensus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sort of been just happening in different countries
Speaker 2: as the issue has come up, because because it happened
Speaker 2: in Finland as well, and how it turned out with
Speaker 2: ms specifically and how it turned out there is that
Speaker 2: ms Iceland Dairies received this pushback and eventually failed in court,
Speaker 2: mostly because of the way that they themselves market Skier
Speaker 2: as being like a more like like a wide cultural products,
Speaker 2: sort of like Remember Doesn't or the Fun Story. When
Speaker 2: Aqua came out with their song Barbie Girl, Mattel tried
Speaker 2: to sue them for their use of Barbie in the
Speaker 2: song and the video, and the chords basically said, uh, Mattel,
Speaker 2: you have spent actual decades pushing Barbie as a pop
Speaker 2: culture icon, so you, by definition, cannot tell people to
Speaker 2: not talk about her.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And it's really complicated because a lot of
Speaker 1: this has been happening in Europe so far, but there
Speaker 1: is in the US because we a lot of us
Speaker 1: call it yogurt like we see it more it's it's
Speaker 1: next to the yogurt. Yeah, it's not next to cheese
Speaker 1: usually no, But it doesn't meet the definition that we
Speaker 1: have in the US. I'm remembering correctly of yogurt. So
Speaker 1: it's just kind of a mess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm looking at the container right now that I
Speaker 2: haven't cleaned off my desk yet, So sorry if everyone
Speaker 2: is really grossed out by that, but it does. It
Speaker 2: says fat free yogurt on the on THEI Ciggy's, is
Speaker 2: that how you pronounce it? I'm not sure container so,
Speaker 2: But at the same time, I'm not totally positive what
Speaker 2: cultures they use and how we define how like the
Speaker 2: FDA defines what can be labeled as yogurt here, And
Speaker 2: I'd be really interested to see if in the next
Speaker 2: you know, five or ten years. As this continues to
Speaker 2: to snowball to skerball, whether the makers of Skier decide
Speaker 2: to try to do like a like a doc kind
Speaker 2: of thing where they get it, get it like governmental
Speaker 2: definition of what this product is and whether it is
Speaker 2: traditional or from somewhere else and has to be called
Speaker 2: sparkling yogurt or whatever the thing is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think they will. I think they are
Speaker 1: already this conversation with the cows. They're already yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: thinking about it. Yeah. And the interesting thing about City's,
Speaker 1: which is not a sponsor but I like them too,
Speaker 1: is that a lot of people will say that isn't
Speaker 1: scared at least like other producers were Like No.
Speaker 2: They're like, uh, that is not made here. It's not
Speaker 2: with the right type of milk, it's not with the
Speaker 2: right type microbiotics or microbiotic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we'll see. Yeah, it's ongoing, but definitely would
Speaker 1: love to hear from listeners about this one.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Oh my goodness. If anyone has personal experience,
Speaker 2: I have not been to Iceland. If anyone has been,
Speaker 2: I really want to hear about it. All the pictures
Speaker 2: I've ever seen are so spectacular.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, yes, well I think that's what we have
Speaker 1: to say about Skier for now.
Speaker 2: I think it is. We do already have some listener
Speaker 2: mail for you, though, and we are going to get
Speaker 2: into that as soon as we get back from one
Speaker 2: more quick break for a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1: We're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're
Speaker 1: back with a snow. Trevor wrote, listening to your White
Speaker 1: Tail Deer episode brought back memories of a dear friend
Speaker 1: or dear friend now passed on my dog Farley. This
Speaker 1: specific memory is about a friend Farley made one day.
Speaker 1: Farley fancied himself a hunter. I could go off on
Speaker 1: a tangent about the time he caught a rabbit and
Speaker 1: gave himself worms. That's a horror show. For another episode,
Speaker 1: we were trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to train Farley on an
Speaker 1: invisible fence system. He was outside enjoying himself when I
Speaker 1: heard him start barking. I hurd outside to quiet him
Speaker 1: before the neighbors complained again. Farley had spotted a group
Speaker 1: of deer in the neighbor's yard. As soon as I arrived.
Speaker 1: Farley must have figured backup has arrived, because he took
Speaker 1: off like a shot at the group, pow right through
Speaker 1: the invisible fence. The deer scattered in all directions. One
Speaker 1: came back into our yard. Farley was in hot pursuit,
Speaker 1: bang back through the invisible system. Farley chased the deer
Speaker 1: about three laps around the yard. Then the deer must
Speaker 1: have realized it was bigger than Farley, because it turned
Speaker 1: and chased Farley for about three laps around the yard.
Speaker 1: I eventually got close enough that my yelling and waving
Speaker 1: scared off the deer. The deer trotted off to another
Speaker 1: part of the name. I wish you could have seen
Speaker 1: Farley's thanks. He was so happy. My imagined dialogue for
Speaker 1: him was something like, Dad, I made a friend. We
Speaker 1: played tag. It was so much fun. I just shook
Speaker 1: my head and told him, dummy, what would you have
Speaker 1: done if you got it? Below our pictures of Barley
Speaker 1: in a quiet moment my yard with other deer in it.
Speaker 1: A random punny card. I took a picture of hashtag
Speaker 1: no pun left behind, And since this is ostensibly a
Speaker 1: food show, a couple of pictures of the venison I
Speaker 1: cooked gift from a friend not a hunter myself. I
Speaker 1: feel the need to inject some food talking to this.
Speaker 1: So the friend who gave me the meat said that
Speaker 1: onion soup mix was the magic ingredient to keep venison
Speaker 1: from being too gaming. Thanks for listening to me, ramble, Oh,
Speaker 1: thank you. That's such a fun that's such a fun story.
Speaker 1: It paints such a picture. Who Farley was? It says, Oh,
Speaker 1: I love that, I love. I love all of it.
Speaker 2: And I will say that my cats will like stare
Speaker 2: out the window at deer and and like really intently
Speaker 2: as though they would like to go try to catch
Speaker 2: and eat that thing. And I just pictured like my
Speaker 2: tiny kitten like glomping on to the hind leg of
Speaker 2: a deer and being like yang yang yang, just right
Speaker 2: at this ankle, you know, but the deer being like
Speaker 2: what mm hmm.
Speaker 1: My dog. I had an English Setter, so there's supposed
Speaker 1: to be a hunting dog she was a coward. She
Speaker 1: was a big girl, and she would like hide and
Speaker 1: bark at.
Speaker 2: Deer okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: From a corner. But the deer they were not afraid.
Speaker 1: They just continue eating my mom's plants. And then one
Speaker 1: time she was trying to catch a butterfly and it
Speaker 1: landed on her head and she was like she was
Speaker 1: so scared. It was hilarious. Oh no, Butterly, I was like,
Speaker 1: I know you were gowered. Yeah, got you this time, butterfly.
Speaker 1: One dog zero. So thank you for sharing the pictures
Speaker 1: and the fun story. And that is interesting about the
Speaker 1: onion soup mix. I'm I'm curious if other people have
Speaker 1: like a similar tip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could see how like the kind of sweetness
Speaker 2: that you get from onions being a good like balance
Speaker 2: out for the kind of gamy notes and meat. So yeah,
Speaker 2: Andrew wrote, currently catching up on some episodes and thought
Speaker 2: I would share a couple of anecdotes. First, pumpkin composting.
Speaker 2: Around these parts, we have a very popular rescue farm,
Speaker 2: Slash Petting Zoo, which takes in special needs, abandoned or
Speaker 2: injured farm animals. They have a variety of pigs, chickens, goats, donkeys.
Speaker 1: Et cetera.
Speaker 2: It's typically a small fee to enter and interact with
Speaker 2: and feed the animals when switching over to their win
Speaker 2: her holiday decorations. The Big Local Art Museum donates any
Speaker 2: decorative pumpkins which are still in good shape. They have
Speaker 2: one hundred acre property, so it is a lot of pumpkins.
Speaker 2: Visitors to the farm can then smash up some donated
Speaker 2: gourds and feed the resulting scraps to the piggies. I
Speaker 2: think this is a great alternative to a landfill. My
Speaker 2: wife and I have visited several times and always enjoy ourselves.
Speaker 2: The donkeys are my personal fave. Second you pick farms.
Speaker 2: There is one of these establishments not five miles from
Speaker 2: where I live, and I've visited several times alas it
Speaker 2: has become far too commercial and kid centric for me.
Speaker 2: But I had a funny tidbit from visiting the Corn
Speaker 2: Maze several years ago. My wife and I were making
Speaker 2: our way through the maze and there were several hidden
Speaker 2: markers throughout with illustrative corn puns. One particular marker had
Speaker 2: an ear of corn dressed in a spider man costume,
Speaker 2: to which I said, spidy corn. My wife walked around
Speaker 2: to the back and said, oh, cobweb, we both face
Speaker 2: pretty hard. Last sweet corn. My late grandparents kept a
Speaker 2: large plot on their property with a variety of crops,
Speaker 2: and there would often be a couple rows of sweet corn.
Speaker 2: As a child, I would visit them and stay rather frequently.
Speaker 2: On one such occasion, it was corn picking day. Corn
Speaker 2: Picking day always resulted in an over abundance of the starch. Yes,
Speaker 2: even an Indiana kid can admit corn is not much
Speaker 2: of a vegetable, so my grandma's solution was to boil
Speaker 2: the ears, cut off the kernels, and freeze for later consumption.
Speaker 2: The kitchen table almost always had a bowl of reheated
Speaker 2: corn at meal time. A few days later, a family
Speaker 2: friend asked how my visit to grandma and Grandpa's went,
Speaker 2: and what did ten year old me respond? Boiled corn?
Speaker 1: Pretty sure.
Speaker 2: This story is still told in certain circles to this day.
Speaker 2: A side note, the day of picking always bent fresh
Speaker 2: corn on the cob, either grilled or boiled grocery store corn,
Speaker 2: and will never ever hold a candle to those fresh
Speaker 2: picked golden delights. It certainly had the juice. Side side note,
Speaker 2: Grandpa always referred to corn on the cob as roasting ears,
Speaker 2: but with his down home way of talking, it always
Speaker 2: came out as ross and ears.
Speaker 1: I think I might have done that right that time. Yes,
Speaker 1: the scene I got out takes.
Speaker 2: I got halfway through the ross and then just cussed
Speaker 2: and stuffed.
Speaker 1: Lauren takes it very seriously. Wanted to get it correctly.
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 2: It is important. Yeah, yeah, I love this.
Speaker 1: I love I was thinking about this food. A lot
Speaker 1: of producers of food do have a lot of puns involved.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they like their puns. So I like that
Speaker 1: this this corn maze was up on edge, dressed up
Speaker 1: there ears of corn for for pun purposes. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. I did. Someone reminded me the other day.
Speaker 1: In my hometown, one year we have like your traditional
Speaker 1: like small town square, you know, and one year when
Speaker 1: you would go into the square, there was just a
Speaker 1: sign that said the scarecrows are coming. Oh, and we
Speaker 1: no one knew what it meant.
Speaker 2: But every year they just randomly put up all these scarecrows.
Speaker 1: And it's the scariest. What I think is not supposed
Speaker 1: to be scary, but it's very frightening. But I can
Speaker 1: add that into my corn maze fear. Yeah, that's been
Speaker 1: sparked for this. Yeah. Also this pumpkin like smashing of
Speaker 1: the pumpkin, that sounds really fun.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that sounds great. And indeed write really fresh corn.
Speaker 2: There's just no beating it. That's that's just it's true.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep.
Speaker 2: My grandparents also had some fresh corn in their garden
Speaker 2: and I never responded boiledcorn about my entire experience at
Speaker 2: their home.
Speaker 1: But but you can relate. Yes, yes, whoa. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much to both of these listeners for writing in.
Speaker 1: If you would like to write to us, you can.
Speaker 1: You can email us at Hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2: We're also on social media. You can currently find us
Speaker 2: on Twitter that we're moving to Blue Sky, Facebook and
Speaker 2: Instagram at savor pod and we do hope to hear
Speaker 2: from you. Savor is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 2: podcasts my heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2: Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Speaker 2: Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and hope that
Speaker 2: lots of more good things are coming your way.