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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house stuff Works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark

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Speaker 1: with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry, Jerome Rolling, and Frank

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Speaker 1: the Chair. Oh Frank, he's been here the whole time.

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Speaker 1: He just keeps quiet mostly mostly. Yeah. I don't have

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Speaker 1: my hat on today though, so I know what gives

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Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, I'm growing the hair out,

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Speaker 1: so I thought i'd just let it flow. I noticed

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Speaker 1: it looks good. Why are you growing it out? I

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Speaker 1: don't know. It just sort of started happening. Then I

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Speaker 1: was like, my brother's got good hair, is longer. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm always trying to be more like him. Plus I

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Speaker 1: can't have a butt cut with short hair. Yeah. Plus

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Speaker 1: I mean I've had the same short, spiky hair for

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Speaker 1: like fifteen years. Time to mix it up, I know, man.

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Speaker 1: When I started growing my note, I was like, what

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Speaker 1: am I doing? What's with this? Cube? All? Crap? I'm

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Speaker 1: so tired of all this. Let me just see what

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Speaker 1: what it looks like, you know, with a what's that

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Speaker 1: quarterback's name? Joe Eisman No, no, Terry Bradshaw, No, you

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Speaker 1: know the one Randall Cunningham. No, tom Brady, tom Brady,

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Speaker 1: despite your harassment, I still figured it out. What about

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Speaker 1: tom Brady? He want his hair? I have his hair, buddy,

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Speaker 1: I don't know about that. I do me and tom Brady? Now,

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Speaker 1: uh chuck. Yes, did you grow up on TV dinners

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Speaker 1: at all? No? Really no. My mom is was and

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Speaker 1: is a great cook, so she wouldn't have that. I see,

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Speaker 1: I see. Wow, Well I did. I grew up on

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Speaker 1: TV dinners, and usually when a TV dinner appeared, Seriously,

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Speaker 1: you did miss out. They were pretty amazing when you're

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Speaker 1: like six, seven years old. I've had them when you

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Speaker 1: were six or seven. No, I had them like in college. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so so okay, so you understand the magic of a

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Speaker 1: TV dinner, right, sure? Alright? Imagine that as like a

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Speaker 1: six year old. It was magical. All of your foods

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Speaker 1: in like a different little compartment, Brownie just staring at you,

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Speaker 1: waiting like just just wait, just wait, buddy. Um when

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Speaker 1: you're six, it's just even better. And when I was six,

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Speaker 1: if I would get a TV dinner, it meant that

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Speaker 1: my parents were like going to do something right, they

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Speaker 1: were going to play bridge or something like that. So

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Speaker 1: it was like a special night, like I probably exactly,

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Speaker 1: I'd probably get to stay up late, or there'd be

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Speaker 1: some babysitter or whatever. Um, it was always just kind

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Speaker 1: of a special thing when TV dinners made an appearance.

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Speaker 1: My parents never did anything together. They never like, they

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Speaker 1: never played cards or no. Man, I rarely had babysitters.

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Speaker 1: I really I don't remember having baby sitters. There was

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Speaker 1: always one of them there. Yeah, maybe they didn't trust you,

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Speaker 1: they didn't like each other. They may have really enjoyed

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Speaker 1: key parties well plus yeah you never know, Um I

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Speaker 1: had Uh. I have a sister that's six years older though,

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Speaker 1: so Yeah. But they still didn't do a lot of

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Speaker 1: I think I remember. I can literally just think of

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Speaker 1: a few times. They like went to an Olivia Newton

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Speaker 1: John concert once. Uh, they've got a pretty good track

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Speaker 1: record so far, and my mom went and saw Elvis,

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Speaker 1: but not with my dad. Wow. On that last tour

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Speaker 1: two man, the uh, I think they call that the

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Speaker 1: jumpsuit Integrity Tour. They hold on, let me catch my breath. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they didn't put an undignified ending. Yeah they didn't. They

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Speaker 1: didn't do much stuff together, so I didn't get a

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Speaker 1: lot of TV dinners. I didn't get a lot of Hey,

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Speaker 1: there's just throw it in and warm it up. My

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Speaker 1: mom was kind of yeah, always cooking for us. Yeah, yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: my mom cooked a lot too. But now that I'm

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Speaker 1: older and look back, I'm like us pretty convenient meal.

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Speaker 1: Like you know, she was an e R nurse for

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Speaker 1: PiZZ sake, weird hours and stuff. Um, but she was

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Speaker 1: a great mom. She raised me very well, as everybody knows.

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Speaker 1: It's a well known fact. So with TV dinners in particular, though,

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Speaker 1: I have a certain amount of nostalgia forum, but apparently

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Speaker 1: like America as a whole has a bit of nostalgia

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Speaker 1: for TV dinners. There's a TV dinner in the Smithsonian,

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Speaker 1: for peze sake, and that's like America's greatest repository of

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Speaker 1: nostalgia for you know. Yeah, So I think we should

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Speaker 1: take people on a delightful tour of the history of

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Speaker 1: this wonder of TV dinners. You sound like you're I'm

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Speaker 1: not so sure. No, no, no, I am sure. I

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Speaker 1: was just joking around, trying to set it up as

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Speaker 1: some you know, magical experien everyone's about to have, But

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Speaker 1: I feel like that's ingrained in it. So as the

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Speaker 1: story goes, uh, Swanson ce A Swanson and Sons was

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Speaker 1: and is a leader in the frozen food industry, and um,

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Speaker 1: whether or not this is legend, who knows, but it's

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Speaker 1: a great story. Was that uh one Thanksgiving they had

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Speaker 1: too much turkey on their hands post Thanksgiving to the

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Speaker 1: tune of something like two fifty tons of turkey that

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Speaker 1: they didn't sell they which is so sad, you know,

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Speaker 1: yeah for those Uh yeah, like we so wanted to

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Speaker 1: give our life as a meal. Now we're just on

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Speaker 1: a train. Well, yeah, that's what they did. So the

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Speaker 1: story goes, they had about they loaded it, they couldn't

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Speaker 1: store it. They didn't none of room and no freezer

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Speaker 1: room to store all this turkey. So they put it

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Speaker 1: on a frozen train or a refriger rated train car

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Speaker 1: as a polar express it's called in the industry. And

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Speaker 1: the trick to this thing is is in order for

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Speaker 1: that train to stay refrigerator, it's gotta keep moving. And

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Speaker 1: so they basically we're just running this turkey all over

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Speaker 1: the country to keep it frozen and cold. Right, It's

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Speaker 1: like that one movie UM set in the future with

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Speaker 1: Tilda Switten where like the train never stops societies on

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Speaker 1: the train. Yeah, that's like that, but with frozen turkeys.

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Speaker 1: That's a good movie. So it's like that cross between

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Speaker 1: that and Speed. Yes, like so if the train ever stops,

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Speaker 1: it's gonna lose refrigeration, the losers refrigeration, the turkeys all

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Speaker 1: go bad. So there's this remember that Simpsons which one

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Speaker 1: when Homer is trying to describe or think of the

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Speaker 1: name of the movie Speed. He's like, it's about a

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Speaker 1: about a bus if it's speed goes down and it

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Speaker 1: can't speed up. And he says it like that many times,

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Speaker 1: and he goes, I think it's called the bus that

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Speaker 1: wouldn't slow down or that couldn't slow down. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: remember that one very funny line. Um, but this is

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Speaker 1: real life, Chuck. This wasn't a cartoon or a joke.

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Speaker 1: Half a million pounds of turkey on a train and

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Speaker 1: if if it's topped it would spoil. No, the idea

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Speaker 1: that this actually happened, it's so insane to me. So

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Speaker 1: apparently the Swanson brothers Clark and um, what was the

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Speaker 1: other brothers, Gilbert Gilbert. I wanted to say Clark and Gable,

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Speaker 1: but Clark from Gilbert Swanson said all right, employees, we

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Speaker 1: need you to put your heads together and come up

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Speaker 1: with an idea. So they had, again this is the legend,

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Speaker 1: they had an employee contest where, um, whoever could come

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Speaker 1: up with what to do with all this turkey I

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Speaker 1: guess would just be the employee of the month or

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Speaker 1: something like that. Um. And all the while this contest

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Speaker 1: is going on in the Swanson company, there's a training

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Speaker 1: out there are in the United States of America, just

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Speaker 1: circling endlessly because it can't stop or else the turkeys

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Speaker 1: will go bad until this Winton wins. Yeah. Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: there was a salesman named Jerry Thomas g E r

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Speaker 1: R Y, not like our own j E R I right,

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Speaker 1: which no one ever gets. Right, Um, this is the

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Speaker 1: party I don't get. He traveled from Nebraska to Pittsburgh

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Speaker 1: to where Pan American Airways had their kitchens because they

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Speaker 1: were testing uh single compartment uh foil tray meals that

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Speaker 1: they would serve to people. And I guess he couldn't

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Speaker 1: envision what that might look like unless he went there

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Speaker 1: in person, right and steal one. Well yeah, so that yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it was a single compartment right, So basically it

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Speaker 1: was just a trade that you put a bunch of

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Speaker 1: food on. There were like different compartments in the trade,

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Speaker 1: and he's like, I gotta get my hands on one

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Speaker 1: of the right. This is innovation. Yeah, I don't understand

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Speaker 1: that either, which is why his story smells a little

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Speaker 1: fishy to me. Um. But this, this guy, Jerry Thomas,

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Speaker 1: is the He's he's known as the inventor basically of

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Speaker 1: the TV dinner. Right. So he comes back to the

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Speaker 1: Swanson brothers and says, I got it. I've I've driven

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Speaker 1: from Pittsburgh back home, uh to wherever the Swanson company

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Speaker 1: is located? Where am I? He famously said, Um, And

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Speaker 1: he said, and I've added two more compartments into this trade.

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Speaker 1: So now it's a three compartment trade. And I through

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Speaker 1: two lines and then I know what to do with

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Speaker 1: the turkey. Now we're gonna basically sell it as a

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Speaker 1: frozen Thanksgiving dinner. And they said your employee of the month, Jerry. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: They say, look, you got your your potatoes and gravy here,

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Speaker 1: you get your peas here, you got your turkey here.

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Speaker 1: None of it touches each other. I'm a genius. I'm

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Speaker 1: Jerry Thomas. So this coalesced with the another uh craze,

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Speaker 1: which was television, and in nineteen fifty three there were

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Speaker 1: thirty three million households with televisions, and um, it was

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Speaker 1: really I mean, there have been other people that had

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Speaker 1: been doing this before. Quaker State Foods UH in nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty nine had something in the supermarket of frozen meal

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Speaker 1: called under Geez the most the most one of the

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Speaker 1: I don't want to say the most one of the

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Speaker 1: most offensive brand names ever. Yeah, the one eyed Eskimo label. Um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's that's terrible. So they were stelling those in supermarkets.

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Speaker 1: And then in previous to that, even UH the Strato

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Speaker 1: plates from Maxim were being served on airplanes, but not

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Speaker 1: as a retail food, so it had been done before.

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Speaker 1: So the creation of the TV dinner well wait, don't

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Speaker 1: don't don't leave out Jack Fisher, who Jack? Sure? Oh

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Speaker 1: all right? What was that one called frigid dinners? Yes,

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Speaker 1: but they're the most depressing meal ever because they were

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Speaker 1: served in bars. Yeah, they're serving in a bar, so

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Speaker 1: you didn't have to leave to go home to eat dinner.

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Speaker 1: You could just stay and keep drinking. Oh man. There

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Speaker 1: were some bars in l A and Los Felis when

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Speaker 1: I lived there that around two am, the Tomali guy

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Speaker 1: would come around, So okay, that's different. Oh dude. It

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Speaker 1: was the best. They were legit handmade to Molly's and

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Speaker 1: at one was the perfect time to be dropping into

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Speaker 1: the drawing room, you know. Anyway, the creation of the

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Speaker 1: TV dinner was not so much that it was a

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Speaker 1: brand new thing, but it was. It was a marketing

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Speaker 1: success story because the TV they thought, if we can

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Speaker 1: build a sing around the television, then we've got something

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Speaker 1: in our hands. That was the key the TV making

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Speaker 1: it a TV dinner, right, because all of a sudden

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Speaker 1: it was like, hey, everybody loves TV. Plus, this is

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Speaker 1: something I didn't realize. It added a certain amount of

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Speaker 1: like cashe to the TV dinner because if you had

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Speaker 1: a TV dinner, it meant that you had a TV.

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Speaker 1: And if you had a TV, you were probably upper

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Speaker 1: middle class at the time, right, So the idea of

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Speaker 1: having a TV or a dinner to go with your

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Speaker 1: TV really appealed to Americans, And even to this day

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Speaker 1: it was such a great marketing coup. I guess that

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Speaker 1: um people still call these and like almost any frozen

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Speaker 1: entree or frozen meal, a TV dinner, even though it

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Speaker 1: was nineteen six two when Swanson stopped calling their products

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Speaker 1: that they still made the products, they just stopped calling

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Speaker 1: them TV dinners. Every everybody else kept calling them TV dinner.

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Speaker 1: You were eating these in the eighties, like twenty years

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Speaker 1: after they that brand went away, still calling the TV

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Speaker 1: dinners and eating them on TV trades. This is another

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Speaker 1: thing you pissed out on, Chuck did you have? So

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Speaker 1: that was the whole the whole point of a TV

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Speaker 1: tray was it was a foldable individual table that you

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Speaker 1: would open up in front of yourself and eat your

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Speaker 1: TV dinner on while you're sitting on the couch, so

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Speaker 1: you could watch TV most efficiently while you were eating dinner.

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Speaker 1: And now they call that the coffee table. You just

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Speaker 1: stoop over a little bit, right, or the sink? What

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Speaker 1: eating over the sink? I don't know what that is.

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Speaker 1: That's a depressing way to eat. So these are actually

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Speaker 1: called that was the brand, Swanson's TV brand, frozen Dinner.

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Speaker 1: And there they're big concept with the box. If you

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Speaker 1: look it up on on the internet. Was it looked

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Speaker 1: like it was designed like old television? The box was

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Speaker 1: it the t The dinner itself was like the screen

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Speaker 1: on the screen and then it had the little dials

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Speaker 1: on the bottom left and right corner, and uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: it look like a little TV. It was ninety eight

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Speaker 1: cents in n and they sold a ton of them, yeah,

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Speaker 1: they apparently. Um So again, remember all this came from

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Speaker 1: a bunch of turkey that was about to spoil. So

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Speaker 1: Swanson ordered start to an industry. Swanson ordered like five

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Speaker 1: thousand of them initially to be made, and they hired

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Speaker 1: a small battalion of of um ladies in aprons and

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Speaker 1: ice cream scoops and spatchel is to assemble these things, right,

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Speaker 1: and they just had them go right down the assembly line,

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Speaker 1: and they sold five thousand just almost immediately. And apparently

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Speaker 1: in the first year um that they were sold, they

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Speaker 1: sold like ten million of them. So they came out

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Speaker 1: with them in nineteen fifty four and by the the

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Speaker 1: end of the first full year of production, which I

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Speaker 1: guess would be nineteen fifty five, they'd sold ten million

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Speaker 1: of them. So they went from initially ordering five thousand

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Speaker 1: of them to selling ten million of them in a year.

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Speaker 1: So they it just hit America just right, you know. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it was at a time where women were starting

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Speaker 1: to u kind of re enter the workforce, gave them

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Speaker 1: time that they could still get that hot meal on

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Speaker 1: the table, because that was their job back then, right right.

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Speaker 1: It gave women a really great opportunity to provide a

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Speaker 1: stark contrast to the your husband's mother. Yeah. Yeah, Apparently

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Speaker 1: there were a bunch of men who were like, this

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Speaker 1: isn't good enough. I want my wife to cook from

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Speaker 1: scratch like my mom. Dr Freud, And if they could

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Speaker 1: be like my mom in a lot of other ways,

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Speaker 1: that'd be awesome. Would it killer to wear a hairnet? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: So apparently it didn't delight all men because they weren't

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Speaker 1: on board. But would killer to just me up in

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Speaker 1: a diaper? We should do an episode on that sometime.

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Speaker 1: That's a thing. Oh, I'll talk you about san Freud,

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Speaker 1: but on men wearing diapers as adults. Yeah, it's for

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Speaker 1: like I think it's called diaper play for sex play,

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Speaker 1: but but it's it's diaper centric. Yeah, we should do

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Speaker 1: a podcast on that just that. Well, if we can

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Speaker 1: include it in like maybe a fetish one, how about that?

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Speaker 1: All right? Okay, Wow, that's a weird turn all of

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Speaker 1: the time. Really did uh geez, you got anything else

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Speaker 1: on TV Dinners. That's a good way to end it.

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Speaker 1: I think, nope. Uh, should we take a break? Yep,

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Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna go change my diaper. We'll talk

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Speaker 1: about gelatin right after this. So, Chuck, you were saying

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Speaker 1: that um in the last one, that uh, that the

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Speaker 1: TV dinner hit just right and struck struck America in

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Speaker 1: part because women were starting to enter the workforce, right,

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Speaker 1: and that was partially the result of World War Two.

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Speaker 1: World War two also changed things as far as food

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Speaker 1: and food consumption and food packaging goes, and that apparently

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Speaker 1: at the end of World War Two there were a

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Speaker 1: lot of companies that had gone all in into supplying

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Speaker 1: the troops food and we're making pretty great money, but

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Speaker 1: apparently we're basically caught with a large amount of supply

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Speaker 1: um when the war ended, and they said, well, if

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Speaker 1: we don't figure out a way to get non wartime America,

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Speaker 1: the regular American consumer to buy this stuff, we're going

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Speaker 1: to go out of business. Were over extended, basically, And

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Speaker 1: so food companies, I guess, individually and on the whole,

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Speaker 1: taught America to basically eat what had prior to that

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Speaker 1: point been considered field rations. Like spam if you remember

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Speaker 1: that podcast that kind of was where that whole movement

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Speaker 1: was born. Yep, spam, condensed soup, um, dehydrated stuff, freeze

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Speaker 1: dried stuff. Like all of this came out of basically

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Speaker 1: an overstock of World War two food supplies that were

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Speaker 1: intended for troops and we're kind of repackaged and rearranged

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Speaker 1: to be served to the American consumer. And part of

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Speaker 1: that also was that same thing that TV Dinner struck,

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Speaker 1: which which was convenient. You know, like, hey, your your

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Speaker 1: husband still wants a meal and your your family still

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Speaker 1: expects you to be the one to to cook for him. Um,

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Speaker 1: but now you have to work. So what are you

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Speaker 1: gonna do? Well, we have we have something helpful for you,

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Speaker 1: and it's called convenience food. And one of the big

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Speaker 1: convenience foods that came out of the post war era.

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Speaker 1: But really it started to gather steam before that was gelatine. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: specifically Jello as the name brand, but uh, gelatine, the

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Speaker 1: word is from Latin gelatas, meaning jellied froze, and uh

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Speaker 1: it was first used in Egypt, but it was really

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Speaker 1: first used in cooking in France, and um, you know

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Speaker 1: I think most people know this by now, but if

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Speaker 1: you don't, Um, gelatine is as a protein and it's

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Speaker 1: uh it's produced from collagen from boiling animal bones, yeah

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Speaker 1: or hoofs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a it's glutinous basically,

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Speaker 1: and it can go one of two ways, I think,

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Speaker 1: depending on what you do with it. You can turn

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Speaker 1: it into glue or you can turn it into food.

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Speaker 1: That's never a good start, no, it really you know. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And a guy from the I think the seventeenth century

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Speaker 1: in France, what was his name, Peppin someone Peppin, Dennis

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Speaker 1: Poppin right, who may or may not be related to

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Speaker 1: Jacques Pepin. It was great and French. He's also a cook. Um.

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Speaker 1: He was the first person to mention it in writing,

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Speaker 1: I believe, uh. And then it just kind of sat

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Speaker 1: there for a while until the nineteenth century, when I

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Speaker 1: guess people were aware of gelatine and that you could

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Speaker 1: use it as a food, but it was extraordinarily gourmet,

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Speaker 1: like the average person was not making jello at home.

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Speaker 1: It was very time consuming. You you had to start

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Speaker 1: from scratch and boil animal bones to start the process

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Speaker 1: of gelatine. It was the exact opposite of how we

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Speaker 1: think of gelatine today, which is instantaneous. Yeah. So in

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Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, um, there there this guy named Peter

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Speaker 1: Cooper uh figured out a way to turn gelatine into

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Speaker 1: a powder form, a dehydrated gelatine powder. Um, and it

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Speaker 1: went absolutely nowhere for fifty years. And I was surprised

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Speaker 1: to find this out. I knew gelatine was pretty old,

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Speaker 1: but it's it's interesting how it's just kind of moved

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Speaker 1: along in these very slow little fits and starts, like

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Speaker 1: no one would give up on it, which is weird

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Speaker 1: because it's really disgusting if you think about it. It

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Speaker 1: should have been given up on. Yeah, and it never was.

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Speaker 1: It's a very bizarre in vention. It almost makes you

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Speaker 1: feel like there was some sort of divine hand guiding

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Speaker 1: gelatine along in its progress. Yeah. So, later on in

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Speaker 1: eight got named Charles Knox uh kind of revolutionized things

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Speaker 1: when he found came up with a process that resulted

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Speaker 1: in a dried sheet of gelatine, and he hired salesman

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Speaker 1: to go door to door to show women like, hey,

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Speaker 1: you can add liquid to these sheets, you can make desserts,

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Speaker 1: you can make aspects, which is a really gross word.

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Speaker 1: I think it is. It's not it's pretty. It's a

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Speaker 1: gross thing. It's a savory gelatine. Yeah, which we'll get

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Speaker 1: to that. But uh. A couple of years later, Rose Knox,

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Speaker 1: which was that his wife, I guess, yes, published a

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Speaker 1: book called Dainty Desserts, which is a book of recipes,

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Speaker 1: and uh, things were kind of moving along a little bit. Um.

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Speaker 1: Then in there was a cough syrup company in New

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Speaker 1: York called Pearl H Pearl B wait is that what

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Speaker 1: it's called? Pearl okay? W W A I T. But

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Speaker 1: they weren't selling much cough syrups, and he said, all right,

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Speaker 1: let's get into the food business. And uh, the wife,

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Speaker 1: whose name was May, said, you know, let me add

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Speaker 1: some fruit syrups to this stuff. And actually she's the

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Speaker 1: one who named it jello. She came up with that name.

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Speaker 1: But they didn't succeed either, and sold that to their neighbor.

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Speaker 1: Uh Francis is that the whole name, or to Francis Woodward, Yes,

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Speaker 1: for four hundred and fifty bucks. Uh. This person purchased

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Speaker 1: the name and name brand Jello, right, and he almost

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Speaker 1: fell victim to the curse of Jello as well. Right,

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Speaker 1: he could do nothing with it either. Um. Despite some

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Speaker 1: early attempts. He apparently tried to sell it to his

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Speaker 1: supervisor at work for thirty five bucks even though he

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Speaker 1: paid four hundred and fifty to it for it. So

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Speaker 1: at some point I guess he decided to give it

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Speaker 1: another go, and he hired a bunch of traveling salesman

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Speaker 1: sent them out to fairs, community gatherings, that kind of uff,

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Speaker 1: and said, teach the people how to make the jello.

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Speaker 1: And this time it started to stick. Actually, Jello Jello

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Speaker 1: kind of um hit at just the right time. Finally,

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Speaker 1: I should say, the world was finally ready for jello.

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Speaker 1: Part of it had to do with um, refrigeration, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: for sure, once you know, refrigeration is key for jello,

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Speaker 1: as we all know, right, And once those technologies were developed,

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Speaker 1: it kind of uh well it formed literally it all

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Speaker 1: congealed and figuratively. Uh. And then once advertising started taking over,

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Speaker 1: like in the mid nineteen thirties, Uh, General Foods UM

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Speaker 1: had a very famous radio ad from Jack Binny, uh

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Speaker 1: the j E L l O tag, which really kind

387
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Speaker 1: of helped push things along as well. Yeah, and I

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Speaker 1: noticed that at some point they started dabbling with with

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Speaker 1: other flavors. I think originally they tried strawberry, raspberry, orange,

390
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Speaker 1: and lemon, right um, And then they tried chocolate it

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Speaker 1: and they they apparently chocolate didn't go over very well,

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Speaker 1: so they were no. First they just released it as

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Speaker 1: chocolate jello. That's pretty awful. And then they thought, oh,

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Speaker 1: maybe we should add milk instead of water, and that's

395
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Speaker 1: when they came up with jello pudding, and they re

396
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Speaker 1: released chocolate and that that spurred like a whole pudding line,

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Speaker 1: including something I grew up on, which was butterscotch jello pudding.

398
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, man, that was so good, except you you couldn't.

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Speaker 1: You had to get the skin off. The skin was

400
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Speaker 1: no good, But everything under the skin was great. What's

401
00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:35,359
Speaker 1: the skin? It was just like a on top. It

402
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:39,800
Speaker 1: was a very it was the tougher layer on top. Yeah,

403
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Speaker 1: but if you just scraped it off, you had some

404
00:24:42,119 --> 00:24:47,000
Speaker 1: nice pudding underneath. Emily still loves the the brown, the

405
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:50,560
Speaker 1: chocolate jello pudding. Yeah it's good. Yeah. She'll make a

406
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Speaker 1: parfait like you know, a little a little putting, a

407
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Speaker 1: little whipped cream, a little pudding, little whipped cream. She

408
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Speaker 1: knows how to live she does. It's a special night

409
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Speaker 1: they have is about three times a year, and I'm like,

410
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Speaker 1: oh boy, it's time. Uh So in the nineteen fifties, uh,

411
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Speaker 1: supposedly the jello shot with alcohol was invented by uh,

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Speaker 1: this really interesting guy named Tom Lair who Um he's

413
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Speaker 1: a mathematician and a singer songwriter who I looked into him.

414
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Speaker 1: He did song parodies about math and chemistry. I guess

415
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Speaker 1: he was like the Jonathan Colton of his day as

416
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Speaker 1: far as I can tell. And he was also in

417
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Speaker 1: the army and to get around alcohol restrictions. As the

418
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Speaker 1: story goes, he claims he invented the jello shot, which

419
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Speaker 1: I've never had. Uh what, I've never had a jello shot? Wow,

420
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:42,679
Speaker 1: well you're not missing much of the pretty gross well jello.

421
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Speaker 1: I can't stand jello. Well, even if you do, even

422
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 1: if you like or or ambivalent to jello, it's it's

423
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 1: just gross. Does it taste like, yeah, it's tequila jello

424
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 1: or whatever. It's a very obnoxious taste. You're supposed to

425
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 1: use like I think you're a place half of the

426
00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:02,320
Speaker 1: water with whatever liquor you're using. Usually people use vodka.

427
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:06,600
Speaker 1: It really just stands out in a in a noxious way.

428
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:09,400
Speaker 1: By the way, Tom Larra I thought that name sounded familiar.

429
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:12,560
Speaker 1: He um, he is pretty great. He wrote this one

430
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:17,720
Speaker 1: um song called the Old Dope Peddler and two Chains Actually, um,

431
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:21,280
Speaker 1: you know the rapper two Chains from Atlanta? Yes you do?

432
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:24,480
Speaker 1: Oh wait was he our guy? Was he the guy

433
00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 1: that judged that? No? No? Oh, man, who was that guy?

434
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:33,120
Speaker 1: That was young Jock? Right? No? Two Chains is he's

435
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:37,280
Speaker 1: huge man. Um. He did a song where he sampled

436
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:40,320
Speaker 1: the Old Dope Peddler and he, I guess wrote to

437
00:26:40,320 --> 00:26:42,760
Speaker 1: Tom Laird to ask for permission to sample, and Tom

438
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 1: Lair had this awesome famous response. So just read up

439
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:48,640
Speaker 1: on that. What was did he let him use it? Yes?

440
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:52,240
Speaker 1: Oh great. So he's the opposite of Don Henley and

441
00:26:52,920 --> 00:27:00,160
Speaker 1: probably every single way yeah yeah, uh but jello shots,

442
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:05,080
Speaker 1: jello shots are gross. So jello is speeding along. It's uh,

443
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:08,760
Speaker 1: it's taking over America. Um. And then they decided to

444
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 1: come out with these savory lines and it became uh

445
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:15,119
Speaker 1: and this was this post World War two thing that

446
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:19,440
Speaker 1: you were talking about when um, I guess they did what.

447
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:22,200
Speaker 1: There was this great article you sent Making and Eating

448
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties most nauseating jello soaked recipes. Yeah, Hunter

449
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:31,680
Speaker 1: Hunter Oatman Stanford and uh, they did this interview and

450
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 1: um with Ruth Clark. Yeah, Ruth Clark. Basically it's a

451
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 1: really good interview and she talks about kind of this

452
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:44,440
Speaker 1: savory movement that took over, and not only with Jello,

453
00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 1: but the fact that it was a time in America

454
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 1: where and if you look back, it's so great to

455
00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:51,680
Speaker 1: look back at these old ads and these old recipe

456
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:55,600
Speaker 1: books that it was a time where you would the

457
00:27:55,680 --> 00:28:00,879
Speaker 1: goal was to have a dinner party with this big, flashy, uh,

458
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:06,880
Speaker 1: experimental and unique centerpiece food centerpiece made of jello. Well,

459
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:09,120
Speaker 1: all kinds of things. We're talking about the hot dog

460
00:28:09,200 --> 00:28:12,159
Speaker 1: tree right yeah, there and there there. It could be

461
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:13,879
Speaker 1: a lot of different stuff, And I think that's what

462
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:17,159
Speaker 1: Ruth Clark does. She recreates this stuff right, and her

463
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:20,120
Speaker 1: poor husband has to eat it. Um. But a lot

464
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 1: of those things were Jello molds. And a lot of

465
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:27,040
Speaker 1: the reason why jello molds were so weird and so

466
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:31,280
Speaker 1: popular is because Jello put so much time and effort

467
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:34,359
Speaker 1: into publishing cookbooks. And the whole point was all of

468
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: these food companies wanted, like all of their products to

469
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 1: to be your entire meal. So they were putting these

470
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:45,440
Speaker 1: these random parts like products that the food company made

471
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 1: into some really weird configurations, and they came up with

472
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:51,760
Speaker 1: some very odd jello molds in the fifties or sixties.

473
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 1: Such a sad culinary time it was. But the Ruth

474
00:28:56,480 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 1: Clark makes a good point that that to the people

475
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 1: at that time, like a really well thought out, fancy

476
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:06,959
Speaker 1: jello mold was as a centerpiece of your table was

477
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 1: like the pinnacle of classiness. Yeah, but we're talking about

478
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:15,880
Speaker 1: like a shaped mold with like uh lamb shank and

479
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 1: asparagus inside of jello. A savory jello that's like celery flavored.

480
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 1: You're lucky if it was savory. The lime jello was

481
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 1: one of the most abused jello flavors of all time.

482
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: People would put tuna and stuff in with the lime jello.

483
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:38,360
Speaker 1: There's one called Perfection salad that's cold slaw inside of

484
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 1: lime jello. And what Ruth Clark pointed out was that

485
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:47,600
Speaker 1: gelatin apparently preserves food really well, and and that cole

486
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 1: slaw that would have otherwise been inedible and running after

487
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 1: day three was still like crunchy after day five. When

488
00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:56,760
Speaker 1: it was put inside of a jello mold. Still gross. Yeah.

489
00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 1: There's actually a great BuzzFeed article, um if you want

490
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: to get an idea of what people were doing in

491
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: the fifties, sixties, and seventies with jello molds. It's called

492
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 1: seventeen Horrifying, lee disgusting retro Gelatin recipes and they are gross.

493
00:30:11,480 --> 00:30:16,280
Speaker 1: Man like cottage cheese and salmon mold. Yeah, yeah, I

494
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:20,320
Speaker 1: mean I hate jello oh man, like you're waking nightmare.

495
00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 1: I didn't even look through it. You sent it to

496
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 1: me and that scrolled about halfway through and just deleted

497
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 1: through my computer out the window. The best one I

498
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: see is lime cheese salad. It's it's lime jello mixed

499
00:30:31,120 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 1: with cottage cheese and then into the center of the

500
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 1: jello mold you put a seafood salad. Oh my god,

501
00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:41,320
Speaker 1: sour kraut mold. It just goes on and on. But

502
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:44,280
Speaker 1: it was a weird time and again. Ruth Clark has

503
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 1: a bunch of theories. She said she can't really answer

504
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: exactly why jello molds were as big as they are,

505
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:53,080
Speaker 1: but she posits that, uh, part of it was this

506
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:56,680
Speaker 1: idea that there were all these companies trying to get

507
00:30:56,720 --> 00:31:00,480
Speaker 1: you to use their products. And these were just monstos

508
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:02,640
Speaker 1: cities that they came up with, and people fell for it.

509
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:09,200
Speaker 1: Uh like can salmon, can tuna in jell o? Right,

510
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 1: Oh my god, so that's jello olds Man. Uh, where

511
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:16,400
Speaker 1: do you want to head next? Let's go to the

512
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:23,200
Speaker 1: crock pot. All right, do a little that was a

513
00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:26,880
Speaker 1: crock pot travel. So first of all, I have a

514
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 1: croc pot the same here, and um, it's yours. Actually

515
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: croc Pot are using it as a proprietary eponym. I

516
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 1: don't think it is a croc Pot brand pot. Yeah,

517
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: it's a slow cooker, um, and I'd forget to use

518
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 1: it a lot, but when I remember, I'll go in

519
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:48,479
Speaker 1: a little crock pot binge where I'll cook, you know,

520
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:50,640
Speaker 1: a few meals over the course of a few weeks

521
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 1: in a croc pot and they're still great if you

522
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:56,320
Speaker 1: know how to how to use it and how to

523
00:31:56,360 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 1: spice things up for sure. You know. Apparently at first

524
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:04,719
Speaker 1: people didn't know because if you're cooking a recipe, say, um,

525
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:10,240
Speaker 1: it's like simmering, say like a beef stew on the stovetop,

526
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 1: that simmering action that it's going undergoing it does something

527
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:19,880
Speaker 1: different to the recipe than a croc pot does, even

528
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 1: though it's the exact same recipe. Um. And so at

529
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:25,880
Speaker 1: first when croc pots came out, it was first introduced

530
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 1: by rival. Back in when croc pots first came out, um,

531
00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 1: they people were like, this is this this dinner that

532
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:37,720
Speaker 1: it's making is really gross. It doesn't taste very good.

533
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:42,480
Speaker 1: It's bland, and yet they still didn't stop using or

534
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:45,480
Speaker 1: buying croc pots. Well, food was more bland back then.

535
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:49,080
Speaker 1: Well we're talking the seventies, so by the seventies, I

536
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:52,080
Speaker 1: think it was the people were using more spices than before.

537
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 1: I think it was more bland, and like the forties

538
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 1: and maybe the fifties. Yeah, but that one, yeah, you're

539
00:32:57,200 --> 00:32:59,400
Speaker 1: probably right, But that one article we read said, you know,

540
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 1: like an old recipe for chili would have like a

541
00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 1: teaspoon of chili powder or something, and it's like all

542
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 1: the food just sucked because they didn't realize like, no, man,

543
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 1: you dump a bunch of that junk in there. So well,

544
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:15,480
Speaker 1: you were saying back in the forties or fifties, when

545
00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:18,360
Speaker 1: TV dinners really hit, moms were starting to enter the

546
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 1: work force. In nine moms were really into the workforce.

547
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 1: And so the idea of having a crock pot where

548
00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:27,719
Speaker 1: you could make this meal in a one pot in

549
00:33:27,760 --> 00:33:29,960
Speaker 1: the morning, throw it all in there, turn it on,

550
00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:31,840
Speaker 1: and then come home at the end of the day

551
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:35,120
Speaker 1: and dinner was ready and you still went to work

552
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 1: and got everything you needed to get done done was

553
00:33:38,520 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 1: so attractive that just that despite the fact that it

554
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:46,320
Speaker 1: made these meals that did not taste like they should, um,

555
00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 1: people were still, like I said, they were still buying

556
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:52,640
Speaker 1: the crock pots and instead they started to look around

557
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 1: to find tips for how to make these things taste better.

558
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 1: And actually a woman named what was her name, Mabel, Yeah,

559
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 1: Mabel Hoffman, Mabel Hoffman, stepped into the fray and said,

560
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:07,560
Speaker 1: piece piece, children, I've got this covered. Listen up. Yeah.

561
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 1: She wrote a book called The Crockery Cookery or Crockery

562
00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:17,040
Speaker 1: Cookery No the and uh it was a huge, huge hit,

563
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:19,960
Speaker 1: was the New York Times bestseller. I believe she went

564
00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:22,439
Speaker 1: on to sell about six million copies of this thing.

565
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 1: And um, I don't even think we've said that, you know,

566
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:28,640
Speaker 1: we said we you throw the food in there and

567
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:30,920
Speaker 1: cook it all day. But the whole idea is that

568
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:32,920
Speaker 1: you put a kind of a tight fitting lid on

569
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,160
Speaker 1: there and it and it cooks at a very very

570
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:38,799
Speaker 1: low heat all day long. Right, and then when you

571
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 1: when you get home from work eight hours later or

572
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:43,319
Speaker 1: something like that, it will it will be done, and

573
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 1: you just serve and smile. Yeah, And thanks to Crockery Cookery, UM,

574
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:51,279
Speaker 1: the crock pot uh in nineteen seventy one or two

575
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 1: million bucks and seventy two, ten million, seventy three, twenty

576
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:58,439
Speaker 1: three million, and then eventually peeking in nineteen seventy five

577
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:02,000
Speaker 1: at nine three million dollar urs worth of croc pots

578
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:06,280
Speaker 1: being sold. It was a genuine, legit craze, food craze

579
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 1: and supposedly crock pot cookery. The book was UM America's

580
00:35:11,080 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 1: sixth best selling cookbook ever. Right, so this was like

581
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:17,960
Speaker 1: a legitimate craze. Crock Pot cooking was a legitimate craze.

582
00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:21,320
Speaker 1: But again there was something compared to the same recipes

583
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: on the stovetop as compared to a croc pot. Um,

584
00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:27,680
Speaker 1: there was something. It was the flavor was just disappointing.

585
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:31,279
Speaker 1: So what Mabel Hoffman did was on a very tight

586
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 1: deadline UM create from scratch a book, I guess, the

587
00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:39,960
Speaker 1: world's first cookbook of slow cooker recipes, and she did

588
00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:42,560
Speaker 1: it in her own kitchen with like twenty croc pots

589
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,879
Speaker 1: going all day every day. She had to testing all

590
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 1: this stuff, and she figured out some of the keys

591
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:51,759
Speaker 1: to crock pot cooking, which was, like, you want to

592
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 1: use way less liquid um thing you would use like

593
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 1: on the stovetop, because you have a lot less um evaporation.

594
00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:01,399
Speaker 1: The crock pot keeps sit in there, which is one

595
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 1: reason why meat is so so tender, and a croc

596
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 1: pot or slow cooker um because it just recirculates the

597
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:13,200
Speaker 1: the moisture rather than allowing it to just evaporate. Right.

598
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:15,799
Speaker 1: And then another thing she came up with was that

599
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:19,480
Speaker 1: when you um, when you use herbs into the recipe,

600
00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:22,160
Speaker 1: you want to reserve some of them for right before

601
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:24,719
Speaker 1: the things finished cooking, so you can add it like

602
00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:28,040
Speaker 1: a pop of fresh flavor. Yes. So once she figured

603
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:31,319
Speaker 1: this out, crock pots just took off even more. Yeah,

604
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:33,320
Speaker 1: so she was they were selling a bunch of crock pots,

605
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:36,280
Speaker 1: she was selling a bunch of cookbooks. Uh. And eventually

606
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:39,399
Speaker 1: she would said, hey, I really was onto something here.

607
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 1: So she wrote Deep Prye Cookery, Chocolate Cookery. Uh, and

608
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:47,560
Speaker 1: these are seventy nine, um, seventy seven, like kind of

609
00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:53,240
Speaker 1: all in a row crape cookery and then eventually uh healthy,

610
00:36:53,320 --> 00:37:00,400
Speaker 1: healthy crockery cookery and um. The person you who interviewed

611
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 1: her later in life said that she was just this

612
00:37:03,680 --> 00:37:08,279
Speaker 1: really great lady, very humble, and was super upfront about

613
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:10,520
Speaker 1: the fact that she like, hey, I hit something at

614
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:13,480
Speaker 1: the right time with the right book, and it just

615
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 1: sort of I kind of fell into this and it's

616
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:17,439
Speaker 1: been just like a wonderful thing for my life. Yeah,

617
00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:20,280
Speaker 1: it's really neat. Yeah, she sounds like a pretty cool person.

618
00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:25,080
Speaker 1: So what's your what's your crock pot recipe? Oh? Jeez,

619
00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:27,440
Speaker 1: I don't know it's your favorite thing to cook, but

620
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:30,920
Speaker 1: usually some sort of like beef. Yeah, it just does

621
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:33,280
Speaker 1: such a such a good job, like making a roast

622
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:38,080
Speaker 1: or something, you know. Um, but yeah, I that's usually

623
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:40,040
Speaker 1: what I'm cooking when I cook in a crock pot.

624
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 1: Is is beef? All right? Josh's croc pot beef croc

625
00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 1: pot surprise right with aspect? Uh, you want to take

626
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 1: a break, Yeah, let's take a break and we'll finish

627
00:37:52,160 --> 00:38:15,439
Speaker 1: up with a bit interesting bit on oat brand so chuck. Yes,

628
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:18,319
Speaker 1: we finally arrived We're just gonna go forward a few

629
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:24,720
Speaker 1: years Blue the way Back Machine is in the shop.

630
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:27,400
Speaker 1: This is why I'm having to do it to the

631
00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:32,279
Speaker 1: eighties man an oat Brand. Yes, I know that we

632
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 1: differ on the interestingness of this one. I'm just fascinated

633
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:38,839
Speaker 1: by it. I really am, man, because it's got it all.

634
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 1: It's like, um, it's got the eighties. Um. Do you

635
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:48,120
Speaker 1: remember that snl the famous snl um add colon for

636
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:51,560
Speaker 1: colon blow that was based on this came out of

637
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:56,880
Speaker 1: this this trend. Um has to do with studies, studies

638
00:38:56,880 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 1: that contradict those studies. Um, bad science reporting the whole thing.

639
00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:09,359
Speaker 1: I love it, oats oh brand. It's very important. So

640
00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:12,680
Speaker 1: there was this huge trend in the eighties where anything

641
00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:16,000
Speaker 1: that had to do with oprand you could sell a

642
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:19,799
Speaker 1: million units of a minute. Yes, um. So much so

643
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:25,080
Speaker 1: that there was a article from Tulsa World that UM

644
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 1: said that there were no I'm sorry, the l A

645
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:30,040
Speaker 1: Times article from said that they were over like three

646
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:34,279
Speaker 1: different items available in grocery stores at the time that

647
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:37,720
Speaker 1: touted on its label the fact that it had oprand

648
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 1: and people were nuts for it. Yes they were. And

649
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:44,040
Speaker 1: this is uh largely due to some studies that came

650
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:47,800
Speaker 1: out that said that brand was kind of a miracle

651
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:50,919
Speaker 1: food for lowering cholesterol, right, And that was like back

652
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:53,800
Speaker 1: in the late seventies, and and I guess Quaker Oats

653
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:56,399
Speaker 1: took notice of those studies and they released a thing

654
00:39:56,440 --> 00:40:00,759
Speaker 1: called Mother's opran but they sent it straight to the

655
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:03,640
Speaker 1: hippies at the health food store and just and didn't

656
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 1: do anything about They just released a product and that

657
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:09,399
Speaker 1: was that. And then Kellogg's came along and said, hey,

658
00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:12,319
Speaker 1: you know what, what if we start telling people that

659
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:17,000
Speaker 1: are food can basically prevent cancer? Can we do that?

660
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:20,600
Speaker 1: And the lawyers said no, And the president of Kelloggs said, well,

661
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:24,160
Speaker 1: we're doing it anyway. Who's gonna stop us, Reagan? And

662
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:28,280
Speaker 1: Reagan said no, I'm not gonna stop you, Reagan, thank you.

663
00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:31,880
Speaker 1: And so they said, um, okay, well you eat our

664
00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:35,279
Speaker 1: cereal and it will reduce cancer. And nothing happened. There

665
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:37,359
Speaker 1: was no blowback, despite the fact that this has been

666
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:41,400
Speaker 1: illegal for nearly a century. And then Quaker Oats partnered

667
00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:47,920
Speaker 1: with Chicago's Northwestern University and Linda Van horn In because

668
00:40:47,920 --> 00:40:51,640
Speaker 1: they had a similar study about brand cutting cholesterol. Right,

669
00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:54,479
Speaker 1: so they're starting to say, well, Kelleg didn't get in trouble.

670
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 1: Let's try this ourselves. And they went out and they

671
00:40:57,560 --> 00:41:02,120
Speaker 1: hired Wilfred Brimley. Remember his ads. Yeah, I think I

672
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:04,600
Speaker 1: told the story about working with him. Oh yeah, it

673
00:41:04,719 --> 00:41:09,479
Speaker 1: wasn't he like the antithesis of what his his persona was. Yeah,

674
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:11,279
Speaker 1: the word got around they were like this, you know,

675
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:14,279
Speaker 1: just maybe a short day, because that's how it goes

676
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:16,920
Speaker 1: with him sometimes it's so funny. And I think it was.

677
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:18,759
Speaker 1: I think we wrapped it about half day because he

678
00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:22,320
Speaker 1: was just like, I'm done, I'm cantankerous. But in the meantime,

679
00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:24,920
Speaker 1: when the cameras were rolling, he he told everybody that

680
00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:27,279
Speaker 1: eating quicker opra and was the right thing to do

681
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 1: and it would cut your cholesterol, that's right. And then

682
00:41:30,560 --> 00:41:32,800
Speaker 1: this book came out, So things are starting to build

683
00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:34,840
Speaker 1: here for opra. And this book came out called The

684
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:38,480
Speaker 1: Eight Week Cholesterol Cure by a guy named Robert E. Kowalski,

685
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:42,640
Speaker 1: and it chronicled his the decline of his l d L,

686
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:46,760
Speaker 1: the bad cholesterol um just from eating an opra and diet.

687
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 1: And that book became extraordinarily popular, supposedly was the the

688
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 1: one of the greatest selling self help health books of

689
00:41:57,960 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 1: all time. It just took off. Yeah, and then yet

690
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:04,239
Speaker 1: another thing happened, and this was the thing. This is

691
00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:09,360
Speaker 1: like where the peak began the UM. I think the

692
00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:14,240
Speaker 1: Journal of the American Medical Association April published a study

693
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:19,040
Speaker 1: from the University of Maryland where these researchers found that, yeah,

694
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 1: eating oprand could really significantly lower your cholesterol, and not

695
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:24,960
Speaker 1: only that, it does it for a six of the

696
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 1: price of the expensive cholesterol lowering drugs. That's right, and

697
00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:35,120
Speaker 1: people ate even more oat brand That's right. The trend

698
00:42:35,200 --> 00:42:37,560
Speaker 1: is developing, can you see it. I think it's fully

699
00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:41,640
Speaker 1: developed at this point. So everybody's going opran crazy. And

700
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 1: one of the big things that UM that they were

701
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:48,600
Speaker 1: doing was eating Oprand muffins. But these opra and muffins

702
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:52,239
Speaker 1: were like loaded with fat and butter and eggs, and

703
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:55,480
Speaker 1: so they weren't actually doing anything to lower their cholesterol

704
00:42:55,520 --> 00:43:00,719
Speaker 1: because the effects would be counteracted, right, But in the

705
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:03,399
Speaker 1: in the meantime, people were still having fun eating lots

706
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 1: of muffins and pretending they were really healthy. And then

707
00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 1: this Harvard study came out and it basically said, you

708
00:43:09,239 --> 00:43:11,880
Speaker 1: know what, UM, you're all fools, You're dummies. You know

709
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:14,440
Speaker 1: how it lowers your cholesterol because it keeps you from

710
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 1: eating bacon and eggs. That's how you chumps. Well yeah,

711
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:22,239
Speaker 1: and then that study itself was attacked because they only

712
00:43:22,239 --> 00:43:25,840
Speaker 1: studied twenty people, um, which is not much of a study.

713
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:28,640
Speaker 1: It isn't and the people who were on the Opran

714
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:32,680
Speaker 1: diet were eating more fat than the control group. It

715
00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:34,959
Speaker 1: was a terrible study, almost like they wanted to take

716
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 1: Oprand down a peg and it worked really well. It's

717
00:43:38,800 --> 00:43:44,279
Speaker 1: basically the um science. Reporting in major newspapers and the

718
00:43:44,320 --> 00:43:47,799
Speaker 1: news services reported that Oprand was the greatest thing ever,

719
00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 1: and then they suddenly turned on it and said Opran

720
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 1: is nothing, and everybody dropped Opran and the if if

721
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:58,600
Speaker 1: you read the stuff today, it's true Oprand really does

722
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:03,880
Speaker 1: lower cholesterol. Um, but he just got overhyped because of

723
00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:08,040
Speaker 1: the eighties. That's the eighties for you. That's food fads. Man,

724
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:11,040
Speaker 1: You got anything else? I got nothing else? All right? Man? Well,

725
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:14,239
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about food fans, you

726
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 1: can type those words into the search part how stuff

727
00:44:16,680 --> 00:44:19,640
Speaker 1: works dot com search bar. You're not gonna get much, though,

728
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: so you may want to just look elsewhere. But still, uh,

729
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 1: since I said that it's time for a listener mail.

730
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:32,359
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this m S response, and I would

731
00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:35,600
Speaker 1: like to say that we got many, many, oh great

732
00:44:35,680 --> 00:44:38,760
Speaker 1: responses from our MS episode. A lot of warm thoughts

733
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:42,880
Speaker 1: from people about my friend Billy and just uh it

734
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 1: was just really great people with MS, people who had

735
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:48,480
Speaker 1: people in their family. We heard from doctors and nurses,

736
00:44:49,160 --> 00:44:52,040
Speaker 1: and that's just ended up being a really good episode.

737
00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:58,520
Speaker 1: So we appreciate that feedback. But this is from anonymous listener. Hey,

738
00:44:58,560 --> 00:44:59,759
Speaker 1: I've been listening to your show for a couple of

739
00:44:59,840 --> 00:45:01,239
Speaker 1: years now. I want to thank you for making my

740
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:04,000
Speaker 1: commute more engaging. Listened to the show on MS AM

741
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:06,279
Speaker 1: I right home and like to commend you for how

742
00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:08,319
Speaker 1: well you handle the topic. I was diagnosed a few

743
00:45:08,400 --> 00:45:12,240
Speaker 1: years ago at nineteen uh. Luckily my diagnosis was quick

744
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 1: due to the severity of my first relapse, and I

745
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:16,480
Speaker 1: feel like your podcast would have helped me understanding cope

746
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:18,960
Speaker 1: with the diagnosis in a more constructive manner than my

747
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:23,919
Speaker 1: initially trying to self destruct. Since then, I'm continually uh

748
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:26,360
Speaker 1: learning about the latest research in history. I love that

749
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:30,880
Speaker 1: you discussed uh Ledwina and Augustus death Day as a

750
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:33,120
Speaker 1: lot of the time, they don't come up in the

751
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:36,279
Speaker 1: mainstream discourse of MS. Didn't really know any history until

752
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 1: I wrote an undergrad history paper on MS last year

753
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:42,080
Speaker 1: and found reading through bits of death Day's journal to

754
00:45:42,120 --> 00:45:45,280
Speaker 1: be the closest I've ever felt with a historical person.

755
00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:48,800
Speaker 1: You mentioned that many tend to keep their diagnosis a secret.

756
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:51,360
Speaker 1: I'll admit that with me, it's a need to know basis,

757
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:54,360
Speaker 1: and I rarely openly talk about it outside of family, friends,

758
00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:57,680
Speaker 1: in the support system, and my support system, mainly because

759
00:45:57,680 --> 00:45:59,960
Speaker 1: of the stigma of the disease and that the assumption

760
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:05,279
Speaker 1: circulating MS tend to negatively alter people's perceptions of myself

761
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:08,560
Speaker 1: as an individual. Have had people approach me when I

762
00:46:08,600 --> 00:46:11,960
Speaker 1: start limping thanks to fatigue and a permanently numb foot,

763
00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:13,919
Speaker 1: but I'll rush it off and tell them there's nothing

764
00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:16,400
Speaker 1: to worry about or it's an old injury. However, I

765
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:19,040
Speaker 1: think with time it's getting easier to talk about thanks

766
00:46:19,080 --> 00:46:22,840
Speaker 1: to resources like your podcasts that are well researched and accurate.

767
00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:26,600
Speaker 1: I cringe whenever someone tells me there's an easy homeopathic

768
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:29,960
Speaker 1: solution to my ailments, and sometimes I struggle with discussing

769
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:33,960
Speaker 1: MS in an accessible way that doesn't solely rely on

770
00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 1: the clinical pathological understanding of it. And I will be

771
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:39,319
Speaker 1: sure in the future to redirect people to this episode.

772
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:44,200
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for sharing. And uh, we said

773
00:46:44,239 --> 00:46:48,719
Speaker 1: we keep this anonymous because this person. Yeah, this person said,

774
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:50,640
Speaker 1: you know, that's great that you read it. But uh,

775
00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:53,759
Speaker 1: if if they're keeping it quiet for now, we don't

776
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 1: want to you know, broadcast the names. Yeah nice, so

777
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 1: okay anonymous? Yeah, thanks anonymous. Uh. If you want to

778
00:47:03,640 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 1: get in touch with us, like anonymous did, you can

779
00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:11,160
Speaker 1: tweet to us. Yeah, I guess i'd be anonymous. Um,

780
00:47:11,200 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 1: I'm at josh um Clark and at s Y s

781
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:17,120
Speaker 1: K podcast. You can hang out with Chuck on Facebook

782
00:47:17,120 --> 00:47:20,160
Speaker 1: dot com slash Stuff you Should Know or at Charles W.

783
00:47:20,280 --> 00:47:23,839
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant on Facebook. You can send us both an email. Uh.

784
00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:27,520
Speaker 1: We promised to be confidential at Stuff podcast, at how

785
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:29,719
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at

786
00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:31,839
Speaker 1: our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot

787
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 1: com For more on this and thousands of other topics,

788
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:51,000
Speaker 1: is it how Stuff Works dot com