WEBVTT - Invention Playlist 3: Bread/Toast/Toasters 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:09.320 Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:12.280 welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:16.440 Joe McCormick. And uh, you know this episode is titled 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.280 Bread Toast Toasters because we're going to take you on 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:22.439 an odyssey of human invention. Oh. I never thought about 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.360 this as an odyssey, but it really is one spanning generations. 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:28.360 It's like two thousand one of space Odyssey, it is. 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:31.479 But of course the middle part of that is toast. 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:33.879 So I just wanted to take a second for us 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:36.199 artist to consider the slice of toast a thing that, 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:39.960 when done right, is absolutely exquisite in its own right, 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:42.960 but also serves as an excellent base for so many 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:46.640 other fine taste sensations. Wouldn't you agree? Oh? I absolutely would. 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.519 I there is a food combination that I don't know 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:52.720 if it can be topped. It might especially be a 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.920 Southeast United States kind of thing. But we're in tomato 0:00:56.040 --> 0:01:00.040 season right now, you know, it's July, especially getting in 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.400 to August. That's like peak tomato season. And I just 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:05.760 want to say, as a message to you young folks 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:09.440 out there, if if you have never tried like a 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:14.680 delicious like thick, juicy, vine ripened you know, farmers or 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:18.559 garden tomato. You've only had tomatoes from the grocery store. 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:23.160 You do not understand what a tomato tastes like like. 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:26.720 It is not just better to get a good from 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:29.800 you know, summer tomato from a farmer or a garden. 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:34.000 It's a completely different food, yea. And sometimes it looks 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:37.360 like a different different species altogether, you know, because it 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:40.400 will be like an organic tomato you've had a farmer's 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:43.800 market will sometimes be kind of like weirdly grotesquely bloated 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.520 looking and have lines on it. It's not as pristine 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:50.400 as your you know, your grocery store tomato, but that 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:55.040 the taste experiences is beyond yes. And so if you 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:57.840 want to have the most perfect tomato experience, there are 0:01:57.840 --> 0:01:59.320 a lot of ways people do it. People make a 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:01.960 crazy salad it or just eat it, you know, sliced 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:03.800 with salt and pepper or something like that. But here 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:07.760 here's something i'd recommend. Get some good bread, toast the bread, 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.240 you know, lightly toasted, a little bit of mayonnaise, and 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:15.120 fresh sliced summer tomatoes. That is the best meal you 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:18.799 will ever have in your entire life. Oh, I believe it. Yeah, 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:20.960 we've we've been doing a lot of these. We don't 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:24.400 do bacon anymore, but we've basically been doing b lts, 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:27.600 but with sausage standing in for the bacon. And it's 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:30.959 but with the with really good tomatoes and it's fabulous. 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:33.040 But even without tomatoes, I mean, think of all the 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:35.120 things that toast is great with. I mean, you can 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.120 put some marmalade, some butter on toast and that's a 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.800 home run. Avocado toast has been a huge hit in 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:45.480 recent years, and because for a great reason it is wonderful. 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:50.000 Avocado toast is basically just another form of buttered toast, 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:55.000 because avocado is like fruit butter. Yeah, but it's exquisite tasting. 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:57.320 I'm also reminded of toad in the hole of your head. 0:02:57.360 --> 0:02:59.320 Toad in the hole, you cut a hole out of 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:01.560 the toast, you to agon it. Yeah, yeah, it's great, 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:05.959 it's it's amazing. Yeah. So we're gonna before we get 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:08.720 back to toast and what toast is, we should talk 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:11.760 about what comes before toast, and eventually we'll get into 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:15.000 what comes before that. But let's talk a little bit 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.000 about the other great wonder one of the greatest inventions 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:22.679 the humanity has ever devised, that being bread itself, right, 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:26.920 and it's possible to argue that bread is one of 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:31.120 the inventions that made human civilization. It's sort of a 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:35.520 culinary chemistry project because it's not something you find in nature. 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:38.640 Bread is a thing that certainly had to be invented, 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:42.520 and it's this thing that turned the seeds of hardy 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:46.440 grass plants into a scalable staple food that could provide 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:51.040 lots of calories to feed settled populations and and big 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.520 settled populations. And before the cultivation of grain crops, most 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:58.640 of the time humans wouldn't be able to grow and 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:02.600 store enough food survive in large numbers in one place. 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:05.120 Like in settled cities, you have to keep moving around 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:08.480 and constantly foraging for food through the hunting of animals 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:12.320 or the gathering of wild plants. The main strain of 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:15.960 thinking about the origins of cities and settled human population 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:21.359 is the cultivation of grasses. Yielding grain crops massively increase 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:24.520 the efficiency of human food production, so you can get 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:28.200 like way more stores of ready calories with less work, 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:31.880 and the thinking usually goes that this is also what 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:36.240 made possible the diversifying of human labor. Since not everybody 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:38.880 had to be involved in getting food all of the time, 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:41.599 more people could be able to spend more of their 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:45.640 time on other types of projects, so crafts like pottery 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.400 and weaving, and the creation of tools and weapons and 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.840 other technologies, the education of children, the creation of literature 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.520 and music, religious rights and duties, and all these other 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:59.240 things that we come to associate with human technology and culture. 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:01.040 And there's st only a case to be made that 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:03.719 cereal crops and the bread that was made with them 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.960 played a huge role in making all this possible that 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.240 led to the modern world. Now. As for bread itself, 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.440 of course, there are a bazillion different ways to make bread, right. 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:17.159 The most essential components, uh too. Pretty much all bread 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:21.640 recipes are water and a flower based on some type 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:25.320 of grain from a grass plant like wheat. So to 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:27.800 make wheat flour, of course, you you've got to take 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:29.920 the fruiting body of the wheat plant, which is the 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:33.240 kernel or the seed, and the wheat plant. By the way, 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:35.560 if you've never actually looked up close at the part 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:37.680 of the wheat that you eat, you know wheat is 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.360 a grass. It's like this huge, tall grass, and it's 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:42.560 got this thing on the end that's got the seeds, 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:44.960 and it looks kind of like a furry rattlesnake tail 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:46.599 at the top of the stall. So it's got all 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.640 these rattlesnake tails, and you've got to take those rattlesnake 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:52.120 tails off, get the seeds out of them, and then 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:55.080 process those seeds and grind them into a powder. And 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:58.800 of course that powder is the flour. And then to 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:00.960 turn the flour into bread, you have to hydrate it 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:03.479 with water. And if this is like a flat or 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:06.479 unleavened bread, you can just add any other seasonings you 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:08.520 want and bake it as is in an oven or 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:10.799 on a hot surface, and this will tend to produce, 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:13.800 of course, a relatively like flat, chewy bread, like kind 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:16.120 of like a peda or like a tortilla. But the 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.400 most common type of bread we're familiar with, and the 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:20.800 kind we think of when we're making toast, is of 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.600 course bread that has some kind of leavening, which is 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:27.520 an agent that will create gas bubbles inside the dough 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.360 that cause it to rise. And these bubbles, of course 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:32.600 increase the volume of the dough they make it rise, 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:35.840 but they also give the bread a softer texture. And 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:38.120 in the modern world, we've got tons of different kind 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:40.919 of ways of getting bubbles into bread. We've got chemical 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:44.680 agents like baking powder, baking soda, and they create gas 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:48.200 bubbles through chemical reactions that happen after the substances are 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.840 added to the dough. But you can also create a 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.360 kind of forced mechanical leavening just by like incorporating something 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:57.839 like whipped egg whites, where like the air whipped into 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.880 the egg whites forms gas bulls that expand when you 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:03.440 cook it. But of course, the more traditional method of 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:07.719 levining is to use biological agents like yeast. And here 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:10.880 for for listeners of invention and stuff to blow your mind, 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.560 we bring things back to the fungal allegiance is this 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:16.520 is zug timoy here, Yeah, this is the Kingdom of 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:21.520 zug awesome. Yeah, zugtimoy comes in yet again with so 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:25.320 many of our best inventions. There's zug timoy derive. So yeast, 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:29.280 of course, is a type of single celled fungal microorganism 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.520 found all throughout nature and even in and on our 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.880 own bodies. Uh. And the strain most often used today 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:39.400 is Baker's yeast, which is the fungal species Scara micey 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:43.800 serivsy uh So, baker's east actually also serves as the 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:46.800 fermentation agent in the making of beer and wine. So 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:51.920 like when yeast consume carbohydrates, the yeast produced waste products. 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:54.640 Those waste products include C O two, which is the 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:58.000 gas that makes bread rise. But they also include ethanol, 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:01.240 which is alcohol, which of course that's what adds the 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:03.880 alcohol content to beer in wine when it for mints. 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:07.120 And I do think it's generally true that that uh, 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:10.160 you know, bread made with yeast is alcoholic to a 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:12.840 small extent. It's not alcoholic enough to get you drunk, 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.920 but but it's but it's there, yeah, yeah, uh and 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.600 is of course, there's so many cultural variations of bread 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:22.400 all around the world, using different grains to make the flour. 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:28.800 Like the different grains include like oats or rye, barley, millet, maize, sorghum. 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:31.760 And you've got all the different cooking methods, different leavening agents, 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:35.240 different seasonings. It's an entire world of cuisine. I mean, 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:37.320 I think there's a good reason that you've got like 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:41.120 cooking and baking, you know, like baking is it's not 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:43.080 just bread, is you know, pastries and stuff too, but 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:46.120 like this whole other sort of half of the cooking 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.560 world is focused on bread like things. And is it 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:51.840 any wonder that some of the bread like things end 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:56.840 up taking on magical or spiritual potency be it you know, 0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:59.600 be it as part of say, uh you know Western 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:04.640 Chris tradition of of taking holy communion or or certainly 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:08.959 examples from aso American culture where uh where where the 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:12.040 the use of maize in in food products, you know, 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:13.840 and in some sort of a flatbread and all it 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:16.199 was considered the you know, the the body of a god. 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:19.200 It was something that you ate in silence because you 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.560 were partaking of something holy. Oh wow, Well there is 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:25.679 something mystical about bread, because I think I was hinting 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:27.920 at this a minute ago. But you know, it's not 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:33.079 apparent in nature. Bread is something that was truly an invention. 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.280 It's not like something you discovered that was already out 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:38.640 there waiting. Like you had to put together a bunch 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:42.120 of different uh like steps in this process. You know, 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:45.920 you had to get the seeds from these grasses, and 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:47.720 you had to grind them up into powder, and you 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:49.840 had to get that powder wet and make a dough 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.120 out of it, and if it's leavened bread, you had 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:54.160 to add some kind of leavening agent to make it 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:56.880 rise or allow you know, natural yeast to get into it. 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.520 The would let it rise, and then you had to 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:01.920 bake it at the right temperature and all is just like, 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:04.960 it's not something that's obvious, So you have to wonder 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:08.120 who invented this, Like where did all this knowledge and 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:12.400 process come from? Well, let's talk about it. Unfortunately, it's 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.920 another one of those that is that is lost to history, right, 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:19.040 there's no known inventor of bread. It's one of these 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.240 great world changing inventions like the wheel that we can 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.840 get some clues about, but which, you know, the the 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:29.240 ultimate origin vanishes into prehistory with no single point from 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:31.520 which all of it comes. But we do have some 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:34.760 general knowledge about the origins of bread and bread like products. 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:38.360 So for a long time, it was believed, based on 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:43.120 artistic and archaeological evidence, that bread emerged as a human 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:47.000 invention roughly ten thousand years ago, and this would be 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.160 during the Neolithic period, meaning the last part of the 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:52.520 Stone Age, and it would have been in a place 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:55.480 called the Fertile Crescent now the Fertile Crescent is this 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:59.079 sickle shaped expanse of arable land is land where you 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:04.640 can grow crops stretching from the Eastern Mediterranean over into Mesopotamia, 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:07.319 and so from west to east. It sort of starts 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:10.559 down in the Nile River valley in Egypt, and then 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:16.720 it travels up along the Eastern Mediterranean coast through like Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:19.200 and it goes up through southern Turkey, and then it 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.480 goes back down through Mesopotamia through a rock in parts 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:26.440 of Iran. And the first wheat crops that were domesticated 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:30.280 in in the Fertile Crescent to make the earliest bread 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:35.080 during the Neolithic Revolution would have been ancestral grasses like 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:37.160 m air wheat which is e M M E R 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.559 M R wheat or iron corn wheat. These are grasses 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:43.959 that they are. They're basically other strains of wheat, kind 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:46.200 of like the wheat we we grow today, which is 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:48.720 just known as common wheat. And I think it's not 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:52.240 a it's not a coincidence that this is where many 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:55.440 of the world's oldest and earliest civilizations arose, meaning that 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:57.880 even though there were people all over the world. These 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:00.400 were the places where people first started settling down in 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:05.320 one place, making cities with big populations and diversified economies. 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:09.040 And these cities had to be supported by grain agriculture, 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:11.400 and a lot of that grain was of course used 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.040 to make bread and and this has sort of been 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:17.000 the story for a long time, but really interestingly, just 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:20.000 in the past couple of years, it's been revealed that 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:24.880 at least some humans were making bread thousands of years 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:30.880 before this Neolithic agricultural revolution, before all the farming in 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:34.080 the Fertile Crescent started. So the papering question here talking 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:37.160 about this discovery was published in P and A s 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:42.480 in eighteen by Ammia ranzoteg we at All And uh So, 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:44.600 basically the story goes like this. A few years ago, 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:49.760 there's this archaeobotanist, somebody who studies ancient plants named uh 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:52.760 Amaya iran's oteg we I hope I'm saying that right, 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:57.160 uh And she was studying ancient human campsites in Jordan's 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:00.679 and specifically she was looking at an excavator did cooking 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:04.400 site from about fourteen thousand years ago, and this would 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:08.000 have been a camp of people known as the New Tuffians, 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:11.120 who were a culture of hunter gatherers who lived in 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.600 this area in the time between the Paleolithic, the Old 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:18.319 Stone Age, and the Neolithic. The more recent Stone Age 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:22.520 between these two technology regimes would have been roughly four 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:27.400 thousand years before settled agriculture started to take over, before 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:31.480 we believed previously that humans invented bread. And then the 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:35.400 Natufians survived on a hunter gatherer basis. They did a 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:38.040 lot of hunting, and their fire pits and food waste 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:40.559 sites were full of bones of wild animals that have 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:44.560 been killed during hunts and eton But at this particular site, 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:49.480 Aronzo teg we also found charred remains of some kind 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.560 of plant matter, and so I was reading about how 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:54.440 what she did. She took it to a colleague named 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:59.880 Lara Gonzalez Cartero at University College London and they discovered 0:13:59.880 --> 0:14:05.199 these charred food remains were breadcrumbs. These hunter gatherers were 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:09.720 making some form of bread thousands of years before we 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:14.080 previously assumed bread had been invented. Now, the flower used 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:16.880 in this ancient bread had two main ingredients. It was 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:19.520 in corn wheat, which is again it's a wild strain 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.600 of wheat grass and then it was the roots of 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:26.240 club rush tubers, which is a type of flower um, 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:27.920 and then it was a lot. There was some other 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:31.320 things in there also, like some spices like mustard and 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:35.080 other trace ingredients like barley, and the researchers think this 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.000 dough would have been made to stick to the hot 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:41.440 stone walls lining fire pits. I was reading an NPR 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.880 article describing the discovery and h it compared it to 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:48.000 the way that Indian non bread is made to stick 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:50.440 to the walls of a tendur oven. I don't know 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:52.320 if you've ever seen how that's made. There's like, no, 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:55.200 I've never seen this. I just always assumed it was 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:57.200 put in their flat like a pizza. No, there's like 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:00.520 so there's like this vertical hollow oven. It's got the 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:03.080 you know, this fire at the bottom gets extremely hot 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:05.160 and then it's got the walls all around the sides. 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.200 And if you see the traditional way or I don't 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:09.960 know if it's the traditional way, at least the way 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:13.000 a lot of like Indian restaurants and Indian kitchens will 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:15.560 make the non bread is they get the dough and 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:17.200 the dough sort of goes on a hook and then 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:19.760 the hook gets uh, the dough gets flung up against 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.800 the wall of the oven, which is extremely hot, and 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.040 that's why you see like the blackening and browning, you know, 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:27.240 the and the and the big bubbles in non dread 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:30.960 because it's extremely rapid cooking. It's kind of like pizza making, right, 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:33.120 and there's rapid expansion of the dough that makes these 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:35.960 big bubbles in it and charge the underside and then 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:38.520 it gets pulled off with a hook and then of 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:40.880 course it's delicious. I'm a big fan of non bread. 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:44.840 It makes me wonder what this fourteen thousand year old 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:46.680 bread tastes like. I mean, I wonder if it was 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:50.160 non bread. Probably not quite because I I doubt they were, 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:54.560 you know, putting butter on it or any um. But 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.920 but it's fascinating that this discovery is because when you 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:02.160 think about it, it reverses is the order of technological 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.960 adaptation that had long been assumed. Like we long thought 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:10.320 that people developed agriculture first, which allowed them to grow 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:14.040 large amounts of grain, and having all this grain led 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.800 to the invention of bread and baking. But this discovery 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:20.640 makes it look like the opposite is the case. Instead. 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:26.640 Ancient hunter gatherers probably gathered grain from wild grasses and 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:29.800 figured out how to turn it into bread. Then they 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:33.120 settled down and developed farming to grow the grain. Thousands 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:37.600 of years later. On this model, baking preceded agriculture. You 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:41.240 had bread first and then farming. That is incredible. We 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.240 had to think about it now. In researching the origins 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:46.680 of bread, I ended up turning to a wonderful book 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:50.760 by Michael Pollen that is also a wonderful Netflix series 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:55.680 titled Cooked, which I recommend either you know, watch watch 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:58.080 the show. It's fabulous, but also the book is tremendous 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:00.400 as well, and is also like available for a very 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:04.439 reasonable price right now. But he points out that a 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:08.160 whole grain loaf is full of flavor and air, so 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:10.800 it's it's also and it's also so much more than 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:13.480 the sum of its parts. He points out that if 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:15.959 you gave someone the ingredients for bread and they had 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:20.400 to consume them as as is, they'd stuff. But give 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:22.760 them the bread, you know, or there at least the 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.720 Promethean knowledge of bread baking and that they will eat 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:31.080 and survive. Um, you know, it's it's again we have 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:32.720 to just come back to We take it for granted, 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:34.879 because it's everywhere, but bread is it's almost like this 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.720 neolithic or paleolithic space shuttle, you know, in terms of 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:42.399 of what it does with invention. Um Paullen has an 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:44.760 excellent passage in the book where he he discusses the 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:47.560 invention of bread, and he points out that the pre 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:51.200 bread way of consuming these various grass seeds was to 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.080 simply toast them on a fire, or to grind them 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:57.920 between stones and boil them into a very basic porridge, 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:00.399 uh quote. And we should pour it out by the 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:02.840 way that a lot of people throughout history that ate 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:05.760 cereal grains as as as a food stable did eat 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:07.760 them in some kind of porridge form that would kind 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:09.520 have always been made into a bread. A lot of 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:14.000 times they'd be just like boiled in some liquid. Right. Yeah, 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:17.600 so Pollen says quote. The inert mush that resulted might 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.320 not have made for inspiring meals, but it was simple 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.680 enough to prepare and nutritious enough to eat, providing us 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:26.800 with the energy of starch as well as some protein, 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.439 vitamins and minerals. But of course, then you know, at 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:32.639 some point those ancient people began to realize that you 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:36.119 could do something else with this thick gruel, because we 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:38.520 can only assume they got rather tired of it, you know, 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.320 as tiresome as it sounds, right, So they found that 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:43.800 you could spread the out the gruel on a hot 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.720 cooking stone and make simple unleavened flatbread, or perhaps to 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:49.600 bring back to our example, you know, throw it in 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:51.880 on the side like splatted, like maybe somebody just got 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:54.760 sick of their over thick porridge one day and we're like, like, 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:56.639 screw this, I'm not eating it, and threw it in 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:01.120 there and flow and behold, flatbread was born. But Poullen writes, 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:04.280 and he's talking, he throws out the date six thousand 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:07.359 years ago in ancient Egypt. He says that that roughly 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:10.320 six thousand years ago in ancient Egypt, something happened. Perhaps 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:12.639 someone left a bowl of porridge in a corner of 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:16.040 the kitchen for a few days. Um, you know that 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.159 matt might have been what happened, something like that. But 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:21.960 then bubbles began to rise up. Right, the mask grew 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:26.240 like a living thing. Dough was born, and when it 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:29.280 was heated in an oven, it grew larger still, quote, 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.600 springing up as it trapped the expanding bubbles in an 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:36.439 area yet stable structure that resembled a sponge, and so 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:38.720 Paullen writes that it was it probably seemed like magic 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:43.359 at the time, with the food increasing threefold and volume. Uh, 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:45.520 you know, you can imagine the fairy tale of this, 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:49.840 like the porridge that was forgotten and then grew threefolds. 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:52.320 You know. Now, of course the expansion is due to 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:56.560 the air, as we've previously discussed. But you know, this, 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:00.240 this invention of bread, this invention of of baking, he says, 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:05.520 constituted quote the world's first food processing industry. And and 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:06.800 I do want to I just want to read one 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:08.959 more quote he has from the book, just summing up 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:12.639 what we've been discussing here. Quote. Most foods, even the 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:17.480 whole hog, are altered versions of nature's already existing animals 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:20.960 and plants, which more or less retain their form after cooking. 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:24.080 But a loaf of bread is something new added to 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:28.320 the world, an edged object, wrestled from the flux of nature, 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:33.760 and specifically from the living, shifting Dionysian swamp that is 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:39.320 dough bread is the Apollonian food. So I love that 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:41.679 just bringing out this into the mythic qualities of this 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:44.960 and the idea again that that bread is an invention. 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:47.240 It is not part of the natural world. It is 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:50.119 a thing that we made and invented out of the 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:54.879 natural world. Bread is order out of chaos. All Right, 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:56.840 we're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, 0:20:56.960 --> 0:21:05.720 we will turn our attention to toast. All right, we're back, 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:10.159 so we've got bread. The next logical step is to 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:13.879 make some toast. Let's discuss how that came about. All right, Well, 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:16.040 first of all, it appears that toast is also a 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:18.920 tradition stretching into the ancient world. We don't know for sure, 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:21.800 but it's probably, I mean, we just have to assume 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:25.320 not much younger a tradition than bread itself, right, because 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:28.520 in a way, toast is just a continuation of the 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:31.960 cooking process of bread by you know, you slice it 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:34.520 and further expose the bread to heat, scorching it, and this, 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:37.199 of course, uh, you know, we do it because it 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:40.240 contributes to changes in both the texture and the taste 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:42.960 of bread. So it further dehydrates the bread and helps 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:47.000 make it crisp, which is useful for some some things 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:50.240 we want. But also the flavor changes or a big 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:53.520 thing going on there. You know, toasting bread causes browning 0:21:53.600 --> 0:21:56.119 of the sugars and the amino acids that make up 0:21:56.119 --> 0:22:00.760 the natural proteins within within the bread, and this complex 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:04.040 set of chemical reactions all taking place during browning is 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:08.480 collectively known as the Myard reaction, and it's generally why 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:12.600 browned food tastes so good, like different versions of the 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:15.800 same thing are taking place, whether you're toasting bread or 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:19.320 searing steak on a grill. The browning is the evidence 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:23.600 of this huge suite of complex chemical changes that produce 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:27.760 new compounds with interesting flavors and aromas that we associate 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:31.880 with roastinus, toastinus, nuttiness, meetin nous, and all these other 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:34.760 flavors that that are so good when we when we 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:37.840 give food a good browning, but not so much when 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:41.600 we blackened food completely and turn it into burned food, 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:45.760 which tends to yield a kind of bitter charcoally taste. Yes, toast, 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:49.680 good burnt toast. Now, it's not known for sure why 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:54.359 toast was invented, but obviously one candidate explanation seems pretty 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:56.560 promising to me at least for the invention of toast 0:22:56.640 --> 0:22:59.119 is that it began like so many other great culinary 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:03.840 techniques like smoking and curing, like pickling, as a method 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:07.760 for extending the life of foods. So we all know this, 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:09.280 right you have you have a loaf of bread in 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:11.879 your house, and the day you get it, especially if 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:13.400 you get it you know, fresh baked, to the day 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:16.000 the day was baked, it's amazing. You've you've got this 0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:21.040 freshness window. And the second day maybe it's still okay. 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:23.680 But like it's like a mayfly, It flourishes for a 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:26.359 day or two, and then it declines as the bread 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:29.760 grows stale, and it takes on this unappealing taste and texture. 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:33.520 And here's where toasting comes in. It's a perfect resurrection 0:23:33.640 --> 0:23:37.480 method for fresh bread that is no longer fresh. Toast, 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:40.800 you know, toast some less than fresh bread, and it's 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:43.399 a whole new thing, right Yeah, it's a way of 0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:45.320 it's sort of bringing it back to life. I can 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:49.560 also imagine that if one were in a particularly frigid climate, 0:23:50.400 --> 0:23:53.040 that it would make sense to resurrect your bread that 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:55.720 might not not not only might it be going of 0:23:55.800 --> 0:23:59.000 its stale, but it also might be rather cold or 0:23:59.000 --> 0:24:01.840 even rock hard, and would need to be reheated is 0:24:02.119 --> 0:24:06.480 for comfortable consumption, Yeah, totally. But while so, of course, 0:24:06.560 --> 0:24:09.240 of course toasting does remain a good way to resurrect 0:24:09.280 --> 0:24:12.400 bread that's fallen beyond its peak of freshness. Of course, 0:24:12.440 --> 0:24:15.360 we we toast perfectly fresh bread as well for purely 0:24:15.520 --> 0:24:18.600 you know, culinary aesthetic reasons, reasons relating to the way 0:24:18.880 --> 0:24:21.520 it feels and tastes and looks in the texture. And 0:24:21.800 --> 0:24:25.719 it's just for enjoyment. We just like toast. It's good. Yeah. 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:28.439 One of one of my favorite recipes that again involves 0:24:28.440 --> 0:24:31.959 a tomato but also involves toast, is a panzanella salad, 0:24:32.400 --> 0:24:35.199 which is which is rather a bread resurrection recipe and 0:24:35.240 --> 0:24:38.600 of itself often calling for stale bread, uh, but that 0:24:38.720 --> 0:24:41.280 is then soaked in oil and vinegar. And this seems 0:24:41.320 --> 0:24:45.560 to date back to at least the sixteen hundreds when uh, 0:24:45.600 --> 0:24:49.760 an Italian artist by the name of Bronzino saying it's praises. 0:24:50.400 --> 0:24:53.080 But you also find rather recipes that call for like 0:24:53.160 --> 0:24:56.040 for for fresh bread that is toasted and the bread 0:24:56.119 --> 0:24:59.080 takes on in in in my opinion, a very like 0:24:59.200 --> 0:25:02.359 meaty consists. Can see and uh, you know, and I 0:25:02.359 --> 0:25:04.680 guess it's because you have you know, these these flavors 0:25:04.720 --> 0:25:06.960 coming together. You know, you have some basalt mac you 0:25:07.000 --> 0:25:10.000 have some olive oil, you have the tomatoes themselves, and 0:25:10.040 --> 0:25:14.400 then the the just the texture of the toast or bread. Yeah, well, 0:25:14.600 --> 0:25:17.760 so toasted bread, because it's undergoing the myard reaction to 0:25:17.800 --> 0:25:20.720 a degree, it gets that kind of roasty flavor, which 0:25:20.720 --> 0:25:22.919 in some ways tastes kind of meaty to us. Then 0:25:22.960 --> 0:25:25.119 also if you've got tomatoes in the salad, tomatoes have 0:25:25.160 --> 0:25:27.720 a lot of glutamates and that, and that's also something 0:25:27.760 --> 0:25:30.200 we associate with the kind of meaty taste. But again, 0:25:30.240 --> 0:25:33.000 the end result is like just another level beyond bread, 0:25:33.560 --> 0:25:35.640 you know, and the toast just feels that much more 0:25:35.720 --> 0:25:39.320 removed from the you know, the original and just grains 0:25:39.400 --> 0:25:43.720 that have been collected from these various grasses. Yeah, it's 0:25:43.720 --> 0:25:47.040 a wonderful journey through human history. Now, I guess we 0:25:47.040 --> 0:25:50.360 should maybe turn to the toaster, because while we have 0:25:50.440 --> 0:25:54.399 some clues about the circumstances in which bread and toast 0:25:54.400 --> 0:25:57.359 a rose, we don't know who ultimately invented them that, 0:25:57.560 --> 0:26:00.199 you know, that that's just in the fog. But we 0:26:00.280 --> 0:26:03.600 do have some indications about toasters in history, right, we 0:26:03.920 --> 0:26:06.960 know where these came from. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, obviously 0:26:07.040 --> 0:26:09.720 there are plenty of just very standard ways you could 0:26:09.760 --> 0:26:11.680 toast a piece of bread. Put it on a stick, 0:26:12.080 --> 0:26:15.159 leave it on that baking stone, grill it, you know, 0:26:15.240 --> 0:26:17.440 put it in one of these ovens that you've constructed, 0:26:17.440 --> 0:26:20.200 and so forth. But at least in the early nineteenth 0:26:20.560 --> 0:26:24.000 nineteenth century, we begin to see specialized toasting apparatus is 0:26:24.320 --> 0:26:28.080 for toasting bread over or adjacent to open flames, And 0:26:28.119 --> 0:26:30.879 many of these were pretty straightforward, just a metal framework 0:26:31.080 --> 0:26:34.159 in which to brace slices of bread, all at the 0:26:34.240 --> 0:26:36.480 end of like a long handle, so you're not burning 0:26:36.480 --> 0:26:38.840 your fingers off. And some of some of these hearth 0:26:38.880 --> 0:26:41.680 toasters even had a swiveling mechanism so that you could 0:26:41.720 --> 0:26:44.000 like toast one side of the bread, then swivel it 0:26:44.000 --> 0:26:46.640 around and toast the others. And these methods all work 0:26:46.720 --> 0:26:49.280 perfectly well today, just as they worked in their inception. 0:26:49.640 --> 0:26:51.720 So why invent a toaster in the modern sense of 0:26:51.720 --> 0:26:54.800 the word, Well, it all comes down ultimately to our 0:26:54.840 --> 0:26:57.959 busy lives in the kitchen and beyond the kitchen, Because 0:26:58.000 --> 0:27:00.679 the beauty of a toaster or a toaster, then is 0:27:00.720 --> 0:27:03.640 that it allows us to automate our toast making somewhat 0:27:04.160 --> 0:27:07.560 stick the toast in, start the machine, busy yourself with coffee, eggs, 0:27:07.640 --> 0:27:09.879 or what have you, and not have to worry as 0:27:09.960 --> 0:27:12.840 much about the house burning down in the process. Um, 0:27:12.920 --> 0:27:14.879 you know, in a way we're talking about building towards 0:27:14.880 --> 0:27:18.919 a toasting automaton or you know, toasting robot. So a 0:27:18.960 --> 0:27:22.359 few key features factor into all the of our various 0:27:22.359 --> 0:27:25.400 attempts to elevate toasting technology. But the first and most 0:27:25.440 --> 0:27:28.600 important was the creation of an electric heating system to 0:27:28.680 --> 0:27:31.960 eliminate the need for gas or open flame. Yeah. Now 0:27:32.040 --> 0:27:35.840 we kind of take electric heating elements for granted today, 0:27:35.840 --> 0:27:38.320 don't we. We don't realize that this was was a 0:27:38.320 --> 0:27:41.280 difficult problem at one point. Yeah, it was trickier than 0:27:41.280 --> 0:27:44.639 you might imagine, because you need to create a heating element, 0:27:44.720 --> 0:27:46.800 you know, something that can be heated up due to 0:27:46.840 --> 0:27:50.320 an electric current. But it also it has to come 0:27:50.359 --> 0:27:54.080 it has to be able to sustain repeated high temperatures 0:27:54.480 --> 0:27:56.760 and not fail. You know, it needs to be able 0:27:56.800 --> 0:27:58.640 to heat up, heat back and then cool back down 0:27:58.720 --> 0:28:01.280 and up again and back down on and uh. And 0:28:01.359 --> 0:28:03.480 so you know, that was something people worked at for 0:28:03.600 --> 0:28:08.400 a while in the history of making toast from Hagley 0:28:08.440 --> 0:28:11.879 dot Org. The author's point to Albert Marsh's nineteen o 0:28:12.040 --> 0:28:16.679 five uh nichrome filament wire with an alloy of nickel 0:28:16.760 --> 0:28:20.359 and chromium, being like the key advancement here, it was 0:28:20.440 --> 0:28:23.520 both safe and durable when heated by the electric current. 0:28:24.720 --> 0:28:28.040 Then in nineteen o six, the first US patent application 0:28:28.119 --> 0:28:31.000 was filed for an electric toaster using Marsh's wire, and 0:28:31.040 --> 0:28:34.359 this was by George Schneider of the American Electrical Heater 0:28:34.640 --> 0:28:38.360 Company of Detroit. And then in nineteen o eight, General 0:28:38.400 --> 0:28:42.760 Electric patented the General Electric D twelve toaster and rolled 0:28:42.800 --> 0:28:45.160 it out in nineteen o nine, and this one used 0:28:45.400 --> 0:28:50.440 Marsh's uh nichrome technology as well. And Gail L. Goudie 0:28:50.520 --> 0:28:53.640 has an excellent blog post about this model at the 0:28:53.720 --> 0:28:58.480 College of Charleston's Architecture and Art History Club. Uh. It's um, 0:28:58.520 --> 0:29:00.920 it's it doesn't look like a toast. It looks like 0:29:00.960 --> 0:29:04.400 a porcelain has like a porcelain base in this kind 0:29:04.440 --> 0:29:08.360 of tesla coil looking post trapped right on top of it. 0:29:09.320 --> 0:29:13.920 Uh and it looks like a torture cage for bread. Yeah, 0:29:14.080 --> 0:29:16.400 And Gaudi drives home that this item was a luxury. 0:29:16.400 --> 0:29:19.120 It costs four dollars in nineteen o nine, which she 0:29:19.160 --> 0:29:22.680 says is roughly a hundred dollars today. So this would 0:29:22.680 --> 0:29:25.239 have been this would have been something, uh that the 0:29:25.320 --> 0:29:27.640 elite had. I just want to read a quote from 0:29:27.680 --> 0:29:32.120 her summary quote. A General Electric advertisement from eight taken 0:29:32.160 --> 0:29:35.160 from the Library of Congress, depicts two well dressed women 0:29:35.200 --> 0:29:38.120 setting at a table leisurely having breakfast with their D 0:29:38.200 --> 0:29:41.480 twelve toaster, complete with a floral design and the ceramic 0:29:41.520 --> 0:29:44.920 base setting beside them. Women were the main target for 0:29:45.040 --> 0:29:48.320 General Electrics advertisements because they were seen as the consumers 0:29:48.520 --> 0:29:51.640 of the household. One major selling point was the ability 0:29:51.680 --> 0:29:54.480 to quote get out of the messy kitchen and be 0:29:54.600 --> 0:29:58.720 able to join your company in quote the comfortable dining room. 0:29:58.760 --> 0:30:01.640 This made the D twelve tote not only a more 0:30:01.680 --> 0:30:04.040 practical and efficient way to toast bread, but also a 0:30:04.040 --> 0:30:08.000 way to show off to others, so, you know, conspicuous 0:30:08.080 --> 0:30:10.600 toast consumption. Yeah, you know. And it's like it's a 0:30:10.640 --> 0:30:12.400 way of like, oh, well, we can make bread at 0:30:12.440 --> 0:30:15.080 the tape. It's almost like a like a fondue pot 0:30:15.200 --> 0:30:18.880 for toast, you know. But it was a hit, and 0:30:18.960 --> 0:30:22.600 it proved the first commercially successful electric toaster. But one 0:30:22.640 --> 0:30:24.720 of the problems with the D twelve was that you 0:30:24.720 --> 0:30:29.000 had to turn the toast yourself. So enter the Copeman 0:30:29.080 --> 0:30:32.360 Electric Stove Companies nineteen thirteen or possibly I Whole se 0:30:32.520 --> 0:30:35.080 nineteen fifteen. So we may be dealing with patent versus 0:30:35.280 --> 0:30:38.760 actual rollout. But this model turned the toast for you, 0:30:38.800 --> 0:30:42.160 and it was designed by Lloyd Groff Copeman. Then in 0:30:42.240 --> 0:30:47.520 nineteen nineteen Minnesota, Minnesota mechanic named Charles Perkins Strite created 0:30:47.560 --> 0:30:51.440 a restaurant grade toaster, and in nineteen one he patented 0:30:51.640 --> 0:30:54.720 the automatic pop up toaster. Ah, this is the one 0:30:54.760 --> 0:30:57.280 that's in all the movies. Yeah, this was This was 0:30:57.320 --> 0:30:59.480 a key advance. But no longer was it merely a 0:30:59.480 --> 0:31:01.720 little like a gadget that allows you to toast bread 0:31:01.760 --> 0:31:04.120 at your table and like this kind of fonn do manner. 0:31:04.600 --> 0:31:07.320 This was a design that times you're toasting to prevent 0:31:07.360 --> 0:31:10.200 burnt toast popping it out of the heated interior. When 0:31:10.240 --> 0:31:14.320 it was finished. Waters Genter of Minneapolis began selling a 0:31:14.440 --> 0:31:18.920 redesigned version in nine and this was called the Toastmaster. 0:31:19.800 --> 0:31:22.120 And in this we had a pop up home toaster 0:31:22.200 --> 0:31:25.760 that browned both sides at once via timed heating element 0:31:25.960 --> 0:31:29.520 with ejection, the modern toaster was born, and really it's 0:31:29.560 --> 0:31:32.840 essentially the same design that's widespread today, though this was 0:31:32.960 --> 0:31:36.920 much bulkier. It looks huge, Yeah, it does. It looks 0:31:36.960 --> 0:31:40.240 like it looks like like a huge toaster on top 0:31:40.280 --> 0:31:42.880 of another apparatus. It looks like like its own little oven. 0:31:42.920 --> 0:31:45.360 It looks like a toaster on top of a slot machine. Yeah, 0:31:45.720 --> 0:31:47.840 now you Now. We could easily spend the rest of 0:31:47.840 --> 0:31:50.840 the episode just discussing the various technological improvements, then bridge 0:31:50.880 --> 0:31:53.400 the gap between the toastmaster and whatever you have in 0:31:53.400 --> 0:31:56.320 your own kitchen. We could also focus on its siblings, 0:31:56.320 --> 0:31:59.240 like the toaster oven, which is much much the same principle, 0:31:59.280 --> 0:32:01.240 except it's a since a small oven and it's a 0:32:01.280 --> 0:32:04.400 lot more versatile. I'm more of a toaster oven kind 0:32:04.400 --> 0:32:06.920 of person. Uh. Yeah, you can do a lot more 0:32:06.960 --> 0:32:09.200 different kinds of stuff with it. Yeah, that's what we 0:32:09.240 --> 0:32:12.360 have in our house. Um. Then there's also the conveyor toaster, 0:32:12.720 --> 0:32:15.200 which dates back to ninety eight or so. And is 0:32:15.600 --> 0:32:18.479 I'm sure anyone who's ever enjoyed a continental breakfast at 0:32:18.480 --> 0:32:21.040 a hotel you've seen this you know, it has a 0:32:21.080 --> 0:32:23.080 little conveyor and it it takes the toast on a 0:32:23.080 --> 0:32:25.480 little journey that heats it and then drops it out 0:32:25.520 --> 0:32:28.680 at the bottom. Uh yeah. Unfortunately, at one time, I 0:32:28.680 --> 0:32:31.760 remember it was around some high schoolers who were fooling 0:32:31.760 --> 0:32:33.480 around with one of these things, and it's sort of 0:32:33.520 --> 0:32:36.600 caught on fire. Oh. I think they were putting stuff 0:32:36.640 --> 0:32:38.760 in it. This shouldn't go in. It gets stuck in there. 0:32:39.240 --> 0:32:41.880 Usually the only place you encounter it is in you know, 0:32:41.880 --> 0:32:45.959 like a continental breakfast situation. But I think the beauty 0:32:46.000 --> 0:32:48.120 of this episode is that at this point we returned 0:32:48.160 --> 0:32:50.600 to bread itself and consider the way that the toaster 0:32:50.960 --> 0:32:54.320 changes bread. And we've already discussed how baking was, you know, 0:32:54.320 --> 0:32:57.320 again in Pollen's words, quote world the world's first food 0:32:57.360 --> 0:33:00.360 processing industry. And in the nineteenth and twentieth tree this 0:33:00.400 --> 0:33:03.160 all continued and we saw what Poullen referred to as 0:33:03.240 --> 0:33:07.680 quote the reductive logic of industrial bread baking, because to 0:33:07.800 --> 0:33:11.360 feed the needs of the toaster, you need rather standardized 0:33:11.400 --> 0:33:14.400 bread slice sizes, and this led to the invention of 0:33:14.480 --> 0:33:19.360 machines to pre sliced loafs. So otto Frederick Roy Vetter 0:33:19.680 --> 0:33:23.280 is credited with inventing the world's first commercial bread slicing machine, 0:33:24.000 --> 0:33:29.000 and this was installed in a Chillicothe, Missouri, at the 0:33:29.160 --> 0:33:33.640 Chilicothe Baking Company. And on July seven this when this 0:33:33.680 --> 0:33:36.880 thing fired up and began slicing loaves of bread into 0:33:37.000 --> 0:33:40.960 regimented slices, uh, you know, pre sale. And this was 0:33:41.040 --> 0:33:44.520 two years before Wonderbread started marketing its own pre wrap 0:33:44.640 --> 0:33:48.800 pre sliced bread nationwide. Now, one thing that comes about 0:33:48.840 --> 0:33:51.440 with this era of you know, the bag sliced bread, 0:33:51.520 --> 0:33:55.120 is where people begin to assume the uniformity of bread 0:33:55.400 --> 0:33:58.080 as a product. Whereas bread, as we were saying earlier, 0:33:58.200 --> 0:34:02.560 is is something with such an amazing diversity of forms 0:34:02.680 --> 0:34:06.200 and recipes and flavors. I mean, bread is sort of 0:34:06.200 --> 0:34:09.400 half the cooking world, and its diversity reflects that. But 0:34:09.520 --> 0:34:12.280 if you go down the bread aisle in the grocery 0:34:12.320 --> 0:34:14.920 store and see all the industrial made bread that's all 0:34:14.960 --> 0:34:17.319 pretty much the same shape and size, you wouldn't get 0:34:17.360 --> 0:34:20.279 that impression. No, no, I mean it. You end up 0:34:20.280 --> 0:34:24.120 with this very again regimented uh slice situation. And you know, 0:34:24.160 --> 0:34:25.879 generally that's that's a lot of times, that's the bread 0:34:25.880 --> 0:34:28.600 we grew up with. Maybe perhaps that's still the bread 0:34:28.680 --> 0:34:31.640 you kind of get today. But you know, there have 0:34:31.719 --> 0:34:35.920 been some commentators who have really lingered on the sadness 0:34:36.000 --> 0:34:38.239 of all of this. And I believe you found out 0:34:38.239 --> 0:34:40.879 a wonderful paper that some some of this up. Oh yeah, 0:34:40.920 --> 0:34:43.800 it was. It was a paper by a communications scholar 0:34:43.880 --> 0:34:48.960 named Arthur asa Berger who was writing about toast as 0:34:49.080 --> 0:34:52.920 something that's sort of like emblematic of the sort of 0:34:52.960 --> 0:34:56.759 like industrial alienation of the modern world. And it was 0:34:56.800 --> 0:34:59.919 a paper just called the Toaster from et cetera orvie 0:35:00.000 --> 0:35:03.680 you of general semantics, and published in nine And I 0:35:03.719 --> 0:35:07.080 want to read a quote from his From his conclusion here, 0:35:07.760 --> 0:35:11.800 Burger writes, Ultimately, the toaster is an apology for the 0:35:11.880 --> 0:35:15.880 quality of our bread. It attempts heroically to transform the 0:35:15.960 --> 0:35:20.640 semi sweet, characterless, plastic package bread that we have learned 0:35:20.640 --> 0:35:24.400 to love into something more palatable and more manageable. Perhaps 0:35:24.440 --> 0:35:27.239 our handling this bread and warming it up gives us 0:35:27.280 --> 0:35:29.600 a sense that the bread now has a human touch 0:35:29.680 --> 0:35:33.799 to it, is not an abstract, almost unreal product. The 0:35:33.880 --> 0:35:37.640 toaster represents a heroic attempt to redeem our packaged bread, 0:35:37.960 --> 0:35:41.799 to redeem the unredeemable, but the toaster, despite its high 0:35:41.840 --> 0:35:45.920 tech functions, is doomed. The continual repetition of Adam and 0:35:45.960 --> 0:35:50.360 Eve's fall for an unregenerate bread cannot be saved. Every 0:35:50.400 --> 0:35:56.400 piece of toast is a tragedy. I love that, you know, 0:35:56.440 --> 0:35:59.680 agree or disagree, But the good news is that they 0:35:59.760 --> 0:36:02.560 you can buy bread that wasn't baked by a machine, 0:36:02.800 --> 0:36:05.280 and you can toast it in a variety of ways, 0:36:05.680 --> 0:36:09.400 essentially using your own hand. I'd i'd encourage everyone to 0:36:09.440 --> 0:36:11.799 try that. I'd encourage everyone to at least make some 0:36:11.840 --> 0:36:13.840 sort of bread at some point in your life, because 0:36:13.880 --> 0:36:16.480 it it allows you to sort of tap into that 0:36:16.520 --> 0:36:20.040 feeling of magic that must have accompanied, you know, the 0:36:20.200 --> 0:36:24.239 the initial creations, the initial invention of bread. Now, if 0:36:24.280 --> 0:36:26.279 you have wanted to bake bread at home, by the way, 0:36:26.360 --> 0:36:28.000 but you're like, hey, I don't have one of these 0:36:28.000 --> 0:36:32.000 commercial bakery bread ovens, you know, I don't have the equipment. Uh, 0:36:32.160 --> 0:36:34.920 there are actually great recipes you can look up online 0:36:34.920 --> 0:36:38.919 that just require a Dutch oven inside a normal kind 0:36:38.920 --> 0:36:41.120 of oven that you'd have at home to make like 0:36:41.160 --> 0:36:44.640 a really good boulangerie style loaf. So I recommend looking 0:36:44.640 --> 0:36:47.080 that up. All right, Well, it looks like we need 0:36:47.120 --> 0:36:48.959 to take a quick break, but we will be right back. 0:36:55.080 --> 0:36:58.439 All right, we're back. So we've talked about the birth 0:36:58.480 --> 0:37:01.759 of bread. We've talked about hoasting, We've talked about this 0:37:01.920 --> 0:37:06.080 fabulous invention the toaster. We've talked about one kind of toasting, 0:37:06.080 --> 0:37:08.400 but then another kind of toasting of what kind of 0:37:08.400 --> 0:37:10.920 tough Yes, of course we haven't talked about the toast. 0:37:11.320 --> 0:37:13.880 Here is to your health, right, which it's easy to 0:37:14.120 --> 0:37:17.200 just assume that there's no connection between the two. I know, 0:37:17.239 --> 0:37:19.560 I never really thought about there being a connection between 0:37:19.600 --> 0:37:23.160 a a piece of toast and a formal you know, uh, 0:37:23.640 --> 0:37:27.400 you know, glassware clinking event at a fine dinner or something, 0:37:27.600 --> 0:37:31.160 you know, along those lines. If you had asked me, 0:37:31.200 --> 0:37:33.560 I probably would have assumed it was a false cognate, 0:37:33.680 --> 0:37:35.560 one of those things that's just like a word that 0:37:35.640 --> 0:37:39.080 happens to sound like another word but has unrelated roots. Yeah, 0:37:39.160 --> 0:37:41.080 But as it turns out, it looks like there's there 0:37:41.120 --> 0:37:43.680 are some firm connections there, and then there's kind of 0:37:43.680 --> 0:37:46.960 an argument on both sides. But I was looking looking 0:37:46.960 --> 0:37:50.360 at an article, an excellent article on Atlas Obscura's gastro 0:37:50.480 --> 0:37:54.080 obscura um section, which is kind of almost like a 0:37:54.120 --> 0:37:56.759 subsite that they have which is food related and it's 0:37:56.800 --> 0:37:58.960 really good. I think I even wrote a piece for 0:37:59.040 --> 0:38:00.920 them a while back. What I said about it is 0:38:00.960 --> 0:38:05.560 about Marichino cherries. Marichino cherries. But anyway, this particular pieces 0:38:05.600 --> 0:38:08.200 by and You Bank and it was titled Toasting your 0:38:08.239 --> 0:38:12.640 Friends once involved actual toast. Okay, convinced me, all right, 0:38:12.680 --> 0:38:15.399 So but here's how it goes, as e Bank lays 0:38:15.400 --> 0:38:17.879 it out. Basically, there are a few different theories about 0:38:17.880 --> 0:38:21.440 where toast comes from, as in like toasting someone. One 0:38:21.480 --> 0:38:24.560 relates to a sixteenth century German practice of shouting the 0:38:24.640 --> 0:38:28.920 Latin word proceed, meaning may it do you good? But 0:38:29.000 --> 0:38:30.920 another is that it ties in with the history of 0:38:30.960 --> 0:38:36.359 putting toast in alcohol. That sounds weird. Well, but but 0:38:36.360 --> 0:38:38.200 but does it? What? What do you be here? More 0:38:38.640 --> 0:38:44.720 specifically toasting with beer or wine that is garnished with bread. Okay, 0:38:44.760 --> 0:38:47.440 that somehow beer or wine makes more sense. What I 0:38:47.480 --> 0:38:52.160 was imagining was vodka martini like James Bond drinks, except 0:38:52.200 --> 0:38:54.560 instead of the little toothpick with an olive in it, 0:38:54.560 --> 0:38:56.920 it's just a piece of toast. Well, I'm all up 0:38:56.960 --> 0:38:59.960 for some inventive garnishes, and in fact, a few year 0:39:00.080 --> 0:39:02.960 is back, I found a cocktail recipe on It was 0:39:03.000 --> 0:39:06.840 on the Hendrix Gin website. You know, generally these you know, 0:39:06.880 --> 0:39:10.480 big alcohol brands will have recipes on their website, and 0:39:10.760 --> 0:39:14.120 Hendrix is is no exception. Uh, And they had a 0:39:14.200 --> 0:39:17.080 recipe for a cocktail that I don't think it's hosted 0:39:17.080 --> 0:39:18.720 on the current version of the side. But it called 0:39:18.760 --> 0:39:23.439 for some sparkling wine. It called for I believe some bitters, uh, 0:39:23.560 --> 0:39:25.880 some marmalade I want to say, kind of muddled in 0:39:25.920 --> 0:39:29.239 the bottom, some gin, of course, and it was a 0:39:29.360 --> 0:39:32.520 really good drink. But it also called for a garnish 0:39:32.520 --> 0:39:35.359 of a small piece of toast, which at the time 0:39:35.360 --> 0:39:37.480 I was like, well, that's weird, and I'm I'm just 0:39:37.520 --> 0:39:40.680 gonna skip that part because I don't really understand it 0:39:40.719 --> 0:39:43.640 and I don't want to, like additionally like make toast 0:39:43.920 --> 0:39:45.560 for the drink, So you know, I just kind of 0:39:45.600 --> 0:39:47.279 skipped over it. I would have probably been into it 0:39:47.320 --> 0:39:49.400 had I had it at a restaurant, but I just 0:39:49.440 --> 0:39:51.800 hadn't thought about it since until I started reading this article. 0:39:52.400 --> 0:39:55.400 So when we get into this idea of beer and 0:39:55.480 --> 0:40:00.400 wine combined with toast. It relates to SOPs. Yes, ops 0:40:00.840 --> 0:40:03.560 as in as in too like sop up something, And 0:40:03.680 --> 0:40:08.319 SOPs were chunks of of sodden toasted bread in a 0:40:08.360 --> 0:40:10.800 bowl of warm wine if you were you know, medieval 0:40:10.880 --> 0:40:14.440 upper crust uh and a mere high calorie piece of 0:40:14.520 --> 0:40:16.640 ale soaked toast if you were part of the ample 0:40:16.719 --> 0:40:20.680 underclass at medieval times in medieval Europe. And the author 0:40:20.719 --> 0:40:25.040 also adds quote the English even covered apple trees insider 0:40:25.120 --> 0:40:27.680 dipped toast as part of an ancient ritual for a 0:40:27.760 --> 0:40:32.480 good harvest. So with SOPs were generally talking about white 0:40:32.520 --> 0:40:36.880 bread toasted and then flavored with sugar, ginger, or herbs. 0:40:36.960 --> 0:40:41.160 And then the British supper and soup even derived from sop. 0:40:41.200 --> 0:40:44.879 Apparently milk sop as an insult is also derived from 0:40:44.920 --> 0:40:48.680 this word. While sop became less essential to European cuisine, 0:40:48.920 --> 0:40:52.560 French onion soup is supposedly a survivor of the custom 0:40:53.440 --> 0:40:55.480 French onion soup. Of course, you know, it generally has 0:40:55.480 --> 0:40:57.840 like that big piece of bread in there, which I 0:40:57.880 --> 0:41:00.239 think is something that either you love it or that 0:41:00.280 --> 0:41:02.800 turns you off a little bit, there being like essentially 0:41:02.840 --> 0:41:05.440 a big soggy piece of bread in your soup, which 0:41:05.640 --> 0:41:08.720 camper you in. I like it. I do think it's 0:41:08.760 --> 0:41:10.880 it's definitely a soup that needs to be I like 0:41:10.920 --> 0:41:12.759 to eat it right away. I don't think you should 0:41:12.840 --> 0:41:15.279 let it completely disintegrate in your soup, right. Well, I 0:41:15.320 --> 0:41:16.799 think it's one of those where it helps to have 0:41:16.920 --> 0:41:20.120 one of those uh, you know, crustier, chewier kind of 0:41:20.200 --> 0:41:23.760 high protein breads, you know, with like a chewy gluten matrix, 0:41:23.840 --> 0:41:25.879 that those work better in that kind of thing than 0:41:25.920 --> 0:41:28.680 like a you know, a soft, cakey kind of bread. Right. 0:41:28.760 --> 0:41:31.880 And of course it's a it's traditionally a neat based soup, 0:41:31.960 --> 0:41:34.600 but there are some excellent mushroom based recipes for it 0:41:34.600 --> 0:41:37.359 out there, because yeah, usually they would have a beef 0:41:37.360 --> 0:41:41.880 broth piece. Yeah, that's generally true though, that that mushrooms 0:41:42.200 --> 0:41:46.719 make an excellent substitute, like a vegetarian substitute for beef flavor, 0:41:47.040 --> 0:41:49.840 like anything that calls for beef broth or anything beefy. 0:41:49.960 --> 0:41:52.359 You can put mushrooms in there, and I think you'll 0:41:52.400 --> 0:41:56.040 have more textural differences than taste differences. Actually, yeah, I'll 0:41:56.040 --> 0:41:59.760 bring out like an neunami kind of flavoring, right, mommy, mommy, 0:42:00.239 --> 0:42:03.600 you know me. Uh yeah, I mean I remember even 0:42:03.680 --> 0:42:06.680 like growing up, like occasionally we would have when we 0:42:06.680 --> 0:42:08.840 were you know, eating meat as a family, like the 0:42:08.920 --> 0:42:11.080 mushroom gravy would be brought out as a way to 0:42:11.200 --> 0:42:14.400 enhance the cut of meat. You know. Yeah, so you 0:42:14.400 --> 0:42:16.400 know it makes sense that even even in if the 0:42:16.400 --> 0:42:19.520 meat is completely gone, the mushroom or mushroom grave you're 0:42:19.520 --> 0:42:21.879 some sort of mushroom based of flavoring will do the job. 0:42:22.960 --> 0:42:26.280 A great cooking tip if you ever use dried chitaki 0:42:26.400 --> 0:42:29.920 mushrooms in your home, uh and you you know, reconstitute 0:42:29.920 --> 0:42:32.520 them in hot water to heat them up. Don't just 0:42:32.760 --> 0:42:35.800 use the mushrooms and throw out the broth. That broth 0:42:35.880 --> 0:42:39.200 that you reconstituted them in is gold. Now you can 0:42:39.239 --> 0:42:41.239 like reduce it, you can freeze it, you can use 0:42:41.280 --> 0:42:44.960 it in soups and anything. It tastes amazing. Another survivor 0:42:45.000 --> 0:42:47.680 of this, uh this SOPs legacy is apparently was s 0:42:47.680 --> 0:42:50.040 ale Um. I don't think I know what that is. 0:42:50.239 --> 0:42:54.120 You know, it's in the traditional like holiday punch type 0:42:54.320 --> 0:42:58.080 type beverage. Here we go whostling that that's sort of 0:42:58.719 --> 0:43:01.080 well like taking the punch out or getting punch or 0:43:01.760 --> 0:43:05.640 well yeah, kind of like you know, the holiday sharing 0:43:05.719 --> 0:43:08.080 of the punch the wall sale tradition, but apparently like 0:43:08.120 --> 0:43:10.840 traditionally it also had toast in it. Here here we 0:43:10.880 --> 0:43:14.160 go aboozing is what that means? Yes, okay, and then 0:43:14.239 --> 0:43:17.200 toasting each other's health became apparently became more of a 0:43:17.200 --> 0:43:20.239 fat in the seventeen hundreds, and the name indeed may 0:43:20.280 --> 0:43:23.440 derive from the fact that these beverages that people were 0:43:23.480 --> 0:43:27.839 toasting with we're often topped with SOPs. It does make 0:43:27.880 --> 0:43:30.680 me wonder if if SOPs will ever make a real comeback, 0:43:30.760 --> 0:43:33.480 you know, if say, twenty years from now, like the 0:43:33.560 --> 0:43:37.080 new trendy restaurant in New York will be all sop space, 0:43:38.960 --> 0:43:41.440 you know, because because the other you know, other toast 0:43:41.640 --> 0:43:44.040 items have never really gone out of style. I think 0:43:44.080 --> 0:43:46.240 I think there has been kind of a resurgence of 0:43:46.239 --> 0:43:50.080 of toast in recent years, and avocado toast, but then 0:43:50.120 --> 0:43:52.880 also just uh, you know, some chefs kind of like 0:43:53.440 --> 0:43:57.040 focusing in on something uh in some cases toast and saying, 0:43:57.040 --> 0:43:58.440 all right, what is it about a good slice of 0:43:58.480 --> 0:44:00.920 toast that works? And what how can we deconstruct that? 0:44:01.040 --> 0:44:03.319 And and and maybe even put some sort of new 0:44:03.320 --> 0:44:05.200 twist on it. Oh yeah, now that you mentioned that 0:44:05.200 --> 0:44:07.360 there there's at least one kind of hip restaurant in 0:44:07.440 --> 0:44:09.840 town here that we go to sometimes. It does it. 0:44:09.920 --> 0:44:13.080 It's got like a whole toasts section of itself. It's 0:44:13.120 --> 0:44:15.600 just like toasts with you know, it'll have like a 0:44:15.640 --> 0:44:19.120 like a salmon spread topping, or like a like a 0:44:19.239 --> 0:44:23.120 mushroom and ricotta topping or something. Yeah. I wonder if 0:44:23.360 --> 0:44:25.160 this would be interesting to hear from anyone out there, 0:44:25.200 --> 0:44:28.080 who is you know, who's who's active in the culinary 0:44:28.160 --> 0:44:30.880 world or the mixology world. I would I would love 0:44:30.920 --> 0:44:34.000 to know if anybody is attempting to bring back the 0:44:34.040 --> 0:44:37.560 toast garnish. Was that Hendricks drink that I saw online? 0:44:37.560 --> 0:44:38.919 Was that just kind of a flash in the pan, 0:44:39.880 --> 0:44:43.719 or just like a you know, a lone survivor of 0:44:43.760 --> 0:44:46.000 the tradition, or is there anybody out there saying, Hey, 0:44:46.320 --> 0:44:48.880 we used to put toast in our drinks and we 0:44:48.920 --> 0:44:51.839 should do it again. It's essential. Stop trying to make 0:44:51.880 --> 0:44:56.160 toast drinks happen, Robert, It's not going to happen. I 0:44:56.239 --> 0:44:57.920 don't I don't know. I I want to try a 0:44:57.960 --> 0:44:59.319 good one. I want to I want to try an 0:44:59.360 --> 0:45:01.440 authentic one. Well, you know what, I can actually imagine 0:45:01.480 --> 0:45:03.440 more so than I guess. It would depend on the 0:45:03.440 --> 0:45:06.080 consistency of the drink. Like, if it's like an eggnog 0:45:06.160 --> 0:45:08.440 kind of thing, you definitely see using toasting that if 0:45:08.440 --> 0:45:11.160 it's like a if it's like a more watery, consistency 0:45:11.200 --> 0:45:14.280 type drink, I'm having a harder time imagining actually dipping 0:45:14.280 --> 0:45:16.680 the toast in it to any good effect, but I 0:45:16.719 --> 0:45:19.440 could imagine it would be a nice pairing of aromas. 0:45:19.480 --> 0:45:21.400 I mean, there are some drinks that call for just 0:45:21.440 --> 0:45:24.959 like scenting a glass with an aroma. Like sometimes people 0:45:24.960 --> 0:45:26.840 will make a drink where they smoke the glass, you know, 0:45:27.080 --> 0:45:29.239 like burn aboard and put the glass on it, and 0:45:29.280 --> 0:45:31.239 then there's smoke on the glass that gives it this 0:45:31.320 --> 0:45:33.400 kind of scent, and then they add the drink to 0:45:33.440 --> 0:45:36.160 the glass. I could see a similar thing happening with toast, 0:45:36.160 --> 0:45:39.120 because toast is such a pleasant aroma that smell might 0:45:39.200 --> 0:45:42.480 pair well with some types of drinks. I don't I 0:45:42.520 --> 0:45:44.600 don't know with what liquors, but you know, you can 0:45:44.640 --> 0:45:47.080 imagine that. Yeah, well, maybe we can get to the 0:45:47.120 --> 0:45:49.160 point where it's like kind of like the bread bowl 0:45:49.239 --> 0:45:52.440 that you have for for spinach dips. Sometimes like the 0:45:52.520 --> 0:45:58.640 bread chalice, the bread bowl is actually the ultimate stop 0:45:59.120 --> 0:46:03.359 that stopped to the stream. Right whoever thought that up 0:46:03.360 --> 0:46:07.279 as a genius? Huh, yeah, this is We really only 0:46:07.280 --> 0:46:10.279 scratched the surface on like bread traditions and all that 0:46:10.400 --> 0:46:12.200 we said. You know, we didn't devote the whole episode. 0:46:12.200 --> 0:46:14.800 You just bread. And every culture has its own spin 0:46:15.239 --> 0:46:18.040 on particular uses of bread. Uh, you know the things 0:46:18.080 --> 0:46:21.400 certainly you stick into bread. Basically there's a hot pocket 0:46:21.440 --> 0:46:25.239 of some form and just about every culture. Uh and uh, 0:46:25.280 --> 0:46:26.560 you know we don't we don't have time to go 0:46:26.560 --> 0:46:29.040 into all of those today. But but bread is an 0:46:29.040 --> 0:46:34.080 important part of of human culture, of human history and uh, 0:46:34.239 --> 0:46:36.879 you know, even though it's just our everyday sustenance most 0:46:36.880 --> 0:46:41.280 of the time, we should stop and appreciate this fabulous invention, 0:46:41.920 --> 0:46:45.320 well said Robert. All right. If you would like to 0:46:45.400 --> 0:46:47.799 check out other episodes of Invention, head on over to 0:46:47.840 --> 0:46:50.640 invention pod dot com. 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