Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Savor production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie
Speaker 1: and I'm Lauren vocal Bam, and today we have an
Speaker 1: episode for you about pasta salad and macaroni salad as
Speaker 1: a subunit of that.
Speaker 2: Yes, oh my, oh well, was there any reason this
Speaker 2: was on your mind?
Speaker 3: Lauren?
Speaker 1: Oh, we are in the kind of summertime picnic cookout season.
Speaker 1: I almost said era, but sure, that's a word as
Speaker 1: well above the year era of the year, and macaroni
Speaker 1: salad is a very American pot luck summertime dish. I
Speaker 1: personally don't like it at all. I'm not a fan.
Speaker 1: We have found the one episode where I wasn't hungry
Speaker 1: the entire time that I was reading about something.
Speaker 2: This cracks me up too, because just in time for
Speaker 2: your birthday. I'm glad we chose a topic. Maybe this
Speaker 2: says something about you.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that you don't like. I meant to
Speaker 1: record it like last week instead of this week, but
Speaker 1: things happened and I did reward myself with our spoiler alert.
Speaker 1: Our next episode topic after this one is a giant
Speaker 1: tiger prons and I'm so excited to talk about shrimp.
Speaker 1: So it's all gonna work out. It'll yeah, it'll all
Speaker 1: work out. It just kind of makes me laugh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got no real strong opinion about pasa salad.
Speaker 2: I mean, probably anyone who listens to the show knows
Speaker 2: I go for the vinegary ones and not the male ones.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you famously dislike Mayo.
Speaker 2: Yes, famously. But it's also dependent on what else is available.
Speaker 2: The pot lucking question whether or not I'll go for
Speaker 2: the apasta sALS like, it's usually not my.
Speaker 1: First choice if there's a lot of other sides. But
Speaker 1: there's a lot of factors that come into play whether
Speaker 1: or not I'll eat apasta Sal's basically what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: But I do. I did enjoy reading about how.
Speaker 2: Many different pasta salads there are, all the things people
Speaker 2: have done.
Speaker 3: And it's goodness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think I had really thought about the
Speaker 1: iterations and now you can't. Now I can't done think Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh no.
Speaker 2: And because I researched this, now I'm getting all these
Speaker 2: like here are some recipes, and I learn even more iterations.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, So that being said, you can see our
Speaker 2: past pasta episodes. You can also see Potato salad and
Speaker 2: mac and Cheese maybe even aspects.
Speaker 1: Sure, salad salad in general.
Speaker 2: Sure, our episodes from Hawaii, I think we talk about
Speaker 2: Hawaiian and my macaroni.
Speaker 1: Salad briefly Mayo ranch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but honestly the point being a lot can go
Speaker 2: into a pasta salad.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, yeah yeah. Also related definitely Coleslaw and our
Speaker 1: Pasta Shapes episode.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh well, okay, I guess that does bring us to
Speaker 2: our question.
Speaker 1: Pasta salad? What is it? Well, pasta and or macaroni
Speaker 1: salads can be a lot of things, as is frequently
Speaker 1: the case with salads, but what you are basically looking
Speaker 1: at is a savory mixture of cooked white wheat pasta,
Speaker 1: usually in bite sized pieces, plus additions like chopped vegetables, pickles,
Speaker 1: meat or cheese, seasoned with salt and pepper, and herbs
Speaker 1: and spices of your choice, all tossed in some kind
Speaker 1: of fatty dressing that'll help the flavors and physical ingredients
Speaker 1: cohese form of cohesion, yeah, come together. Yes, perhaps obviously.
Speaker 1: If it's a macaroni salad, the pasta used will specifically
Speaker 1: be elbow macaroni, which is a type of small diameter,
Speaker 1: short cut tube pasta that has a slight bend to
Speaker 1: the tube, rather like an elbow. This shape, as with
Speaker 1: many of the shapes used for pasta salads, has a
Speaker 1: lot of surface area that can kind of glom up
Speaker 1: the dressing and the seasonings. These salads are served chilled
Speaker 1: or room temperature as a side dish, often during hot
Speaker 1: summer weather when you'd want something cool, often at a
Speaker 1: picnic or cookout sort of situation where people are bringing
Speaker 1: dishes for a large group. But it can just be
Speaker 1: like a nice side for a lunch plate or a sandwich.
Speaker 1: A pasta salad is a vehicle for like cool vegetable
Speaker 1: flavors and smooth texture with a bit of pleasant shoe
Speaker 1: and sometimes crunch, and it's filling without feeling too heavy.
Speaker 1: Hopefully it's like it's like sitting dockside or pool side
Speaker 1: on a bright day in the cool shade, or at
Speaker 1: least I imagine if you enjoy pasta salads, that's what
Speaker 1: it would be like.
Speaker 2: I was about to say, I appreciate how much effort
Speaker 2: you're going to hide your derision, isn't it is? It's
Speaker 2: the temperature you don't like, correct, It's.
Speaker 1: The texture that you usually get from I just I
Speaker 1: don't want my pasta to be cold. I don't understand why.
Speaker 1: I don't understand why you're making pasta and then it's
Speaker 1: not warm. And I can in vision a pasta salad
Speaker 1: that I would enjoy. And I've thought a lot about
Speaker 1: this over the past few days of doing reading okay good,
Speaker 1: I think I think if it was like an orzo,
Speaker 1: like a very small pasta, because I don't mind cool
Speaker 1: like like couscous type dishes, yea, So so I can
Speaker 1: envision like a like a like a olive oil based
Speaker 1: orzo pasta salad with like nice bright herbs, I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe some cheese or tomato or something in there. I
Speaker 1: can envision somewhere out there there's a pasta salad for you.
Speaker 1: It's just not mayo based macaroni salad. I don't think
Speaker 1: that's okay, but but okay, So beyond beyond the two
Speaker 1: of us, In places where pasta salad is popular and
Speaker 1: or traditional, there are opinions about the right or wraw
Speaker 1: or best or worst ways to make a pasta salad.
Speaker 1: And those places are mostly areas where like Italian pasta
Speaker 1: making traditions have interacted with Eastern to Southern European mixed
Speaker 1: salad making traditions. Of course, food is a globalized phenomenon.
Speaker 1: You get lots of pockets and rifts in there, but okay.
Speaker 1: Dressings for pasta salad come in two basic categories, under
Speaker 1: which there are many iterations, so creamy versus non creamy.
Speaker 1: The creaminess can come from mayo or mao substitutes which
Speaker 1: contain no dairy and or something dairy based like sour
Speaker 1: cream or like a caesar or ranch dressing. The non
Speaker 1: creamy versions will be oil based, sometimes a neutral oil,
Speaker 1: but sometimes a flavorful one like a peanut or sesame
Speaker 1: oil or blend. There are schools of thought about whether
Speaker 1: a tangy ingredient should be added to the dressing, like
Speaker 1: a vinegar or a lemon juice, or even whether a
Speaker 1: tangy based like miracle whip or sour cream are appropriate.
Speaker 1: There are schools of thought about whether sweet elements are
Speaker 1: appropriate in the dressing, like a ketchup or maybe just sugar.
Speaker 1: Whatever your choices. People will play off of those dressings
Speaker 1: with all kinds of different seasonings. Fresh herbs like basil, thyme,
Speaker 1: mint or cilantro, fresh air, dried hot peppers, citrus, zest,
Speaker 1: minced garlic or chives, maybe some mustard, grated parmesan or cottilla, cheese,
Speaker 1: sesame seeds, hot sauce. I don't know. There are strong
Speaker 1: opinions out there about every possible ingredient you could add,
Speaker 1: and what the texture should be like, like should the
Speaker 1: ingredients match the texture of the pasta like tender and
Speaker 1: or chewy or should they be crunchy related should fresh
Speaker 1: vegetables be raw or blanched or cooked? For those vegetables,
Speaker 1: you might have carrots, celery, sweet peppers, cucumber, broccoli, peas, corn, tomatoes, onions.
Speaker 1: A lot of recipes will add a pickled or brined element,
Speaker 1: like whatever of pickled cucumber or peppers, or olives or capers.
Speaker 1: A protein element might include something like a crumbled bacon
Speaker 1: or sausage, maybe some chopped salami, boiled shrimp, smoked fish,
Speaker 1: chunks of a fresh cheese like feta or mozzarella, chopped
Speaker 1: hard boiled egg, maybe some crunchy pine nuts or walnuts.
Speaker 1: I mean, at a certain point here, I'm just listing foods,
Speaker 1: you know, Like it's a salad, like you can put
Speaker 1: whatever you want in it and be aware that someone
Speaker 1: will probably argue about whether it belongs there.
Speaker 2: Indeed, the salad is your oyster. But you know that
Speaker 2: you could go too far.
Speaker 1: You can fly too close to the salad sun. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: People do also have preferences about the types of pasta
Speaker 1: that you use. You know that elbow macaroni versus a
Speaker 1: bowtie versus shells or rotini or orzo or ramen or tortalini.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Also, is that pasta white or it
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be dyed other colors?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you, wouldn't dare no. What I can
Speaker 1: give you, though, is a science tip. So okay, if
Speaker 1: you're making a pasta salad, you do not want to
Speaker 1: cook your pasta al dente because you're not serving it hot. Aldenti.
Speaker 1: Pasta served hot has a lovely bit of chew to it,
Speaker 1: like that's the point. And it has that texture because
Speaker 1: you've cooked it just so. The starches and the pasta
Speaker 1: to latinize and go all woobly and tender and chewy.
Speaker 1: But when starch is cool, they realign themselves into a
Speaker 1: crystalline structure that's stiff and pushes water out like this
Speaker 1: is the reason that bread goes stale over time, and
Speaker 1: it's called retrogradation. So when you're making pasta salad, you
Speaker 1: have to for that. That means that you cook your
Speaker 1: pasta a couple of minutes longer than you normally would,
Speaker 1: let it go softer, and then as it cools, it'll
Speaker 1: retrograde back to the firmness that you're looking for. Also,
Speaker 1: since this is a dish that's going to sit at
Speaker 1: least until it cools to room temperature or colder, definitely
Speaker 1: give it a taste before serving and adjust the seasoning
Speaker 1: is necessary.
Speaker 2: I love this pasta salad science tips. You've got to
Speaker 2: know whoa what about The nutrition.
Speaker 1: Really really depends, you know, hydrate Yep, yep, that's rue sah,
Speaker 1: that's eat a vegetable that's not in a pasta salad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 1: We do. Okay, So humans enjoy pasta in general. As
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two, we were producing about seventeen million
Speaker 1: tons of it a year. Wow, which is a number
Speaker 1: that I don't have a good concept of. It's a bunch.
Speaker 1: A you Gov poll conducted in twenty twenty five showed
Speaker 1: that Americans enjoy a macaroni salad. Ninety six percent of
Speaker 1: US are familiar with it and sixty three percent of
Speaker 1: us like it, So I'm in the minority. That's fine.
Speaker 1: And they found that the UK has similar feelings about
Speaker 1: pasta salad about ninety eight percent are familiar sixty one
Speaker 1: percent like it. Interesting though, I think the American question
Speaker 1: might have specifically been about a creamy like mayo dressing salad,
Speaker 1: and the UK question was specifically about a non creamy
Speaker 1: pasta salad.
Speaker 2: I think we had a listener write in about that
Speaker 2: about potato salad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, question, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, listener's right in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I will say it's popular enough in the United States
Speaker 1: that Ted Ed did an animated short talking about like
Speaker 1: molecules and different types of mixtures, you know, like solutions
Speaker 1: versus suspensions, and they were using macaroni salad as their
Speaker 1: like main metaphor or possibly similarly. I didn't watch the video.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's interesting to me because pasta salad,
Speaker 1: I know, make some people angry When I say this,
Speaker 1: it feels like such an afterthought to me. Oh, like,
Speaker 1: it's like the thing that's there, but it's not what
Speaker 1: you're there. It's not what you're there for, right, But
Speaker 1: I know there are some people who would disagree with
Speaker 1: me heartily. Oh absolutely. I will get into some of
Speaker 1: that in the history section, but first we are going
Speaker 1: to get into a quick break for a word from
Speaker 1: our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Okay.
Speaker 2: So the origins of pasta slash macaroni salad, they are
Speaker 2: a bit of a tooss up.
Speaker 1: See what I did there? Oh hey heyah finger guns?
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, so yeah, you can see our Shapes
Speaker 1: of Pasta episode for more about this. But historians really
Speaker 1: love arguing about who invented pasta and when and based
Speaker 1: on what cultural influences. But whatever the case, it seems
Speaker 1: to have existed around the Italian peninsula by the eleven
Speaker 1: hundreds or so, and perhaps concentrated in like southern Italy
Speaker 1: and Sicily. Other confusion fun with etymology. So in American English,
Speaker 1: when you say macaroni, you almost certainly mean elbow macaroni
Speaker 1: as defined above, But in Italian and perhaps especially historically,
Speaker 1: the macaroni can be used to describe any type of
Speaker 1: pasta that is made from hard wheat flour dough and
Speaker 1: then dried and like sold dry, So that's that's cool.
Speaker 1: Extrusion methods to produce different three dimensional pasta shapes, like
Speaker 1: tube shapes, were invented sometime around the sixteen hundreds, and
Speaker 1: the Industrial Revolution made grain processing and pasta making more efficient,
Speaker 1: and so dried pastas were common around Italy for everyday
Speaker 1: people by like the late seventeen hundreds. Mm, that is
Speaker 1: very brief. That is a very brief summer, is it.
Speaker 2: We're both like holding up our hands. Yes, we understand
Speaker 2: the whole history there, but for the macaroni salad, it
Speaker 2: is believed to be an American innovation that took place
Speaker 2: so time in the early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so like waves of Italian immigrants had brought over
Speaker 1: dried pastas and like the technological know how to make
Speaker 1: them starting in the early eighteen hundreds, American recipes for
Speaker 1: pasta or being printed by like the eighteen twenties. We
Speaker 1: had a pasta manufacturers association by nineteen oh four, so right,
Speaker 1: so it was becoming a common product.
Speaker 2: Rites and media outlets were publishing recipes for macaroni salads
Speaker 2: by nineteen fourteen. Okay, so now while we don't know
Speaker 2: for sure the history, there are some prevailing theories. One
Speaker 2: is that pasta salad is a melding of a lot
Speaker 2: of cultures that perhaps came together based on available ingredients
Speaker 2: in different communities interacting with each other. In the US,
Speaker 2: the pasta from Italy the tradition of mayo based dressings
Speaker 2: from Germany, kind of like potato salad. In fact, sometime
Speaker 2: around the nineteen thirties, pasta salad was touted as a
Speaker 2: cheap version of potato salad in some places. In the
Speaker 2: ensuing decades, pasta salad was a popular side dish at delis.
Speaker 2: In nineteen thirty seven, Crafts Macaroni and Cheese debuted, which
Speaker 2: isn't macaroni salad, but I'm sure led to a lot
Speaker 2: more people getting familiar with this type of pasta. A
Speaker 2: lot of these early pasta salad recipes were typically molded
Speaker 2: and served chilled. Generally, a macaroni salad was dressed with mayo,
Speaker 2: and a pasta salad was dressed with vinegarrette. And a
Speaker 2: lot of what it came down to was what do
Speaker 2: you got in your pantry. What's a cheap filling dish
Speaker 2: that I can make with what I have?
Speaker 1: Use some stuff up, let's go exactly Worth pointing out, though,
Speaker 1: that some researchers believe that the pasta salad is rooted
Speaker 1: in Italian Jewish cuisine. Yeah, so, in traditional Jewish culture,
Speaker 1: you don't cook from sundown to sundown on the weekly
Speaker 1: Sabbath because cooking is work, and work is prohibited, you know,
Speaker 1: supposed to be a day of reflection and rest. But
Speaker 1: as checkers will point out, you got to eat. So
Speaker 1: dishes that can be pre made and are in are good,
Speaker 1: you know, like cold to room temperature are an entire thing.
Speaker 1: And there have been Jewish communities in Italy since before
Speaker 1: there was pasta in Italy, Like like dried pastas have
Speaker 1: been part of Silian Jewish cuisine since the fourteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: They were picking it up earlier than a lot of
Speaker 1: other pockets of Italian culture. So it would make sense
Speaker 1: if pasta salads happened there centuries before they happened here,
Speaker 1: though direct evidence is kind of scant, Like, there are
Speaker 1: definitely recipes from the nineteen hundreds that are now traditional
Speaker 1: for like cool to room temperature pasta dishes, though they
Speaker 1: tend to be more saucy and like less salady. Think
Speaker 1: of some kind of pasta and like a tartan spicy
Speaker 1: tomato sauce, or or maybe like a cooked down garlic
Speaker 1: and anchovy and olive oil dressing kind of situation. There's
Speaker 1: some Orthodox Jewish communities in the States have definitely picked
Speaker 1: up like American style pasta salads. I love this. It's
Speaker 1: such a mess of trying to figure out where any
Speaker 1: of this came from. Yeah, yeah, it helps that you know,
Speaker 1: mayo doesn't have dairy in it, and so you're not
Speaker 1: gonna you're not gonna mix milk and meat, which is
Speaker 1: another prohibition in a single meal by eating a mayo
Speaker 1: based salad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fascinating listeners. I'm really hoping you all write in.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So kind of going off of that, there were a
Speaker 2: lot of regional varieties that came up over the years
Speaker 2: of pasta salads and macroni salad, which does bring us
Speaker 2: to the Hawaiian macaroni salad aside, which again this is
Speaker 2: very brief and could be its covering. Yes, so a
Speaker 2: quick description upfront. Hawaiian versions of mac salad modernly are
Speaker 2: usually ma based dressing with grated onion, other graded or
Speaker 2: shredded ingredients like carrot, cabbage, and or hard boiled egg
Speaker 2: seasoned simply with salt, pepper, and a bit of sugar,
Speaker 2: and it served as a side with plate lunches. Yes,
Speaker 2: some theories behind how the Hawaiian version came to be
Speaker 2: revolve around European and American lead hotels that were housed
Speaker 2: with European and American lead shifts opening in Hawaii around
Speaker 2: this time, which explains the foreign ingredients of pasta and mayo.
Speaker 2: Another piece may be European and mainland US plantation owners
Speaker 2: who relied on local Asian chefs and producers. So all
Speaker 2: these things, but outside of the hotel scene, this max
Speaker 2: salad was a cheap, filling dish that could sustain workers
Speaker 2: doing grueling manual labor. It was customizable. It balanced out
Speaker 2: a lot of the salty, sweet heaviness of frequently tinned
Speaker 2: sauced meats and rice that these laborers would enjoy. It
Speaker 2: does provide a nice we had some Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it cuts through some acidity and saltiness.
Speaker 3: It's really great. Yeah.
Speaker 2: According to one article I read about it, potatoes dipped
Speaker 2: in homemade mayo. The jarred stuff at the store was
Speaker 2: too expensive, so homemade mayo and show you once was
Speaker 2: a popular snack in Hawaii, and it wasn't hard to
Speaker 2: make the jump to macaroni salad from there. Some of
Speaker 2: the folks interviewed for this piece said that they had
Speaker 2: heard stories of pushcart vendors working along Honolulu's waterfront selling
Speaker 2: two scoops of rice, a choice of protein or stew,
Speaker 2: and a scoop of mac salad by the nineteen twenties
Speaker 2: and thirties, which is very much like.
Speaker 1: The plate lunch. Yep, yep, that's it. So again, very brief,
Speaker 1: but we'll put that on the bookmark to do read.
Speaker 1: I returned to Yeah.
Speaker 2: Nineteen sixties articles from the New York Times included several
Speaker 2: recipes for pasta salads. In the nineteen eighties, the number
Speaker 2: of pasta salad recipes grew exponentially in the United States,
Speaker 2: coinciding with the larger availability of more pasta shapes, sizes,
Speaker 2: and even colors, as part of the growing affinity in
Speaker 2: the United States for novelle French cuisine. That isn't to
Speaker 2: say the cheaper nostalgic versions went away.
Speaker 1: The field just expanded. Yeah yeah. In this version of
Speaker 1: nouvelle cuisine, fancy chefs were playing with ingredients and presentation
Speaker 1: and in a move away from like the stuffy, heavy,
Speaker 1: complex cuisine which had been the fashion for decades. This
Speaker 1: like nineteen seventies to eighties version of nouvelle cuisine was
Speaker 1: focused on making the most of fresh ingredients and it
Speaker 1: was playful, like rethinking traditional dishes for a pertinent to today. Example,
Speaker 1: in the early eighties, this Italian chef of Gualtierro Marchesi
Speaker 1: did a pasta salad that was long spaghetti dressed with
Speaker 1: olive oil, salt and shives, topped with caviar and maybe
Speaker 1: a pinch of minced shallat, served slightly chilled. And that's
Speaker 1: a very posh example. Okay, but like, yeah, like this
Speaker 1: this was a time when Americans discovered olive oil. Uh.
Speaker 1: And also we're realizing that, like everything doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be drenched in mayo all the time. There's other options. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so right, we got some more varieties here, Yes, And
Speaker 1: I think my mom makes one that probably was influenced
Speaker 1: by that. It's like angel hair and olives and tomatoes
Speaker 1: and capers and it's just all oil lovely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so nice, it's nice, it's nice.
Speaker 2: She also makes a ramen one which I've talked about before.
Speaker 2: Yeah really, okay, sometime around here I couldn't find an
Speaker 2: exact date, but sometime around here, American companies started selling
Speaker 2: boxed pasta salad kits and stores, and pre made pasta
Speaker 2: salads at grocery stores as well.
Speaker 1: I love.
Speaker 2: I have witnessed these. My mom had, she made some.
Speaker 2: I love how they're called. It is like suddenly surprised.
Speaker 2: They have a name that makes it sound like the
Speaker 2: pasta salad is attacking.
Speaker 1: You or something.
Speaker 2: But if you've seen like these box salad kits, you've
Speaker 2: probably seen this one.
Speaker 1: Uh, simply surprised. I think that's what it is.
Speaker 2: But you just like, get your cook the pasta, put
Speaker 2: in your ranch probably ranch esque dressing in there, and
Speaker 2: then that's at whatever you want, and that's it. Pasta
Speaker 2: salad still available. I checked at my store.
Speaker 1: There you go, yeah, yeah, yeah. I now I'm a
Speaker 1: little bit determined. Now I'm like, Okay, maybe maybe I'll
Speaker 1: turn myself around on pasta salad. Maybe I will figure
Speaker 1: out maybe I just don't like it. Maybe I just
Speaker 1: don't like it, and that's fine too, But I'm going
Speaker 1: to try. I'm going to make a concerted effort, an
Speaker 1: honest yeah.
Speaker 3: Try.
Speaker 1: I did find a list of somebody rated like the
Speaker 1: top pasta salads you could get at the store, and
Speaker 1: I think the number one was an orzo salad.
Speaker 2: So I think there's hope for you. People certainly are doing.
Speaker 2: I couldn't find a lot of more recent numbers than this,
Speaker 2: but people are certainly trying all kinds of things with
Speaker 2: pasta salad right now. So if you are interested, it
Speaker 2: is out there for you.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Yeah, the Internet would love to serve
Speaker 1: you a list of twenty nine creative pasta salad takes.
Speaker 1: It would love it so much, It very much would.
Speaker 2: And to be honest, I don't know about Lauren, but
Speaker 2: I would love for you listeners to send in your
Speaker 2: pasta salad recipe.
Speaker 1: Yes, oh absolutely, yeah. Yeah, But that's what we have
Speaker 1: to say about pasta salads for now. It is. We
Speaker 1: do already have some listener mail for you, though, and
Speaker 1: we are going to get into that as soon as
Speaker 1: we get back from one more quick break for a
Speaker 1: word from our sponsors. And we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you, And we're back with this. That's what's going
Speaker 1: on there, because I feel like the pasta salad does
Speaker 1: a vocal lot of questions, some of them good, some
Speaker 1: of them bad, and sometimes apparently you are suddenly surprised
Speaker 1: by apasta salad coming together. So yeah, yeah, yeah, if that.
Speaker 2: The whole brand is basically about being like whoa came together? Okay,
Speaker 2: so we've gotten a lot of delightful listener mail about
Speaker 2: violets and pictures related to violets.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. Yes, growing and some
Speaker 1: of your lawns. So that's been wonderful. Keep that up.
Speaker 1: So first we have Randall wrote, I just finished listening
Speaker 1: to your Violet episode. Our property came with a half
Speaker 1: acre lawn which I am turning into a meadow, mostly
Speaker 1: by not mowing areas. To our joy, a big section
Speaker 1: is all violets, and in the spring it is a
Speaker 1: carpet of purple. Sadly, I have not been able to
Speaker 1: get a good photo of it, so I am attaching
Speaker 1: a photo of our two dogs, Maple the retriever and Martin,
Speaker 1: the poodle. I am now looking for slightly recipes. Seems
Speaker 1: mostly salads and cooked greens. M yep, yep ye that
Speaker 1: is what I found as well. Cocktail Yeah sure sure,
Speaker 1: but yeah, thank you. Uh for a pet photo as
Speaker 1: always it is. It's really sweet, uh, Martin, the poodle
Speaker 1: appears very majestic, if slightly distracted and or confused, which
Speaker 1: I think is a pretty good description of most poodles.
Speaker 1: And uh, and Maple, which is a great name for
Speaker 1: a retriever, is doing the uh, the very serious I
Speaker 1: am a hunting dog and I am behind grass and
Speaker 1: you cannot see me kind of pose, which is very sweet. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's very adorable. And this meadow in the background, it
Speaker 1: looks beautiful. Oh yeah, yeah yeah. And kill your lawn
Speaker 1: that's great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, mm hmmmm mmmm.
Speaker 1: Garrett wrote, I really enjoyed your Sezon episode as I
Speaker 1: am a craft beer enthusiast, home brewer and former craft
Speaker 1: brewery sales representative. Like the commonly repeated but now debunked
Speaker 1: IPA origin story, many a time have I heard the
Speaker 1: tales of farmers using leftovers and brewing these beers for
Speaker 1: seasonal farm hands, and probably have assisted in spreading this misinformation.
Speaker 1: Shame on me. When I got into home brewing, I
Speaker 1: did not have ways to control my fermentation temperatures, and
Speaker 1: I was drawn to the allure of throwing whatever you
Speaker 1: want in the mix. As these style guidelines accepted in
Speaker 1: the US are broad. It was the first of my
Speaker 1: beers that people ever asked for second servings of, and
Speaker 1: over a couple years I developed a Jalipano Seyson that
Speaker 1: became a favorite among friends, and eventually was commissioned to
Speaker 1: brew batch for a wedding which had a taco bar.
Speaker 1: Talk about a perfect pairing. I sold beer as a
Speaker 1: supplier rep for a small craft brewery in Virginia for
Speaker 1: a few years, and one of our core offerings has
Speaker 1: been a Seeson since the early days of operation. It
Speaker 1: has won t UK to Great American Beer Festival awards
Speaker 1: and is quite popular with fans of the style. As
Speaker 1: I began to work with beer buyers at restaurants, I
Speaker 1: quickly found out Seyson has a bad reputation for not
Speaker 1: selling well in our home area, and many people mockingly
Speaker 1: referred to the style as stays on, as in it
Speaker 1: stays in tap for way too long, taking up line
Speaker 1: space where better selling beers could shine. This changed once
Speaker 1: I crossed the border to sell beer in Washington, d C,
Speaker 1: which has a vibrant restaurant and foody scene. Almost to
Speaker 1: a person, chefs and buyers preferred the season over our
Speaker 1: other options, where in Virginia it was the opposite, with
Speaker 1: West Coast Style IPA being the top dog. It speaks
Speaker 1: to the point you made in your episode about Seyson
Speaker 1: being a great food pairing option. We tended to recommend
Speaker 1: it for places with seafood or complex cheeses on their menus.
Speaker 1: In closing, I urged you and your listeners to support Seyson.
Speaker 1: It's a great style that has a wide range, and
Speaker 1: it's really fun to play with finding your favorite pairings.
Speaker 1: Cheers and thanks for all your amazing episodes to keep
Speaker 1: me informed, entertained, and craving almost anything you talk about.
Speaker 2: Check and check yes Saison's and finding my favorite pairing
Speaker 2: with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh I am I Yeah, I like I like that.
Speaker 1: That week I went out and was like, okay, let's
Speaker 1: find let's find some good ones. Yes, I'm pretty determined
Speaker 1: to do like a cheese pairing. Okay, yeah, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm bad at I'm bad at like drink pairings. But
Speaker 1: but my cheese plate game is only increasing, my power
Speaker 1: is only growing. My knee jerk reaction is nervousness at that.
Speaker 1: But you're gonna get.
Speaker 2: Too much cheese power, Lauren, it's gonna go to your head.
Speaker 1: But I do love a cheese plate, so I also
Speaker 1: what do I do here? Yeah? But yeah, but but
Speaker 1: but think thank you? Oh and I and I love
Speaker 1: it is I get so I get kind of anxious
Speaker 1: about our beer episodes because home like like home brewers
Speaker 1: and craft brewers are so passionate about what they do.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I never want to pick anyone off.
Speaker 1: That's not what I'm here for. But I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't want to disappoint you. So so every every
Speaker 1: time we hear back from someone that level of knowledge
Speaker 1: and passion that they actually like to beer episode, I'm like,
Speaker 1: think the kech that's really nice. That's really good to hear.
Speaker 1: Thank you, absolutely, and it's so cool to hear these
Speaker 1: differences that you saw. Yeah, areas also hearing about your
Speaker 1: jalapino brew.
Speaker 2: Yeah, taco bar.
Speaker 1: That sounds depicious.
Speaker 2: But we always love hearing from you listeners who have
Speaker 2: this on the ground experience, oh yeah, as opposed to
Speaker 2: our kind of research we're both making like typing, yeah,
Speaker 2: like like academic and scare quotes kind of kind of
Speaker 2: experience of things. Yes, So we really appreciate it yeah,
Speaker 2: anyone who takes the time to write in, thank you,
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yes, yes, and thanks to both of these
Speaker 2: listeners for writing in. If you would like to write
Speaker 2: to us, you can. Our email is hello at savorpod
Speaker 2: dot com.
Speaker 1: We're also on social media. You can find us on
Speaker 1: Blue Sky and Instagram at saver pod and we do
Speaker 1: hope to hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Speaker 1: Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
Speaker 1: that lots more good things are coming your way.