Speaker 1: My name is Evil Longoria and I am Myra and
Speaker 1: welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores our
Speaker 1: past and present through food. On every episode, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients,
Speaker 1: and beverages from our culture.
Speaker 2: So make yourself at home.
Speaker 3: Even you've been wanting to do a canny episode since
Speaker 3: I been.
Speaker 4: Wanting since I did Searching for Spain. When we went
Speaker 4: to Studias, which is a very tough, rugged, hard land
Speaker 4: to live on the canning and preservative game, there was
Speaker 4: like next level. I'm literally like I need to start
Speaker 4: canning and preserving, and it just was like their pantries
Speaker 4: are full of like all these preservatives, and I was like.
Speaker 3: I want to learn this. Do you can at all?
Speaker 3: Do I know?
Speaker 4: I've never canned in my life. That's a lie. That's
Speaker 4: a lie because my dad used to when we were young,
Speaker 4: and I remember like maybe oranges or something.
Speaker 2: Peaches, peaches. It was peaches. We canned peaches in those
Speaker 2: little mason jars. Have you canned before?
Speaker 4: I am I the only exciting excited one about this.
Speaker 3: No, I'm excited about canning too. I mean I always
Speaker 3: have canned. I have lots of canned things in my
Speaker 3: pantry always. But there is my great grandmother's recipe for
Speaker 3: China's chipotless. It's like in vinegar with and peppercorns and cloves,
Speaker 3: so that I make. But but but I don't know
Speaker 3: if it's like the proper canning, like sterilize the cans
Speaker 3: and all of that.
Speaker 2: I just yeah, you just throw it in a mason
Speaker 2: jar and seal.
Speaker 3: It up and seal it up, yeah, and call it
Speaker 3: a day. But I have made pickles.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, oh you know what, we made pickles.
Speaker 3: You're right.
Speaker 4: In Texas, we did pepinos. I mean you would do
Speaker 4: cucumbers and then yeah, that was a big thing. They
Speaker 4: never tasted as good as the ones you bought at
Speaker 4: the baseball stadium.
Speaker 2: So I just we never. I was like, this is dumb,
Speaker 2: But it's so.
Speaker 4: Funny because I grew up with canned things, not knowing like, wow,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of like we would open a can
Speaker 4: of soup for dinner.
Speaker 2: We'd open a can of chili, you know, wolf bran chili.
Speaker 4: For dinner. We'd open a can of spinach. I would
Speaker 4: eat spinach out of a can. Oh really, yes, I
Speaker 4: loved I still loved spinach this day. But like the
Speaker 4: Vienna sausages, I grew up on that stuff too. Yes,
Speaker 4: it's a big part.
Speaker 3: Of my life. Loop And now like what do you
Speaker 3: usually have like witter now your staine.
Speaker 4: I don't have a lot of canned stuff. I mean
Speaker 4: you know what I do always. I always have Chipotlet,
Speaker 4: canned chilis. I mean at Chipotlet, I'll have kalapennos, I'll
Speaker 4: those always, Tomato paste and tomato sauce, like that's in
Speaker 4: my pantry, canned because it goes in everything Mexican. And
Speaker 4: I have beans, a lot of canned beans. I love
Speaker 4: cannellini beans. I like northern white beans. I always have
Speaker 4: canned pinto beans, even though I make fresh pinto beans.
Speaker 4: I still it's like in case of emergency. Yeah, yeah, what.
Speaker 3: Do you add I have been? I have usually have
Speaker 3: black beans, the white northern beans, garbonzo beans, all garbonzo.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Tomato sauces, I have to tuna beans. I always
Speaker 4: have cantuna.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't have anchov rais and sardines or any of that,
Speaker 4: which in Spain it's a huge thing, huge thing. Canned
Speaker 4: seafood in Spain is the best in the world. I
Speaker 4: had canned mussels, I had canned clams, canned oysters, like
Speaker 4: they can everything fresh out of the water. So it's
Speaker 4: a big thing in Spain to have canned seafood. And
Speaker 4: I literally fell in love with it, but only in
Speaker 4: I love that stuff. Yeah, I grew up.
Speaker 3: I grew up with all those canned foods because my
Speaker 3: grandfather always had the canned oysters and canvas and can that,
Speaker 3: so I love it. I often have can sardines, little
Speaker 3: lemon juice and that's my lunch.
Speaker 2: Yes, I love that.
Speaker 4: You know what made me think about doing this episode
Speaker 4: was people think the tomato is endemic to Italy, and
Speaker 4: when I was doing searching for Mexico and they were like, nope,
Speaker 4: tomatoes endemic to meso America and Mexico. That the reason
Speaker 4: why Italians are so famous for it is because they
Speaker 4: were the first to can it.
Speaker 2: And then I thought, oh my god, interesting, and.
Speaker 4: That kind of sparked this whole like when did this
Speaker 4: canning thing begin? And I know food preservation has a
Speaker 4: long history, and like you know, the smoking of meats
Speaker 4: or the what are you calling not the smoke now smoking?
Speaker 2: Like how many batya? What is that?
Speaker 4: Salting, salting, curing, curing, salting, Like I always knew that
Speaker 4: about meats and fish, but I didn't know what about
Speaker 4: like you know, we had like a tomato or a
Speaker 4: peach and when things are out of season.
Speaker 2: How when did that begin?
Speaker 3: Well, the canning specifically, so canning canning kind of emerged
Speaker 3: in the eighteenth century as the sort of the canning
Speaker 3: that we're familiar with today. In the eighteenth century armies
Speaker 3: of revolutionary France, they were setting out to build this empire.
Speaker 3: So generals were encountering this problem of Okay, what are
Speaker 3: we going to feed our troops? So they needed food.
Speaker 3: You can't feed a bunch of troops, you know, fresh
Speaker 3: fish or fresh produce. So in seventeen ninety five, the
Speaker 3: French Directory that was this government during the final years
Speaker 3: of the French Revolution, they offered a prize of twelve
Speaker 3: thousand francs, which is the equivalent of about two hundred
Speaker 3: and forty thousand dollars today for a method of preserving
Speaker 3: food for military campaigns. So this is when it just
Speaker 3: sort of started. So it was one in eighteen oh nine,
Speaker 3: so fourteen years later or fifteen years whatever that math is.
Speaker 3: By a man named Nicholas aper Of. He experimented for
Speaker 3: all of this time and part of his win was
Speaker 3: to write a book on this process.
Speaker 4: So a French dude, a French dude. He was from Champagne,
Speaker 4: the region of Champagne. Oh my gosh, Jane.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this guy, he didn't have a formal education,
Speaker 3: but he was the son of an innkeeper and he
Speaker 3: was interested in food, and he learned how to brew beer.
Speaker 3: He learned how to pick all from his father. And
Speaker 3: then he moved to Paris in seventeen eighty and he
Speaker 3: became a popular confectioner, been a confessionary slash grocery store,
Speaker 3: and he was very vocal against the monarchy. He donated
Speaker 3: to the.
Speaker 2: Revolutionary seventeen eighty who wasn't in France.
Speaker 3: Yeah, most people were like yeah, except for unless you
Speaker 3: were the one percent, right, but most people were yeah.
Speaker 3: So in the seventeen nineties, he around the time that
Speaker 3: this prize kind of emerged, he began selling fresh produce
Speaker 3: in his grocery store. So this led to his interest
Speaker 3: in food preservation. You're selling produce, it's not selling, so
Speaker 3: this led to his interest.
Speaker 4: He wasn't like a scientist, he was just a dude
Speaker 4: that had a grocery store and ended up like winning
Speaker 4: this prize on preserving food and then documented it in
Speaker 4: this book.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, he wasn't a scientist. Although scientists had been
Speaker 3: studying and writing about this sort of micro organisms and food,
Speaker 3: but nobody really understood you know, the science of it, right,
Speaker 3: And so he wrote that book. It was called The
Speaker 3: Art of Preserving All Kinds of Animal and Vegetable Substances
Speaker 3: for several years. I love that that's the title.
Speaker 4: It sounds so today, like the art of like all
Speaker 4: kinds of like animal and vegetable.
Speaker 3: Substances for several years. That's a funny t it's like
Speaker 3: keeps going on. And so this book was translated into
Speaker 3: English and it was sold in England and it was
Speaker 3: sold in the US. And he describes, you know, different
Speaker 3: processes for different foods. But I love that.
Speaker 4: I love that he used the money, this prize money
Speaker 4: to open up a canning factory. And he was the
Speaker 4: one in eighteen twelve that switched to these tin plated
Speaker 4: cans basically what we used today.
Speaker 3: It's kind of what we used today. But the original
Speaker 3: tin plated cans were iron cans, so that they have led.
Speaker 2: So this was a problem, a little bit of a
Speaker 2: little bit.
Speaker 3: Of a problem, a slight problem that there was lead
Speaker 3: in your in your can. But this guy was amazing.
Speaker 3: He also developed bouoleon cubes.
Speaker 2: Bon like chicken and beef bouyon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he wasn't a scientist, but he developed all of
Speaker 3: these you know things, and so and what happened to him, Well,
Speaker 3: he just he spent so much money on his experiments.
Speaker 3: So he died in poverty at age.
Speaker 2: What he didn't die a ga billionaire.
Speaker 3: He didn't die. He wasn't a good businessman. You know,
Speaker 3: his equipment all of this was high. But he never
Speaker 3: he died not really fully understanding how like why his
Speaker 3: method worked. And he was ninety one though, so he
Speaker 3: lived a long long life and so, oh my god,
Speaker 3: all of his inventions were improved by modern devices.
Speaker 4: Well, I love I love that canning made the global
Speaker 4: food supply, you know, more accessible to like different parts
Speaker 4: of the world, like now you can have a Chipotle
Speaker 4: Chile if you live in India, right or whatever. And
Speaker 4: also how it made foods available outside of season and
Speaker 4: if you canned it, And so I really I feel
Speaker 4: like canning is so important because for farming. To farm
Speaker 4: outside of season really screws up the soil and all
Speaker 4: of that stuff, and so too like nope, you know,
Speaker 4: peach season is over. We're now moving on to this.
Speaker 4: But you know we have a storage of that stuff.
Speaker 4: So interesting that this dude is the one that really
Speaker 4: created so much of what we use today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's incredible to know that there are just people
Speaker 3: that are that are devoting their lives to improving the
Speaker 3: lives of others just by by preserving, which is something
Speaker 3: that's you know, has been around since prehistoric times. Like
Speaker 3: you said, salting and fermenting and all of this, but
Speaker 3: canning was just a whole other level.
Speaker 4: Well, when we come back, we're going to get into
Speaker 4: when cannon came to the United States and also where
Speaker 4: the word mason jar comes from.
Speaker 3: I'm excited about this.
Speaker 4: Okay, So now we're in the United States because this
Speaker 4: all happened in France and Europe and now in the
Speaker 4: United States. At French revolutions happened, American revolutions happened.
Speaker 3: We are now where are we We're in Pennsylvania. It's
Speaker 3: eighteen forty seven. We're in Pennsylvania and tomatoes. You talked
Speaker 3: about tomatoes native to meso America. At the time, tomatoes
Speaker 3: weren't fully accepted in the English speaking world, right, but
Speaker 3: there was a market. Yeah. They didn't like them, right, No,
Speaker 3: they were well, they were part of the night shade.
Speaker 3: They thought that maybe they were poisonous, so they didn't
Speaker 3: like them. They really like them. They thought they were poisonous. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So there was a marketing campaign by a canner in
Speaker 3: eighteen forty seven that sent samples to President and Poke,
Speaker 3: the US president, and to Queen Victoria, and they became
Speaker 3: a popular food, A common and popular food based on
Speaker 3: canning in Pennsylvania, So that I think is really cool.
Speaker 3: And then the first popular can product was condensed milk
Speaker 3: in eighteen fifty eight. It was in high demand by
Speaker 3: the Union army during the Civil War, and a parent
Speaker 3: in France had experimented with condensed milk before for the
Speaker 3: French government. My favorite thing, one of my favorite things
Speaker 3: in the world, is condensed milk.
Speaker 2: I know, I'm not a fan.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's just I know it's pure sugar.
Speaker 4: I just don't It's like, because you like flaun I
Speaker 4: associate it with flun Yes, I find this weird that
Speaker 4: people didn't know why canning worked, and then sometimes like
Speaker 4: the cans would like.
Speaker 2: Explode and the food would spoil.
Speaker 4: So like when did like these air tight containers work?
Speaker 2: And then when did like killed the microorganisms?
Speaker 3: And like all of.
Speaker 2: This feels like a job somebody figured out totally.
Speaker 3: It was a lot of trial and error, like I'm sure,
Speaker 3: and then iron, you know, cans have iron. So the
Speaker 3: someone that figured this out was Louis Pasteur in eighteen
Speaker 3: sixty four. So he eventually established this link between microbial
Speaker 3: contamination and spoilage, right, And there were earlier scientists that
Speaker 3: were experimenting with this process, right, but he was the
Speaker 3: one that really figured out that there was yeast involved
Speaker 3: in fermentation and discovered that bacteria were contaminating the process
Speaker 3: and this led to the development of pasteurization.
Speaker 4: Now I know that, like this is all fascinating, but
Speaker 4: it feels like home canning is what took off, like
Speaker 4: people at home, not this industrial like not an industrial
Speaker 4: market for it, but it feels like.
Speaker 2: Where this took off was in the home.
Speaker 4: And in eighteen fifty eight, John Mason of Philadelphia patent
Speaker 4: did the.
Speaker 2: First Mason jar and it was made from this.
Speaker 4: Heavyweight glass that could withstand high temperatures during the canning process,
Speaker 4: and his patent expired in eighteen seventy nine, but manufacturers
Speaker 4: like who did similar jars just continue to use his name.
Speaker 4: And that's why even today we say the Mason jar
Speaker 4: because of this dude and then did it and then
Speaker 4: during wartime right Inania. And I could see where this
Speaker 4: came in handy during during American wartime, because when you're
Speaker 4: serving in the military and they're rationing food and there's
Speaker 4: this like pressure to feed all of these people, it
Speaker 4: felt like, you know, canning was the answer. And so
Speaker 4: then artists were called on to make canning seemed patriotic
Speaker 4: with slogans like.
Speaker 2: Can all you can and of course you can.
Speaker 3: Is so funny, but that makes sense.
Speaker 4: I mean, how do you feed that many people fresh
Speaker 4: every day? You know?
Speaker 3: Yeah? But yeah, this is exactly what we said. This
Speaker 3: is when kind of home canning took off.
Speaker 4: I feel like we can't talk about canning without talking
Speaker 4: about spam.
Speaker 3: Do you have do you have a history with spam?
Speaker 3: I still love it as a kid, I love it.
Speaker 3: Do you have it now? Where did it come from?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: I don't have it now?
Speaker 3: Isn't it isn't it. Well, it's like it's salt. It
Speaker 3: has so much salt, right, but in nights.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's probably why I liked it when it was little.
Speaker 3: When I was little, we always it was a meal.
Speaker 3: It was a meal. I was like if I had
Speaker 3: a can of spam, it was like it was the
Speaker 3: best thing in the world. Now it's like going, now
Speaker 3: I think about the textures like, oh, but oh my gosh, but.
Speaker 2: That gelatin that comes out with it so gross.
Speaker 3: I know. Well, it's that spam only has seven ingredients
Speaker 3: back when it was developed, and now to today it
Speaker 3: has pork shoulders, hamahawk, salt water, a modified corn starts
Speaker 3: that serves as a binder, and study of nitrate as
Speaker 3: a preservative. But that's it. That's it.
Speaker 2: But still to this day, it all this.
Speaker 3: Day, it only has that.
Speaker 2: But where why was it? Was it amended for them.
Speaker 3: During the Great Depression, But it wasn't specifically. So when
Speaker 3: you mentioned, you know, the artist in this sort of
Speaker 3: sort of marketing campaign can all you can and all
Speaker 3: of that. So pork producers they weren't selling pork shoulder,
Speaker 3: which is a huge cut of meat, and they were like, right,
Speaker 3: I love I love it too, but they they weren't
Speaker 3: selling it, so they made a deal with Hormeal Foods
Speaker 3: to sell them, you know, the pork shoulder, and so
Speaker 3: they came up with spam and it corresponded with the
Speaker 3: Great Depression. So nineteen thirty seven is when Hormel Foods
Speaker 3: introduced spam, and it gave people a meat product during
Speaker 3: the Depression that they could have. It had a long
Speaker 3: shelf life, and then during the Second World War it
Speaker 3: was fed to soldiers. So in the First World War
Speaker 3: there were there was already canned foods, but they were
Speaker 3: kind of mystery meats, and at least with this, they
Speaker 3: knew what it was. Mystery meds, you know, they knew
Speaker 3: what they were. Funny.
Speaker 4: Well, well, look, I think it's still popular today all
Speaker 4: over the globe.
Speaker 3: After the war, even though soldiers had a love hate
Speaker 3: relationship with it, it made its way around the world.
Speaker 3: By nineteen forty five, it was all over the world.
Speaker 3: It's super popular. And like Hawaii and yeah, Hawaii, uh yeah,
Speaker 3: there is a spam museum in Minnesota. I want to go,
Speaker 3: we go, I want to go. I want to go
Speaker 3: to the spam museum, and I want to visit you
Speaker 3: know where princes farm.
Speaker 4: When did ganning arrive to Mexico, Because it feels like
Speaker 4: we were late to the game.
Speaker 3: So canning as a business in Latin America emerged under
Speaker 3: the Portfitiato, so after eighteen seventy six, So this is so. Yes,
Speaker 3: Mexico was late to the game. But they were importing
Speaker 3: a lot of canned goods from Europe. So if you
Speaker 3: mentioned all of those wonderful canned foods that you had
Speaker 3: in Spain, so a lot of those goods were entering
Speaker 3: Mexico from Spain, from France, or just decades after independence
Speaker 3: from Spain. Conservative Mexicans and wealthy expats they longed for
Speaker 3: the days of the European monarchy. So eventually man named Porfirio. Yes,
Speaker 3: he was a mesdiso from Wajaca. He loved everything France,
Speaker 3: everything French. Oh did he I didn't know that. He
Speaker 3: was a huge Francophile, and so he gained power and
Speaker 3: he ruled from eighteen seventy six to nineteen ten. But
Speaker 3: he embraced this notion that Mays had oppressed pre Columbian
Speaker 3: people and that salvation lay in the adoption of europe culture.
Speaker 3: So this was so, this French cuisine became very fashionable
Speaker 3: among urban Mexicans. So we see specialty shops in Mexico
Speaker 3: City and other major cities selling these gourmet pats and
Speaker 3: all of these can goods imported from Europe. And so
Speaker 3: what he did was he expanded foreign investments to Mexico
Speaker 3: and to help modernize the country. So this allowed businesses
Speaker 3: to prosper. Of course, the common people suffered because of
Speaker 3: rising food costs, and so this eventually led to the
Speaker 3: Mexican Revolution. But France played an important part in the
Speaker 3: industrialization of Mexico, and so by nineteen ten, the year
Speaker 3: of the revolution broke out, fifty five percent of foreign
Speaker 3: investment in Mexican industry was French.
Speaker 4: You know, when I was doing searching for Mexico, we
Speaker 4: went to Veracruz and we went to Halapa, and they
Speaker 4: said this was the first place to can Chile. And
Speaker 4: that's why it's called Halapennos. Halapennos. Yeah, because it was
Speaker 4: in the city of Halapa. It's not that the Chile
Speaker 4: is called Alapenno. It was just the place where they
Speaker 4: can this particular Chile cal Halapa. Now it's Allebeno. But
Speaker 4: I'm wondering is this the dude? This Don clemented Jacques,
Speaker 4: French businessman Jacques.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was importing can goods from Europe and he
Speaker 3: established the first canning factory in eighteen eighty seven, so
Speaker 3: the first kind of large scale canning factory. And he
Speaker 3: also had an ammunition business. This is so random. He
Speaker 3: printed ads invitations, party favors, and he's responsible for the
Speaker 3: Loteria game. What Yeah, so the Loteria game has a
Speaker 3: history that goes, you know, way way way back to Europe.
Speaker 3: But the images on the late game he is responsible for.
Speaker 3: So isn't that interesting? But he was French, he was French,
Speaker 3: he was I remember those ads is when I was
Speaker 3: a kid, Clement dejac Clement dejac, I remember the commercials
Speaker 3: when I was a kid. He was a pioneer in
Speaker 3: the canning industry. He was the first person to have
Speaker 3: a canning business in Latin America. So he started with
Speaker 3: the klapennos in escavech, and then he moved on to
Speaker 3: canned fruit, to jam salsaz petis, you know, tuna. But
Speaker 3: this idea of escavech is the Spanish term for pickling,
Speaker 3: for pickling, and it's this preservation process brought to Spain
Speaker 3: by the Moors, and then the Spanish brought this process
Speaker 3: to America where we start seeing calleween calapennios and escavech
Speaker 3: piggled klapenno's and they're a key in every kitchen. I
Speaker 3: have a huge topperware in my refrigerator always with kilapennos,
Speaker 3: and they vary right brand from brand to brand. They
Speaker 3: they really the flavors.
Speaker 2: They really do. There are certain ones that I like
Speaker 2: more than others. Me.
Speaker 4: Toolapenos are not canna a cannon jarred halapenos are not
Speaker 4: created equal.
Speaker 3: No, not at all. Even can canta canjlapenos.
Speaker 4: So after the break, we're talking about all things pickling,
Speaker 4: my favorite, one of my favorite, my other favorite things
Speaker 4: don't go anywhere.
Speaker 3: Do you love pickles?
Speaker 2: Do I love pickles?
Speaker 4: That's an understatement And it's so funny because Pepa hates
Speaker 4: pickles and he hates the smell. Like if I eat
Speaker 4: a pickle, He's like, did you eat a pickle? And
Speaker 4: it could be like three days later because I love
Speaker 4: vinegar and salt and oh, like my mouth is watering
Speaker 4: just talking about it.
Speaker 3: But I know.
Speaker 4: And so in Texas, pickles were a big part of
Speaker 4: our our diet.
Speaker 2: If you went to a baseball game, you would have pickles.
Speaker 4: If you went to a carnival, they were pickles, and
Speaker 4: we had that big, those big, and then we had
Speaker 4: spicy pickles that were like in a more spicy sauce.
Speaker 4: And I would have pickle with sour cumin onion chips.
Speaker 4: So you eat the chip and the pickle and the
Speaker 4: chip in the pick like this bag and for the
Speaker 4: bag and war and it's I mean, I reckon. I
Speaker 4: highly recommend this snack that actually sounds so good. Oh
Speaker 4: my god, SA sour cumin onion with a pickle, I
Speaker 4: just I can't even so wait, there's two basic categories
Speaker 4: of pickles. One is preserved in vinegar and a and
Speaker 4: a strong acid which which few bacteria can survive. And
Speaker 4: then the other pickles are soaked in a salt brine
Speaker 4: to encourage fermentation and the growth of good bacteria and
Speaker 4: like like kimchi and saurkraut like like that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So what are we eating today?
Speaker 3: I think it's the preserve the pickles preserved in vinegar.
Speaker 3: I think that that's what you're talking about. And that's
Speaker 3: what I love and I can I can drink that stuff.
Speaker 4: I could drink pickle do I would rather have a
Speaker 4: martini with pickle juice than olive juice.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I've never had that. We should make it.
Speaker 3: We should make it. Oh my god, that sounds amazing.
Speaker 3: Sometimes when I do like canned tona, I always have
Speaker 3: pickles in my fridge. Yeah, but I think I think
Speaker 3: I'm going to have this for lunch today. Canned tuna.
Speaker 3: I usually I put lots of like lemon juice or
Speaker 3: lime juice, but sometimes I put pickle juice in the cases.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, well mustard, I also put pickles.
Speaker 2: I put pickles in my potato salad. Do you put
Speaker 2: pickles in your potato salad?
Speaker 3: I don't eat potato salad.
Speaker 2: Gosh, because of the male.
Speaker 4: I can make you a very mustardy, strong potato salad
Speaker 4: if you would.
Speaker 2: Just eat it for pickles.
Speaker 3: I will, I will, I will. I could do that.
Speaker 3: I could do that, but I feel it.
Speaker 4: It was during the Great Depression when people started pickling things.
Speaker 3: No, yeah, yeah, so it was like the canning was
Speaker 3: more kind of First World War, and then pickling families,
Speaker 3: you know, really started pickling and kept pam families from starving.
Speaker 3: But this process of pickling is something that's been around forever.
Speaker 3: Archaeologists believe that ancient Mesopotamians pickled food as far back
Speaker 3: as twenty four hundred BC. Wow, and sauer kraut, which
Speaker 3: is a kind of fermented cabbage over two thousand years
Speaker 3: ago workers building the Great Wall of China.
Speaker 4: So there's a yeah, so this fermenting pickling thing has
Speaker 4: been around for a minute. There's a fun fact about
Speaker 4: the first can opener was invented in the US by
Speaker 4: Ezra J. Wayner in eighteen fifty eight. But prior to
Speaker 4: the can opener, cans would just be opened with a
Speaker 4: chisel and hammer.
Speaker 3: So the army used.
Speaker 4: The can openers in the Civil Wars it was like
Speaker 4: eighteen fifty eight, but they weren't a big hit with
Speaker 4: the public, and so the grocery stores would open the
Speaker 4: cans for the customers to take home. What.
Speaker 3: Yeah, isn't that interesting?
Speaker 2: I like that idea, like, could you open all my cans?
Speaker 3: I never thing you have to eat them?
Speaker 4: The purpose is the point having pantry you.
Speaker 3: Have all these open cans. Yeah yeah, yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like one of those things that you never you
Speaker 3: don't really think about it's like, oh yeah, if you
Speaker 3: have a can you need a can opener. And when
Speaker 3: you look at the can opener, it's kind of a
Speaker 3: cool thing and has the little wheel that it's it's
Speaker 3: a cool invention. So let's check. Let's give some some
Speaker 3: fun pickle facts. Okay. Cleopatrick credited her health and legendary
Speaker 3: beauty to a hearty diet of pickles. Up.
Speaker 2: See maybe that's where you go. Where I get.
Speaker 4: My beauty, my skin from is my love for pickles.
Speaker 3: And another fun fact.
Speaker 4: Shakespeare not only made a lot of references to pickles
Speaker 4: in his plays, but he also introduced the use of
Speaker 4: the word pickle as a metaphor. In Hamlet, he wrote, Oh, Hamlet,
Speaker 4: how chemist thou in such a pickle, introducing a new
Speaker 4: idiom which if you guys remember Sandlot, like I iconic film,
Speaker 4: they're like, they use that word pickle. We've gotten such
Speaker 4: a pickle, you know, which means you're in a bad situation.
Speaker 2: That was Shakespeare, guys, that was Shakespeare.
Speaker 3: Shakespeare.
Speaker 4: Well, look, thank you for allowing me, thank you for
Speaker 4: entertaining my love for canning and allowing.
Speaker 2: Us to do an episode about it.
Speaker 3: I'm so happy that we did it. I think this is.
Speaker 4: So fascinating, and I think I want to ask our
Speaker 4: listeners to share their favorite canned food dishes that they have.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's in your weekly dinner rotation
Speaker 4: or like a special occasion like Easter.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: We'd love to hear from y'all you know about your
Speaker 4: canned food dishes.
Speaker 3: And while you're at it, please don't forget to subscribe
Speaker 3: to the podcast. See you next week.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, Thanks for listening.
Speaker 4: Hungary for History is a hyphen Media production in partnership
Speaker 4: with Iheart's Michael Pura podcast Network.
Speaker 3: For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 3: Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.