WEBVTT - What's the deal with indigo? 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:03.080 Hello everyone in podcast land. If you have ever wanted 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.080 to see us on stage telling jokes and slinging facts, 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:08.920 and you live out west, you can come see us 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:12.800 in Portland, Oregon or Vancouver, Canada. Yep, We'll be at 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.800 the Chance Center in Vancouver on Sunday, March twenty nine, 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:18.239 and then we'll be at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:22.400 in Portland on March And if you want tickets and info, 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:24.599 then the best thing you can do right now is 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:28.640 to go do s y s K live dot com. 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:30.960 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of My 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:40.080 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:43.199 I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w. Chuck Bryan over there, 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:46.320 there's Jerry over there again. Gosh, it feels good to 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:51.200 have you back. Chairs Cherysa's thanks and this is stuff 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:54.520 you should know. The smell of mi So is back. 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:57.560 I love the smell of me so in the morning. 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:00.440 I've been doing a lot of mis lunches mm hmm, 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:05.000 actually just eating balls of mis no. I found a 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:09.560 I found a soup that's pretty good, like well, a 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:13.039 ramen and a miso that are a little because I 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:14.720 was thinking like man, I used to love those little 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:18.240 ramin's in college. It's like, I wonder if there's an 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:22.880 elevated version of that, and there is, Uh, I'll plug it. 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:26.800 Mike's mighty good ramen. It's a cup of soup, but 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:29.480 it's just a little bit better. It's made from better ingredients. 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:32.640 In Instead of twenty cents, it's like two dollars. Oh yeah, 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:37.080 it's still pretty affordable. But yeah, it's just super fast 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:40.800 and get some you know, low calories in your body 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:45.679 to stave off some food cravings. Stave off that cheeseburger craving, 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:49.200 you know what I mean, Yes, which can be substantial. 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:51.720 And you know what I'm also back on and this 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:56.560 is all just because of calorie crap. But beef turkey 0:01:56.840 --> 0:01:59.880 is a nice little protein snack, not a ton of calories, 0:01:59.880 --> 0:02:04.440 and squashes cravings. That one kid, um sorry, that one guy, 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:07.280 but he started it as a kid our listener who 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:10.880 makes beef jerky really top quality stuff. It was good, 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:14.880 but you know, I had my MOLDI beef jerky incident 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:17.440 years ago in l A. Oh that's right. This is 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.480 the first time I've had beef jerkey in fourteen years. 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:23.359 Because of that incident. Well you're back on the train, though, 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:25.560 I'm glad. Well, not like a ton, but a couple 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:27.440 of times a week I'll snack on some beef jurney. 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:31.000 That is. That's a lot. That's a lot of jerky. Yes, 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:33.360 a couple of times a week is a lot. I 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:35.640 mean that's like right in my wheelhouse. But it's a lot. 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:41.560 And the whole bag of beef jerky once, okay, two ounces? Yeah, 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:44.399 do you weigh it out first? I do? Do you really? Yeah? 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:48.160 I was on the food weighing thing for a little 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:49.919 while and like you can get into it's kind of 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:52.160 like a game. I mean just that's the only way 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:56.000 to track accurately. Um. Yeah, good for you, man. Thanks, 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:01.280 you're feeling good whatever, You're like, I've lost my world 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:07.000 of blue now it's weighing beef jerkin. It's fine. Alright, Well, everybody, 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:11.079 obviously we're talking about Indigo to Die in the History 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:13.760 of It, which to me, did you know any of 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:17.080 this before we started? No, So this is kind of 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:18.920 you're like, oh, this sounds interesting, let's do one on 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.240 Indigo and dug In and struck Gold. You know, I 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.320 was I was perusing the old house stuff works dot 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:28.560 com website um, which you know, I know we have 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:32.680 almost cleaned that website dry over the years, but this 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:36.880 one popped up and I thought interesting because this is 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:40.400 one of those that is like, oh, indigo, Yeah, that's 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.120 a color, but it's also a pigment and it has 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:48.120 an interesting history and also slavery and race gets involved, 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:50.600 so no idea. Yeah, it has a lot of tendrils 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:55.800 that I found interesting. Yes, Supposedly, wherever indigo went, especially 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:59.400 after the age of the exploration and colonization, so too 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:04.320 went um slavery because it was it's a really intensive 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:09.560 process and crop um to produce indigo to die very 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:12.520 popular crop. Yeah, and it was also a worth a 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:14.680 lot of money, which was like, oh, well, we'll just 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:18.320 um kidnap people and make them work for free and 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:20.279 and that's how we'll produce indigo. And that's how it 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.080 went for hundreds of years apparently. Yeah, and we'll get 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:25.760 to this, but there are some people that say the 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:31.120 state of Georgia legalized slavery specifically so they could kind 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:34.599 of keep pace with indigo as a crop. And those 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:40.960 people who say that are historians, that's right. So okay, 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:44.520 I knew zero about indigo aside from the fact that 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:49.240 they used it to dye jeans and that was blue basically. Um. 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:53.159 And I just found this ultimately super fascinating. Yeah. I 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.400 mean this beginning though, I thought was even more fascinating 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.240 because I never really thought about the fact that if 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:03.559 you look at any color up to a certain point 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:07.039 about the mid nineteenth century. Yeah, mid nineteenth century, was 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:09.520 any color you would see on a fabric or a 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:14.680 textile was there because a lot of plants and insects 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.880 We're squashed like it was an insect and plant blood 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:23.520 bath for eons in the world. Because if you wanted 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:27.200 something to be colored at all, then you had to 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.320 find a bug or a plant that you could grind 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:33.800 up into a powder basically or some other means, yeah, 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:38.680 or an animal, uh, like sea snails and animals, And 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:41.279 if you wanted purple for a very very long time, 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.919 you had to um, you had to get the mucous 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:48.159 gland out of a sea snail and and desiccated. And 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:50.560 I'm guessing that didn't end well for the sea snail. No, 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:54.920 And I imagine that's a super labor intensive thing to do. 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:58.719 But who, Like I guess I could see like accidentally 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:00.920 smashing a sea snail and be like, oh, that's a 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:02.839 very pretty purple. I wonder if I can use it 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.760 to do stuff with the stuff that gets me those 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:09.280 when you get into like indigo itself. Yeah, because it's 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:12.120 the fact that you can get blue out of indigo 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:14.880 is not intuitive. No, because you look at the plant, 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:19.240 it's not blue. You squeeze the plant, not blue, eat 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:23.719 the plant, poop it out, not blue. There's nothing blue 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:25.960 about it. You have to you have to put it 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:30.080 through this chemical reaction that's multi step to to get 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:33.400 it to be blue. And I'm likely at a loss 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:37.880 how what what series of accidents had to happen so 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:42.240 that like somebody came up with indigo to die because 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:49.279 apparently it's one of the least least natural natural dyes 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:52.800 in the world. Yeah. And and also and for that reason, 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:56.960 one of the most sought after through antiquity, because you know, 0:06:57.000 --> 0:06:59.279 if they wanted to make red stuff, it's pretty easy. 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:01.760 There's a lot of things you can you know, get 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:05.560 red out of it in nature or green obviously, but blue. 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:09.239 You know the old thing about there being no blue foods. 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:13.440 What old thing? Well, the old adage there are no 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:19.400 blue foods. Have you ever had arctic blue gum? Well? 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:21.360 I did look into this because this doesn't make a 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:24.240 little sense of why blue as a pigment would be 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:26.800 more sought after, and I think it ties into the 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:29.880 fact that it's just not naturally occurring. Really, Um, I 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:31.840 had never thought about that, but that. Yeah, now I'm 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:33.800 just gonna spend the rest of the episode racking my 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.720 brain for a blue food. Well, blue corn, blue potatoes, 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:39.800 blue blueberries are the things that most people would say, well, 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:41.920 what about that. I never would have thought of those, 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:45.040 But those are technically purple. Um that on the Food 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:47.280 Network a few years ago, and other people have done this. 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:54.440 They used to spectro uh photometer photometer two look at 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:57.920 the true colors of foods, and even those foods are 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:01.080 actually purple. They brought Sydney Opera and be like, yeah, 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:04.440 it's purple. I don't get it. She had that song 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.480 true Colors. Okay, I was thinking true blue. I was like, 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:10.679 that's my daughter. Did you just add an r Onto 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:15.120 the end of Madonna? Yeah, but that's a reservoir dogs reference. Um, 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:17.400 thank you for explaining it. I didn't have to see 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:21.440 like multiple emails two weeks from now with people being 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:25.640 like great reservoir dogs reference Chuck. So the blue food thing, 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:29.400 supposedly people think that blue light is one of the 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:32.079 high energy wavelengths on the on the light spectrum, on 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:35.440 the visible light spectrum, and that the guesses is to 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:39.520 grow more efficiently plants absorbed that light and use that energy. Well, yeah, 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:43.319 because the blue end is is higher energy. Yes, I'm 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:46.320 pretty sure. Yes, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, and 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.360 that was what we were talking about in the about 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:53.040 the blue blood. Yes, but that's the opposite of that. 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:57.200 It absorbs more red, so it reflects more blue. Interesting, 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:00.680 so if it was blue, it would it would absorb 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.920 less blue light. I don't know, I know, it's kind 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:10.679 of like a mind sure, a brain teaser, right there 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:14.520 you go. But at any rate, there are very supposedly 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:19.040 no true blue foods, and that's probably ties into the 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:21.520 fact there are not a lot of plants that were 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:25.480 true blue. And as if you wanted something blue back then, uh, 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:28.400 you had to get it from woade, which is a 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:31.240 If you look at those, it's got yellow flowers again, 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.560 not blue. If there was ever a medieval English word, 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:38.800 I love it for that. It sounds like a little 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:43.120 uh a little short, hairy stubby, that little woe man 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.800 with big feet who wears like a tunic, that's a 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:50.959 woad or the more um are the prettier named Indigo fera, 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:54.880 which is a family of plants in India and South America, 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:58.040 both of those that has like a pinkish flower. But 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:01.560 both of those is where you used get indigo. Yeah, 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:04.120 And what's weird about this also is not only like 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:07.400 to neither of these plants look like they would produce 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:11.720 blue dye, but neither one of them are actually particularly 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:17.520 good at dyeing fabric. They both resist binding to fabric 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:22.000 or um dissolving in water. Hence the reason why you 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:25.960 don't just like squeeze wode or an intego ferra plant 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:28.840 um and get blue dye. You have to run it 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:32.840 through this process that starts with fermentation. Even yeah, and squeezing, 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:38.719 squeezing your wode sounds it sounds like something else. Yeah, 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.000 So we don't know for sure. We think they've been 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:46.080 making indigo from wode longer than from the Indigo ferra plant. 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:48.400 I think now we we can't say the word woude 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:50.640 anymore for the rest of the episode. I think you're right, 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:53.959 but it's you know, we can't really tell sometimes whether 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:56.679 it was woade or the indigo ferra. That they do 0:10:56.760 --> 0:11:00.600 think because Egypt and Mesopotamia are close to Turkey and 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:03.559 they had a lot of blue uh and in Turkey 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.240 they had more woad than indigo ferra, So they think 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:08.360 that was probably the first one. Yeah. So the upshot 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:12.160 of all that is that they can trace blue die 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:16.400 back to the third millennium b c. Five thousand years 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:19.000 ago or up to five thousand years ago, but they 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:22.520 can't say whether it came from wood or indigo ferre right, right, 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.480 But they did find indigo ferra in the Bronze Age 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:30.800 in the Indus Valley civilization. And this was fascinating to 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:36.400 me just because the um the horror Pon. I guess 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:38.920 it's one of the same, the Indus Valley civilization and 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.880 the that that what you just said, Yes, they're they're 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:45.480 the same thing, right, Yes, they're the Harpon civilization that 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:49.400 was one of maybe the largest ever ancient civilization. And 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:53.520 I'm just fascinating anytime we talk about these civilizations back then, 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:56.240 add like as many as five million people, It's just 0:11:56.520 --> 0:12:01.040 blows my mind. They also had indoor plumbing, underground sewage 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.280 like they had it going on. They apparently had a 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:08.280 better standard of living um than contemporary Egyptians at the 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:12.040 same time. And everybody thinks that the Egyptians having it 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:17.000 going on too. Yeah please, yeah, I guess not compared 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:21.400 to the Indus Valley civilization. So um, there is lots 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:26.240 of examples of this stuff. Um. Yeah, Indigo fera or 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:28.959 wode they kind of competed for a very long time, 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:33.680 and Europe kind of went the Woade way because wade 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.440 grows in um in Europe much more easily related to 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.560 the cabbage family. They took the load less traveled. That 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:44.600 was good, um, and then that was really good. And 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:49.120 then indigo fera grows better in like Pakistan, India that 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:52.400 that area the Indus Valley um, and so that that 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.600 was kind of like the split in blue dye. The 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:58.559 thing is, there seems to have always been this understanding 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:04.559 that indigo fair is just vastly superior to woade indigo um. 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:07.320 And so even in Europe, like you would find woade 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:11.720 like the Greeks, the Romans, and then up to medieval Europeans, 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:15.280 if they could get their hands on indigo ferra, indigo 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:19.280 that um. They would pay through the nose for that stuff. 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:21.880 Um and rightly. So, I mean like it was really 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:24.920 expensive because it's hard to produce, as we'll see um. 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:27.400 But also at the time you had to travel over 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:31.199 land carrying the stuff, and so each trader that went 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:33.880 along these trade rush just added more and more money 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:36.240 on too. So by the time it reached a western Europe, 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:38.959 you were paying a lot for this blue dive. One 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:42.640 million dollars. They would be like that that number doesn't 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:46.679 even exist yet. So the Greeks they called and this 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.320 is going down a bit of a a word origin 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:53.400 rabbit hole. But the Greeks called the blue pigment indecon 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:56.640 with a K because it was from India and they 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.800 wanted it to sound sinister because things were the K 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.679 that became indigo in English. And then there's the word 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:08.800 for die in ancient lands uh in i l i 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:15.319 neely that was Sanskrit meaning dark blue, and then that 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:19.400 became a n i l in Spanish, and eventually that 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:23.040 became indigo in Central and South America. And apparently, yeah, 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:28.760 blue in Arabic is al neil right, in English, uh 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:33.640 annualine is derived from that, and that is synthetic die class. 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:36.640 So it's all tied together. We got to climb right 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:41.800 out of this hole. Yes, that was a big one. So, um, 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:44.400 where are we in the ancient world? Well, I think 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:50.120 we're in Marco Polo? Okay, good so and twelve the 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:55.440 late twelve hundreds, the late thirteenth century, Marco Polo made 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:59.320 his way to China and was like, hey, get this. 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.280 We had to say something. This is me talking, not 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:07.920 Marco Polo, but um, they had, like the Romans, the Greeks, 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:11.840 the Europeans had no idea that indigo came from a plant, 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:13.760 because by the time I got to them, it was 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:18.920 like these little hard um bits of die and you 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.160 would mix with water at about solution and there you 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.200 had your die. All of a sudden, um, But they 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:28.320 thought it was a mineral. Marco Polo went to China, 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:30.800 saw some of this stuff firsthand. I was like, hey, 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:33.040 this comes from a plant. Did you guys know that? 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:35.000 And by the way, I got a bunch of my 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.120 boat if you want to buy something, And all of 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:41.000 a sudden there was trade now with with China. Yeah, 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:43.720 and that went. It was still pretty expensive because there 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:47.400 was no direct sea route to China. Until Vasco da 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:50.880 Gama came along and said watch this, Yeah, I'll sail 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:55.360 to China in like two seconds. Everyone was very impressed. 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:57.640 And this kind of cut out the middleman in all 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:01.160 those hands. Like you were saying, raising the prices along 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:03.680 the way, you cut out a lot of those and 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:09.040 you've got more supply. And even back then that those 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:13.800 economics meant cheaper prices would follow, right, isn't Fosco da 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:17.560 Gama George Costanza's favorite explorer? I can't remember. I was 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:19.800 just wondering that. I want to say it is, but 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:22.720 I thought it was Cortez. Now no, no, no, everybody 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:28.160 hates Cortez. Who was Jerry's I don't remember which one. 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:30.360 I think one of them was impressed about going around 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:34.920 the Horn of Africa majelling. Maybe I'll have to look 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:38.320 that all. What's the door Steinfeld research on that for you? 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:41.600 So the cost of Indigo dropped a lot because of 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:46.960 the da Gama but but not like rock bottom luxury, 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:52.440 like the point zero one percent could afforded to you know, 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.720 could afford kind of something like that. Yeah, But what 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.320 that meant was is Woade was in big double because 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:04.680 Indigo from the Indigo ferra was the blue gold, said, 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:08.359 what is me? All right, let's take a break and 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:15.240 we'll talk about the synthesization synthetization. Good God, am I 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:38.719 dreaming right now? I think? So? Good night? Okay. So 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:40.840 you said that they call it blue gold, right, or 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.080 they did back in the age of Vasco da Gama. 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:45.399 That's right because it was worth a lot of money. 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.040 It lasted along and had a good shelf life, and 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:50.520 it wasn't you know, huge. It was pretty compact as 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:54.120 far as storing and traveling, super compact. So um, if 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:56.160 you'll indulge me, like I found a little bit about 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.880 how that stuff that they used to to travel with 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.960 was made. Yeah, and it's still if it's going to 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:04.879 be made naturally, which it really isn't. This is how 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:07.400 they would still do it, right. Someone figured this out 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:11.560 thousands of years ago and still today from what we understand, 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:15.160 the process is virtually the same. So the whole thing 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:20.920 starts with a whole bunch of indigo ferra um plant um, 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:23.280 and you throw it into a pot and you start 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:27.439 to ferment it. Step one. Somebody figured out how to 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:30.600 ferment or that you need to ferment indigo. I bet 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.879 someone drank it at some point, yes, and they're like, 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:37.840 chuck out my teeth. Have you ever seen teeth like these? 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.720 So here's the thing, the reason why you can't just 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.600 squeeze an indigo ferra plant and get indigo outs because 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:47.640 there's no indigo in the plant. It doesn't exist naturally. 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:52.080 But there's a precursor to it called indi can um, 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:55.200 and that is what you ferment out of the um 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:59.160 leaves with an enzyme which kind of breaks it down, 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:02.800 and all of a sudden, um you have something called 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:07.040 endoxyl and glucose. That's right, so you're splitting it. This 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:10.679 endoxyl is what you're actually after. And then after that 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:14.480 you drain the liquid um and into a second tank 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:19.400 you add the endoxyl um with air. You stir it basically, 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:23.679 and all of a sudden it oxidizes into intogotten and 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:28.880 then the into gotten is actually what um apparently is indigo. 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:31.639 Because there's no other steps after that except to let 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:35.000 it air dry. It like settles at the bottom and 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.920 then they can get rid of the uh, the matter 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:41.480 on top. Yeah, they filter it out and you're left 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.080 with kind of a sludgy paste, I think, right, Yeah, 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:46.240 And then if you dry that paste in the sun, 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:50.000 which I think is the traditional customary way supposedly, that 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:55.159 converts it into basically like blocky, solid indigo die. Okay, 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:58.440 so it's not a powder, it says cakes. And then 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:01.720 the fact that the but I've seen it as a powder, 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:03.280 so I know what you're talking about. But I think 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:05.679 the fact that the Romans and Greeks thought it was 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:09.359 a mineral because it must be hard. But surely, I mean, 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:12.360 it's got a breakdown somehow. But what's weird about all 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:16.240 this is if you take that that indigo die and 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:21.560 you say, like, soak some denomen in it, it's not 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:26.560 just going to come out blue, certainly, not after one. 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:31.720 If you're using natural indigo die, you have to, um 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:34.679 I've seen up to forty times. You have to wash 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:37.280 it in this indigo to get it to start to bind. 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:39.399 Because one of the things about indigo is it doesn't 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:43.360 like to bind with fibers. And then even when it does, 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:46.200 it's very superficial. So like if you took your genes 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:50.080 right now, cut it open, you looked at the cross section, 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:54.959 you'd see white inside. It's just the superficial top of 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:58.000 the fiber of your genes that have been die blue 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:01.040 inside the indigo hasn't actually kind of traded, and I 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:04.600 would be wearing some sweet daisy dukes you would with 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.119 like the pockets sticking out of the bottom. No, I 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:10.679 never went that short. I would cut off Geane phase, 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:15.120 but never the Georgs. It was always had the frayed bottoms, 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:19.680 kind of country style, nothing nothing hemmed. Oh yeah, yeah, 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:21.680 I never never owned appear No, no, no, I know 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:25.200 what you're talking about. George didn't either. Actually it's not true, 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:30.680 but mine was at a time where they were acceptable. Yes, okay, yeah, 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:34.760 I buy that. I don't. It's not like I was like, oh, 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:36.320 I'm not going to wear those because theydn't even call 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:38.920 them George back then. I think I just didn't have them. 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:40.880 What you're describing is not what I have. Mine were 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:44.080 bag here, but they had like a hem like the 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:48.440 bottom of jeans did but they weren't at all the 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:52.480 tebow George. Yes, yes, I didn't look anything like that here. 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:54.840 I need to see what that looks like. Just imagine 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:59.920 like nineties Geene shorts. Okay, there you go, you got it. 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:04.480 Sort of we'll just leave it there, all right, Okay, Uh, 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:08.879 we don't know. Let's just smoove on. So Chuck just 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:11.399 put his glasses on. Everybody. That's right, because I'm reading. 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:14.720 My eyes have gotten so bad. Mine have to Chuck. 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:17.280 I can't, like, I can't read anything now unless I 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:20.359 have them. I have to go like this, and it 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:23.399 makes it really hard to underline and highlight when you 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:25.840 hold like Josh's holding a page very far from his 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:31.600 face and then close and then it's really sad. So, uh, 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:34.440 I guess we should get into the dark side of 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:37.360 And I think this was one of the parts from 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:39.879 the house Stuff Works article they said some of that. 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:42.840 I had some NPR in there, and I think a 0:22:42.880 --> 0:22:45.960 fashion website even chimed in. That's a heck of a 0:22:49.200 --> 0:22:54.080 So when Europeans kind of like colonized North America colonialized, 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:59.400 they started obviously they needed to grow crops and sell 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:02.360 them for any That was a big deal was farming. 0:23:02.600 --> 0:23:04.400 So they were like, what should we grow, Like we've 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:08.199 never been here before. Yeah, that's like you don't think 0:23:08.240 --> 0:23:10.479 about that, but that's exactly kind of what they went through. 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:12.679 And they tried a bunch of different stuff, and they 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:14.679 did grow a bunch of different stuff, but indigo was 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:17.199 something that they tried to grow a lot of early on. 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:22.199 They grew yeah, in Jamestown, New Amsterdam, I think in Louisiana. 0:23:22.240 --> 0:23:25.000 The French did it an okay job of it. But 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:28.400 it was a woman named Eliza Lucas in the seventeen 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:36.920 thirties and uh, more appropriately Eliza Lucas's slaves that figured 0:23:36.920 --> 0:23:39.560 this out. Yeah, so she was she gets the credit. 0:23:39.680 --> 0:23:41.920 She was a pretty interesting person herself that she was 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:46.280 sixteen and her father, boy, but my voice just transitioned 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:51.479 really weirdly. And her father um owned uh like at 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:55.879 least three plantations in around Charleston, South Carolina. Yeah, again 0:23:55.880 --> 0:23:58.600 a British colony at the time, and he said, hey, Eliza, 0:23:58.680 --> 0:24:00.640 you're interested in botany, why don't you go take over 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:03.960 these three plantations and see what will grow there. And 0:24:04.000 --> 0:24:06.520 he sent her some seeds and she started growing stuff 0:24:06.520 --> 0:24:09.440 and she found the indigo grew really really well in 0:24:09.680 --> 0:24:15.160 the lowlands of South Carolina. Yeah, she grew ginger cotton, hemp, alfalfa, 0:24:15.359 --> 0:24:19.800