Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will? What's that mango? Do you
Speaker 1: know what a food mummy is?
Speaker 2: You mean, like yummy mummy, the character who hangs out
Speaker 2: with Count Chocolate.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a pretty good guess. But food mummies
Speaker 1: or victual mummies are ancient meals that have been found
Speaker 1: preserved in tombs alongside Egyptian pharaohs and their families. Like
Speaker 1: ancient meals, so like mummified wheat and figs.
Speaker 3: What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: So for plant based foods like grains, fruits, and honey,
Speaker 1: the Egyptians packed them into baskets or ceramic jars, and
Speaker 1: while remnants of those foods have been found in tombs,
Speaker 1: most of the perishable food decomposed a long long time ago.
Speaker 1: But this was completely different for meat and poultry preserved
Speaker 1: for the afterlife. Every cut of beef for gamebird was
Speaker 1: given the same mummification process that was used on human
Speaker 1: royals and their animal pets. So first the foods were
Speaker 1: slowly dry with salt, and then they were wrapped in
Speaker 1: strips of linens and coated with the mixture of resins
Speaker 1: to keep out moisture and prevent decomposition. And lastly, the
Speaker 1: mummified meats were packed into little wooden sarcopha guys, some
Speaker 1: of which were even carved into the shape of their contents,
Speaker 1: so you might find a leg of veal or a
Speaker 1: shoulder of antelope in something shaped like that. I have
Speaker 1: to ask, like, what was the goal with all of this? Well,
Speaker 1: as I'm sure you know, the whole point of human
Speaker 1: mummification was to prepare the body for the afterlife, So
Speaker 1: you know, it's so that a person's soul could recognize
Speaker 1: the body and continue using it forever. But the Egyptians
Speaker 1: also applied the same principle to whatever else a person
Speaker 1: was late to rest with. So if you buried someone
Speaker 1: with a bunch of treasure, then they would have an
Speaker 1: endless supply of wealth to spend in the afterlife. And
Speaker 1: if you bury them with their favorite foods, they would
Speaker 1: have something delicious to nibble on for all of eternity.
Speaker 1: So I guess in their minds they were kind of
Speaker 1: stalking the pharaoh's eternal pantry with all his favorite goodies exactly.
Speaker 1: And because of that practice, archaeologists are now digging up
Speaker 1: four thousand years old cuts of beef, many of which
Speaker 1: look surprisingly good for their age.
Speaker 2: Wait, could somebody actually still eat one of those meat mummies?
Speaker 2: Mummified beef should technically still be edible, but so far,
Speaker 2: no one's had the chance or maybe the courage, to
Speaker 2: try it. Right, those kinds of food artifacts are kept
Speaker 2: almost exclusively in climate control display cases at museums and
Speaker 2: research centers, where guests are pretty strongly encouraged to look
Speaker 2: but not taste. The other thing is that, like if
Speaker 2: the Egyptians were right, eating that old beef could make
Speaker 2: the pharaoh's ghost meat disappear from his table mid dinner party,
Speaker 2: and who would want to do that? But the good
Speaker 2: news is that the ancient Egyptians weren't the only ones
Speaker 2: to discover the wonders of underground food storage. Cultures around
Speaker 2: the world have been preserving, curing, and even cooking foods
Speaker 2: beneath the soil, and many of those techniques are still
Speaker 2: in use today, from bog butter to Peruvian barbecue, and
Speaker 2: today's episode is all about shining a light on those
Speaker 2: buried food traditions. So grab your shovels and four and
Speaker 2: get ready to chow down on the best underground cuisines. Hey,
Speaker 2: their podcast listeners, Welcome to part time Genius. I'm Will
Speaker 2: Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend
Speaker 2: mangesh Hot Ticketer. And on the other side of that
Speaker 2: soundproof glass, just chomping his way through a smorgash board
Speaker 2: of freshly dug root vegetables. That's our friend and producer
Speaker 2: Dylan fag And now, as always, he goes above and
Speaker 2: beyond with these things, because he's not only got the
Speaker 2: spread with carrots and beets and sweet potatoes. I think
Speaker 2: I see a few radishes in there.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty proud of him.
Speaker 1: Well, and is that a turnip for a rootabaga?
Speaker 2: That's an onion mango, So brush up on your veggies.
Speaker 2: But I think you just wanted to say the word Rudebagah.
Speaker 1: Pretty sure that's what's got it in twice.
Speaker 2: But let's talk a little bit about the practice of
Speaker 2: burying food, which of course started as a way to
Speaker 2: keep it from spoiling. According to the National Center for
Speaker 2: Home Food Preservation, the earliest technique for preserving food was
Speaker 2: most likely drying it in the sun. That's a process
Speaker 2: that's thought to have been developed by accident during the
Speaker 2: stone age.
Speaker 1: Oh, I can definitely see that. Like some guy forgets
Speaker 1: about the mammet steaks he left out on his rock yep,
Speaker 1: he comes back the next day, he finds him dried
Speaker 1: out and decides to eat him anyway.
Speaker 2: I mean, that is kind of exactly what would have happened,
Speaker 2: And it's easy to imagine that our ancestors and colder
Speaker 2: climates may have stumbled upon the freezing.
Speaker 3: Method in much the same way.
Speaker 2: So somebody forgets about a stash of food, finds it
Speaker 2: in the debt of winter, thaws it out, and finds
Speaker 2: that it still tastes just as good as it was
Speaker 2: when it was fresh. And so basically there were discoveries
Speaker 2: of culinary carelessness. So some random Neanderthals were bad at
Speaker 2: resource management and desperate enough to eat something that might
Speaker 2: have killed them. But without those mistakes, there's a strong
Speaker 2: chance that human civilization wouldn't exist today.
Speaker 1: That's the ability to preserve food through winter allowed humans
Speaker 1: to plant roots and form communities instead of just endlessly
Speaker 1: roaming from place to place in search of food.
Speaker 2: That's right, and the reason why things like drying food
Speaker 2: in the sun or burying them in the ground and
Speaker 2: freezing temperatures is so effective is that they both slow
Speaker 2: down microbial growth. Thanks to microbes in the air, food
Speaker 2: begins to spoil as soon as it's harvested, but those
Speaker 2: microorganisms require moisture to carry out their cellular functions, and
Speaker 2: so without that they'll either die or go dormant. So
Speaker 2: whether you evaporate the moisture by drying the food in
Speaker 2: the sun or turn it into ice by freezing food underground,
Speaker 2: the process wipes out the microbes and slows down that
Speaker 2: process of decay.
Speaker 1: So I am curious though, what about food that's buried
Speaker 1: in non freezing temperatures like it still contains moisture, So
Speaker 1: wouldn't it spoil just as fast as food above ground.
Speaker 3: Well it's not just about temperature control.
Speaker 2: That's a big part of it, but there are other
Speaker 2: environmental factors that are at play too, namely.
Speaker 3: Light and oxygen.
Speaker 2: Those can trigger natural reactions between air and food molecules
Speaker 2: that hasten decomposition. But when food is buried underground, the
Speaker 2: exposure to air and light is much less of an issue. Additionally,
Speaker 2: if the soil is dry and salty, that can also
Speaker 2: help reduce the food's moisture level. Even if the ground
Speaker 2: isn't cold enough to freeze.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. I do want to mention, though, that
Speaker 1: under certain conditions, it is possible to preserve food underground
Speaker 1: in a cool, moist environment, and the best example for
Speaker 1: that that I can think of is something called bog butter.
Speaker 1: Bog butter, I'm just.
Speaker 3: Like saying it.
Speaker 2: I'm so curious about this because I've definitely heard of
Speaker 2: bog bodies, which are those super old preserved corpses that
Speaker 2: people keep finding in European peat bogs, but I don't
Speaker 2: know how much about this bog butter.
Speaker 1: Weirdly, bog bodies and bog butter are both created for
Speaker 1: the same natural process, so for anyone I'm familiar at,
Speaker 1: bog is a shallow kind of wetland where the ground
Speaker 1: is composed of all this soft, spongy material called peat. Now,
Speaker 1: peat is formed by the partial decomposition of moss and
Speaker 1: other plant matter, and it's that abundance of rotting vegetation
Speaker 1: that gives bogs their preservative power. They become so clogged
Speaker 1: with peate that water can't flow in and out easily,
Speaker 1: and that results in extremely low oxygen levels. On top
Speaker 1: of that, the decomposition process makes the bogs highly acidic,
Speaker 1: and because most bogs form in cold temperate climates, peat
Speaker 1: bogs also have the preserving power of cool temperatures, and
Speaker 1: these factors combined to create a unique environment that's good
Speaker 1: for preserving things, which is how we wound up with
Speaker 1: those perfectly preserved human bodies that you mentioned, most of
Speaker 1: which were laid to rest way back in the Iron Age.
Speaker 1: Actually it's like nearly three thousand years ago, and it's
Speaker 1: also wide. People in Scotland and Ireland keep finding giant
Speaker 1: wads of butter from around the same era.
Speaker 2: Wait, I am curious about this, Like, so is bog
Speaker 2: butter actual butter?
Speaker 1: It is actual ancient butter.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Some specimens are from as recent as the sixteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: but most are much older, from as far back as
Speaker 1: six hundred BCE. Now, over the last decade or so,
Speaker 1: bog workers in the UK have stumbled across hundreds of
Speaker 1: examples of bog butter. These slimy chunks of yellowish dairy
Speaker 1: that are typically found wrapped in animal skins or inside
Speaker 1: wooden crates even and they range and weight from about
Speaker 1: fifteen pounds to well over one hundred pounds of this stuff.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 2: So why were people dumping so much butter in their bogs?
Speaker 3: Like, if they were, I just want to say that, But.
Speaker 2: If they were wrapping it up, they must have wanted
Speaker 2: to come back for it, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: So historian instinct that locals were using the bog as
Speaker 1: a natural refrigerator, and the custom clearly persisted for thousands
Speaker 1: of years. And along the way, it seems that more
Speaker 1: than a few people just kind of lost track of
Speaker 1: their butter stash. I never found it again, So tryptocurrency
Speaker 1: event happened.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you just lose your butter, you know, and their
Speaker 2: losses are gain I guess, but I can't imagine a
Speaker 2: chunk of old, rancid butter is worth that much to
Speaker 2: anyone at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So what's interesting is that, according to nat Gio,
Speaker 1: and this is what I was kind of hinting at,
Speaker 1: people in the area actually treated butter as a substitute
Speaker 1: for cash, using it to barter or even pay their taxes.
Speaker 1: So not only was the bog this big like communal refrigerator,
Speaker 1: it was also people's savings accounts, which means that you know,
Speaker 1: misplacing your butter was every bit as much a financial
Speaker 1: loss as it was a culinary one.
Speaker 3: I do love butter. I sort of get it at
Speaker 3: the same time.
Speaker 2: Actually, a question for you, do you leave your butter
Speaker 2: out on the counter or do you keep your butter
Speaker 2: on the refrigerator. I leave it on the counter, man,
Speaker 2: it's so good, just the way to do it. I
Speaker 2: have no idea whether it's the right thing to do,
Speaker 2: but it's definitely taste here. All right, We've got much
Speaker 2: more buried food to uncover. But before we do that,
Speaker 2: let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about
Speaker 1: the many hidden benefits of burying your food. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: so we've looked at food burial as this really just
Speaker 1: right and as a preservation method and kind of a bank.
Speaker 1: But where do you want to go next.
Speaker 2: With all this talk about microorganisms and temperature control. I
Speaker 2: can't help but think about fermentation, which is a very
Speaker 2: different approach to buried food preservation than what we've talked
Speaker 2: about so far.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, so tell me a little bit about this.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: Well, instead of trying to eliminate the microbes in a food,
Speaker 2: fermentation does the opposite. It spurs the growth of certain
Speaker 2: bacteria and yeast and causes them to produce lactic acid,
Speaker 2: which in turn alters the flavors and textures of the food.
Speaker 1: And that's also what helps preserve.
Speaker 2: These foods, right, that's exactly right. So all the lactic
Speaker 2: acid from fermentation prevents the growth of harmful bacteria, effectively
Speaker 2: preserving the food for longer. And because it's the acidic
Speaker 2: environment that makes this kind of preservation possible, you can
Speaker 2: ferment foods in hot or cold weather. In fact, Korea
Speaker 2: and kimchi was traditionally made in the colder months so
Speaker 2: families would have access to vegetables throughout the winter. Large
Speaker 2: batches were prepared in ceramic pots and then buried in
Speaker 2: the ground to slowly ferment had a more steady temperature.
Speaker 1: So in a way, fermentation was kind of the next
Speaker 1: step in the evolution of varied cuisine because not only
Speaker 1: are you preserving food underground, now you're preparing it too.
Speaker 1: And the thing you put in the ground isn't the
Speaker 1: same as what you dig up, right, Like, there's a
Speaker 1: real change there. The look, the taste, the texture, it's
Speaker 1: all completely different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and traditional kimchi isn't the only example of a
Speaker 2: food that's forever changed by its time underground. For instance,
Speaker 2: in Greenland, the native people's prepare a dish called kiviak
Speaker 2: and that involves stuffing a seal skin with hundreds of
Speaker 2: tiny seabirds and placing it in a hole covered with
Speaker 2: rocks to ferment for eighteen months.
Speaker 3: Have you ever made this before.
Speaker 2: It's just it's just a seal skin and then hundreds
Speaker 2: of tiny birds and eighteen months later.
Speaker 1: I've tried it with like twenty or thirty birds, but
Speaker 1: has a lot of birds no, I mean, I've heard
Speaker 1: of it, but it's not appeeling to me.
Speaker 2: It's basically like a seal turducan, right kind of, but
Speaker 2: unlike the tur ducan, you don't consume the outer layer,
Speaker 2: only what's inside of it. And another important differences that
Speaker 2: the dead birds in kivak actually get stuffed into the
Speaker 2: cavity with all their feathers and their beaks still attach.
Speaker 2: Then you have to coat the whole thing with oils
Speaker 2: to ward off maggots and bury it seam side up
Speaker 2: so that any gases can vent through the rocks there.
Speaker 2: It sounds like a sort of a growth process.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the starting evolved and you said they buried
Speaker 1: this thing for like over a year.
Speaker 2: Technically you can dig it up after just three months.
Speaker 2: But if you want those beaks to get good and gelatinous,
Speaker 2: you definitely don't want an aldentate beak like you gotta
Speaker 2: wait a little bit longer, so be patient. But the
Speaker 2: goal in any case is to have it ready for
Speaker 2: Christmas time, when kivak is eaten as part of a
Speaker 2: traditional holiday feast. Now, understandably, many families choose to enjoy
Speaker 2: this winter delicacy outdoors to keep its powerful smell from
Speaker 2: lingering in the house. And this can linger for weeks afterward.
Speaker 2: And if you're wondering what the dish tastes like but
Speaker 2: would rather not try for yourself, a BBC producer named
Speaker 2: Bethan Evans once described it as a cross between licorice
Speaker 2: and the strongest cheese I've ever had.
Speaker 1: Those are not things I think of pairing together for
Speaker 1: together well, so thinking of like other combinations that are
Speaker 1: a little bit odd. I feel the same way about gravlocks,
Speaker 1: which is another strong smelling Nordic dish that involved buried fermentation.
Speaker 2: And actually that's the salmon dish that Julia Child made
Speaker 2: famous isn't it. Yeah, I've seen it on minis before,
Speaker 2: but I've never actually realized it was fermented.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's the thing. The modern take on gradlocks
Speaker 1: doesn't involve fermentation or even much of a burial. Instead,
Speaker 1: the salmon is just buried in a dry rub of salt,
Speaker 1: sugar and dill, and then it's cured in a refrigerator
Speaker 1: for a few days. But that is very different from
Speaker 1: how Swedish fishermen first prepared the dish, and this goes
Speaker 1: way back to the Middle Ages. They'd been looking for
Speaker 1: a way to preserve their summer catch without the use
Speaker 1: of salt, which at the time was very expensive, and
Speaker 1: this led to the development of a technique called gravlocks,
Speaker 1: which literally means buried salmon.
Speaker 2: You know, it's actually just occurring to me right now.
Speaker 2: That grave is right there in.
Speaker 1: The word, yeah, and true to the name. Peasants and
Speaker 1: fishermen would wrap the fish in birch bark and then
Speaker 1: bury it in a wet, sandy grave, and the cold moisture,
Speaker 1: the lack of oxygen, and the acidity from the birch bark,
Speaker 1: all of that would cause the salmon to ferment instead
Speaker 1: of robbing.
Speaker 2: It does feel like such a risky way to ferment,
Speaker 2: something like there's no air tight container and your only
Speaker 2: defense against spoilage are a few strips of birch bark,
Speaker 2: Like I'm surprised people didn't get sick from eating it.
Speaker 1: People absolutely did, and if you even died from it.
Speaker 1: The dish is considered a delicacy today, but in its
Speaker 1: original form, eating gravlocks was an act of true desperation,
Speaker 1: and no matter how horribly it smelled or how iffy
Speaker 1: it tasted, the chance to not starve was It was
Speaker 1: kind of worth the gamble.
Speaker 3: That makes sense, all right.
Speaker 2: Well, now that we've covered the aromatic delights of animal fermentation,
Speaker 2: I've got another resourceful buried food tradition for you, and
Speaker 2: this one's actually vegetarian. So, according to an old piece
Speaker 2: of Appalachian wisdom, if you bury heads of cabbage upside
Speaker 2: down in the dirt, they'll stay crisp and crunchy all
Speaker 2: winter long. The mountaineers discovered the trick over a century ago,
Speaker 2: and many families in the regions still swear by it today.
Speaker 2: They claim that buried cabbage is more flavorful than its
Speaker 2: top side cousin. Wait, so these cabbages aren't fermented or
Speaker 2: seasoned or anything. They're just like pulled from the garden
Speaker 2: and then plopped back into the ground, just upside down,
Speaker 2: pretty straightforward. And that's not to say that there was
Speaker 2: nothing clever about the process. I mean, the leafy greenheads
Speaker 2: have been a staple crop for mountaineers since the Blue
Speaker 2: Ridge area was first settled, and in the days before refrigeration,
Speaker 2: a homesteader's best bet for storing their cabbages through the
Speaker 2: winter was by digging and framing out a root cellar
Speaker 2: somewhere along the way, though enterprising families realized they could
Speaker 2: skip that step by simply sticking their cabbages in the dirt. Now,
Speaker 2: the preferred method, known locally as holing it up, was
Speaker 2: to dig out a shallow trench just below the frost
Speaker 2: line and then place the cabbages in it upside down,
Speaker 2: so that the dirt wouldn't get in the leaves once
Speaker 2: the hole was filled in if you think about the
Speaker 2: direction of the leaves, and so those underground stores of
Speaker 2: cabbage could be tapped into as needed throughout the season,
Speaker 2: adding a welcome crunch of texture to the families. Otherwise
Speaker 2: mushy meals of you think about things like canned beans
Speaker 2: and corn pudding and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So I know you can do a lot of things
Speaker 1: with cabbage, like you can saute, fry it up, chop
Speaker 1: it into a slab. But did mountaineers try burying anything
Speaker 1: besides cabbage, because that seems like it's a technique that
Speaker 1: would work for other foods pretty well as well.
Speaker 2: So they did experiment with bearing other kinds of vegetables,
Speaker 2: but without added preservatives, most of them just rotted after
Speaker 2: a few days. Underground cabbage proved the exception. Because of
Speaker 2: the plant's tough outer leaves, that protective layer would gradually
Speaker 2: dry out, but the plant's inner core could remain crisp
Speaker 2: and fresh. In fact, proponents of buried cabbage claim the
Speaker 2: process concentrates all the flavor in those inner leaves that
Speaker 2: makes the plant taste much sweeter.
Speaker 1: That sounds delicious actually, And you said this is something
Speaker 1: people still do in the Appellations, Yeah, I mean most residents.
Speaker 2: Don't see the point now, and it's just about everyone
Speaker 2: has a refrigerator. But that said, there are still some
Speaker 2: old timers and diehard cabbage fans out there who.
Speaker 3: Are still holding it up.
Speaker 1: Like the good old that's fascinating. Okay, well, we've got
Speaker 1: a whole lot more to cover, but before that, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 1: Well, so no offense to our listeners in the blue ridge,
Speaker 1: but raw cabbage is just about the most low effort
Speaker 1: buried food I can think of, right, Like, it is
Speaker 1: so simple to do, and I thought we could head
Speaker 1: north and talk about one that requires just a little
Speaker 1: bit more elbow grease. It's an old New England specialty
Speaker 1: called a bean hole supper. Have you actually heard of this?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: I have not.
Speaker 1: This is something that our friend Mary turned me on too.
Speaker 1: She's a Native maner and she says it's one of
Speaker 1: her favorite summer traditions. Let's get into it. Tell me
Speaker 1: about it. So the cooking itself is not too complicated,
Speaker 1: but it does take a fair amount of prep. First,
Speaker 1: you have to get your beans ready by soaking and
Speaker 1: par boiling them. Then you add all your fixens like pork, onions,
Speaker 1: dry mustard, molasses as well. The next step is where
Speaker 1: things start to get interesting. You go outside and you
Speaker 1: dig a hole a few feet deep, and then you
Speaker 1: start a fire at the bottom and you keep it
Speaker 1: burning till you have a nice bed of coals. You
Speaker 1: need something that's about eight inches thick. Next, you lower
Speaker 1: your sealed pot of beans into the hole and line
Speaker 1: the walls with rocks to keep the heat in. And
Speaker 1: then you fill in the hole with soil and let
Speaker 1: the beans cook for a good long while, generally overnight.
Speaker 1: And at that point there's really nothing to do but
Speaker 1: wait till morning. Then you dig up the pot hoist
Speaker 1: it out of the hole, which is usually a two
Speaker 1: person job, and then you help yourself to some warm
Speaker 1: beanie goodness.
Speaker 2: Wait, so are these breakfast beans? I thought this was
Speaker 2: a bean hole supper.
Speaker 1: Well, it's really up to the people with the shovels.
Speaker 1: Some people cook the beans all day, eat them at night,
Speaker 1: and then reheat the leftovers for breakfast. Others tuck in
Speaker 1: first thing in the morning and then go back for
Speaker 1: seconds at dinner time. We're talking mass quantities of beans here,
Speaker 1: like they're actually like about nine or ten pounds of
Speaker 1: beans per pot, So most people will make a few
Speaker 1: meals out of it regardless of when they start eating.
Speaker 1: And not to mention, the bean whole supper is really
Speaker 1: a communal event. You might wind up burying a dozen
Speaker 1: pots or more depending on the size of your guest list.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of beans. And it does make me
Speaker 2: wonder though, like why beans this is main?
Speaker 3: Right? So it feels like you should have a.
Speaker 2: Clam bake or cook a bunch of lobsters underground instead.
Speaker 1: Part of it just comes down to price, right, Like
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty pounds of beans versus one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty pounds of lobster. Beans are called a different price,
Speaker 1: two different prices. Beans are called the poor men's meat
Speaker 1: for a reason. Plus they have a much longer shelf
Speaker 1: life than clams or lobsters. But there are still other
Speaker 1: cheap foods that you can bury besides beans, Like they
Speaker 1: must have picked them for a reason. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: beans really are ubiquitous in New England. Boston's nickname is
Speaker 1: the bean Town for a reason. But probably the biggest
Speaker 1: reason why maners still do this is that it's like
Speaker 1: this long, rich history of the custom right. According to
Speaker 1: the Main Folk Life Center, the bean hole method of
Speaker 1: cooking was first developed by Native American tribes living along
Speaker 1: the East coast. They would fill clay pots with beans,
Speaker 1: bear grease, and maple syrup, and then they'd cover it
Speaker 1: with deer skins and bury them in coals underground. Now
Speaker 1: European settlers in Maine adopted the bean hole from the
Speaker 1: Abenaki tribe, and the long, slow cooking style proved especially
Speaker 1: useful in the regions many lumber camps. Beans were cheap
Speaker 1: and plentiful and obviously a good source of protein, and
Speaker 1: they could be easily prepared in large batches. And while
Speaker 1: the equipment and camp kitchens was pretty bare bones at
Speaker 1: the time, the cooks had everything they needed to make
Speaker 1: a bean hole supper, which is really just cast iron pots,
Speaker 1: plenty of rocks and wood, and lots of open land
Speaker 1: for digging. I'm curious, though, do we know what kinds
Speaker 1: of beans these guys were eating. I guess there's a
Speaker 1: certain kind that's traditionally used in these bean holes. From
Speaker 1: what I read, most maners stick to heirloom beans, which
Speaker 1: are the types that were common during the colonial era.
Speaker 1: But whichever beans you use, you'll want to make sure
Speaker 1: you've got plenty of brown bread and onions on hand
Speaker 1: to go with the leftovers. And that's because the traditional
Speaker 1: next day meal after a bean hole supper is a
Speaker 1: sandwich of cold beans and raw onions on brown bread.
Speaker 3: Wait, cold beans?
Speaker 2: Why why wouldn't you just reheat them?
Speaker 1: Because then you have to dig another hole. I guys,
Speaker 1: but it's not practical. You know. That actually reminds me.
Speaker 1: Gabe came across a nineteenth century folk song this week
Speaker 1: about life at the lumber camps, and one of the
Speaker 1: stanzas made me think that the cooks may have relied
Speaker 1: on bean hole suppers just a little too much in
Speaker 1: some cases. This song is called the Good Old State
Speaker 1: of Maine, and the outlines how much worse the conditions
Speaker 1: were at New Hampshire's lumber camps compared to those of Maine,
Speaker 1: including the lack of variety on the menu. Now we
Speaker 1: found this recording sung by James Brown, not the James Brown.
Speaker 1: We all know a different Games Brown, and I want
Speaker 1: to play a clip of it, so let's late it.
Speaker 4: Now. Twas bread and beans and beans, and bread and
Speaker 4: bread and beans again for a grub. We sometimes had
Speaker 4: it change in the good all day domain.
Speaker 2: Oh that is great, and leave it up to Gabe
Speaker 2: for find a gem like this. It kind of reminds
Speaker 2: me that Monty Python sketch, where every dish on the
Speaker 2: menu consists partially or entirely of spam, Like there's just
Speaker 2: no escaping.
Speaker 1: It exactly, beans all around all right.
Speaker 2: Well, I read about this other pit cooking tradition from
Speaker 2: Peru and it's called pacha manca.
Speaker 3: The name means earthpot.
Speaker 2: In the indigenous Ketchua language, and it refers to a
Speaker 2: style of cooking that's thought to be more than eight
Speaker 2: thousand years old. It's basically Peru's answer to barbecue, but
Speaker 2: instead of using a grill, you bury the food and
Speaker 2: you cook it between rows of hot volcanic rocks.
Speaker 1: That's really cool. And I'm guessing the food in this
Speaker 1: case is some kind of meat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's it's certainly the star of the show.
Speaker 2: A traditional spread can include up to four different marinated meats,
Speaker 2: with the most common options being chicken, pork, lamb, alpaca,
Speaker 2: or guinea pig, the last two of which are local
Speaker 2: delicacies that rarely get served to tourists.
Speaker 3: There's a lot more to pacha manka than meat, though.
Speaker 2: Other crucial components of the dish include Tomlli's lima beans,
Speaker 2: corn potatoes, sweet potatoes, all of which are carefully stacked
Speaker 2: in layers according to how long each one needs to cook,
Speaker 2: and so how does that work exactly? The first step
Speaker 2: is to dig a pit and then start a fire.
Speaker 2: Then you add layers of stones, making sure to only
Speaker 2: use volcanic ones so that they don't burst from the
Speaker 2: high heat. Now, once the rocks are red hot, you
Speaker 2: add your first layer of food. This is typically the
Speaker 2: potato layer because those take the most time to cook. Now.
Speaker 2: Their placement also has the added benefit of absorbing all
Speaker 2: the fat drippings from the layer above them, which is
Speaker 2: your meat of choice. On top of the meat, you
Speaker 2: add another layer of rocks, followed by faster cooking vegetables
Speaker 2: and tomali's on the very top. Now, the last step
Speaker 2: is to cover it all up, but once again there
Speaker 2: is a layering process. So first you pile on some
Speaker 2: banana and plantain leaves for flavor, Then you add some
Speaker 2: craft paper or fabric to act as a barrier, and
Speaker 2: lastly you top it with soil. Now, it can take
Speaker 2: as little as fifteen minutes to cook everything, depending on
Speaker 2: the heat of your stones, but most pachamanca has cooked
Speaker 2: for forty minutes or longer to get everything nice and tender.
Speaker 3: It actually sounds pretty good.
Speaker 1: It sounds delicious, but this obviously, isn't a dinner for
Speaker 1: one kind of thing. Is this more communal as well?
Speaker 1: Very much so.
Speaker 2: Like historically it's a very social experience. So people living
Speaker 2: in the Andes Mountains were incredibly isolated from other communities,
Speaker 2: so making pachamanca was a reason to get everybody together.
Speaker 2: It's the same today too, where you might have pachamanka
Speaker 2: to celebrate a special occasion or as part of a
Speaker 2: big community event, but you're definitely not going to do
Speaker 2: this alone.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because when I think of proving cuisine, I
Speaker 1: mostly think about savich, which is so firmly rude in
Speaker 1: the culture that it's considered the national dish there. But
Speaker 1: what you're describing is exact opposite of a cold cooked
Speaker 1: seafood salad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a Maine is better known for lobster
Speaker 2: than it is for beanhole suppers. For whatever reason, the
Speaker 2: coastal food traditions have just garnered more attention than the
Speaker 2: inland ones.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad we could do this episode to share
Speaker 1: the good news of underground cooking. I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people got into canning during the pandemic, so who knows,
Speaker 1: maybe food burial will be next, you know, like the
Speaker 1: next hot food trend. But before we sign off, why
Speaker 1: don't we do a quick fact off?
Speaker 3: All right, let's dig in. All right, So we've been
Speaker 3: covered some unusual.
Speaker 2: Approaches to food preservation today, but I think the strangest
Speaker 2: might be the old Russian folk belief that putting a
Speaker 2: frog and milk will prevent it from spoiling.
Speaker 3: Now that's the milk, not the frog.
Speaker 2: The idea may have stemmed from the fact that frogs
Speaker 2: are cold and damped to the touch, which may have
Speaker 2: led folks to assume that those qualities could be passed
Speaker 2: along to whatever liquid the frog was submerged in. Another
Speaker 2: theory is that the belief rose from the practice of
Speaker 2: storing milk cans in a stream to keep them cool. Occasionally,
Speaker 2: frogs would find their way into these containers, and farmers
Speaker 2: would have to assure customers that the milk was still drinkable.
Speaker 2: Some of them may have even pretended that the frogs
Speaker 2: had been purposefully added due to their supposed preservation power,
Speaker 2: which is pretty clever there. In any case, the folklore
Speaker 2: about frogs has persisted for centuries, and while few people
Speaker 2: in Russia actually believe it, today, just about everyone has
Speaker 2: at least heard of it, so you can imagine their
Speaker 2: surprise when back in twenty twelve, scientists in Moscow announced
Speaker 2: that the belief.
Speaker 3: Might not be that far fetched.
Speaker 2: Actually, according to the report, many of the peptides found
Speaker 2: in the secretions of common frogs contain antibacterial properties. So
Speaker 2: while dropping a frog in your milk carton is still
Speaker 2: super gross, it turns out the peasants of Old Russia
Speaker 2: may have actually been onto something.
Speaker 1: That is incredible. I'd heard about that, but I didn't
Speaker 1: know there was any truth to it. Well, heading back underground,
Speaker 1: I want to tell you about the world's oldest noodles.
Speaker 1: They were unearthed in China back in two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: and according to radiocarbon dating, the ancient millet pasta is
Speaker 1: about four thousand years old. Now, the discovery suggests that
Speaker 1: China was like the birthplace of the noodle, as none
Speaker 1: of the specimens found in other countries come anywhere close
Speaker 1: to matching that date. And the really crazy thing is
Speaker 1: that this act of preservation happened completely by accident. According
Speaker 1: to archaeologists, the ancient settlement where the noodles were found
Speaker 1: had been wiped out by a sudden catastrophe, and amidst
Speaker 1: the wreckage and human remains, the team found an upturned
Speaker 1: bowl and when they lifted it, they found a pile
Speaker 1: of neolithic noodles waiting for them. So the archaeologist Kambu
Speaker 1: Lee explained it this way. It was this unique combination
Speaker 1: of factors that created a vacuum or an empty space
Speaker 1: between the top of the sentiment cone and the bottom
Speaker 1: of this bowl that allowed the noodles to be perfectly preserved.
Speaker 2: It's interesting, actually, I think I have the perfect thing
Speaker 2: to pair with the world's oldest noodles, and that's the
Speaker 2: world's oldest wine. It was poured into a funeral urn
Speaker 2: in Spain more than two thousand years ago and was
Speaker 2: rediscovered inside an underground Roman tomb back in twenty nineteen. Now.
Speaker 2: The archaeologist who opened the urn found a glass flask
Speaker 2: inside containing about five liters of a reddish brown liquid.
Speaker 2: Chemical analysis revealed it to be a white sherry type
Speaker 2: wine that's still made in the region today, and it
Speaker 2: has since been authenticated as the oldest known example of
Speaker 2: a wine that still exists in a liquid form. But
Speaker 2: for any connoisseurs out there, attempted to give it a taste.
Speaker 2: Keep in mind that cremated remains were also found in
Speaker 2: the urrns, so you'll just want to maybe, I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe strain it first.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I like my wine chunky style. One
Speaker 1: thing I'd have a harder time saying no to is
Speaker 1: a freshly pickled pickle from a Fijian pickle pit. Nice. Now,
Speaker 1: the pickling process is thought to have version it in
Speaker 1: Mesopotamia as far back as twenty four hundred BCE, but
Speaker 1: it holds a special importance in the Pacific Islands, where
Speaker 1: the warm, humid climate causes food to spoil much faster.
Speaker 1: So to get around that problem, native communities began digging
Speaker 1: these fermentation pits, which they would line with banana leaves
Speaker 1: to keep out the soil. And the pits were especially
Speaker 1: helpful in building up food stores to use celebrations or
Speaker 1: you know, in case of storms, and over time the
Speaker 1: pits became so vital that they even started to play
Speaker 1: a role in the courting process. So in Fiji, for example,
Speaker 1: building up a well stocked picklepit shows that a man
Speaker 1: is a good provider, which is why it's customary for
Speaker 1: men to let a woman's parents inspect their picklepit before
Speaker 1: they popped the question. It has some good.
Speaker 2: Tongue twisters this episode, and it just sounds sturdy mango.
Speaker 2: To be honest with you, My last one doesn't involve
Speaker 2: a buried food, but it's such a bizarre case.
Speaker 3: Of food preservation that I can't not mention it.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 1: According to our friends at Alice Obscura, the world's oldest.
Speaker 2: Ham was carried one hundred and twenty three years ago
Speaker 2: by Gwaltney Foods Meat Company, this in Smithfield, Virginia. Now,
Speaker 2: somehow the ham fell by the wayside for two decades
Speaker 2: and remained hanging from the rafters of a packing house
Speaker 2: until the early nineteen twenties. The head of the company,
Speaker 2: a guy named Pembroke Gwaltney Junior, was so thrilled by
Speaker 2: the hams rediscovering that he put a brass collar on
Speaker 2: it and started calling it his pet.
Speaker 3: You know how you'd normally.
Speaker 2: React to something like this so weird, And that wasn't
Speaker 2: all either. So Gwaltny was so proud of the ham
Speaker 2: that he took it to public expositions and showed it
Speaker 2: off as proof of the preservative powers of his smoking method.
Speaker 2: He claimed the company's process was so effective that its
Speaker 2: meats could be stored in definitely without refrigeration. Seems he
Speaker 2: was right too, because the century old Ham is still
Speaker 2: going strong today. It's on permanent display at the Isle
Speaker 2: of White County Museum in Virginia, which, by the way,
Speaker 2: is also home to the World's Oldest Peanuts.
Speaker 3: These guys have a lot to brag about in that area.
Speaker 1: It's so old.
Speaker 2: And if you can't make the trip in person, don't worry.
Speaker 2: You can still keep up with the Ham's Twitter account
Speaker 2: at World's Oldest Ham, or you can keep an eye
Speaker 2: on it directly through the museum's twenty four to seven
Speaker 2: live streamed ham Camp, of course. And in case you're wondering,
Speaker 2: according to microbologist, the ham is still technically edible, although
Speaker 2: you know it looks like a petrified football.
Speaker 3: At this point.
Speaker 1: Well, even though I love the idea of around the
Speaker 1: clock Hamcam, the fact that it is in does give
Speaker 1: you a little pause here.
Speaker 3: I think that's fair.
Speaker 2: I still wanted to mention it, but I was going
Speaker 2: to give you this week's trophy anyway for the pickle pits,
Speaker 2: you know, mainly for the tongue twister there because it's
Speaker 2: just so much fun to say.
Speaker 1: I love it. Well, that's going to do it for
Speaker 1: today's Part Time Genius. If you enjoyed this episode, come
Speaker 1: find us on Instagram at part Time Genius or leave
Speaker 1: us a review on Apple Podcasts, and either way we'll
Speaker 1: be back in your feed real soon with another brand
Speaker 1: new episode from Mary Gabe, Dylan, Will and myself. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is a
Speaker 1: production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by
Speaker 1: Will Pearson and me Mongayshtikler and researched by our good
Speaker 1: pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced
Speaker 1: by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvel
Speaker 1: and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
Speaker 1: Trustee Dara Potts and buy Any Shorey. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.