WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Cauldron, Part 1 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:07.800 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to blow your mind. My 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:09.160 name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:12.119 And I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. We're going into 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:14.319 the vault for an older episode of the show. This 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:17.840 one is part one of our series on the cauldron. 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.599 Rather mundane object, but I recall we dug up a 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:24.760 lot of interesting threads and tangents on this. So this 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:29.400 episode originally published May twenty fourth, twenty twenty two. Let's 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:34.880 let's jump right in and land with the splash. 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:38.640 Round about the cauldron. Go in the poisoned in trails. 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:43.640 Throw toad that under cold stone days and nights has 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:49.199 thirty one sweltered venom sleeping got boiled. Now first in 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:53.840 the charmed pot, double double toil and traple, fire burn 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:55.680 and cauldron bubble. 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:57.280 Feel it of a finny snake. 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:01.160 In the cauldron, boil and bake, I have newt and 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:05.640 toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog, adders, 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:09.920 fork and blind worms, sting lizard's leg, And how let's 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:14.160 wing for a charm of powerful trouble like a hell 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:20.240 broth boil and bubble, double double toil and trouble, fireburn 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:32.040 and cauldron Baba Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:34.760 production of iHeartRadio. 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:42.880 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:44.000 is Robert Lamb. 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:47.000 And I'm Joe McCormick. And rob why did you ask 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.480 me to read from Macbeth in a witchy voice? What 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:51.080 is that going to lead into? 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:55.240 Well, of course we're going to be talking about cauldrons, 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:58.680 and certainly in Western traditions, I feel like one of 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:03.040 the first places that one's mind goes is to go 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:06.000 to act for a scene one of William Shakespeare's Macbeth. 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:09.560 This is the scene that we just read from Round 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:14.720 about the Cauldron go It's and it does bring together 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:17.960 a number of the ideas of the cauldron that will 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:21.240 be discussed in these episodes. And of course it's just 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:23.960 just a fabulous scene in general, with witches doing their 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:27.800 their witchy best to make some sort of horrific potion. 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:31.639 Now, obviously you have had cauldrons on the brain. What 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:34.160 sent you down this path? How did we end up here? 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:36.280 You know, I don't remember exactly. It was something that 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.240 came up in previous research for another episode. I started 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:41.919 noticing the cauldron and I was like, oh, well, there's 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:43.720 a lot here we should consider coming back to it, 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:46.960 and indeed there is quite a lot, because on one 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:51.359 hand you have just the history of mundane but fascinating 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:55.320 cooking technology, and then you have the different sacred and 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:59.720 supernatural directions. This goes in as in as well. Certainly 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:03.080 there's the Asian tradition, which we'll probably get to first, 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.760 but then there's this rich Western tradition going back to 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:09.920 Celtic traditions and so forth. And some of these are 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:14.160 perhaps more connected with the Cauldron of Macbeth, and we'll 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:18.040 probably discuss that in a subsequent episode. But it is 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:20.119 you need to task usselves, like what do we think 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:24.560 of when we think of cauldron. I know I instantly think, 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:26.680 of course, of this scene from Macbeth, but I also 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:31.320 instantly think back to a trio of early eighties films. 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:34.239 I think of Beast Master, I think of Conan the Barbarian, 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:36.360 and I also think of those both from nineteen eighty two, 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:38.040 but I also think of nineteen eighty one's Clash of 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:41.680 the Titans. All three of these have some sort of 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:45.360 a cannibal stew going on, some sort of a big 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:49.400 broth that it is revealed, has human parts within it. 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:53.320 Now in the Clash of the Titans. There's an interesting 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:58.120 connection because the cauldron is being tended by three Crones, 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:01.800 the gree Sisters, who are part of the story of 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.840 Perseus and Medusa, and it's hard not to notice the 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:09.040 similarities with the Three Witch Sisters and Macbeth there. 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:11.920 Yeah, it's my understanding there is a connection here. These 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:16.480 are essentially the ancient predecessors of Macbeth's which is now. 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:18.600 As for the cannibal Stoo's, yeah, I think it's a 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:21.840 case where I'm just guessing here. We're based on the timeline. 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:23.839 I think they invoked it and Clash of the Titans, 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:27.839 and then either overtly or not, the makers of Beast 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:29.640 Master and Conan were like, oh, we need to get 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:32.400 in on that. That's a great image. Get a cannibal 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:33.039 stew in here. 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:35.800 But if that's the case, why didn't Conan have a 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:37.000 pet mechanical owl. 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.719 I know, I know it's a flaw. It's often pointed 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:42.000 out as a flaw of that film. 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:43.680 Conan needs a robot. 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.160 I think another film that people might think of would 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:50.560 be the nineteen eighty five Disney film The Black Cauldron, 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.160 based on the work of Lloyd Alexander and this of 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:56.280 course drew from Welsh mythology, and we'll get into some 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:59.360 of that in subsequent episodes. But I asked my ten 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:01.320 year old son what he thought about when I mentioned 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.360 the word cauldron. He has not seen well, he's seen 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:07.520 Clash of the Titans and loves it, but he hasn't 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:09.640 seen the other two films. When I ask him, he said, well, 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:11.800 I think of soup, and I think of Harry Potter, 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:14.359 the latter of which of course is also linked to 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:18.360 Western traditions of witches and so forth. And I think 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:21.039 the Potter books and films are probably a key modern 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:23.480 pop culture reference regarding cauldron's You. 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:25.760 Know, I started thinking about something with this word, but 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:29.440 then started doubting myself. I'll see what you think about this, 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.119 So I don't know if there's already an established term 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:34.880 for this type of phenomenon. But I was thinking about 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:38.720 how cauldron is something you might call like a charged 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:44.040 variant of a concept, a word that has extremely mundane 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:48.120 literal synonyms, like literally a cauldron is just a large 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.400 pot or a big pot. I think, perhaps one that 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.599 is especially used over an open flame, more so than 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:58.599 in like an indoor cook top setting and yet the 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:02.599 word suggests a world of associations that it's literal synonyms 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:06.120 do not. Like in English, large pot does not have 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:10.600 any special magic swirling about it, but cauldron does. Anytime 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.520 you say the word cauldron, it suggests, you know, this 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:17.119 is trollish sorcery, something is going on. But then again, 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:19.800 maybe it's not that remarkable because I guess you can 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.360 think of other things associated with magic, Like I think 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:25.880 the word wand literally just means like a rod or 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:28.280 a stick, but in modern English it is pretty much 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.039 always associated with magic. 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:32.920 Yeah. Yeah, it is interesting to think about this because 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.400 with the cauldron, you could sort of go cauldron, pot, 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:41.359 crock pot, instant pot, and the closer you get to instant, Like, 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:45.719 the instant pot does not have really any nefarious or 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:50.640 magical connotations. It's thoroughly modern, nothing to fear. And I 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:54.000 feel like though, the further back through the terminology you go, yes, 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:59.920 the stranger things get because even pot is more intimidating 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:00.960 than crockpot. 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:03.840 Well, I wonder if there's generally a thing in languages 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.840 where there's like an archaic synonym for a word that 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:14.240 loses its mundane associations like one one synonym maintains the 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:17.760 mundanity through the ages, and the other one only retains 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:20.320 usage in magically charged scenarios. 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:22.080 Yeah, I mean I think that's the case. I'm not 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:24.120 sure if we're going to end up keeping the third 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:28.360 witch's bit from the opening here, but there is a 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:33.120 line in that where the where the witch rhymes children 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:38.040 with cauldron, children being this old term for like entrails. 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:41.560 But I didn't do a deep dive into this terminology, 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:43.760 if it's my understanding like that that was already an 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:48.720 archaic term when Shakespeare used it, or you know, and 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.800 or a more specified term. But you do what you 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.120 have to do when you need to rhyme something with cauldron. 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:57.280 Yeah, what else fits in there? Squadron? Not really? 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:00.640 I mean you can make it work wire which is 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:02.080 going to be talking about squadrons? 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:05.000 How about how about how about Godson cauldron? 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.640 That's kind of a maybe maybe I think you got to. 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:09.680 Put some spin on the pronunciation though that's like an 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:10.960 M and M style style. 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:13.160 Yeah, you got to be a pro to make that work. 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.120 So all in all, there is a rich tradition of 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:24.480 cauldrons overflowing with powers of death, creation, domination, torment, and divination. 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:27.880 But Before we get into all of this properly, we 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:29.960 have to back up. We have to really talk about 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:33.439 the mundane world of cauldrons as well, and so we're 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:36.240 gonna have to talk about, you know, the origins of 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:39.760 soup technology, which I've been super excited about all weekend, 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:43.240 and I think my family is sick of hearing about it. 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:45.199 You've been talking about soup a lot. Did you make 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:45.679 soup this. 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:48.240 No, it's too hot for soup, that's the thing. Oh yeah, 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:50.400 I mean we could have made a spot show, I guess, 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:52.840 but but no, I haven't been having any soup. But 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:56.640 just reading about the traditions of soup, it's made me 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.000 respected all the more. I need a cold snap so 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:01.640 I can get back into it. So first and foremost, 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:04.240 as we've been discussing, a cauldron is simply a large 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.880 pot used to boil liquid over a fire. So in function, 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:10.480 it's really no different from any pot you have in 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.920 your kitchen. It's just generally considered a bigger pot. Now, 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:16.960 long before the advent of metal pots, we had bowls. 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:20.079 We had pots of pottery, as well as presumably ones 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:22.720 made of wood and leather, though such artifacts don't always 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.840 stand the test of time here as well. But one 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:29.000 question that's interesting to get into is, Okay, well, we 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:32.440 were talking about cauldrons, we're inevitably talking about about soups 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:36.319 in many cases. But do you need a pot, or 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:37.920 you need a metal pot, or do you need a 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:40.680 pot at all in order to make soup? I would 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:42.960 have thought so, there was a time where I would 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:45.440 have thought so as well, But it turns out it's 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:49.920 not necessary because a hole in the ground is nature's cauldron, 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:53.920 and this is something that can be made water tight 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:56.600 via the use of animal hides, and then one may 0:09:56.720 --> 0:10:00.560 fill this hole with water and of course food your 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:04.440 various ingredients, which will of course eventually come together in 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:06.800 a hot soup. But where's the heat going to come from? 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.640 Good question, Yeah, because you can't put a fire under 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:11.280 it if it's a hole in the ground and then 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:12.079 a hide. 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.920 I mean, I guess there might be specialized situations where 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:19.440 you could depend on geothermal heat, but in this example, 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:21.840 geothermal heat is not available, so you're going to have 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:24.760 to create something with fire. The answer is, you have 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:27.880 an adjacent fire, get it nice and hot, and then 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:30.760 you have hot stones heated up in that fire, and 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:34.240 then those hot stones are transferred from the fire to 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:36.520 the soup, and that is how you heat the soup 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:37.040 in the hole. 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.160 Nice, Okay, the hot stone goes in, then you got 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:40.760 a stew gooing. 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:46.080 Yeah. Now, other perishable above ground bowls and pots apparently 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:51.400 were also used in different cultures with this technique, which 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:56.520 is generally referred to as stone boiling. In these cases 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:58.400 you would often have like a wet bark or hide 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:02.120 scenario to create the vessel. But stone boiling has been 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:06.400 traced to pre pottery culinary traditions of Native American tribes, 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:11.040 Paleolithic Chinese groups, and even Neanderthals. And on a quick 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:15.560 note about Chinese culture, I know when we talk about 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:18.600 cooking with stones and cooking soup with stones, you instantly 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:22.080 think about the story of Stone Soup, which I believe 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:28.000 in most tellings has no relation to to to stone boiling. However, 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:33.000 Chinese American author Ying Chang Compostein adapted the classic story 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:36.520 but with the twist, first of all Chinese twist, setting 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:41.400 it in ancient China, but also incorporating a stone boiling motif. 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:44.400 In this book called the Real Story of Stone Soup. 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.240 Well, Rob, I know you said, everybody knows the story, 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:49.760 but maybe some people don't. What's the quick version of 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:50.440 the stone soup? 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:53.920 Well, the classic stone soup says tail is that, you know, 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:57.160 you have some individual generally there's sort of a you know, 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:01.560 a roguish type character. There's that a great adaptation of 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:05.360 this with some additional elements in Jim Henson's The Storyteller series. 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:09.520 But here's this this man and he's he's cooking up 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:13.720 some water and he asks somebody passing by, excuse me, 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.240 I'm making some soup. Could you help me? I just 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.000 need a nice stone And they're, you know, like what, 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:20.600 what do you need a stone for it? And they're like, well, 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:23.600 I'm making stone soup. And so they agree. They bring 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:26.800 this individual a stone, and in many cases, you know, 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:31.080 the the would be chef here sniffs it, maybe licks 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:33.160 the stone, and it's like, okay, this is a good one. 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:36.640 Plunks it in and so now now people are begin 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:38.959 to get interested. Other passer buyers stop and they're like, 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:41.800 what's he doing. He's cooking stone soup. They ask him, well, 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:44.000 how does it taste? When he samples it, He's like, well, 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:47.440 needs a little salt. So he doesn't have salt, but 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.280 somebody is now they're now invested in this process, and 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.719 so someone brings some salt, but then he chases it again. No, 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.360 needs a little pepper, So someone brings some pepper before along. 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:59.600 Of course, it needs some celery, it needs some potatoes, 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:02.719 it needs all these other ingredients, and at the end 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:06.400 of the process there is this great, big bowl of soup. 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.520 And I think in most tellings it is then communally enjoyed. 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:11.640 Oh well, that's a great story. And to sort of 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:14.160 an idea about how you can you can like hype 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:16.559 bootstrap nothing into something. 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:20.880 Yeah, yeah, it's it's a wonderful tail. But but yeah. 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:25.240 In this adaptation, it takes the stone boiling technique and 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:29.120 factors it in, which which I found was pretty clever. Now, 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:31.120 you might wonder what kind of evidence is there for 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:34.480 stone soup. So, according to a few different sources I 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:37.760 was looking at, basically it comes down to pits that 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:40.240 are that are found in the archaeological record that have 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.400 stones in them. Stones that are cracked from heat often 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.280 referred to as thermally cracked rocks. So this is this 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:50.240 indicates that these rocks were heated to a high temperature 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:53.360 and then added to this broth or added to water 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:55.840 to help make this broth. And we also tend to 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:59.360 see this and pit cooking kind of loop together into 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.000 a combined and earth oven cooking tradition. 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:05.520 Oh yeah, okay, so this wouldn't even necessarily always be 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:08.040 something like soup. Like I know that there are some 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:11.560 methods for like roasting meat, I think Mesoamerican culinary traditions 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:15.920 where you'd like wrap some meat in leaves, like wet 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:17.920 leaves or something and then cook it in a pit 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:19.320 in the ground with hot coals. 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:22.600 Yeah, so I think it does certainly speak to human innovation, 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:25.480 like the if the hole in the ground is your 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:28.000 level of cooking technology, it doesn't mean you're not coming 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:31.560 up with new and ingenious ways to tinker with that format, 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:36.360 such as as you know, eventually developing a wet cooking technology. 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:38.200 And I guess we can come back to this in 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:40.840 a minute, but I think there are real advantages to 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.040 so called wet cooking technologies that they like, they have 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:47.520 some measurable benefits that some other types of cooking do not. 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.560 Right, I mean, so it obviously wet cooking sticks with us, 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:58.080 and wet cooking survives the use of stone boiling now 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:01.359 stone boiling. Yeah, it does eventually lose out to other techniques, 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:06.080 especially container based cooking with pottery, et cetera, because ultimately 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:10.000 stone boiling requires more maintenance and it isn't nearly as 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:13.000 passive a technique. So you know, if you're adding those 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:15.000 hot stones, then you have to keep adding new hot 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:18.560 stones taking out the old stones. You can't just well, 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:20.640 let's put the let's put the soup on, and then 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:22.880 go do these other things required to present the meal. 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:25.800 Oh yeah, nutrition and taste aside. That's another great thing 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:27.720 about wet cooking. So if you just like put some 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:30.000 food items in a pot with water and then let 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.280 it boil, you can just ignore it for a long 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:34.600 time and it's not going to burn or anything because 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:37.320 there's enough water content in there that that's going to 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:37.760 be fine. 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:40.440 Yeah. So one another source I was looking at, there's 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:44.240 a paper titled stone boiling, Firecracked Rock and nut Oil 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:47.440 published in The Wisconsin Archaeologist in two thousand and nine 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:52.040 by James Skibo, and Skibe points out that the whole 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.640 process of adding and removing hot stones during the production 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.440 of nut oil would have resulted in the loss of 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:01.760 that precious nut oil that was being produced. So that's 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:03.520 another thing to think about it. It's like, not only 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.160 is it, you know, not a very passive technique, but 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:09.560 if you're having to keep you know, reaching in there 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:12.760 with some sort of implement and removing rocks, adding new rocks, 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:16.960 you're going to lose some of what you're actually brewing up. 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.120 Oh yeah, okay, I can see that, like sticking to 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:21.160 the rocks and stuff. 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.520 Yeah, but I should also point out though there is 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:28.360 apparently evidence of stone boiling surviving into the advent of pottery, 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:33.000 with the stones added to water inside of vessels. So 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.520 and then I also I believe examples of stone boiling 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:41.400 that is also taking place in some sort of above 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:44.200 ground scenario, some sort of like say a wet high 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:47.480 bag or a wet bark container. So there, it didn't 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:49.880 have to happen in the ground. But I think the 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:55.359 most certainly to modern are modern understanding of culinary technologies. 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.280 I think the hole in the ground stone boiling scenario 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:02.720 is perhaps the most amazing and the most removed from 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:03.920 what we seem to be doing. 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.399 Okay, so we might not know exactly when the first 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:10.600 human boiled something, but we do have a pretty clear 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:14.280 picture that wet cooking or boiling, simmering, whatever you want 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.200 to call it, cooking something in water is a technique 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:20.000 that comes along later in the history of cooking, because 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:23.560 like fire, goes back a long time before, and pretty 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:26.960 clearly humans were maybe say, roasting things over an open 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:29.720 flame before they had wet cooking techniques. So where do 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.040 these wet cooking techniques come from? Do we think? 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.320 Well? I found a source discussing this. This is from 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:39.119 John D. Speth in When Did Humans Learn to Boil? 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:43.520 Twenty fifteen, paleo Anthropology Society. I'm going to read a 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.479 quote from this paper. Quote. Pits that would have been 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:51.040 suitable for stone boiling are equally scarce until the Upper Paleolithic, 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:54.119 although the evidence for subsurface features of this sort may 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:59.760 have been obscured or erased by post taphonomic processes. Not surprisingly, 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:03.159 they're because of the late appearance of heated stones and 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:07.080 potential boiling pits. Archaeologists almost without exception, have come to 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:10.880 the logical conclusion that wet cooking is a late addition 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:14.439 to human culinary practices, another of a long list of 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:18.760 technological achievements which we owe to the enhanced cognitive powers 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:20.080 of fully modern humans. 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.520 Okay, so cooking maybe older, but we think wet cooking 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:27.160 is probably something that comes about in the Upper Paleolithic, 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:30.680 which I think is generally like between something like fifty thousand, 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:32.280 like twelve thousand years ago. 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:42.240 Now, interestingly enough, I think we've pointed this out before, 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:43.720 but it's still It's one of those facts that I 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:49.080 think can be very stimulating is that pottery predates agriculture, 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:54.200 and according to Brian Fagan and Bill Sillar, very little 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.359 of the oldest pottery remains are actually charred by fire, 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:02.600 suggesting that these were more prestigious items for displaying food 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:05.639 than for something you would actually use to cook food. 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:09.600 So while foragers made use of pottery, we also have 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:13.159 to remember that this was also the pottery is fragile, 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:17.359 and it's perhaps not ideal for people who are traveling around. 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:22.280 So this is quite interesting that Fagan and so I 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:26.160 to bring up here is that the usefulness of pottery, 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:30.240 paired with its fragility, might have been a contributing factor 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:34.080 for some groups that had pottery to settle down, Like 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:37.479 to make full use of the pottery, you might have 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:40.920 to stop moving around at least a bit and have 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:45.000 more of a base of operations, where your pottery has 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:48.919 less chance of becoming fragmented and shattered, and can be 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:51.639 used to store things as well as present things and 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.760 so forth. Now some of our earliest pottery fragments. It 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:58.399 depends where you are in the timeline of discoveries. So 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:01.760 when Fagan and s Silo we're writing this is from 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.840 the seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient World, they were 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:09.560 pointing to fourteen thousand BCE in Japan as being the 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:14.119 oldiest oldest known pottery discovery. However, after the publication of 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:20.240 that book, a twenty twelve paper revealed that Chenrin Cave 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:23.760 in eastern China was found to contain charred pottery fragments 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:25.560 dating back twenty thousand years. 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:29.200 Yeah. I was looking around at these questions about what 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:33.600 is the earliest evidence of pottery or pots in general, 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:36.040 And the earliest pots would be pottery, they would be 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:39.320 ceramics of some kind, fired out of clay or other 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:43.960 earthen materials, not metal. Metal cooking vessels would come much later, 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:47.440 So the earliest pottery vessels used for cooking. I was 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:49.680 looking what's the evidence for that? And I came across 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:55.000 a paper from twenty thirteen published in Nature by Oliver 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:58.720 Craig at All called earliest evidence for the use of pottery, 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:01.919 and I also was looking at a write up of 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:05.960 this in Science by Sid Perkins called first Evidence of 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:09.000 Pottery used for Cooking, and at the time this was 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:12.440 considered some of the earliest direct evidence for pottery used 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:16.320 explicitly for cooking. And my immediate question was, well, what 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:19.359 were they cooking in it? Do we have any idea? Actually, yes, 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:22.280 this paper looks directly into that question what they were 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:25.040 cooking and helps give us a picture of the way 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:27.080 of life of the people who use this pottery. So 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:31.640 the authors of this paper argue that the evidence indicates 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:35.560 pottery technology emerged in East Asia between twelve thousand and 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:39.160 twenty thousand years before the present, and it was an 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:42.640 innovation among hunter gatherers. Rob you mentioned that a minute ago, 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:44.880 but I think it's worth sitting with that for a minute. 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:49.280 It's a strange thing. You might assume pottery only arises 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:53.560 among people who have adopted farming in an agricultural, settled 0:21:53.600 --> 0:21:56.800 way of life that allows them to have fixed homes 0:21:56.920 --> 0:22:00.560 and you know, forges and so forth. This kind of 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:06.679 industry of creating earthenware vessels would arise from that setting, 0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:09.560 but no, it does appear to arise before people settled 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:13.560 down and started farming. But this raises the question why 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:17.680 was pottery invented? We were getting an idea of when 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:20.840