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How One Guy Made Europe Fall In Love With Potatoes · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. That's our super producer, the
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: one and only Max Williams. They called me Ben and
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I gotta tell you. Out of all the carbs, all
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  Speaker 1: the carbs in the world, potatoes are number one for me. Sorry,
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  Speaker 1: beer potatoes, stick him in a stew, Taters, spuds, Uh,
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  Speaker 1: just make up dirt munches, Tubers, tubers, there you go. Tubers.
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  Speaker 1: Tubers actually refers to like what the thing that they
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  Speaker 1: grow from, right, sort of like bulbs, sort of like
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  Speaker 1: tulip bulbs. I think the things you plant to grow
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  Speaker 1: potatoes are called tubers or it's it's it's like a
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  Speaker 1: genre of of root of edible root, right yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: It's the underground part of a stem or a rhyme
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  Speaker 1: that serves as a food reserve. It does bear buds
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  Speaker 1: from which new plants can grow. Right, It's like when
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  Speaker 1: you take a potato and you stick it, you can
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  Speaker 1: you can actually grow potato from a potato, the like
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  Speaker 1: you know when you actually when you leave a potato
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  Speaker 1: out for too long, those tubers start to come out
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  Speaker 1: almost like some sort of weird Cathulu esque creepers. I'm
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  Speaker 1: no old, by the way, Yes, yes, your nol and
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  Speaker 1: a potato is a typical tuber. It's a great example
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  Speaker 1: of a delicious tuber. All you need is a little
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  Speaker 1: bit of salt, some some butter, source of heat and
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  Speaker 1: in imagination, and you can. You can take potatoes pretty far.
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  Speaker 1: It's true, it's true, but a lot like other, you know,
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  Speaker 1: earlier forms of of food stuffs that we now know
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  Speaker 1: and enjoy, like the banana potatoes, weren't always the potatoes
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  Speaker 1: we know and love today, were they? No, they weren't old.
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  Speaker 1: I love that you're bringing this up. So this is
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  Speaker 1: this is odd. This has happened a couple of times
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  Speaker 1: in Europe. There are some uh, some specific types of
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  Speaker 1: produce or even dishes that become closely associated with a
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  Speaker 1: given country, But those fruits and vegetables or tubers in
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  Speaker 1: this case, are not themselves native to the European continent.
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  Speaker 1: You know, some people are surprised to learn that tomatoes
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  Speaker 1: were not native to Italy and weren't around for a
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  Speaker 1: long long time, And the same is true with Ireland
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  Speaker 1: and potatoes. Are you implying the potatoes migrate, yes, Monty
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  Speaker 1: python reference, but no, it's true. I mean potatoes, he can't.
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  Speaker 1: You're inseparable from from the Irish culture almost like in
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  Speaker 1: this cliche, sort of obnoxious, almost condescending, the idea of
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  Speaker 1: of Irish Irish being sort of simple folk potato farmers,
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  Speaker 1: like subsisting on very bland foods, and of course the
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  Speaker 1: famous potato blight or the potato famine of Irish history
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  Speaker 1: is also a huge part of of that country's identity.
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  Speaker 1: But they're you're right, they're not native to um Ireland
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  Speaker 1: at all. In fact that they're not native to anywhere
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  Speaker 1: in Europe. They originally were domesticated in the Andes Mountains
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  Speaker 1: in Peru, also in northwest Bolivia, and they were used
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  Speaker 1: for food as far back as eight thousand b C.
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  Speaker 1: We've got a great article from Mental Floss about the
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  Speaker 1: history of potatoes. Highly recommend checking that one out. But
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  Speaker 1: they didn't taste the same back then either. They were
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  Speaker 1: oddly shaped, or at least oddly compared to the you know,
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  Speaker 1: very typical oblong potato shape that we know and left today.
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  Speaker 1: But they also tasted bitter, and you know how some
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  Speaker 1: vegetables have a little bit of a bitter taste, and
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  Speaker 1: then when you cook them that can kind of dissipate
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  Speaker 1: a little bit. This is not the case. No amount
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  Speaker 1: of preparation or cooking could get rid of that bitter taste.
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  Speaker 1: And also some of them were toxic, and lamas had
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  Speaker 1: a really great trick for making sure they didn't die
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  Speaker 1: from eating these bitter potatoes. Right, yeah, yeah, that bitter
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  Speaker 1: taste was you know, a little bit of poison, not
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  Speaker 1: a ton, just a touch, just a touch of poison. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Lava's would lick clay before they ate potatoes in the wild,
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  Speaker 1: and the poisonous parts of these potatoes essentially would stick
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  Speaker 1: with the clay particles and then it would travel safely
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  Speaker 1: through the animals body. So people in the Andes noticed this,
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  Speaker 1: and then they started dunking their potatoes in a mixture
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  Speaker 1: they had made of clay and water. You know, this
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  Speaker 1: wasn't actually hote cuisine, but it did make the potato
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  Speaker 1: edible and a little more enjoyable. And we're on a
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  Speaker 1: bit of a quest today to understand how the human
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  Speaker 1: species got from lama impersonators in Peru, at least when
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  Speaker 1: it comes to cuisine, all the way to the modern
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  Speaker 1: day when potatoes are a worldwide phenomenon and they're especially
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  Speaker 1: popular in Europe, because, as we're going to see, this
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  Speaker 1: was not always the case. But like you said, no Peru,
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  Speaker 1: that's where our story starts. This was a very important
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  Speaker 1: food stuff for people in the Andes Mountains. This was
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  Speaker 1: a staple product. And we know this went on for
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  Speaker 1: centuries and centuries in that part of the world. But
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  Speaker 1: the fact is, you guys, no one had seen a
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  Speaker 1: potato in Europe. No European had seen a spud before
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  Speaker 1: Spanish conquistadors invaded South America way back in what the
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  Speaker 1: early Fires fifteen thirty and over through the Incan Empire Yepe.
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  Speaker 1: And with that, like many things we see that to
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  Speaker 1: start popping up in Europe usually come from some sort
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  Speaker 1: of tragedy, traumatic cultural events, or decimation. So is the
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  Speaker 1: case with the potato. I just want to add one
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  Speaker 1: more little thing. There's a really great little tidbit in
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  Speaker 1: the Mental Flaws article by Michelle deb Check that even today,
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  Speaker 1: those uh slightly poisonous potatoes, you can still get them
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  Speaker 1: at andy and markets and they're sold with like a
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  Speaker 1: little digestion aid, a little packet of this digestion aiding
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  Speaker 1: clay um kind of mixture. So though, that was pretty interesting,
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  Speaker 1: and it just shows that, you know, even if it's poison,
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  Speaker 1: tradition is is important. But you're right, Ben, Around the
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  Speaker 1: mid fifteen thirties, the Incan Empire was overthrown by Spanish conquistadores,
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  Speaker 1: and so came the spud, the noble spud to Europe
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  Speaker 1: in the sixteenth century. But it was not met with
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  Speaker 1: open arms, Ben, it was not met with open arms.
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  Speaker 1: The Spa Nish brought the potato back from South America,
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  Speaker 1: and at this point they kind of bread it or
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  Speaker 1: cultivated it in such a way that it was totally edible.
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  Speaker 1: You didn't have to, you know, mix it with dirt
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  Speaker 1: or clay dustin people did that. The Spanish didn't help.
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  Speaker 1: The Spanish did not. Now they were not about that life.
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  Speaker 1: But here's the thing, and I love this socially. Those
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  Speaker 1: tubers we were talking about, Um, well, this is a myth,
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  Speaker 1: I think. But it's interesting cause you heard about a
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  Speaker 1: lot of stuff that is easily debunked. The idea that
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  Speaker 1: Europeans didn't like any um plants or or you know,
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  Speaker 1: food stuff that weren't expressly mentioned in the Bible. Shout
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  Speaker 1: out to the State for anybody who remembers the fantastic,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: wildly underrated sketch show the State. There's this wonderful sketch
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  Speaker 1: where they talk about whether or not penguins or in
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  Speaker 1: the Bible. Uh, this this family and that's that's kind
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  Speaker 1: of a descendant of this idea. This did happen, though,
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  Speaker 1: this has been debunked in different cases, right, different specific cases.
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  Speaker 1: But we do know that more conservative people of the
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  Speaker 1: time time literally would say, well, I don't know, it's
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  Speaker 1: not in the Bible. Is not in the Bible? Did
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  Speaker 1: if it was in the Bible, it would have wrote
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  Speaker 1: it down right, so but I would have ridded it down.
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  Speaker 1: That is a pitch perfect sixteenth century Flemish accent, really wondering, well,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I applaud you, um, but okay, so we
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  Speaker 1: know this has been debunked, Like I think, what we're
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  Speaker 1: tomatoes not mentioned the Bible, and there was like a
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  Speaker 1: theory that that was when we talked about tomatoes, and
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  Speaker 1: the idea that people thought they were poisoned too and
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  Speaker 1: that they weren't mentioned in the Bible was a thing.
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  Speaker 1: But anyway, there's there's lots of examples of that. But
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  Speaker 1: another reason for suspicion around these edible underground rudy boys
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  Speaker 1: or the fact that they were grown from these tuber
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  Speaker 1: things that vaguely resembled the boils on the skin of lepers.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, here's the thing. We we know that there
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  Speaker 1: there are a couple of other issues, right, like cabbage
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  Speaker 1: didn't get a lot of shine, and a Bible cabbish
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  Speaker 1: doesn't have an awesome cameo moment, but it was still
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  Speaker 1: really popular tulips that that was also happening at the
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  Speaker 1: same time that didn't seem to bother people. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: when we're looking at the expansion of all these all
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  Speaker 1: these new types of unseen fruit and vegetable or never
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  Speaker 1: before seeing fruit and vegetable arriving in Europe from North
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  Speaker 1: and South America, we know that people are dealing with
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  Speaker 1: a lot of crazy things they haven't seen before, right,
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  Speaker 1: and they're trying to compare them two things they already
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  Speaker 1: are aware of. Check out our pineapple episode, because that's
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  Speaker 1: that's a wild ride. So the other issue here is
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  Speaker 1: that South American climates are not like the climates that
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  Speaker 1: you will find in Western Europe, especially when you talk
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  Speaker 1: about hours of daylight per day during winter and so on.
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  Speaker 1: So when they take these buds, these tubers to Europe,
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  Speaker 1: they see the potatoes grow leaves and flowers, and the
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  Speaker 1: learned folks of the day are studying up on them.
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  Speaker 1: But the tubers they create don't quite get to the
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  Speaker 1: size of potatoes and peru because they, you know, they're
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  Speaker 1: in a different climate. And so the Spanish started trying
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  Speaker 1: to figure out where they could grow these, similar to
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  Speaker 1: the way that the English were trying to figure out
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  Speaker 1: how they could grow pineapples. And if you haven't listened
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  Speaker 1: to that episode yet, do check it out. What a
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  Speaker 1: weird people used to rent pineapples. It's it didn't happen
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  Speaker 1: with potatoes. Now one start written in potatoes yet. But
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  Speaker 1: well they weren't very pretty again, like I said, people
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  Speaker 1: thought they resembled the kind of stunted, little nubby things
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  Speaker 1: that would form on on the skin of lepers or
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  Speaker 1: when their fingers would be have to be removed, etcetera
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  Speaker 1: very very ghastly kind of stuff. I just want to
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  Speaker 1: point out I had my mom did this like Christmas
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  Speaker 1: in July thing because you know, or you know, COVID
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: relatively being somewhat dealt with enough to at least like,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: hug your grandma. We hadn't seen our family, um, you know,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: members in in a long time, even before covid um.
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  Speaker 1: So we did a little Christmas in July thing and
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  Speaker 1: I went, I couldn't notice that she had this massive
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  Speaker 1: pineapple in this fruit ball that clearly was not for consumption,
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  Speaker 1: was clearly just for decoration. And I mentioned to her that, hey,
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  Speaker 1: you know, back in the day, this would have cost
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  Speaker 1: you a pretty penny just to rent um. But no,
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  Speaker 1: definitely not the case with potatoes. But they did start um.
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  Speaker 1: Potatoes were prettier back then, though, weren't they been. They
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  Speaker 1: like actually flowered and they would be studied by botanists.
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  Speaker 1: These potato flowers. He's kind of like very um or
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  Speaker 1: nate little blooms, right, yeah, yeah, Like I was saying,
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  Speaker 1: the climate was such that they could have these leaves
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  Speaker 1: and flowers. But again, the tubers themselves were not reaching
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  Speaker 1: the size that you could find in South America. So
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  Speaker 1: the Spanish did something that was pretty intelligent. They were
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  Speaker 1: aware of the climate and they said, okay, we'll try
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  Speaker 1: to grow potatoes somewhere else. We'll grow them on the
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Canary Islands, which is kind of think of it like
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  Speaker 1: the Goldilocks zone between the northern climate of Europe and
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: the more equatorial climate of South America. Still, when we
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  Speaker 1: talk about the controversy, I think it's hard for a
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  Speaker 1: lot of us in the modern day realize or to
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  Speaker 1: think of potatoes as a controversial thing, because for many
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  Speaker 1: of us, wherever you are in the world or most
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  Speaker 1: most places in the world, potatoes are a common known,
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  Speaker 1: very nod controversial thing, right nobody. It's not what you
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  Speaker 1: know part by French. But it's not as if any
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  Speaker 1: of us are gonna hop on to record ridiculous history.
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  Speaker 1: And you guys asked me what I had to eat,
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  Speaker 1: and I'll say, oh, I got a Patty Melt and
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: some hash browns. And then here Max go, oh, like
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  Speaker 1: that's with holy water? Did you? Did you say the
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  Speaker 1: sacraments above it? You know that that was the thing? Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: You know what's not in the Bible? Right, Okay? Were
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  Speaker 1: you okay with that? You had planted it as a
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: specific time to write some particularly on Good Friday, to
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: prevent it for my guests becoming evil again, those little
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: troopers are kind of creepy looking. I look at them
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  Speaker 1: and I can't not think of like the eldritche you know,
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  Speaker 1: gods or whatever, like the hundred hundred percent there's like
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: what do they call it called those been the sprouting
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  Speaker 1: or fruited. Uh, you know members, I guess that come
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: out of It's the thing in the Last of Us Games,
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  Speaker 1: good good, good stuff, good franchise. But here's the thing.
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  Speaker 1: What we what we need now, Ben, what what history
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  Speaker 1: needs now is a potato evangelists, someone to to come
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  Speaker 1: and normalize potatoes and really, you know, sing its praises
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  Speaker 1: of the humble potato. And we got that in the
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  Speaker 1: form of Antoine Augustine Perimentier, who was like he could
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: consider him like the ultimate hype man for the potato.
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  Speaker 1: He's a potato promoter, he's a potato proselytizer, he's a
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  Speaker 1: spud spokesman, he's a he's a tater uh trumpeter. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: We could get a different term for that one. We'll
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: fix it in post max fix that what I posted.
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  Speaker 1: But now this dude. Uh. Antoine Augustine Permanentier was born
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  Speaker 1: in seventeen thirty seven. Um. He went on to become
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  Speaker 1: a pharmacist he was French, obviously, in the French army
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: during the Seven Years War. There's a really excellent article
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: from Atlas Obscure that also gives a wonderful rundown of
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: the history of the potato by Jim Clark. Highly recommend
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: shocking that out went out, and we're gonna pull some
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: information from that article as well today. But yeah, pharmacist
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  Speaker 1: during the Seven Years War. Um he actually became a
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  Speaker 1: prisoner of war, during which time the Prussians gave their
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  Speaker 1: prisoners potatoes, and the French at the time, um, as
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: we've discussed, still viewed potatoes quite negatively. Yeah, yeah, which
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: is crazy because some of my favorite potato recipes are
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  Speaker 1: French influence. Now. But anyway, this is the thing. So
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  Speaker 1: imagine you're in prison in Prussia. Life stinks, right, and
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  Speaker 1: you're this pharmacist parmenter and he's eating these potatoes in prison,
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  Speaker 1: and he goes, these things are actually not bad, they're
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: not deadly, they're they're actually they're pretty great. Like I'm
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: thinking right now, just on their own seven out of ten,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: and I can make it a nine partmentist thinking. He
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: is eventually released at the end of the war after
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: three years have passed and he can't stop thinking about
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  Speaker 1: these potatoes. It's like it's weird they're on his mind.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: He's been through a literal war, you guys, and people
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: are asking him about the war and how he was
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: a p O dup you in Prussia and he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: have you Have you heard of potatoes though, because like
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: I've the war. That's a five minute conversation. But I
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: have like two days. If you want to talk taters
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: with me. I do want to shout out. Rebecca Earle
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: a professor in the Department of History at the University
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: of Warwick. She wrote an awesome book called Feeding the
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: People The Politics of the Potato. We're gonna be pulling
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: some citations from her in a piece she wrote called
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: How Potatoes Conquered the World. I just wanted to shout out.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: If you like books about very specific things like me,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: then check out Dr Earl's Politics of the Potato. So, Ben,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: you're asking me about the potato and I'm like, I
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: don't know. I heard it was of the devil, you know.
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  Speaker 1: I don't trust it. I don't don't want to it
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  Speaker 1: was poisonous um change my mind. Wait wait, so that's im.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I got the table. I'm like, I got
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: the table with the sign. That's his potatoes are of
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  Speaker 1: the devil change and that's Premier's job is to change
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: my mind. There are collective minds as a nation. How
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: does he do it? How does he do it? So
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: first off, he says, you know, study thyself. And he's like,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: I pretty much just ate potatoes for three years and
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  Speaker 1: I'm alive. I feel good. I feel pretty pro tator.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Uh that was a rough one. We stuck the landing Max.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Now Max doesn't approve of that one. So I think
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get a growing soundtrack for that one.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: I earned it. Uh. So there's this historical novelist Katherine Dolores.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Katherine Dolores writes quite a bit about this and says
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: that it was typical of the time for people to
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: challenge these old ideas. So, no, you're the guy at
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the table saying change my mind and put mine says
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: I am going to change your mind. I'm not just
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: gonna bore you with a bunch of science and a
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: bud to facts. I'm gonna do some flair. I'm gonna
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  Speaker 1: have some pizzazz on this I'm gonna I'm gonna wow you.
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  Speaker 1: We're gonna shock in all you in a war for
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  Speaker 1: the hearts and minds of people when it comes to potatoes.
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  Speaker 1: So at this time we have to mention this is
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  Speaker 1: seventeen seventy two. His first step is to get the
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: French government and the medical community doctors on board, and
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: as Farmers Almanac reports, France had had a potato band
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  Speaker 1: for a while. Did you see that? I mean really
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: they were just like, you know what, it's not enough
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  Speaker 1: to just kind of malign the poor potato. Let's just
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  Speaker 1: outright ban it, like schedule it like a drug or
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: something like that. What was their reasoning? Was it because
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: of the poison potential or was it because they just
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: just didn't like it? They thought it was it was low. Yeah,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: I love the idea of a French p s A
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  Speaker 1: from the seventeen hundreds, like oh your children eating potatoes,
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  Speaker 1: and then all kinds of weird you know, like war
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  Speaker 1: on drugs esque facts, which true stories, school children are
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: leaving school to dig to the ground with their bare hands,
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  Speaker 1: all in the search for a spud, don't don't speaking
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: of which been that term spud actually comes from the
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: hole that you dig to make the to plant the potato.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: That's the sput and also refers to like a short
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: blunt knife that might have been used to dig those
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: uh those holes for for planting potatoes. I was looking
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: at up on the fly. I didn't know. That's awesome, man,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: thank you for the I love somato biology. We also
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: do know why, roughly why the French band the potato.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: French Parliament banned them in seventeen because they believed that
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: this resemblance to leprosy. Right, the way the potato reminded
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: them of leprosy was therefore indictative, like was therefore going
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: to create leprosy and people that consumed it. So they
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: thought they were outlawing a vector for a disease. Isn't
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: it funny how so much stuff was based on just
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: sheer observational observation alone, based on no science. But we
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: have to remember, though, this was the beginning of the Enlightenment,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: which is partly I think why Permans got a little traction,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: because people were beginning to open up their minds to
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: not think that way right, to be more like, well,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: you know, let's just give it a try. Um, let's
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: try some new things. Maybe looks can be deceiving, and
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: it turns out he was pretty successful in that in
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: that campaign. Yeah, and they were also we have to
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: remember they were driven by starvation as much as to like,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: if you if you have people who are are experiencing
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: food insecurity, then of course some of those social taboos
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: are going to loosen up a bit. Yeah, So Parmentier
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: does this thing that is pretty clever. He first goes
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: to scientific institutions, specifically the Presation Faculty of Medicine, and then,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: according to Katherine Dolores, what he's after is an official
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: statement that potatoes are not even good for you, but
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: not as dangerous as they have been believed to be.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of like he said, it's kind of
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: like he's he's saying, look, potatoes are on the level
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: of a firearm, but they're not a nuclear bob, just
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: say that. And because people have pretty much everybody alive
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: at this point in France has been alive during some
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: period of food and security, and there have been a
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: recent harvest that failed in seventeen seventy, so there was
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: already a prize out for anybody who could who could,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: you know, offer solutions to this recurrent problem with famine,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: and that they were probably expecting stuff like a new
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: kind of planting technique or a new kind of irrigation system.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: They weren't expecting the profit of potatoes to come through.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: And he went hard in the paint. He published this
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: essay called Quree and the Newish and Vegetables that in
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: times of necessity he could substitute for ordinary food breath.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Who my goodness, these uh, these titles for these essays
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: back then, we're not it got the job done right
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: so absolutely that he could consider that his like potato treatise,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: and he had sort of a three pronged approach to
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: gaining wide acceptance of the potato. First, he needed to
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: get the French governments and the medical community on board,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: because again there was still a little bit of vagueness
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: around whether the potatoes were even safe. So uh, in
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: seventeen seventy two, um, after he published this treatise, he
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: started to circulate this among government officials that he was
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: tight with um and people in the medical community, so
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: they started to be more of a conversation around it. Next,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: of course, is to you know, gotta sex them up
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: a little bit dressed that humble pot hato up in
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: a nice cocktail dress and send it out on the town.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: So he did that, and he started to introduce potatoes
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: to Paris is uh sort of bougier high society types, right, yeah,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: and this is an important step. So he gets some
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: of the big v I P names of the day,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, noted chemist in France to come
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: to his dinners, which are these pretty high class affairs
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: centered on the humble potato. And just to give you
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: a sense of how profoundly potato centric this was, he
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: would have as many as twenty courses featuring potatoes. And
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: it seems that this is a cool story. So Noel,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: max you guys like French fries, right, you're not against
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: the right what kind of what? What's your favorite French
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: fry type or what are some of your favorites? Maxico, First,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I need to think for a second. I mean, you
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: can never like be like the classic MacDonald's fries. I mean,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: I don't eat fast food really ever, but your high
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: road high road now yes, yes, somewhat yeah, but I
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: mean they're just like, you know, the quintessential fries. I
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: mean they're over salted. There's virtually no potato to it.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: It's just been deep fried. It's just a vessel for
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: something to be fried. And I think that makes them
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: pretty much amazing. I like a good home fry. I
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: like a potato wedge. Shout out to one of our
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: favorite local bars and restaurants, the Righteous Room. They do
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: a really really nice crispy on the outside, soft on
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: the inside, Serve it up with a little of that
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: salt and uh and a vinegar, a malt vinegar, and
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: that's an excellent potato. But you're right, Max, I do
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: think the French fry, or oftentimes the potato, it can
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: be just a flavor vector, not not a vector for
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: disease though, right right, dive actor for disease. Hey, I'll
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: tell you I had some I get this weird thing
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: with steak fries. Specifically, I don't trust them because they're
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: like they're well, they're mashed potatoes in disguise, you know,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: like the big steak fries. But to teach their own,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the Righteous Room does kill it with the potato wedges.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Tell him, tell him we sent you. But the the
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: thing is, there's so many varieties of French fry. They
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: it's hard to believe they didn't really exist in the
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: US for a long time until or what would become
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the US for a long time, North America and Canada
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: until Thomas Jefferson. This is not confirmed, but Thomas Jefferson
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: may have interacted with Parmentier been so inspired that he
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: brought back the idea for what we call the French
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: fry with him to Monticello and served it later at
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: a White House dinner. This comes to us from a
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: cool book called Potato, A History of the Propitious Esculent
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: by John Reader. Ben, do you have a preference for
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: a potato preparation? It can be a fry, it can
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: be a mash uh, you know, home hash brown. I'm
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: just interested. I almost sent you guys this picture over
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: the weekend. I don't know if you saw it, but
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: I cooked one of my favorite new potato recipes. It's
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: not it's new to me, you know what I mean.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: It's the have you you've heard of fondant potatoes? Yes? Yeah?
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Is that like a scalop potato? Ben? Yeah, yeah, exactly,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: with cream and garlic and butter and all that. Well,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the way I do it without selling to Parmentier is
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: just this recipe that it takes a little bit of time,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: but it is more than worth it. You can't you
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: do a cast iron thing? You got some time t
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: H y m E some butter. If you look at
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: pictures of it, you'll see what I'm talking about. Oh
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I see now, they're almost like they look like a scalop.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: They almost look like a sea scalop because of these
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: little like potato stacks. That looks amazing. Now I was
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: thinking more of a scalop potato um, which is uh,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: I believe like inly sliced layers of potato layered with
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: cream and butter and garlic, and uh, it's absolutely My
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: mom makes it and made it for this Christmas in
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: July situation. But mashed potatoes were one of the any
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: of these could have potentially been on the table literally
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: at one of these dinners, one of these potatoes centric
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: multi course dinners. But mashed potatoes was obviously a hit
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: and in a favorite and there they they persevere to
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: this day as like a holiday staple. And I believe
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: in the the art of cookery. There is an eighteenth
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: century recipe book written by um the English author Hannah
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: glass um. This is believed to be the first ever
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: recipe for mashed potatoes, and really, honestly, outside of a
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: couple of little editions, this is pretty much the way
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: it's done today. Right then, Yeah, here's the idea. It's
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: one of those things where the approach is kind of like,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: don't fix it if it's not broken. The art of
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: cookery just says the following. Boil your potatoes, peel them,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: put them in a sauce pan, mash them well to
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: two pounds of potatoes, put a pint of milk, a
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: little salt, stir them well together, take care they don't
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: stick to the bottom. Then take a quarter of a
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: pound of butter, stir it in and serve it up.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Pretty simple, right, Yeah. I would personally probably add some
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: garlic to that, maybe a little heavy cream. I wouldn't
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: peel them. I wouldn't peel them. I likes red potatoes.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: I like the skin on these red potatoes instead of
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: those big baked potatoes that I think is the quintessential
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: or rather baking potatoes that is the quintessential potato. I
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: think that we would have been thinking of in this
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: period as well. Right to a million percent, a million percent.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: So this these dinners become quite the sensation and so okay,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Tier two of his three tiered plan as absolutely a success.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, Jefferson even ended up keeping a copy of
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: that potato treatise in his presidential library at Monticello. He
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: got he got compromised. Big potato got to a big
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: potato got to him. And um even like royalty got
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: in on the mix, like King Louis the sixteenth, I believe,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: uh and um Marie Antoinette um are believed to have
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: used potato flowers, right, these beautiful purple potato flowers um
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: as decorations for their clothes. Uh and like you know,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: like lapel pins and and hat adornaments or whatever. So
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: now we're into phase three one and two smashing success.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Where where are we going for phase three? Ah? Yes,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: this smashing or mashing success is only going to be
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: You're welcome, audible grown from Max. We're doing this. We're
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: doing this for you Max. So uh, this this stuff
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: is all well and good for the upper classes, right,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: but if you want this to have a lasting impression,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: and from Parmentier's perspective, if you want it to be
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: useful to people, then it has to be useful to
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the common people. Who was that band who had that
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: song common people is starts to the pulp Yeah, holds up.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: So this guy is like, you know, potatoes need to
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: be for the common people. Potatoes need to be something
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: that common people do or eat. So all his publicity
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: stunts aren't really getting the job done outside of the
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: upper crust, right, the upper crust of the fry social class.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: So Parmentier tries something different, doesn't he know. He goes
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: to the king and asked for a favor. He does. Yeah,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: he goes to the king, King Louis the sixteenth um
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: and requests a plot of land, a tract of land
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: at Sebelan uh and that is in seventeen one. And
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: the King, you know, having already and impressed with the
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: moxie of this uh, this pharmacists, of this pow this
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: potato evangelists, grants him this plot of land, which Parmentier
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: immediately turns into a potato patch. This is also this
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: land is located on the western edge of the Paris
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: metro area. I guess you could say, um. And then
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: he hired all of these heavily armed guards to kind
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: of make it a big, you know, sort of almost
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: like theatrical show of how important these potatoes are. Um,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: and he thought that people would notice the guards and
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: assume that potatoes were some sort of really hot new commodity.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Uh and anything that's you know, being guarded so um assiduously.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: To to borrow one of your favorite words, Ben would
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: be worth stealing. Right, Yeah, there it is. You create
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: the buzz by sort of faking demand until you make it.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: You know, this is this is great, but there's even
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: goes this conspiracy goes this step further. This is the
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: coolest heist moment of the show. So imagine Noel Max
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Fellow ridiculous historians listening along at home. Imagine that we
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: get together a hist crew. We're in France, and we
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: say they're guarding something secret. We're gonna bust it and
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: take it because we're the best thieves there are. And
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: so we all have our you know, it's a highst movie.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: We all have our specialties. Noel, I know that you
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: have a special um proclivity for being a bagman, right bagman? Yeah,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: I'm the bag man. So that's that's that's that's who
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: I am. Um. I carry a bag typically every day,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: So that's why, So we won't spend too much time
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: on everybody else's specialties. But our highst crew goes in
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: and we pull off our heist. We discover the secret
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: it's potatoes, and somehow, somehow we get away. Yeah, we
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: didn't really train that much even for this. You know,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: we're not particularly adept heist people. You know, you don't
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: even know what we're looking for. I don't even know
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: what a bagman does. I just say on them batman
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: because I like to carry a bag, and then people
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: make fun of me and call it a man first.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: But I'm a batman, thank you very much. But yet
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: we get in and out. It's almost like these guards
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: are letting us get away with these potatoes. Why would
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: they do that, though, Ben, Why would they do that
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: because their boss told him too. You know how heist
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: movies have the stereotypical twist right in the third act
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: or whatever, this is the third act twist. Parmentier has
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: set up this heavily guarded situation and then he's told
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: the guards, look, if any thieves come by, let him
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: get away with the potatoes. This has gotta be great
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: for the potatoes reputation. Now, in my head, he's like
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: a Hollywood producer and he's smoking a cigar. It's something
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: he's like, there's gonna be great for the potatoes public image. Here. Look,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: if any if anybody comes up and they try to
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: bribe you, uh, just give them some potatoes. Take the bribe,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: no matter how big it is, the out of how small,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: whatever they could. They don't have to be money. If
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: they come up to you with like a shoe, a
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: handful of dart, you'll give them up a potato. You
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: gotta wonder did did they Did they fire some half
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: asked warning shots like no, come back here you no, no,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: what do you do? Bring back that potato? No? Yeah,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: they had to have at least given put put up
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: some sort of faux fight or else. I think the
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: roosts would have been a little too transparent, right, a
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: little too obvious. Right, You have to because you know
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: these thieves have presumably worked on their idea. It feels
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: kind of it's kind of a deflation, isn't it. If
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: you feel like, guys, we have we have these matching
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: dark outfits. We worked on our like silent hand signals,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: and you just let us in. At least give me
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: a good beating or something like that, you know, and
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: then let me go. But no, it's true, and this
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: this this publicity stunt, even though isn't apparent to those
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: involved that that's what it was. That is what it was,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: and it worked. By the way, there's a really really
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: cool article in The Farmer's Almanac also about the strange
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: history of potatoes and the man who made them popular
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: by Amber canuckle Um. Really good stuff on the Farmer's
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Almanac dot com. Never really realized what a good resource
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: that was, but check that one out for sure. So
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: he really has single handedly with his three tier approach,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: changed the hearts and minds of the of both the
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: gentry and the lower class uh in favor of the potato. Yeah, yep.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: And this potato effect turned out to be a very
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: good thing for French agriculture. The potato fundamentally changed the
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: productivity of these farms. It had more reliable yields than wheat,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: and you could grow it in the same fields that
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: wheat grows in as long as the wheat crop was
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: follow It was easy to grow in a lot of
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: different varieties of soil. It was easy to farm. And
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: this like other people saw what was happening. Other world
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: leaders caught on pretty quick. Catherine the Great over in Russia,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: King Adolph over in Sweeten. They get on board the
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: potato trade. And you'll read you'll read varying estimates, but
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: one of the ones that I think is is the
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: most optimistic comes. You know, it's quoted in this Atlas
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Obscura article, and they'll tell you that there are a
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: couple of historians who believe that potatoes may have doubled
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Europe's food supply in terms of just pure calories, meaning
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: that they would finally be able to break the cycle
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: of famine. I'm interested now, I want to see what
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: the calorie contents of a potato actually is, because that's
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: a really good point. I mean, we know now, you know,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: potatoes are something to be avoided oftentimes because they're so carbi,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: you know, and they're so calorically dense. But back then,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: when food scarcity was much more of an issue, you
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: wanted stuff that was calorically dense, that was really really important.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: So it looks like uh, one hundred and sixty three
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: calories per a medium potato, which actually isn't that insane um,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: but again it is the carbs. It has thirty seven
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: grams of carbohydrates, which is not necessarily directly related to
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: two calories. But I don't know, I've always been a
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: little bit too unclear as to how carbs work. While
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: cutting out carbs is different than cutting calories. Yeah, well
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: it's it's interesting because potatoes do have a lot of
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: other stuff going on, you know, like it's it's not
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: just carbs, right, They can be a nutritious food, but
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: you know, yeah, right, Well, they also contain all the
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: essential amino acids you need to build proteins. They are
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: lacking some stuff like over time. If you it would
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: offer what experts call uh complete protein if you hate
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: over ten potatoes a day, which is a lot even
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: for me, but you would get deficiencies in certain vitamins
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: like vitamin B, twelve, vitamin A. People are built to
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: have a slightly varied diet, right, That's just how they evolved.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: But still the potatoes solves a lot of problems, and
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: it gets kind of a bad rap, like you said, Noel,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: with the with the anti carb crowd. You know, I know,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: we we might have some listeners right now who are
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: mad at us a little bit because they're like, today's
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: the day. Today is the day I am going to
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: get fries. It's okay, We're with you. It's gonna be
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: worth it. Everything in moderation will be okay. There's one
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: big elephant in the room. There's a there's a big
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: potato in the room that we have to address. Uh.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Fellow fans of history, you'll realize that around the late
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds there was some thing else happening in France,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: something equally revolutionary, well more revolutionary, because it's it's literally
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: it's the French Revolution. Yeah. If you have the inspirational
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: tones of the score of the original cast recording of
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Les Miserabla going in your mind, um, that's because we're
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: talking about the French Revolution. Uh. And it was the
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: French Revolution that potentially could have put a damper on
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Permanentier's potato revolution, you know, more important revolution, one would argue,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: sort of took precedent, but it didn't really last. Yeah. Yeah,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: So this was all happening during the lead up to
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: this tremendous upending of French civilization society. Famine was still everywhere.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Potatoes were useful, as farmers all the Night points out
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: to help combat starvation, especially in northern France in but
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: of course people in other parts of France were still
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: still thought potatoes were suss. As we would say nowadays.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Parmentier when he published that paper we mentioned, it was
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: ignored because this basically because this paper was published in
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: seventeen eighty nine, right before the beginning of the revolution,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: and the king himself knew that Parmentier and potatoes got
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: a bit of a raw deal there. The King eventually said,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: France will not forget you found food for the poor.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: And think about this. It was really unpopular during the
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: French revolutional royalty, you know, it was really connected with royalty,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: right now, Parmentier. No, that's a really good point. We
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: we we sort of, I don't want to, I hope
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: we didn't sound like we were saying that this treatise
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: immediately caused the potato to explode, as you know, he
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: did that that bit with like the fake potato heist
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: or whatever, and that did start to get folks interested
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: on some level. But you're right, it was still so
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: sated with the wealthy. I mean, after all, they were
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: stealing potatoes from the wealthy rather than like cultivating themselves
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: but the whole idea was that it would become this
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: like staple food, and it did ultimately. It wasn't though,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: until sevent that potatoes really really did start to take
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: off in France, and that was there was a really
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: important moment in that year when Madam Mary Go published
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: her Potato cookbook, and that then began to associate the
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: potato as the food for the revolutionaries, because after all,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Madam America was also associated with the French Revolution. The
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: official title of her book was La Cuisine Republican or
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: The Female Republican Cook, so very much promoting these potatoes
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: as the food of the common people, but all so
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: acknowledging that common people like variety as well. You don't
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: just want to eat boiled potatoes every day. You want
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: to cook it in a bunch of different ways. And
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: that is one thing that makes the potato great is
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: you really can cook it in lots of different ways.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Boil and mash them, stick them in a stew, make
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: them into a fam dance, you know, layer them with
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: cream and butter and cheese, you know, I mean, there's
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: so many ways you can do a potato. Shred them
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: straight up, fry them twice, bake, put them around stuff,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Throw them in the air
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: like confetti, little shreds hash brown and try to catch
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: them in your mouth. I think that's more technique than
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: a dish. But you see what we're saying. They're versatile definitely,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: and you know, if we're getting functional here for for
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: a moment, I do want to say I learned recently.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: I have a mandolin. You know that you used to
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: shred the potatoes to make. By the way, wash your
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: hands on those. Use the little plastic nub that it
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: comes with. Don't just think you can do it with
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: your hand, because you will get slices on your hand.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Those things are don't joke. Yeah, go more slowly than
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: you think you should. Agreed, But here's the thing. When
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: you're making hash browns, the key is to rinse the
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: potato shrugs so you get that starch off and that's
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: what causes them to fry up much more nice and
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: cris believe. You can put them in a bowl of
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: water twenty minutes or so. Yeah, it's perfect and you
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: can see the water changed too, And then you squeeze
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: them with like paper towels or something to get that
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: excess of moisture out. Yeah, I haven't figured out what
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: to do with the starch water, but I'm convinced I can.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: I can figure out something. It won't just be wastewater anyway.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: You're right, uh, and we you can tell we think
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: a lot about potatoes because we're big fans. Also, the
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: person you just mentioned, Madam Mary Go just to be
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: completely clear, when we say that she's a Republican, we're
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: talking about it in the French revolutionary Yeah, right, the
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: republic very different thing than the way it would be
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: used in the United States today. But after this becomes
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: accepted as the food for the revolutionaries, by the next year,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: tons of people are growing potatoes because they're a quick,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: efficient way to feed the forces of the rebellion during
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: long sieges. So in the end, Parmontier survives the revolution
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: and he keeps his head, which not everybody does spoiler alert,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: and he is accepted back into society because he's thought
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: of more's the potato guy. Then he is as a
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: friend of the king. The revolutionaries also recognized his expertise
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: and they thought, you know, this guy can feed a
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: lot of people. He was right about potatoes. Let's just
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: if we let him keep his head, let's see what
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: else he comes up with. His job security increased during
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: the rule of Napoleon because Napoleon was all about making
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: France self sufficient during the war across Europe. By this point,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Parmontier's work and had expanded past potato does He gets
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of credit for potatoes today, and rightly so
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: for popularizing them, But that wasn't all he was into.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: He was he wanted to know more about corn. He
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: saw a lot of potential in beat sugar. I wanted
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: to ask you, uh Nold Max beat sugar. Have you
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: guys ever used that in anything? Is it a sweetener?
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: You know? It feels like it might have been the
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: B side if his if his food research were an album.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: I feel like beat sugar is like track number two
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: or three on the B side. Oh yeah, you can
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: get it like in in bags like you would sugar
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: in the raw. It kind of looks like it's branded
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: the same way, So you definitely could use beat sugar
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: to sweeten things for baking. I do know that beats
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: are part of the reason that like impossible burgers bleed
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: quote unquote, that's true. So there's beat sugar in those
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: as well, But no, I haven't messed with that. Although
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of beats, of roasting beats, and
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: that's one thing I growing up only knew the slimy,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: gelatinous beats that's slid out of a kid, which is
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: not what they are at all. And a nice roasted
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: beat with some goat cheese and maybe some grilled pears
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: or something like that over some rugula, that is what's up.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Get some dried figs in there too, you know what
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: I mean. Class it up. Don't be afraid impress whoever
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: you're dating. All I'm saying is anyone out there that
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: thinks they think beats are gross, Try taking a golden
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: beat and just drizzling it with literally you leave the
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: skin on, drizzling with olive oil, little salt, wrap it
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: in a tinfoil bacon in the oven at three fifty
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: for like, I don't know, twenty minutes maybe, and then
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: you just wipe the skin off with a paper towel
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: or a kitchen rag and it just comes right off.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: And then you slice them, and I swear they're the
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: most I don't know, how would you describe describe it
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: as earthy, kind of grassy, but also sweets and um
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: really really nice in us. Yeah, and you can do
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: these in slices as well. Like roasted beats way to go.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: You can make that your own. I would say I
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: typically do it for like thirty five minutes or so forty,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: just because I like him super crispy. Throw some time
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: on there, you know what I mean. You can throw
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: some uh a little bit of salt and pepper anyway, Yes,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: Parmentier was really into sugar. We think beats get a
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: bad name. No, parsnips are pretty good too, although I
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: don't think Parmentier worked with him. Parsnips have had a
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: hard time with it. I've never cooked them. I've tried
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: them a couple of times, and I've always found that
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: I've undercooked them and that they're very tough, and I
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: think you really have to get them just right. Yeah, yeah,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: there's a there's a way to roast them, but they
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: can be they could be a little bit finicky. We
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: can't wait to hear more of your specific food recipes
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: from history. But like we said, Napoleon is digging Parmentier.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: He's like the Napoleon is thinking, all right, this guy
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: more potato guy than he is a royalist, so he'll
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: help us with this. He'll help us beat sugar and corn.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: In fact, Napoleon is enough of a fan of Parmentier
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: that eventually he gives him the Legion of Hotter. That's
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: sort of like the presidential Medal of Freedom or something. Yeah,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: it's it's similar. The Legion of Honor is the highest
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: order of merit you can get in France, whether you
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: are military or a civilian. It was established in eighteen
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: o two by Napoleon himself. Very cool. Well, I think,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: well deserved. I don't know, there's really nothing particularly problematic
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: in this dude's story, right, which I thought was kind
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: of interesting, because usually there's some agenda or like, even
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: if something takes off, it's usually being done for some
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: like weird nefarious purpose. But I think this guy just
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: realized again he came from suffering this, This whole experience
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: came from him being jailed, you know, or imprisoned by
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: the Prussians during the war and him realizing that potatoes
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: were getting a bad rap, and then he actually just
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: really liked them. And if you read his letters and
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: his writings about potatoes, you could really tell the guy
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: just really liked the potato and wanted everyone else too
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: as well, and saw the potential for it in a
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: world where food wasn't for everybody, or at least abundance
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: of food wasn't for everybody. You know, it was reserved
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: for the upper classes. And I don't think he approved
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: of approved of that. He wanted to, you know, have
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: everyone be fed and believe that everyone deserves to have
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: a full belly. So I think that's pretty awesome. Yeah, agreed.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: And you know, after he was granted this legion of honor,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: he passed away peacefully in eighteen thirteen. He was seventy
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: six years old, buried in Paris, and if you go
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: there even today, you will see that his plot, his
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: grave is surrounded by potato plants, and some people when
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: they go to visit, they leave potato on his grave
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: as as a way of saying thank you. What I
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: think is amazing about this is the more we looked
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: into this, well, the more I was convinced this guy
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: was like a earlier version of Norman Borlog. I had
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: this series I did a while ago, years and years ago,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: animated series called Stuff of Genius, which was all about
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: inventors and the inventions that change the world. And Norman
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: Borlog is a guy who was like Parmon Tier. He
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: was an agronomous and he is often called the father
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: of the Green Revolution. He went on to save over
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: like a billion people from starvation, and Parmentier was doing
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: a very similar thing with the potato. He he has
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: a legacy that remains with us today. There he's like,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: you know, I think it was Atlas Obscura that called
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: him like the Johnny apple seed of the tato. Yeah, no,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: it's absolutely accurate. It was. It was that atics Obscure article. Uh, specifically,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: Jim Clark made that excellent comparison. I love that and
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: it's totally true. Um. He is to this day remembered
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: in you know, the culinary tradition of French cooking. There
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: are quite a few dishes that are named after him.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: One of my favorite soups in the whole world potato
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: and leek soup, a version of that called pottage Parmentier,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: which is exactly just that. You can find a recipe
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: or pormontage partier on the Farmer's Almanac. Just look for
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: potato leak soup recipe on the Farmer's Almanac and will
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: give you a little bit of that history. Uh. There's
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: also like a version of this served cold. It's called
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: not not not for me, not into a cold soup.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: But you know, I'm not a not a gaspacho guy,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: but I love a good hot potato and leak soup.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: And there's another one um called hot cheese parmentier that's
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: a lot like a shepherd's pie, you know, with like
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: different ground beef and vegetables and corn and stuff of course,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: you know, topped with mashed potatoes and hopefully some nice
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: um crisped cheese. And this this is where we find
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: ourselves today. According to the United Nations, the potato has
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: grown in virtually every country that can do so in
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: some in some form or fashion and some scale. And
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: that makes it the world's fourth most important food crop.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: So go you potato, and thay you Peru. Oh and
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: speaking of Peru, ben I didn't realize the Peruvians also
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: had like a method for freeze drying potatoes to keep
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: themselves like in you know, in potatoes, in case there
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: was a blight or a crop shortage. And those freeze
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: dried potato flakes are kind of the like early version
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: of what we know today is instant mashed potatoes. Yeah,
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: I remember reading that. That's pretty that's pretty amazing as well.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: And that just goes to show you how long or
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: how long people in Prue had been working with this
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: native produce. No, although I know what's the end of
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: our story and this episode is has been going a
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: little bit long, there is one last myth I believe
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: we absolutely must bust or we must at least address,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: which is I. I went to Belgium a while back.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: You remember that I was. I was in Brussels for
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: a minute, and one of the one of the things
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: that my friends told me as we were landing on
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: the plane is, you know, don't call them French fries.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: You can ask for palem free the fried potatoes, but
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: do not call them French fries. Because you see, folks
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: both France and Belgium claim to be the inventors of
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: what we call French fries in the US and h
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: people are still going back and forth because now it's
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: become a matter of national pride. Just save fries. Just
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: say palem free in France or in Belgium. Be very
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: careful with it. Yeah, Fried's just really means like fries
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: um and palem is the French word for potato, so
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: it's true. Uh, And honestly, French fries it just sounds
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: like a dumb American alliterative kind of like, uh, you know,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: way of referring to something because we don't feel like
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: learning the language or what was that thing where people
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: are like, oh, now, so lame. Also, I love the idea.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: U Um. I'd love to hear about the way American
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: cuisine is depicted or the way US cuisine is depicted
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: in other parts of the world. I was in a
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: grocery store one time that had an American isle and
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: it was just junk food and peanut butter and one
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: like very sugary cereal. That's hilarious. That's almost like a
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: disc isle. I love that, Yeah, decile. It was a
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: distract from the grocery store. And I think we don't
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: know it's probably from the movie pulp fiction, or probably
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: possibly from from travels or whatever. But uh. In Belgium,
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: they don't put ketchup on their French fries. It's all
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: about mayonnaise. And I have adopted that and I think
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: it's awesome. Um. But I know some people are very
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: triggered by mayonnaise, but it's good fries and mayonnaise, quick good.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: You know what I'll do. It's terrible for your help,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: but no question. And cheese sauce. Yeah, I'm not gonna
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: say no to it. Especially it was potato wedges at
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: our local establishment. Dude, cheese dip and wedges at the
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: Righteous Room is like the off menu, I them. It's
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: like the secret menu at in an out burger. You
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: gotta you gotta try if you come to if you
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: come to our our our neighborhood. Highly recommend yes, yes,
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: highly recommended. Uh. And thank you to Parmentier for popularizing
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: the potato because you know, in my head that means
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: that he is in some way responsible for all of
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: the potato recipes that you're produced after that point, you know,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: So thank you Parmenter, the potato man. You know another
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: thing I didn't think about. We may be alluded to
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: it a little bit, but potatoes keep for quite a
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: long time, just out, you know what I mean, like
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: out in a bowl in a dish on your on
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: your kitchen counter, before they start to get gross, or
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: like grow the even when they do grow, those little
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: eyes or those little tubers. They're still absolutely usable. I
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: have some red potatoes that I've been meaning to cook
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: that I think I'm gonna follow the lead of our
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: of our subject today and uh and and freak you
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: see up something for lunch. Because they're also very versatile
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: and a good kind of base for using stuff in
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: your fridge that maybe you need to use. Uh make
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: a little uh, you know, like a little stir fry
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: with some potatoes and some vegetables. Maybe add an egg
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: in there, you know, I think I'm gonna I'm gonna
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: do that. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, they're hardy to they're they're
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: durable and tough to kill. In fact, during the Great Depression, Uh,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: some of my ancestors were able to survive because they
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: found a frozen potato patch. Which is a strange and
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: inspiring of tragic story. But let's not end on a
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: note like that. Off air ridiculous historians. Noel uh and
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: Max and I were talking and Max, there's something that
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: you've had on your mind since we've started this episode.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: Is that true? That is correct? There was this map
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: that came out you guys know those maps that it's
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: like the most googled blank by state and stuff like that.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: So there's this one from Zippia. Zippia, I've never used
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: the website for. It's a job recruiting website called what
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: job each state Google's more than any other, and it
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: is one of the most enjoyable maps I've ever read
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: in my entire life. So, like, a few of them
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: are pretty normal, like Wisconsin is beer brewer, Minnesota's lumberjack,
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: and Nevada is bus driver. Okay, but some of them
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: get a little strange. So California is lion tamer um,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: New York is professional cuddler, and my personal favorite word
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: one North Carolina is pirate. Wow. Okay, yes, I'm sorry.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: These are aspirational jobs. These are just what job each
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: state Google's more than any other of this. Yeah, so
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: I could argue you could argue aspirational jobs, right, But
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: the reason why I actually no, I want to keep
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: that because the reason I bring this up is we
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: gotta go to America's frozen wetland, which is of course Ohio,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: which if you've ever been to that state, you will
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: understand why I say that their number one on most
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: Google job is just potato. That's what aspirational. Indeed, so
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: I think that's what Noel Gallagher called his brother Liam.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: I believe you called him a potato, which is also
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: a very underappreciated emoji. Just a potato, you know, A
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: big fan. I also love if we're talking British insults. First,
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: well done, Max, thank you for that. I mean, I'm
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: going to be bothered by that for a while. But
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: for British insults, which always impressed me. I was hanging
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: out in pont City Market pre pandemic, which is where
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: our office is based in Atlanta, Georgia, and I heard
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: a British person called someone else a shape as an
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: insult s h ape. They said, you've been shape, which
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: is like good, good insult for reasons I don't understand,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: and I think you need the accent to pull it off.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Did you know that the if I'm not mistaken, Michael Myers,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: the character in the Halloween movies, is referred to you
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: as the shape. I wish I had learned more about
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: the context of that situation. It's just hard to stop
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: people and say, like, excuse me, sir, I am not British,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: but I do respect the insults employed by your culture.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Last thing, another British chism with shape is an expression
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: for dancing is throwing shapes. So I would I would
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: say in that context. You know, like I said, it's
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: tough to go in there and say like, excuse me,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: I'm not British, I know what's going on. But I'd
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: love to learn a little more about this context because
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: I want to see if I can pull off shape
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: as an insult. So what is your deal, sir? Uh?
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: You know what? Before yeah, before we go, I do
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: have to ask Max, what is the job people are
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: googling the most in Georgia. I'm glad you're asked, because
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: if you live in Atlanta, this makes sense. It is tripper. Wow.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: Did not see that coming. Neither did I, but it should.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: It tracts if anyone's interested in some more like Atlanta
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: centric kind of jokes and memes. There's a couple of
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: really good Instagram accounts. I believe one is just called
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Atlanta Memes or something like that. Um, you can meme
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: like a local, you can't. Yeah, it didn't see it
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: come in the way. France didn't see the potato on
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: the way. But that's how history works. Uh, No, thank
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: you for this. What what a cool ride. Any any
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: excuse to talk about food is a good episode for me.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear everybody's epic potato related recipes or moments. Uh.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: And thank you, of course to the one and only
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: Max Williams. Ben. Are those potato fondas are they just
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: like like cookie cutter like cut out like a scallop?
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: Or are they layered? Because I'm looking at the pictures
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: of them? Yeah? Yeah, So what you what I like
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: to do is take a take a pretty good medium
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: sized potato, You peel it, you chop the the ends off,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: and then you usually if it's a medium potato, you
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: can get about two of lenders out of it. So
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: you cut that in half, and then you take whichever
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: half is the most even it's usually where you made
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: the cut in the middle, uh, and then you just
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: you PLoP them down with some uh with oil. Initially
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: get us a cast iron pan, and you finish them
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: in the oven. So it's a whole thing. But if
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: you want like eight of those little cylinders, just get
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: four potatoes. Got it? Got it? And like Ben said,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: let us know your favorite potato recipes. We're still working
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: on getting that sort of down. You don't think it'd
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: be that difficult, but I promise it'll happen. I'm in
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: the meantime, Please reach out to us as individuals on Instagram.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: I am at how Now Noel Brown, and you can
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: find me on Instagram. In a burst of creativity, I've
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: named myself at Ben Bull and you can also find
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: our super producer Max Williams at Potato Fan and Holy
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: Cow Ban. You just send a test the email to
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: ridiculous at I heart media dot com and it appears
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: to have worked. Well, that's good news. Uh, maybe maybe
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: I'll get it as well. Well, we'll see, We'll see,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: but it does look like our email addresses up and running.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: Thanks of course to Casey Pegram. Thanks to Alex Williams,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: who composed this banging track it's probably playing lightly right now, definitely,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: And thanks to you Ben, and thanks to you Noel.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: Thanks to one of our favorite potatoes, Jonathan Strickland ak
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: the question. We'll see you next time, folks. For more
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.