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That Time the US Literally Banned Sliced Bread · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye well, by,
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Speaker 1: now you know what that music means. Welcome to the show,
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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians. It's hopefully your favorite non history experts coming
0:36
Speaker 1: to you relatively live from our respective bunkers. Yet again, Hi,
0:40
Speaker 1: my name is Ben. What does it mean? Ben? What
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Speaker 1: does it mean? The music? It means that our show
0:47
Speaker 1: is still on. No, we're we're recording an episode now,
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Speaker 1: and I gotta say, uh, we are. We are upping
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Speaker 1: our camera game. All three of us look pretty great
0:56
Speaker 1: from what I can see on the screens. Yeah, well,
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Speaker 1: there's the parts that you can't see on the screen
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Speaker 1: that should concern you, my friend. And there we go.
1:03
Speaker 1: Maybe concern is a strong word, but you know, working
1:06
Speaker 1: from home is as a slippery slope. You know, putting
1:09
Speaker 1: on pants really does become optional. Yep, yep, agreed. As
1:12
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, I was talking to one of
1:14
Speaker 1: my friends who was a no fool and kind of
1:16
Speaker 1: productivity expert, and one of her big recommendations for people
1:21
Speaker 1: working from home is that when you wake up in
1:24
Speaker 1: the morning, you go ahead and get dressed like you're
1:26
Speaker 1: going somewhere. It kind of primes your brain I've I've
1:31
Speaker 1: had a hard time with that. I've I've been rocking
1:34
Speaker 1: more of like a sort of a sweatsuit situation. Um.
1:38
Speaker 1: And I've been starting my day off with a nice walk. Uh,
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Speaker 1: and so it's appropriate the sweatsuit for that, but then
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Speaker 1: I just keep it on for the rest of the day.
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Speaker 1: Is that weird? No? No, not at all, man, not
1:47
Speaker 1: at pregnant pause, ban that pregnant pause. I hope that
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Speaker 1: was just the lag in our communication, because I was
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Speaker 1: gonna say, you know, you're really doing a favor for
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Speaker 1: the sweatsuit industry because if they if people on the
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Speaker 1: streets see Noel Brown Rock in a sweatsuit, their first
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Speaker 1: question is immediately going to be what how can I
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Speaker 1: get one? So you're welcome sweatsuits. Hey, thank you Ben
2:08
Speaker 1: for giving me that that confidence boost. I appreciate him.
2:12
Speaker 1: So I was thinking of an interesting segue in here.
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Speaker 1: Uh and I wanted to see what you and are
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Speaker 1: super producer Casey Pegram. I thought about this A lot
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Speaker 1: of people, now that we're at home or self isolating,
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Speaker 1: a lot of us have been cooking more and more.
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Speaker 1: You've been cooking, Nold, I've been cooking, Casey. I don't
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Speaker 1: know if you have you been trying your hand at
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Speaker 1: the pot in the pan. Uh, My cooking repertoire consists
2:40
Speaker 1: of uh, such delicacies as frozen pizzas. Let's see what else.
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Speaker 1: We've got some eggo waffles in the mix. We got
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Speaker 1: some wings. We do wings the other night. But now
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Speaker 1: my girlfriend is a great cook, and so she's been
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Speaker 1: handling most of the duties. I help out where I can,
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Speaker 1: but she's the expert. Well that's nice, you know. We
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Speaker 1: we all have our strengths, and we can all agree
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Speaker 1: that whether you consider yourself a a top not chef
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Speaker 1: or an amateure or just a cooking enthusiasts, people love
3:12
Speaker 1: people love food, and wherever you go in the world,
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Speaker 1: that's one of the topics that you can easily talk
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Speaker 1: to anyone about, regardless of your cultural differences. Here in
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Speaker 1: the United States, we've had a very old saying for
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Speaker 1: a long time, which is the best thing since sliced bread. Uh.
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Speaker 1: You know, we've all like heard of that before, I'm sure,
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Speaker 1: but today's show actually does concern slice bread. Isn't that right?
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Speaker 1: It is right, But I got a bone to pick
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Speaker 1: with this whole concept is slicing bread really that hard
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Speaker 1: with a with a nice serrated knife. They make a
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Speaker 1: thing called a bread knife. It's literally part of any
3:49
Speaker 1: good cutlery arrangement. Yeah, yeah, I think it's not. I
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Speaker 1: think it's not so much that it's hard as much
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Speaker 1: as people are thinking, you know, this is time consuming.
3:59
Speaker 1: I'm I'm nickel and diming away my freshest seconds of life,
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Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, sort of like the argument that Gilbert
4:06
Speaker 1: Godfrey makes about the Shootini. You know, all the time
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Speaker 1: you're wasting putting on your shoes like a regular person,
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Speaker 1: one foot at a time. He could be he could
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Speaker 1: be like, you know, cring too soon. Um, you could
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Speaker 1: be doing something productive with that time. There we go
4:23
Speaker 1: could save. So today's story is so weird, we're gonna
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Speaker 1: go ahead and give you the big scoop the lay
4:31
Speaker 1: of the land. As as any long time listener knows,
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Speaker 1: you can get a lot of spoilers from checking out
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Speaker 1: our titles and our descriptions. This is a story about
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Speaker 1: that time the US government banned slice bread and it's
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Speaker 1: it's a weird journey. It's a journey that begins around
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Speaker 1: nine UM with a jeweler from Missouri by the name
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Speaker 1: of Otto f raw Waiter, raw Weather. I don't know,
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with raw Waiter. What do you think, Ben?
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Speaker 1: I went with row Weather. So if we, if we,
5:03
Speaker 1: if we split the difference at some point, we will
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Speaker 1: at the very least accidentally get the name right. Yeah, exactly.
5:09
Speaker 1: Our pronunciation powers are lack thereof combined um. But yeah,
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Speaker 1: this gentleman um, he saw a need. He saw a
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Speaker 1: need that needed fill in. Um. He was overhearing, you know, uh,
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Speaker 1: homemakers um in his jewelry store complaining it. But just
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Speaker 1: how difficult it was to slice bread, and how much
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Speaker 1: they hated it. It was just the thing they just
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Speaker 1: look forward to the least and and what a what
5:32
Speaker 1: a hassle of American life it was to to cut bread. Um.
5:37
Speaker 1: So he he looked at this and took it very seriously,
5:40
Speaker 1: and he saw an opportunity for innovation. Um. And he
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Speaker 1: invented a delightful gadget known as the automatic bread slicing
5:50
Speaker 1: Machine and became something of a of an American hero,
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Speaker 1: at least in the kitchen. But a little background about
5:56
Speaker 1: about our boy Auto. I'm gonna just call him Auto,
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Speaker 1: so I don't even have to mess with pronunciation ever again,
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Speaker 1: Otto was he was a bit of a renaissance man.
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Speaker 1: He was an ophthalmologist who decided to get into the
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Speaker 1: jewelry game, and he owned not one, not two, but
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Speaker 1: three jeweler stores in St. Joseph, Missouri, Missouri. Can you
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Speaker 1: only say Missouri if you're from there? That seems accurate?
6:20
Speaker 1: What do you think, Ben, I don't know. It's kind
6:22
Speaker 1: of like how people from uh Nevada say Nevada. You know. I.
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Speaker 1: I wonder if it's something you have to earn. You're
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Speaker 1: you're right, You're right. Though. Noel uh row it Or
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Speaker 1: was a trained ophthalmologist who went into jewelry for the money.
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Speaker 1: And his story and speculate that while he was selling
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Speaker 1: ear rings and necklaces, he overheard customers talking doing something
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Speaker 1: like you would see at the beginning of a lot
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Speaker 1: of TV infomercials now where like picture pictures someone trying
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Speaker 1: to slice bread and the bread falls the floor in
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Speaker 1: the kitchen another one. Yes, there's got to be a
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Speaker 1: better way. Uh. He tapped into that, really, no fool,
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Speaker 1: and we know that as early's nineteen twelve he had
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Speaker 1: built out a prototype for what would become this automatic
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Speaker 1: bread slicer, and his big question was he was like, well,
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Speaker 1: what do we mean when we say a slice. What's
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Speaker 1: the difference between a slice of bread and a slab
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Speaker 1: of bread or a sliver of bread? So he did
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Speaker 1: something very smart. He made a questionnaire like a survey,
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Speaker 1: and instead of handing it out to people in person,
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Speaker 1: he paid to get it published in several newspapers in
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Speaker 1: the region and the country, and then in just a
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Speaker 1: few months more than thirty thousand people responded and let
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Speaker 1: him know where they fell along the controversial issue of
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Speaker 1: thick or thin slices. Well, I have a question, why
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Speaker 1: can't they do it like they do with those Deli
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Speaker 1: slicer machines where you could pick your thickness. It's a
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Speaker 1: variable thickness. Is that too much to ask auto you
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Speaker 1: only get one thickness? Yeah, wouldn't it be neat to
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Speaker 1: have a dial on the machine? You know, like how
8:06
Speaker 1: you can you can uh decide how toasted your toast
8:10
Speaker 1: is and a lot of toasters, you know. Well, unfortunately
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Speaker 1: for him, we weren't there, or maybe the technology wasn't there.
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Speaker 1: I think the technology might not have been there. So
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Speaker 1: it's true more than thirty housewives responded, uh, and indicated
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Speaker 1: that they wanted a bread slice that was neither too
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Speaker 1: thick nor too thin, sort of a Goldilocks bread slice.
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Speaker 1: It was just right. Although that is kind of relative,
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Speaker 1: isn't it. I guess so, I guess so. So Probably
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Speaker 1: what he did was take like the biggest group consensus
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Speaker 1: and went with that because we know he he for
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Speaker 1: some reason couldn't make a variable bread slicing machine, and
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Speaker 1: he went all in dude, Like four years later, just
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Speaker 1: was that nineteen sixteen. He has sold off his entire
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Speaker 1: jewelry business, He's taken the winnings from that. He got
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Speaker 1: a workshop in a banded warehouse, and he started trying
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Speaker 1: to make his bread slicer. But something terrible happened the
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Speaker 1: very next year. It's true disaster struck in nineteen seventeen,
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Speaker 1: in the form of a warehouse fire that engulfed in
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Speaker 1: flamed his prototype, along with all of his early drawings
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Speaker 1: and blueprints. Uh, and all of the time that he
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Speaker 1: had invested into this endeavor. But he he was he
9:26
Speaker 1: was ununh unshaken, unflapped, and he got back to work,
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Speaker 1: even though he was set back like almost a decade,
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Speaker 1: which to me would I don't know, I would move
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Speaker 1: on maybe, I don't know. It's the whole sunken cost
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Speaker 1: fallacy thing. But he really believed in this product. So
9:43
Speaker 1: in nineteen eight he had had, you know, made up
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Speaker 1: for all this lost time. You gotta think that he
9:49
Speaker 1: he had to have learned some lessons from it, even
9:51
Speaker 1: if they were just filed away in his memory banks. Right. Uh,
9:54
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have been all for not. But he got
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Speaker 1: back on his feet in ninety eight and he had
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Speaker 1: a fully working machine, not a prototype, the real deal. Uh.
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Speaker 1: And not only did it slice bread, but it wrapped
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Speaker 1: it as well. Did we talk about the original expression
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Speaker 1: that led to the best thing since sliced bread? We
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Speaker 1: haven't yet lay it, honest. Yeah, the original expression was
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Speaker 1: the best thing since wrapped bread. So his thing was
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Speaker 1: like the best best thing, the double best thing, because
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Speaker 1: it could wrap bread and slice bread. But you couldn't
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Speaker 1: pick a variable thickness. You think he would have taken
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Speaker 1: that ten years to come up with that. I'm sorry,
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna leave Auto alone. He's suffered enough. There's a
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Speaker 1: lot of soul searching that he went through, you know,
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Speaker 1: and good good for him. It reminds me of that
10:37
Speaker 1: Rigard Kipling poem, if which is Ridgard Kipling is a
10:41
Speaker 1: terrible person, but my god, that's a great poem. So
10:46
Speaker 1: you're right. We know that he did successfully. After a
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Speaker 1: total of fourteen fifteen years of struggle, he did get
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Speaker 1: his machine on the market and the first ever pre
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Speaker 1: sliced sloafe of bread went on sale on July seven,
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Speaker 1: eighteen eight, when Frank Bench, who was a guy who
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Speaker 1: knew role her personally, took a chance. He bought a
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Speaker 1: bread slicing machine and he installed it at his baking
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Speaker 1: company in Missouri. The original name was sliced Clean made
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Speaker 1: Bread That's clean spelled k L e E N. I
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Speaker 1: love that. I love it when people take good word
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Speaker 1: and for just no real reason spell it with a
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Speaker 1: K or a que or a Z. I don't know, man,
11:28
Speaker 1: it freaks me out, like i've you know, here in
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Speaker 1: the South you can find a lot of little, little
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Speaker 1: mom and pop restaurants that call themselves some variety of
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Speaker 1: like country cooking with two k's, and then always rendered
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Speaker 1: me out. I don't trust it. I don't know why,
11:41
Speaker 1: but I don't. There's a place around the corner for
11:43
Speaker 1: me called duck corner. Cafe, and the corner is spelled
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Speaker 1: with a K, and cafe has spelled with a kid inexplicably, Like,
11:52
Speaker 1: are they trying to communicate some level of quirkiness that's
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Speaker 1: going to translate it to their food? Like, oh, yeah,
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Speaker 1: I want a quirky breakfast sandwich. You know, I know
12:02
Speaker 1: I'm right there with you. I had I remember says
12:05
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the episode, but I remember growing
12:07
Speaker 1: up some of my more conspiratorially minded friends would be like, hey, Ben,
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Speaker 1: all the businesses that put those k's in there, they're
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Speaker 1: signaling that they're uh, they're pro ku Klux Klan, And
12:19
Speaker 1: that seemed like a reach. That's like that old conspiracy
12:22
Speaker 1: about the band three eleven. You remember that one. Well
12:25
Speaker 1: three eleven was an inside job, right, uh, and that's
12:28
Speaker 1: an Eric Andre rip off. I didn't make that up. No,
12:32
Speaker 1: well what no, that that that it's that it was
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Speaker 1: KKK eleventh letter three times. Yeah. I three elevens about
12:40
Speaker 1: the least white super there's a bunch of white dudes
12:42
Speaker 1: trying to play reggae. I mean that might be a
12:44
Speaker 1: little culturally appropriated, but I don't think it's uh terroristic. Yeah,
12:49
Speaker 1: I think it's safe. To say, at least you have
12:52
Speaker 1: you have the official word from us here in ridiculous history.
12:55
Speaker 1: We are sure three eleven is not upfront for for
13:00
Speaker 1: the ku kux Klan. Let's put this, let's put this
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Speaker 1: to rest. Casey Pegram, what do you think three eleven
13:07
Speaker 1: terrorists or non terrorists? I was about to say, yes, um,
13:12
Speaker 1: perhaps perhaps aesthetic terrorists, but no, I think I think
13:16
Speaker 1: their intentions are relatively pure. Alright, fair enough, Casey on
13:20
Speaker 1: the case. It's been a while since we did one
13:23
Speaker 1: of these. I miss it. Uh So like you said,
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Speaker 1: that original statement that calling this spread the greatest forward
13:32
Speaker 1: step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped came
13:36
Speaker 1: from an advertisement, but apparently people didn't cotton to it.
13:42
Speaker 1: Right off the jump, there's a fascinating book by an
13:44
Speaker 1: author named Don Vorhees called Why do Doughnuts Have Holes?
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Speaker 1: Fascinating facts about what we eat and drink, And according
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Speaker 1: to Don, when these loaves were originally sold, people kind
13:56
Speaker 1: of didn't want to buy them because they thought they
13:58
Speaker 1: looked sloppy. They thought they looked, you know, uh, kind
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Speaker 1: of gross. They didn't look like neatly sliced, and they
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Speaker 1: also seemed to go stale faster. Did you see that, Tunal, No,
14:10
Speaker 1: but I know it to be true. And and they also, well,
14:13
Speaker 1: I don't know. It depends. There's so many preservatives and
14:15
Speaker 1: loaf bread that you buy at the store. Now, if
14:18
Speaker 1: you do tend to buy a nice loaf of bread
14:20
Speaker 1: from a local baker, uh, which don't come priest slice,
14:23
Speaker 1: you can usually ask them to slice them for you.
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Speaker 1: But um, those will go stale and or moldy quicker
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Speaker 1: than a store bought loaf will because of all the preservatives.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, good point, real wetter. Still didn't give up,
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Speaker 1: And I think this is inspiring. Otto said, Okay, they
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Speaker 1: don't like they think my bread sloppy. They think I
14:43
Speaker 1: got a lackluster loaf. I'll show them. And he made
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Speaker 1: these um pins. They're shaped like the capital letter you,
14:51
Speaker 1: and they would hold the loaf together so that when
14:55
Speaker 1: people went and saw it on the shelf, it would
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Speaker 1: look you know, more uniform, less haphazard. And apparently that worked.
15:03
Speaker 1: I see. So the issue with the sloppiness is more
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Speaker 1: an optics thing on the shelf, like it look, you're
15:08
Speaker 1: looking in the bag of bread and it's all just
15:10
Speaker 1: willy nilly, just kind of like you know, a loaf
15:12
Speaker 1: is meant to be held together, and it has this
15:15
Speaker 1: sort of very comforting kind of continuity to it. So
15:19
Speaker 1: this sort of preserved that continuity, right absolutely. But according
15:23
Speaker 1: to the Smithsonian Museum, the weird thing is this Smithsonian,
15:29
Speaker 1: by the way, does have one of roe Edders original
15:33
Speaker 1: bread slicers the second iteration. Anyway, the according to the Smithsonian,
15:38
Speaker 1: some people were just sloppiness or staleness aside. Some people
15:43
Speaker 1: were just weirded out by the idea of pre sliced bread.
15:48
Speaker 1: It confused them, it startled them. A newspaper said, quote
15:54
Speaker 1: the yoself slice bread maybe startling to some people. Certainly
15:58
Speaker 1: it represents a definite departure for the usual manner of
16:01
Speaker 1: supplying the consumer with fake People don't like change, people
16:06
Speaker 1: fear change. It's so funny because now it's just it's
16:10
Speaker 1: like it's a cliche, the idea of saying the best
16:13
Speaker 1: thing since sliced bread, uh, sliced bread being like one
16:16
Speaker 1: of the oldest innovations on the planet and the most
16:19
Speaker 1: just like taken for granted thing in the world. Right,
16:22
Speaker 1: if you go to that smith I'm sorry American History
16:25
Speaker 1: dot s I dot et U article, the best loan
16:28
Speaker 1: since sliced Bread by Christina Ross, who is apparently an intern,
16:32
Speaker 1: a very scrappy intern, if I may say so, from
16:34
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen, so she's likely not an intern anymore.
16:37
Speaker 1: But there is a picture of the first ever roan
16:40
Speaker 1: or bread slicing machine, um, and it is. It is
16:43
Speaker 1: a really serious piece of machinery. I mean it's like
16:47
Speaker 1: it's like a cotton gin or something like. It's a
16:49
Speaker 1: really hardcore industrial piece of equipment. This isn't something that
16:52
Speaker 1: you would like have in your living room. This is
16:54
Speaker 1: very much like a a tool of industry. Yeah, it
16:59
Speaker 1: does not look like it's for the home kitchen. It
17:01
Speaker 1: also looks heavy as heck. There's something that uh, it's
17:06
Speaker 1: something I think the three of us really enjoyed here
17:09
Speaker 1: in the research um from Gabe pointed this out that
17:13
Speaker 1: since this seems so unfamiliar and alien to people, they
17:17
Speaker 1: actually took out ads that included get this instructions for
17:22
Speaker 1: how to operate the loaf of bread. Did you see these? No? No, No,
17:28
Speaker 1: lay it on. It's a three step process. And this
17:32
Speaker 1: is verbatim from the ad. Number one open wrapper at
17:37
Speaker 1: one end, Number two pull out pin. That's that U
17:40
Speaker 1: shaped pin number three, remove as many slices as desired.
17:44
Speaker 1: I guess some people thought you could only pull out
17:46
Speaker 1: one slice at a time. Maybe some people, I don't know. Man,
17:49
Speaker 1: We're people like opening both ends of the wrapper and
17:52
Speaker 1: just sort of like punching it through the cylinder. Anyway,
17:56
Speaker 1: we've all seen these weird instructions and products for stuff
18:00
Speaker 1: that kind of seems easy. Not to sound elitist, but
18:04
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if you ever seen things
18:06
Speaker 1: that feel kind of like dummy instructions on things you buy,
18:09
Speaker 1: you know, Ben I have. But at the same time,
18:13
Speaker 1: I think we take for granted how dumb some people
18:16
Speaker 1: truly are. Oh yeah, I never take for granted how
18:18
Speaker 1: dumb I am. Uh, And I'm one of the dumbest
18:21
Speaker 1: people I know. Man, that is not true. You need
18:23
Speaker 1: to give yourself more credit than my friend. I won't
18:24
Speaker 1: stand for it. Oh man, Well, thank you, thank you.
18:27
Speaker 1: I stand on the shoulders of giants. This self deprecating
18:31
Speaker 1: behavior will not stand, sir. Thanks so Uh. The thing
18:37
Speaker 1: is that the pin turned out to be a problem,
18:39
Speaker 1: and we you know, you'll look at your local your
18:43
Speaker 1: local loaf in your grocery store, your kitchen and you'll
18:46
Speaker 1: notice that it does not, in fact have two U
18:48
Speaker 1: shaped pins holding the loaf together. Uh. People were having
18:52
Speaker 1: a problem because you would have to take the pin out,
18:55
Speaker 1: take a slice of bread, and then put the pin
18:57
Speaker 1: back in. It was an extra step and people didn't
19:01
Speaker 1: really like it, so row it or modified the machine,
19:05
Speaker 1: and now all the slice sloads were just wrapped in
19:08
Speaker 1: wax paper. So it still solves the problem of them
19:11
Speaker 1: looking sloppy, because nobody wants to just buy a pile
19:14
Speaker 1: of bread. I guess was the problem. But then it
19:17
Speaker 1: also takes that pin out. And I gotta tell you, I,
19:20
Speaker 1: as you guys know, I'm real weird about uh metal
19:26
Speaker 1: touching food, so I don't I think I honestly would
19:29
Speaker 1: have been one of those people who saw a slice
19:32
Speaker 1: bread in the store in the nine twenties and thought,
19:35
Speaker 1: no way, this is ungodly. Hmm. And also all this
19:39
Speaker 1: talk of pulling out and putting back in pins made
19:43
Speaker 1: me think of the loaves of bread were somehow like
19:45
Speaker 1: explosive or something I don't know, like bread grenades. Yeah,
19:51
Speaker 1: I think it's an idea. Come on, man, let's bread
19:54
Speaker 1: grenades might be you know what. People listening to this
19:56
Speaker 1: years from now might be like, God, those guys were
19:59
Speaker 1: pressing it. No, no, than the new The new phrase
20:02
Speaker 1: will be the best thing since bread grenades. There we go,
20:05
Speaker 1: put it on a T shirt. Let's get some new
20:07
Speaker 1: T shirts like that. I will if the printing shops
20:10
Speaker 1: ever opened back up again. Oh gosh, Well, at least
20:14
Speaker 1: in the story of real weather, we know that he Ultimately,
20:18
Speaker 1: after years of laborious loaf related labor, found success and
20:23
Speaker 1: bread sales skyrocketed more and more people. People weren't just
20:27
Speaker 1: eating sliced bread. They were eating more bread in general
20:31
Speaker 1: than ever before. Like within five years after tons of
20:37
Speaker 1: bakeries across the United States had bread slicing machines, and
20:41
Speaker 1: eighty percent of all of the bread produced in the
20:45
Speaker 1: entire country came sliced. It's true, but I'll tell you,
20:50
Speaker 1: ben Um, there's nothing like an innovation taken off and
20:54
Speaker 1: making people happy to get the government up in arms
20:57
Speaker 1: and ready to ban it. You are so right, my friend.
21:08
Speaker 1: Fast forward nineteen forty three. People still love bread. Everybody
21:13
Speaker 1: loves bread. They love it slice two except for there's
21:15
Speaker 1: one guy. He's gotta who's gotta beef with it. His
21:18
Speaker 1: name is Claude are Wickered. He is the head of
21:22
Speaker 1: the War Foods Administration. He's also the Secretary of Agriculture,
21:26
Speaker 1: and on January eighth, nineteen forty three, for some reason,
21:31
Speaker 1: he bans pre sliced bread. He had a beef with
21:34
Speaker 1: pre sliced bread. He was old school, you know. He
21:38
Speaker 1: maybe he didn't like metal either. It's really unclear. Let's
21:40
Speaker 1: see we can get to the bottom of why he
21:42
Speaker 1: had such a problem. Uh yeah, he did that on
21:44
Speaker 1: January eighteenth of nineteen forty three. The specific reasons, they're
21:47
Speaker 1: not clear at all, not even not even now. It's
21:51
Speaker 1: it's a total mystery. Uh. They they're speculation that. Um
21:57
Speaker 1: he felt as though it was a man are of
22:00
Speaker 1: conserving resources during wartime, right because he was the War
22:06
Speaker 1: Foods Administration. So he claimed that there was something to
22:09
Speaker 1: do with conserving uh wax, paper, wheat, and steel. Yeah, okay,
22:17
Speaker 1: so this is weird. This is some real grinch level thinking.
22:21
Speaker 1: And this guy was kind of playing a grinch, whatever
22:24
Speaker 1: his motivations were. So the War Food Administration was created
22:30
Speaker 1: entirely to make sure there was enough food to feed
22:33
Speaker 1: the civilian population and enough food to feed the military
22:37
Speaker 1: abroad and they wanted to prevent food waste. Food waste
22:41
Speaker 1: is still a huge problem here in so Claude says,
22:46
Speaker 1: you know what my beef was slic spread is that
22:49
Speaker 1: people like it too much and it's too easy for
22:52
Speaker 1: people to eat as much as they want. So banning
22:56
Speaker 1: slice spread makes the loaf a little more inconvenient. But
23:00
Speaker 1: that wasn't enough for him. He also made a very
23:03
Speaker 1: strange authoritarian law for local bakeries. And this one, this
23:08
Speaker 1: one is massively irritating to me. Yeah it's true. Um.
23:12
Speaker 1: He said that local bakeries could not sell their bread,
23:17
Speaker 1: their unsliced bread until it was twelve hours old. Gross.
23:23
Speaker 1: So wait, so you're like legally mandating us and then
23:28
Speaker 1: by us, I mean the Royal US, the US of
23:30
Speaker 1: the time, uh to stay day old bread, which usually
23:34
Speaker 1: you buy at a discount. I mean bread is meant
23:37
Speaker 1: to be you know, obviously, like I said, with the
23:38
Speaker 1: preservatives of the stuff you buy in the store, certainly
23:41
Speaker 1: you could never expect it to be like, you know,
23:43
Speaker 1: fresh out of the oven. But if you're buying it
23:45
Speaker 1: at a bakery, you want it fresh out of the oven,
23:48
Speaker 1: damn it right, You want that, You want that fluffy,
23:51
Speaker 1: fresh taste. The reason that they put in this crazy
23:56
Speaker 1: law is that Uncle Sam thought if bread, what if
24:00
Speaker 1: all the bread you were gonna buy was going to
24:02
Speaker 1: be stale, then people would stop buying as much, and
24:07
Speaker 1: maybe they would even resort to baking their own bread
24:10
Speaker 1: at home or give it up entirely, meaning there was
24:14
Speaker 1: more more wheat, more grain, more bread to circulate in
24:19
Speaker 1: the wartime population. That's so messed up, man. It seems
24:23
Speaker 1: to really target small businesses, you know, like that's literally
24:30
Speaker 1: trying to cripple them and their supply chain, which I
24:34
Speaker 1: mean whatever, you know, desperate times and all that, but
24:36
Speaker 1: it seems a little draconian, don't you think. I agree.
24:41
Speaker 1: We still, like, as we just said, we still don't
24:44
Speaker 1: fully understand the band, but we know that it might
24:50
Speaker 1: have come because, uh, there was a ten percent rise
24:53
Speaker 1: in the price of flour. Anyway, It's strange. Um, you
24:57
Speaker 1: can see the logic, right, They thought that they would
25:00
Speaker 1: be able to incentivize people to eat less bread and
25:04
Speaker 1: consume less flour. But what what about the wax paper conservation?
25:09
Speaker 1: So pre sliced bread had to use wax paper that
25:13
Speaker 1: was way thicker than the loaves that were sold whole
25:17
Speaker 1: and that was because you know, again they were trying
25:19
Speaker 1: to preserve the freshness and keep it from growing stale.
25:23
Speaker 1: So that was wrapped in wax paper. So it wasn't
25:25
Speaker 1: like in a plastic sleeve like we see today with
25:28
Speaker 1: a bread tie. It was literally the whole thing was
25:30
Speaker 1: just wrapped in wax paper. Yeah yeah, yeah, that replaced
25:33
Speaker 1: the pin. And you know, other unsliced loaves also had
25:37
Speaker 1: wax paper, but they had much thinner wax paper. And
25:42
Speaker 1: so the thing that's weird about this is that bread
25:45
Speaker 1: companies already had a ton of wax paper supplies. They're
25:50
Speaker 1: like those people who hoard toilet paper. They had enough
25:53
Speaker 1: wax paper to keep them rapid loaves for months and months,
25:57
Speaker 1: even if they didn't buy anything else. So it really
26:00
Speaker 1: seems like there wasn't a big thing to like, a
26:04
Speaker 1: big benefit to gain from banning wax paper. The wheat
26:08
Speaker 1: flower argument makes a little bit more sense, but even
26:12
Speaker 1: that doesn't check out. I mean, this this is why
26:14
Speaker 1: some historians say it was maybe more an issue of
26:18
Speaker 1: conserving metal, because, like you said, no, those electric bread
26:21
Speaker 1: slicing machines are heavy duty. Huh, that's true. I mean,
26:26
Speaker 1: they really do almost look like a implement of war.
26:29
Speaker 1: You could probably make, you know, a handful of machine guns,
26:33
Speaker 1: you know, with the materials you would use to make
26:36
Speaker 1: one bread slicing machine. And at the end of the day,
26:39
Speaker 1: isn't it just kind of a luxury? You know, I'm
26:41
Speaker 1: trying to see both sides here, Like there's really nothing
26:43
Speaker 1: about if anything, I would think maybe slicing bread does
26:47
Speaker 1: make it go bad quicker because there's more touch points
26:50
Speaker 1: right um, and and every time you reach in there,
26:53
Speaker 1: you're touching the bread. I don't know, I'm overthinking this,
26:56
Speaker 1: but I do think that, you know, slice bread is
26:57
Speaker 1: a luxury, and even today, sure, I guess it's convenient.
27:00
Speaker 1: But when I buy my bread from the baker or
27:03
Speaker 1: like a baguette or something, I don't get it pret sliced.
27:06
Speaker 1: I sliced it my damn self. Yeah, I I tend
27:09
Speaker 1: to I tend to like the bakery bread more than
27:14
Speaker 1: the slice bread on the shelf. Not to be elitist
27:18
Speaker 1: or something. It's just like, if I have the opportunity,
27:20
Speaker 1: then I'll try to get what in my head I
27:22
Speaker 1: call the good bread. You know what everybody has, something like, Yeah,
27:26
Speaker 1: a good steamy loaf, quit steamy loaf. Uh. In context,
27:30
Speaker 1: that's exactly what I'm talking about. Out of context, Oh,
27:34
Speaker 1: I wonder if something else entirely, Yeah, I wonder if
27:36
Speaker 1: that clips gonna come back to haunt us the way
27:39
Speaker 1: that this policy came back to haunt Claude wickered, Thanks man. Uh.
27:48
Speaker 1: It's true, though, isn't it Like even though we can
27:50
Speaker 1: guess at what he was trying to do, it really
27:52
Speaker 1: looks like he was just trying to save a couple
27:56
Speaker 1: of pennies in the budget, and he had to pay
28:00
Speaker 1: a grievous price for this because people did not take
28:04
Speaker 1: this well, oh, yeah, that's putting it lightly. I mean
28:07
Speaker 1: it was you know, people don't like to have the
28:09
Speaker 1: things taken away from them that they are have. You
28:12
Speaker 1: have have become accustomed to that in their minds. Is
28:15
Speaker 1: is a natural born right, and the right to sliced bread.
28:19
Speaker 1: Everybody remembers that one from the constitution. Um. But no,
28:22
Speaker 1: at the very least, it was incredibly unpopular. On January Uh,
28:26
Speaker 1: Sue Forrester Um, who was a woman from fair Fairfield, Connecticut,
28:31
Speaker 1: wrote a letter to the editor in the Times, the
28:34
Speaker 1: New York Times. Um, and she was speaking on behalf
28:38
Speaker 1: of all of the country's housewives. We have We have
28:41
Speaker 1: this from an article from Mental Flaws, the time US
28:44
Speaker 1: government banned sliced bread, and she says, I quote, I
28:49
Speaker 1: should like to let you know how important sliced bread
28:52
Speaker 1: is to the morale and saneness of a household. Okay, okay,
28:58
Speaker 1: the morale and sane this of a household. They really
29:02
Speaker 1: didn't like slicing that bread, did they? Yeah? Yeah, and
29:06
Speaker 1: uh they go into detail about this. Sioue Forrester says
29:10
Speaker 1: she's been forced to hand cut more than thirty slices
29:13
Speaker 1: of bread every day for family. She says this is
29:16
Speaker 1: a waste of American time and energy, and it's also
29:19
Speaker 1: a waste of money because you know, she says, a
29:24
Speaker 1: good bread knife is difficult to find, let alone afford
29:27
Speaker 1: during the war. And that's not to mention a good man.
29:32
Speaker 1: There we go, right, Oh, what about our marriage prospects
29:36
Speaker 1: to list? Sigh. So people got as mad at this
29:40
Speaker 1: band as they did at things like gasoline rationing. We
29:44
Speaker 1: have an account from a nineteen three issue of Time
29:49
Speaker 1: where they have the falling expert US housewife says Time
29:53
Speaker 1: vainly searched for grandmother's serrated bread knife, routed sleepy husbands
29:58
Speaker 1: out of bed held don conferences over bakery handouts, which
30:02
Speaker 1: read like a golf lesson, keep your head down, keep
30:05
Speaker 1: your eye on the loaf, and don't bear down. They
30:08
Speaker 1: were the time was basically saying, a bunch of people
30:11
Speaker 1: have forgotten how to slice a loaf of bread. I
30:14
Speaker 1: think we buried the loaf here. Keep your eye on
30:16
Speaker 1: the loaf. Yeah, that's just that is some some very
30:20
Speaker 1: powerful rhetoric right there. Um it really, it's got me
30:24
Speaker 1: all full of fervor and patriotism. Yeah, and this this
30:28
Speaker 1: is interesting because this leads us to the saying that
30:32
Speaker 1: we all know today. Because of this band, people started
30:36
Speaker 1: referring to things as the best thing since slice bread.
30:39
Speaker 1: That's true. Nothing I'll make you appreciate something more than
30:41
Speaker 1: when it's taken away from you. And the New York
30:44
Speaker 1: Times published, uh that, more than one letter from other
30:49
Speaker 1: very um crestfallen housewives homemakers, and it really became kind
30:55
Speaker 1: of part of the zeitgey so that this was a real,
30:57
Speaker 1: a real blow tomorrow during a very difficult time already. Yeah, yeah,
31:02
Speaker 1: it's in fact, it was it was so unpopular that
31:07
Speaker 1: no one in the US government wanted to confess to
31:11
Speaker 1: having the idea or supporting it. So Claude wickered was
31:16
Speaker 1: really caught out there. You know he was gonna be, uh,
31:20
Speaker 1: the scapegoat in this situation. Oh and okay, all of
31:24
Speaker 1: my trash talk about bread slicing, I want to walk
31:27
Speaker 1: that back a little bit. I am not a head
31:29
Speaker 1: of household with multiple children that has to be responsible
31:33
Speaker 1: for meal prep. And let's not forget the sandwich. The
31:36
Speaker 1: humble sandwich was kind of the uh, the centerpiece for
31:40
Speaker 1: a lot of these grab and go meals. So let's
31:42
Speaker 1: get a little deeper into this letter to the editor
31:45
Speaker 1: from our Connecticut housewife. She goes on to say, my
31:49
Speaker 1: husband and four children are all in a rush before, during,
31:52
Speaker 1: and after breakfast without ready sliced bread. I must do
31:56
Speaker 1: the slicing for toast two pieces for each one. That's ten.
32:00
Speaker 1: For their lunches, I must cut by hand at least
32:03
Speaker 1: twenty slices for two sandwiches a piece. They get two
32:06
Speaker 1: sandwiches a piece. That's it was a different time, it
32:09
Speaker 1: really was. Afterwards, I make my own toast twenty two
32:13
Speaker 1: slices of bread to be cut in a hurry. They
32:17
Speaker 1: look less appetizing than the baker's neat even pieces. Haven't
32:22
Speaker 1: the bakers already their bread slicing machines and for thousands
32:27
Speaker 1: of loaves? Yeah, and she's coming from a real sincere
32:31
Speaker 1: upset place, like you said, she's She's not the only one.
32:35
Speaker 1: I didn't think about the numbers. They didn't think about
32:37
Speaker 1: the math behind this. That's a lot of bread slicing,
32:40
Speaker 1: and the numbers add up really quickly, all right. So
32:45
Speaker 1: another thing that made this rule so unpopular was that
32:48
Speaker 1: it caught everybody by surprise. The Chicago Tribune reported the
32:54
Speaker 1: governmental band on the sale of slice bread, effective yesterday,
32:58
Speaker 1: caught hundreds of cargo housewives by surprise and sent them
33:03
Speaker 1: scurry into hardware stores to raid depleted supplies bred knives.
33:08
Speaker 1: I don't know why he sounds like that, but that's
33:10
Speaker 1: the guy. Oh no, it's absolutely the guy. I remember.
33:12
Speaker 1: I remember the newscasts. Now, there were some there were
33:16
Speaker 1: some some loopholes. So hotels, restaurants, and railroad dining cars
33:20
Speaker 1: were given a sixty day grace period, uh to prepare.
33:25
Speaker 1: Bakeries that didn't play ball until the line got hit
33:30
Speaker 1: with some pretty steep fines and they were warned that
33:34
Speaker 1: the government was prepared to take stern measures if necessary.
33:38
Speaker 1: But some other, uh, some other proponents seemed like they
33:45
Speaker 1: they quickly regretted their decision. That's where we gotta we
33:48
Speaker 1: gotta mention this one guy, just because I love his name,
33:51
Speaker 1: A Meal Fink. I bet he got a bad rap
33:56
Speaker 1: for like being like a scoundrel. You know, you can't
33:59
Speaker 1: have a last name like that, and and and and
34:01
Speaker 1: emerge unscathed. Yes, a Meal Fink. He was a baker
34:06
Speaker 1: and also a member of the New York City Baker's
34:08
Speaker 1: advisory committee. And actually he was kind of the villain here.
34:12
Speaker 1: He's the one who pushed hard for the bread slicing band.
34:16
Speaker 1: But a year later, Fink found himself in a courtroom
34:19
Speaker 1: forget this slicing brand, hypocrite, bad look. Yeah. The New
34:28
Speaker 1: York Times reported um that U S attorney read Fink
34:32
Speaker 1: the Riot Act and and and said Fink called upon
34:35
Speaker 1: the government to enforce the regulation rigidly. And at the
34:39
Speaker 1: very time his bakery was violating the law. He was
34:43
Speaker 1: fined a thousand dollars. You want to inflation and calculate that,
34:48
Speaker 1: b boy, I'm gonna say five thousand dollars. Let's see,
34:55
Speaker 1: let's see so, casey, if we could get a drum roll, please,
35:07
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars in nineteen forty four is equal to
35:13
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand, six hundred dollars today. I was way off.
35:19
Speaker 1: I was way off, and that's a pretty steep penalty.
35:22
Speaker 1: But I think he had it coming for that. Uh,
35:24
Speaker 1: that most egregious sin of hypocrisy. Yeah. Yeah, and and
35:29
Speaker 1: Baker like it makes you think that Fink had I
35:33
Speaker 1: feel bad. I feel like it's nominative determinism to call
35:36
Speaker 1: him Fink, but but it feels like it feels like
35:40
Speaker 1: his angle was that he wanted to make sure he
35:43
Speaker 1: was one of the only bakeriries selling slice spread to
35:46
Speaker 1: get ahead. He was trying to make a big I think, despicable. Despicable,
35:51
Speaker 1: but the band wasn't even saving money at all. Like
35:55
Speaker 1: Baker's were losing cash because of this. Oh yeah, it's true.
35:59
Speaker 1: The sale as were dropping in the neighborhood of five
36:01
Speaker 1: as much as ten percent, according to the Harrisburg Telegraph.
36:06
Speaker 1: There's a quote from that article from nineteen forty three
36:09
Speaker 1: in February. Uh. While all bakers have varied reasons for
36:13
Speaker 1: the prevailing decrease, they all agree at the absence of
36:16
Speaker 1: sliced bread is at least playing some part in the drop. Uh,
36:21
Speaker 1: where's your boy auto in all of this? That's a
36:24
Speaker 1: great question because Otto was very much alive. He lived
36:28
Speaker 1: until November eighth, nineteen sixty, so he definitely had I'm
36:35
Speaker 1: sure he had strong thoughts about this. He was, you know,
36:40
Speaker 1: this was his career. He sold the patent to his
36:44
Speaker 1: invention to another company. Like he was, he was doing
36:47
Speaker 1: pretty well off. So he definitely had a race in
36:50
Speaker 1: the game. But he had already made his nickels by
36:52
Speaker 1: the time this this kicks in. That's right? Is that
36:55
Speaker 1: a did I make that? Is that? I think people
36:57
Speaker 1: say make your nickels, that's the thing. But I tell
37:00
Speaker 1: you what isn't a thing? Is he already had his
37:01
Speaker 1: race in the game. Think I think you were combining
37:06
Speaker 1: skin in the game with horse in the race in
37:10
Speaker 1: the games. I love it. No, No, I think we
37:13
Speaker 1: should use that. That should be our new thing. He
37:16
Speaker 1: already had a race in the game. I really really
37:18
Speaker 1: like that a lot. Actually, Oh, thanks man, thanks for
37:21
Speaker 1: the catch. It's it's wild over here, folks, No worries. Dude, Hey,
37:26
Speaker 1: we gotta keep each other on at while we're slowly
37:28
Speaker 1: losing our mind in isolation. Oh yeah, yeah, Well hopefully
37:33
Speaker 1: it will be to the enjoyment of you, dear dear
37:36
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians. Uh. We have a little bit we have
37:39
Speaker 1: a little bit more to add here, which is that
37:42
Speaker 1: the band was thankfully lifted only three months after it
37:47
Speaker 1: went into law. Right. It was like march, I want
37:52
Speaker 1: to say, m that's right. Um, it was lifted and
37:56
Speaker 1: there was a public statement made from the war production board. Uh.
38:02
Speaker 1: And it actually, do you know, to his credit, kind
38:05
Speaker 1: of cop to the thing being a failure, saying, quote,
38:10
Speaker 1: savings are not as much as were expected, leaving it
38:14
Speaker 1: at that uh, and that there was enough wax paper
38:17
Speaker 1: to go around and wrap sliced bread uh for four months.
38:21
Speaker 1: So you know, bully for them for sort of owning
38:26
Speaker 1: their their debacle. You know, if we could, I think
38:34
Speaker 1: a good place to put a button in a bow
38:37
Speaker 1: on This story is a great headline from the New
38:41
Speaker 1: York Times when when the band was lifted, The New
38:44
Speaker 1: York Times published an article reading, slice bread put back
38:48
Speaker 1: on sale, Housewives thumbs safe again. Thank God, Thy God
38:53
Speaker 1: for think of the thumbs, all the thumbs. Oh yeah,
38:57
Speaker 1: I mean at the very least they're getting nicked left
38:59
Speaker 1: and right. Uh. I would love to see some statistics
39:01
Speaker 1: about how many outright, uh, severed thumbs occurred at the
39:06
Speaker 1: hands of unsliced bread. I mean that that slice math
39:10
Speaker 1: really gets to you. You know, I'm glad you put
39:12
Speaker 1: that in. Oh. I want to say before we end
39:14
Speaker 1: today's episode, guys, I want to do a clarification because
39:18
Speaker 1: you know, credit where credits do is very important to me.
39:21
Speaker 1: And earlier, uh, in a previous episode, we went on
39:25
Speaker 1: this delightful little run of Quentin Tarantino based Quarantine puns.
39:30
Speaker 1: You remember that. I'm gonna be real with you, guys.
39:32
Speaker 1: They weren't very good. Can we do better this time?
39:35
Speaker 1: Can we raise the bar? Well? I wanted to credit
39:39
Speaker 1: one of our friends on Twitter because you guys said, oh,
39:42
Speaker 1: Quentin Quarantino is pretty good. It got me thinking and
39:45
Speaker 1: I was like, did I make that up? Because that's
39:48
Speaker 1: really good for someone like me to make up on
39:50
Speaker 1: the fly, And I wanted to give a shout out.
39:53
Speaker 1: I think I've found this and just acts like misremembered
39:56
Speaker 1: it on Twitter. We have a Twitter friend who goes
39:59
Speaker 1: by the hand dole Quentin Quarantino, so kealthy at Kealthy Underscore.
40:04
Speaker 1: If you're out there, thank you so much when I
40:07
Speaker 1: wanted to give you credit where credit was due, because
40:09
Speaker 1: I think it just got stuck in my head. I
40:11
Speaker 1: love that name. It happens and that's true. Um, well,
40:15
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Kealthy. Is it Kelsey and you
40:18
Speaker 1: just developed a list all of a sudden or is
40:20
Speaker 1: it no? Kealthy? Okay, kealthy. That's interesting. It makes me
40:24
Speaker 1: feel like I'm speaking with a list. Well, this was
40:26
Speaker 1: a fun episode, Ben, Can we take a minute. Uh,
40:29
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just have this idea, uh to
40:32
Speaker 1: to grab find an object that's around you, somewhere in
40:35
Speaker 1: your workspace and describe it to the listeners. Uh yeah,
40:40
Speaker 1: yeah here, Um, let's see, I'm in a weird spot.
40:44
Speaker 1: Why don't you want to do the honors? Yeah, I got,
40:46
Speaker 1: I got, I've got. I've got one just in mind.
40:48
Speaker 1: It's something I bought it a cheap o dollar store.
40:51
Speaker 1: It's a w W F R E uh miniature figures
40:56
Speaker 1: and they're like little mini wrestlers, just Jake the Snake
40:59
Speaker 1: and all Timate Warrior and this guy wearing chains and
41:02
Speaker 1: they're all completely flesh nude colored. Here, let me show you, guys,
41:06
Speaker 1: you can actually see. Oh nice. But they're called muscle.
41:09
Speaker 1: But it's an acronym, and you know how much I
41:11
Speaker 1: love acronyms. So there's a dot between every one of
41:13
Speaker 1: these letters, and it stands for millions of unusual small
41:17
Speaker 1: creatures lurking everywhere that's not sinister at all. They didn't
41:22
Speaker 1: so it sounds like the oh is not part of
41:25
Speaker 1: the acronym. There. They often leave the oh. It's usually
41:28
Speaker 1: only the capitalized letters in a in a title, right,
41:31
Speaker 1: the oh is a there's a word for it. But yeah, okay,
41:34
Speaker 1: so that's my object. Okay, I've got I've got something
41:37
Speaker 1: uh that just stuck up there. I think you'll you'll
41:40
Speaker 1: like your noel I have. I've been cleaning up a
41:44
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff and I found how weirdly synchronistic is this?
41:48
Speaker 1: I found my old shoe box of muscle men. Do
41:52
Speaker 1: you remember these guys muscle men? Yeah, you know what
41:55
Speaker 1: I'm talking about? Are they kind of like my little
41:57
Speaker 1: muscle guys? They're exactly the same. I think they might
42:01
Speaker 1: be the same. There's this is an old school kind
42:03
Speaker 1: of toy. I think some of our listeners will remember yeah,
42:07
Speaker 1: but their nude color, their flesh color, they're all flesh color,
42:10
Speaker 1: just like my little guys. Yeah. Oh, I've got some
42:12
Speaker 1: that are like, I don't know what color this is,
42:14
Speaker 1: but I've got something like that. Okay, Yeah, and then
42:17
Speaker 1: they've got some knockoff ones. That's so weird that we
42:20
Speaker 1: both that's really funny. And they're they're the they're the
42:23
Speaker 1: most useless little toys. They don't bend or pose. Choking
42:29
Speaker 1: hazards is what they are. Really. Yeah, but they're stylish.
42:32
Speaker 1: I thought that would be more fun than looking at
42:35
Speaker 1: the hydrated food I have that we uh, we recorded
42:39
Speaker 1: another show today, folks for stuff they want you to
42:42
Speaker 1: know with our rideer Dies Paul, Mission Control and U
42:45
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick. Where we were we were talking about some
42:49
Speaker 1: of the things in our in our quarantine zones. But
42:51
Speaker 1: that's a fun game, man, you wanna you wanna make
42:53
Speaker 1: that a regular thing. I don't know. It's just kind
42:55
Speaker 1: of fun to humanize our our spaces and show that
42:58
Speaker 1: we're just nerds like everybody else, and that we have
43:01
Speaker 1: a cluttered, uh messy desks just like every just like
43:06
Speaker 1: everybody else. Casey, did you find anything in your closet space.
43:09
Speaker 1: All right, Well, this space is primarily for books and
43:14
Speaker 1: movies and camera equipment, so I don't really have anything
43:18
Speaker 1: endearing like a you know, a figurine in a toy
43:22
Speaker 1: or something in here. But I did find this book. Uh.
43:26
Speaker 1: It's by Otessa Mashveg. It's called My Year of Rest
43:28
Speaker 1: and Realaxation, and uh, it came out maybe a couple
43:32
Speaker 1: of years ago, and it's about a woman who, through
43:36
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical means, decides that she's going to sleep for an
43:39
Speaker 1: entire year. So, um, I don't know. I thought that
43:41
Speaker 1: was an appropriate pick for a current to quarantine situation.
43:45
Speaker 1: I bet that I would be down with that at
43:47
Speaker 1: least for a couple of maybe weeks or maybe a
43:50
Speaker 1: month or so. But yeah, wow, very very appropriate for
43:54
Speaker 1: these are plague times. It reminds me of that sleep
43:57
Speaker 1: study that was going around for a while where they
44:01
Speaker 1: would pay participants to lay prone for like thirty or
44:05
Speaker 1: ninety days. Uh. I had a friend who got really
44:08
Speaker 1: close to actually doing that. Sounds yeah, you had to
44:12
Speaker 1: lay down, that was the rule. You had to always
44:13
Speaker 1: be laying down because they wanted to see what kind
44:16
Speaker 1: of horrible things would happen to your body and then
44:18
Speaker 1: nuts basically right bed swords. You probably lose muscle tone,
44:23
Speaker 1: I bet because you're not walking around. But let's not
44:26
Speaker 1: end on that note. Let's end on let's end on
44:30
Speaker 1: a big thank you, So thank you, not just to auto,
44:33
Speaker 1: but thanks to everybody for tuning in. You know, we
44:37
Speaker 1: hope you're healthy, we hope you're happy. Uh. We hope
44:40
Speaker 1: that if you are hanging out on the Internet, like
44:43
Speaker 1: a lot of us are these days, uh, that that
44:46
Speaker 1: you drop our digital way and say hello to us
44:49
Speaker 1: on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, not just as our show ridiculous history,
44:54
Speaker 1: but also say hello to us as individuals were. Um,
44:58
Speaker 1: we're online a lot. It's true. You can find me
45:01
Speaker 1: exclusively on Instagram at how now Noel Brown, where you
45:05
Speaker 1: can follow my quarantiney situation. Uh. I might be posting
45:09
Speaker 1: some of these ambient dreamscape guitar pieces that I've been
45:12
Speaker 1: sort of talking about here and there. Um, so stay
45:15
Speaker 1: tuned for that on my on my stories and you
45:17
Speaker 1: can find me at Ben bolan hsw on Twitter. I've
45:22
Speaker 1: been fielding a candidly. I've been fielding a lot of
45:25
Speaker 1: questions about prepping or survival kind of situations. I'm always
45:31
Speaker 1: around to answer those. Uh. And I'm also updating to
45:35
Speaker 1: the minute with developments both here and at another show
45:39
Speaker 1: called Strange News Dailies. Do you check it out? You
45:42
Speaker 1: can see my misadventures on Instagram at Ben Bolan. Uh.
45:47
Speaker 1: You know, I fell for starting to post a lot
45:50
Speaker 1: of memes. I'm sorry, you know, I know the world's
45:53
Speaker 1: in a real troubled place, but the memes they give
45:57
Speaker 1: me light and love in troubled times, you know, say,
46:00
Speaker 1: my friend and I always find light and love all
46:03
Speaker 1: over your stories and uh and your feed my friend,
46:06
Speaker 1: uh and I appreciate that very much. And please do
46:08
Speaker 1: check out Strange News Daily for a daily dose of
46:12
Speaker 1: exactly what the show name implies, strange news and these
46:15
Speaker 1: are strange times. Oh man, thank you so much. Well,
46:19
Speaker 1: we'll see how it works out. We just quick by
46:23
Speaker 1: peep behind the curtain by the way. Uh. In addition
46:26
Speaker 1: to doing our show, Ridiculous History that's very near and
46:30
Speaker 1: dear to our hearts, Uh, the three of us are
46:32
Speaker 1: continually making a ton of other shows, and we don't
46:37
Speaker 1: always shout them out because we don't, you know, Uh,
46:41
Speaker 1: we want to make sure each one is special. But
46:44
Speaker 1: we also we sometimes at least for you guys. Sometimes
46:47
Speaker 1: I lose track of which ones are already out and
46:50
Speaker 1: which ones are still secret. But I just want to say,
46:52
Speaker 1: and I hope you don't get mad at me about
46:53
Speaker 1: this though, I just want to say that are my
46:56
Speaker 1: good friend. Mr Brown here has has quite a few
47:00
Speaker 1: fascinating things on the way, uh, including of course Dear
47:03
Speaker 1: Young Rocker. If you haven't checked that out, give it
47:05
Speaker 1: a listen. Yeah, thanks, Ben. That one just wrapped up
47:09
Speaker 1: in partnership with Jake Brennan, who does the wonderful rock
47:12
Speaker 1: true crime kind of hybrid show Disgrace Land. He has
47:15
Speaker 1: an imprint called Double Elvis uh that he has several
47:19
Speaker 1: shows um partnering up with us on the I Heart
47:22
Speaker 1: podcast network, and one of them is Dear Young Rocker
47:24
Speaker 1: with Chelsea Urson, who you saw or heard rather on
47:27
Speaker 1: the show very recently talking about the Ponzi scheme, the
47:30
Speaker 1: history of the Ponzi Scheme. He also has another one
47:33
Speaker 1: that's really great that just came out called Citizen Critic,
47:36
Speaker 1: where Scott Janovitz and Greg connolly h take on hot
47:42
Speaker 1: takes from professional and amateur critics alike. So it's a
47:47
Speaker 1: show where they critique the critics and it's quite delightful. Uh.
47:51
Speaker 1: And that show is ongoing on the I Heart podcast
47:54
Speaker 1: network as we speak, bless shout out. This is just
47:57
Speaker 1: this is a fun one and we want to mention
47:59
Speaker 1: it to you might hear it on our feet. Um, Noel,
48:02
Speaker 1: you and I a while back when people could still
48:05
Speaker 1: travel more easily, you and I went on Food Court,
48:09
Speaker 1: which is the show we appeared on. Maybe our good
48:11
Speaker 1: pal Christopher hasciotis hosted by none other than Richard Blaze. Uh.
48:16
Speaker 1: That episode is coming out or should be out soon.
48:19
Speaker 1: And I listened to it. I don't know what you thought, Noeld,
48:21
Speaker 1: but I thought it was a lot of fun. It
48:23
Speaker 1: was a good time. I think I may have shouted
48:24
Speaker 1: that out previously and said that it was already out.
48:27
Speaker 1: That was not true. Uh, it is now by this
48:29
Speaker 1: point out in the world. I think, as it comes
48:31
Speaker 1: out on Tuesday of next week. In this episode also
48:33
Speaker 1: comes out on Tuesday of next week, so they should
48:36
Speaker 1: be dropping the same exact day we debate with each other. Um,
48:41
Speaker 1: two sides of a very hot button food issue. Um.
48:46
Speaker 1: I took the side of sausage and you the side
48:49
Speaker 1: of bacon. And you'll have to listen to find out
48:52
Speaker 1: who who came out on top. But it's a wonderful show.
48:54
Speaker 1: Richard Blaze is a fantastic host and judge, very fair
48:58
Speaker 1: and uh, I was really he's done. He actually followed
49:01
Speaker 1: me on Instagram and I felt like a million bucks.
49:03
Speaker 1: And he's been posting all these great isolation cooking videos
49:06
Speaker 1: on his story and he was making a something called
49:09
Speaker 1: a ramen. Uh lot key saw that, Yeah, and it
49:13
Speaker 1: looked really, really fantastic. And he's a really sweet guy.
49:16
Speaker 1: So check out food corep with Richard Blaze. His nachos
49:18
Speaker 1: are on point too if you're if you're a food
49:20
Speaker 1: pick fanatic like me and he and he has a
49:23
Speaker 1: chicken restaurant called crack Shack that they don't have any
49:27
Speaker 1: around here, but it looks incredible. Talk about good looking,
49:30
Speaker 1: decadent chicken sandwiches. Yeah, he's he's my internet buddy. Now
49:34
Speaker 1: we're hoping to get him on our show soon. So
49:38
Speaker 1: get a preview of our our interaction by checking out
49:41
Speaker 1: Food Court. As always, thank you so much to our
49:45
Speaker 1: super producer Casey Pegram Casey. I'm gonna find a book
49:48
Speaker 1: for our next quarantine spotting because I feel a little
49:51
Speaker 1: weird that you had something amazing and literate and I
49:54
Speaker 1: was like, hey, look at my choebox of toys. But
49:59
Speaker 1: but thank you, thank you as always for being the
50:02
Speaker 1: uh the best uh half of our show. I'm not
50:06
Speaker 1: good at the math. But also thank you as always
50:09
Speaker 1: the gab Lozier. Gabe Lozier indeed, and we hope to
50:11
Speaker 1: have him on very very soon. Thanks to Jonathan Strickland,
50:14
Speaker 1: the notorious quiz Sir. I think we already thank Christophrastiotis
50:17
Speaker 1: in talking about Food Corp. Huge thanks to Alex Williams
50:19
Speaker 1: who composed this very theme that you hear within your
50:22
Speaker 1: ear holes. Um and uh and thanks to you Ben
50:25
Speaker 1: for being a pal and being a Quarantine podcast mate.
50:30
Speaker 1: Um I, I really I look forward to these times
50:32
Speaker 1: and and look forward to keeping it rolling with you, sir. Likewise,
50:36
Speaker 1: likewise no uh in In the meantime, of course, as always,
50:40
Speaker 1: you know, uh, we like to think that we're our
50:43
Speaker 1: show is a community. Uh So if you want to
50:45
Speaker 1: contact us on on a personal level, we always love
50:48
Speaker 1: to hear from you. Let us know what's going in
50:50
Speaker 1: your neck of the woods and let us hey, let
50:52
Speaker 1: us know what your weirdest uh food history story is.
50:57
Speaker 1: We could read about this all day. We'll see next time, folks.
51:06
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
51:08
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
51:11
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.