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Ridiculous History: Episode Zero · Ridiculous History

• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. I'm Ben, I'm Nolan. It's not
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: really a show. It's sort of a mini show, pre show.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: It's a preview show. That's what they call in the
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: podcast parlance. Episode zero, right before episode one, the prequel,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: if you will, a prelude to a podcast called Ridiculous History. Yes, yes, sir,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: that is us, and every week you and I dive
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: into some of the strangest, most unusual, just weirdest stories
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: from the yester years of humanity. I'm really more of
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: a toe dipper. I'm being honest, I've never really been
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: much of a diver. I leave that to you and
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I'll just kind of, you know, I'll be your wingman.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I'm all about delving. We can wing this together. Okay,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: that's cool. What should we wing our way into a clip? Yeah,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: because people are hearing this wondering what what are these
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: guys actually talking about? What do they actually do on
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: the show together, you and I found out something incredibly
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: strange and ridiculous, not just about the Protestant Reformation, but
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: about one of the things that fueled it. Yeah, butter,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: which as we know, is not only delicious but uh
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: fantastic way of cooking your food, and it became really
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: important in aiding the Protestant Reformation when the Catholic Church
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: banned it, essentially forcing starvation on folks in regions that
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: didn't have access to um acceptable cooking oils like olive
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: oil or fish oil. So here's a preview from our
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: episode on butter. Butter is not just a tiny huh. Well,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: look at that kind of detail in this story. In fact,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: if not for this band on Butter, there might have
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: been a much slower growth rate of the Protestant movement.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: So if we look at this first, I guess the
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: best way for us to start is to consider fast days.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Should we travel back in time to medieval Europe. I
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: think that's a wonderful idea. So here we are medieval Europe. Dude,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: it's kind of weird here. It's really dark and gloomy,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: and everyone looks really bummed out. Yes, yes, yes, you'll
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: you'll also notice that there are a lot of people
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: who look hungry. Watch out for that poop. Oh you slipped,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: That's fine, it's my poop. I was here earlier. Gross,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I know, I know, I was just really feel in
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: the moment that skinny guy in the stocks over there.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: He looks pretty malnourished. That's also plague, So don't touch him.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I think I've driven this bit into the ground. Well,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: luckily we're riding it out still, because now that we're
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: in this environment, we can note that there are some
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: obvious traditions that are different from our own in the
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: modern day. Right. Let's see, look at that. See that
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: monk man sure does have a shiny head. Yes, yes,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: he has a ton shore. Ah my eyes, So what
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: a ton shore? That's a tantra is the word for
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: that type of haircut where they shave the top of
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: their head. I thought it was just called a bowl cut.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: It's it's like the opposite of a bowl cut. It's
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: like the fringe around a bowl cut, minus the part. Yeah, okay,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: you learned something new every day. These monks that we're
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: hypothetically looking at are living in a system of fairly
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: rigid and exacting rules dictating both their um, their religious practices,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: and their day to day behavior. And one of the
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: big things about this we're drawing a lot of this
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: from a book called Butter, a Rich History by Elaine
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Coast Sulva. Uh. One of the big things about this
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: was the the sort of food you could eat. And
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  Speaker 1: if it were a Wednesday, if it were a Friday
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: or a Saturday, then these monks the way this tradition started,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: could not eat any animal products. They were vegan three
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: days out of the week. They were really ahead of
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: a curve on that one, no kidding. And then in
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: lent the forty day period leading up to Easter, they
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: also couldn't eat animal products, so they were vegan functionally
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: for like forty days or their version of that. Yeah,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: and what's wild and did occur to me until looking
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: into this stuff is it was accounted for something in
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood of like half of the calendar year. We
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: added it all up together. And that's if you don't
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: well we'll get to indulgences and how they play in here.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: But yeah, you're absolutely right. That really adds up. And
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: that makes me appreciate every fully cheese steak I have
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: ever eaten or will ever do you do that? The
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: cheese whiz version, You know, I'm not loyal enough. That's
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: the clastic they say, Yeah, but I like the provolon,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: you know, like a good provolone. You ever eaten cheese
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: whiz out of the can. Yeah. Man, Yeah, we've all
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: had dark times in our lives. I mean, I'll do
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: whip cream out of the can. But cheese whiz is
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: it's like, it's not it's not a food. It's not
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: a food. It's essentially like the powder that comes in
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the Kraft Macaroni and cheese boxes, just like an aerosol form.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Don't they have to call the cheese food product? I
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: think so American cheese slices. But the thing that's cool
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: too about this is, um, a lot of this stuff
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: really hinged on region. We take for granted the idea
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: of importing and exporting and are the availability of like anything,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: and like we don't really have to limit our food
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: intake based on where we live. If we want strawberries,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: we can get strawberries. If we want some you know,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: tropical fruit that's not grown anywhere near us, we can
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: get it because of like, you know, refrigeration. But back
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: in these days that was not a thing, and your
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: diet was dictated pretty much exclusively on what was available
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: in your region unless you were super wealthy and even
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: and even then it would be incredibly rare, you know,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: or be incredibly expensive for instance, to get certain spices
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: even like peppercorns. So now we've got we've got our
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: monks who about half the year just can't eat meat
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: or dairy and is also coincidentally believed to fuel lust.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Any animal product is thought as like essentially an afrodisiac
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: of sorts. This tradition became becomes intensely problematic when the
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Catholic Church extends these fast Day rules to all Christians.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: So for not just monks, anybody who is a Rishian
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: has to skip meat, milk, eggs, animal fats, or butter
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday's, Friday's, Saturdays, and all during Lent. And this
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: is where we really see the problem of geography that
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: we mentioned coming into play, because the Roman Catholic Church
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: isn't is it in southern Europe? Right, It's based in Rome.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: It's in charge ideologically of a lot of Europe, but
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: it's based in Rome, and they had access to like fish,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: a lot more fish, you know, fresh fish, and also
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: things like olive oil that were alternatives to butter, because butter,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: you know, as as we know, is delicious to just
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: spread directly on things, but it's also a really great
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: way to cook things, and it infuses pretty excellent flavor
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: into things that you cook with it. Olive oil is
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: also fantastic. I would argue it doesn't quite add the
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: same you know, some kind of mom kind of you mommy,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: same kind of kick as Butter does. So that so
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: that's it. We're cutting it off their noal, This is
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: just a preview. What a cliffhanger. I know people have
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: to listen to the whole episode. I don't even remember
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: what happens next, but you can find out for yourself,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: friends and neighbors. All you have to do is tune in.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Subscribe to Ridiculous History. You won't just learn about Butter.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: One of the episodes we have in the camp is
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: on this thing that happened in Russia between the nineteen
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Fouries and the nineteen sixties, where folks were bootlegging music
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: by etching them onto discarded X ray press. Yeah yeah.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: And then we also answered the question about why British
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: lawyers wear wigs. Why some British lawyers wear wigs. We've
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: got one on Pablo Escobar's hippo problem that he introduced
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: into the ecosystem of Columbia, rain making supervillains and more.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and find us. We are Ridiculous History. Look
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday on Apple Podcasts,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: or anywhere else you download your favorite audio content. See
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: you there, Sa,