Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Order Up

Transcript

Order Up · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: It was midnight when the smugglers entered the harbor, drifting
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: silently between the larger vessels anchored along the docks. Passing
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: beneath the bridge, they pulled up alongside a rickety pier
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and got to work unloading their contraband within minutes the
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: wharf was groaning from the weight of large wooden crates.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: The smugglers worked quickly and had almost completed the task
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: when pandemonium erupted. A shrill whistle blast pierced the night
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: that A small army of police constables poured onto the docks,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: surrounding the smugglers. Those who tried to run at the
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: end of a cudgel, a stack of crates toppled, smashing
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: against the dock and spilling their contents over the wooden planks.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: One of the constables knelt, reaching down to reverently touch
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: the snow white contraband. The crates were not full of
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: drugs or weapons or stolen jewelry. They contained something even
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: more valuable. This was pont de laisson, a type of
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: needle point lace crafted by carmelite nuns from southern France.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Dubbed the Queen of Lace for its beauty, it was
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: among the most desired fabrics in the world. It wasn't
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: the material involved that made the lace so valuable, but
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the artistry, craftsmanship, and labor that went into every hand
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: stitched piece. A single square centimeter took seven hours to
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: create and involved the labor of eighteen craftswomen. The fact
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: that it was both beautiful and difficult to create made
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: it incredibly popular among European aristocracy, who had been adorning
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: themselves a needle point for years. They used lace in
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: all their clothing too, but especially their sleeves and oversized collars.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: The incredible popularity of lace eventually caught the attention of
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the French government. The Finance minister was startled by the
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: exorbitant sums their nobles were spending on foreign lace, and
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: became determined to keep that money within the country. He
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: started by heavily investing in the French lace making school,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: then banning foreign lace so that nobles would be forced
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: to use homegrown stuff. At the same time, he made
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: it illegal to transport French lace out of the country
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: so that no one else could copy their designs. As expected,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: the ban led to a massive boon in the French
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: lace industry, but it also created incentives for criminals to
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: enter the market. An arms race quickly developed between the
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: police and lace smugglers, who came with increasingly clever schemes
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: to get their textiles across the border. They smuggled lace
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: inside empty coffins and hollowed out loaves of bread. They
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: even wrapped it around large dogs before dressing the animals
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: in fake hides. The authorities responded with a series of
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: high profile busts. In one instance, a hangman burned hundreds
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: of thousands of crowns worth of foreign lace, treating the
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: textile itself as a criminal who deserved to die. The
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: situation continued until seventeen eighty nine, when the French Revolution
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: virtually wiped out the nobility. The demand for high quality
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: lace cratered, putting hundreds of thousands of craftswomen out of work.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Needle point lace did see a brief resurgence of popularity
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: during the Napoleonic era, but met its true end soon
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: after during the Industrial Revolution. You see, the textile machines
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: that were invented in the mid nineteenth century could easily
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: replicate the patterns that had taken human hands countless hours
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: to create. This made the lace far less expensive to produce,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: but also less unique and desirable. With the human artistry removed,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: lace became just like any other fabric, and it soon
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: fell out of fashion. Wealthy people turned their attention to
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: other luxurious fabrics like silk or velvet. Soon enough, hardly
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: anyone would remember a time when needle point lace was
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: one of the most sought after and most forbidden commodities
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: in the world, a time when French fashion police scoured
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: their harbors for illicit fabrics and smugglers risk their necks
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: to dress the necks of the elite. You've seen it
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: in every Thai restaurant from Bangkok to Berlin. Tender rice noodles,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: fresh tamarind, juicy shrimp, squeeze of lime, and just a
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: hint of peanuts for some nutty crunch mention. Thai food
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: anywhere in the world, and most people's thoughts jumped to
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: one iconic dish, pad Thaie, a combination of salty, sweet, acid,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: and spice. Seemed to represent the complexity of Thaie cuisine
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: all in one single dish. But pad Thai, which means
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Thai stirfry, didn't have the same journey as other national dishes.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: It didn't come from a grandmother's kitchen or a popular
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: roadside stand. Instead, pad Thai was cooked up by a
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: dictator obsessed with the flavor of Thai's identity. In the
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: late nineteen thirties, Thailand was getting nervous. It was still
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: an independent kingdom called Siam, but it seemed like all
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: of its neighbors were being colonized. Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Burma were ruled by the French and the English, and
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: now word was coming down the line that Japan had
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: invaded China and was looking further self. The Prime Minister
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: of Thailand at the time was and I have to
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: ask your forgiveness in advance for trying to pronounce this
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: man's name, a guy named Kleiak Fibun Songkrem, who most
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: westerners just called Fibun. Now Fibun had overthrown the monarchy
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: and was using the military to rule Siam. He believed
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: that colonists saw Siam as a backwards, primitive place in
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: need of their brand of civilizing. To keep his country free,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: he thought he needed to do what leaders like Benito
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Mussolini had done. He needed to create a strong national identity,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: from music and art to close and even food. From
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine to nineteen forty two, Phibun issued twelve
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: cultural mandates to realize this vision. He changed the name
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: of the country from Siam to Thailand. He demanded specific
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: types of traditional dress, and he targeted ethnic minorities, including
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: banning the Chinese language and driving Chinese food vendors off
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the street. Now amidst this campaign for identity, Fibun decided
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: the country needed a national dish, one that would showcase
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: the depth and complexity of Thai flavors, but would also
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: be a healthy and hearty one with lots of protein
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and vegetables. So he unveiled his new national program called
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Noodle Is Your Lunch. The Public Welfare Department gave out
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: noodle carts, ingredients and a new recipe. The national dish
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: of modern Thailand pad Thai. And yet, even as Fibun
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: claimed this dish encapsulated all of Thai cuisine, many Thai
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: people had never tasted did anything like it. Thai food
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: is highly dictated by locality, using the fresh ingredients that
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: are locally grown, raised, or fished. There it was a
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: country that ate rice rather than noodles, So people wondered
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: where pad thai had come from. Was it a regional dish,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: something ancient with a long history, And the truth was
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Fibun was just a guy who liked noodles. The meal
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: which became pad thai was based on a recipe from
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: his housekeeper, who made it often. In truth, it may
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: have even come from a Chinese recipe. Noodles were much
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: more popular in China than in Thailand, but through his
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: cultural programs, pad Thai became ubiquitous across the country. His
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: forced national identity still wasn't enough to stave off invasion.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: In nineteen forty one, under thread of Japanese attack, Fibun
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: agreed to let Japanese soldiers move freely throughout Thailand, and
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: as the war ended, the Thai people, sick of his
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: harsh rules, ousted him from office, and yet even with
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: the Thai people rejecting Fibun's other mandates, pad Thai somehow serve.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: In fact, pad Thai became the driving force behind a
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: second cultural identity movement, this time in two thousand and one.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: That year, the Thai government launched a program called Thai
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Kitchen to the World. They wanted to create a concept
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: of Thai cultural identity in other countries, to attract tourists
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: to Thailand and create a cultural calling card. Part of
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: this program was to train chefs and grant loans to
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: people who opened Thai restaurants in other countries. The governments
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: even came up with three cookie cutter restaurant concepts, from
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: cheap eats to fine dining, that restaurant owners could easily copy,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: which is why some Thai restaurants have the same menu
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: from Hong Kong to Houston. But many Thai entrepreneurs also
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: struck out on their own, creating restaurants that would cater
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: to local populations, and many of them found that worldwide
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: people loved the sweet, sour, spicy flavors of pad Thai.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Even in Thailand, the dish has become a popular lunchtime staple. Still,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: if you do venture to Thailand or your local Thai restaurant,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: don't be afraid to try something else on the menu.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: This show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.