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Chef’s Table · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
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  Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
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  Speaker 2: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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  Speaker 2: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Science and magic may seem
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  Speaker 2: like opposites, but they've always been very close friends in
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  Speaker 2: the ancient world. Religion, superstition, philosophy, and mathematics were all
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  Speaker 2: intersecting fields of study. In ancient Greece and Persia. For example,
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  Speaker 2: thinkers who practiced astrology also broke new ground in geometry.
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  Speaker 2: In the modern age, we tend to keep the natural
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  Speaker 2: and the supernatural separate. After all, science we can cured
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  Speaker 2: disease and fly to the stars. Isn't that magical enough?
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  Speaker 2: But for Jack Parsons, one of the pioneers of rocketry,
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  Speaker 2: enchantments and experiments literally went hand in hand. Jack was
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  Speaker 2: born on October second of nineteen fourteen in Pasadena, California.
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  Speaker 2: His childhood was a lonely one, and he spent more
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  Speaker 2: time with comic books and Jules Verne novels than with
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  Speaker 2: other kids reading science fiction, Jack could dream of escaping
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  Speaker 2: his life in the suburbs to explore the galaxy. As
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  Speaker 2: he got older, he focused on how to get there
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  Speaker 2: in real life. By the age of twelve, Jack had
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  Speaker 2: found a kindred spirit in Edward Foreman, another boy who
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  Speaker 2: loves science fiction. The two engage themselves in typical safe
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  Speaker 2: preteen boy activities, namely creating their own rockets out of
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  Speaker 2: aluminum foil and fireworks. Around this time, Jack also got
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  Speaker 2: interested in magic in the Saint pulp magazines, where he
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  Speaker 2: read sci fi stories. He also found incantations to summon demons.
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  Speaker 2: They didn't necessarily work when he tried them, but it
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  Speaker 2: did spark his interest in the occult. In nineteen thirty three,
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  Speaker 2: nineteen year old Jack went to work at an explosives.
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  Speaker 1: Plant, where he got a crash course in the chemistry
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  Speaker 1: behind making things go boom. Armed with ingredients stolen from
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  Speaker 1: the factory, Jack and Edward's backyard experiments became incredibly advanced.
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  Speaker 1: At the time, the field of rocket science was treated
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  Speaker 1: like science fiction. The Chinese had first developed rockets in
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  Speaker 1: twelve thirty two and used them as weapons against the
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  Speaker 1: invading Mongols. Rocket Tree hadn't really advanced much since then. Sure,
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  Speaker 1: some scientists had proposed that rockets might one day be
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  Speaker 1: able to reach outer space, but in the early nineteen
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  Speaker 1: thirties that seemed like it was a far off possibility.
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  Speaker 1: Rockets weren't even being studied in universities except for a
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  Speaker 1: very small group of students. At cal Tech. Jack and
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  Speaker 1: Edward met one of those students, a guy named Frank Molina,
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  Speaker 1: and the three began pushing the boundaries of rocket science.
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  Speaker 1: Scientists at cal Tech dubbed them the Suicide Squad for
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  Speaker 1: how often they blew things up on campus. But between explosions,
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  Speaker 1: Jack Parsons made great strides. He invented a new type
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  Speaker 1: of rocket fuel, a breakthrough that would eventually help humans
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  Speaker 1: get to the Moon. As the Nazis ramped up their
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  Speaker 1: rocket research for use for long range explosives, the Suicide
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  Speaker 1: Squad's experiments became important parts of the war effort. Jack, Edward,
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  Speaker 1: and Frank created their own company, Aerojet, which eventually became
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  Speaker 1: NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. In nineteen thirty nine, the same
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  Speaker 1: year that Parsons co founded the Jet Propulsion Lab, he
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  Speaker 1: first encountered a new religion called Thelema, a mix of
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  Speaker 1: occult traditions, philosophy, and magic. Thelima was the brainchild of
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  Speaker 1: the infamous magician Aleister Crowley. At the core of Thelema
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  Speaker 1: was one concept, do what thou wilt, meaning you have
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  Speaker 1: the freedom to follow your desires. Under Crowley, Themalites practice
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  Speaker 1: free love, performed magical rituals, and lived a life of excess,
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  Speaker 1: and of course, Jack was hooked. For the next few years,
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  Speaker 1: Jack worked at the Jet Propulsion Lab, trying to achieve
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  Speaker 1: his dream of reaching the stars. At nights, he would
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  Speaker 1: use magic for the same purpose, leading rituals, participating in
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  Speaker 1: dark masses, and worshiping the sun. These practices didn't make
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  Speaker 1: him popular with serious scientists or with the US government.
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  Speaker 1: The FBI actually investigated Jack, and he eventually lost his
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  Speaker 1: security clearances. By nineteen forty four, the Jet Propulsion Lab
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  Speaker 1: had forced him to resign, worried that his less than
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  Speaker 1: savory actions might damage the company's reputation, and by nineteen
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  Speaker 1: forty nine Jack was penniless, scraping by making explosives for
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  Speaker 1: Hollywood Special Effects. On June seventeenth of nineteen fifty two,
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  Speaker 1: Jack Parsons was experimenting with chemicals in his garage in Pasadena.
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  Speaker 1: When it's believed that he dropped a tin of volatile compounds,
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  Speaker 1: the resulting explosion ripped through the garage, killing Jack. He
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  Speaker 1: was thirty seven years old. Jack Parsons was a conundrum.
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  Speaker 1: He was a brilliant scientist and a devout magician. The
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  Speaker 1: same dry that caused him to reach for the stars
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  Speaker 1: also compelled him to cross the veil into the spirit world.
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  Speaker 1: But maybe Jack's dual interests weren't totally at odds. After all,
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  Speaker 1: you can't make a scientific breakthrough without a little magical thinking.
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  Speaker 1: If you're a fan of fine dining, you know these
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  Speaker 1: days it's only half about the food, right. Modern restaurants
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  Speaker 1: are desperate to provide unique experiences, whether that means dining
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  Speaker 1: next to wild animals, inside remote ice caves or in
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  Speaker 1: total darkness. Heck, at this very moment, companies are racing
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  Speaker 1: to sell you dinner at the edge of space. And
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  Speaker 1: this trend isn't exactly new. We can trace it back
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  Speaker 1: to Tudor England. That's the period of British history right
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  Speaker 1: after the Late Middle Ages, and it's the moment when
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  Speaker 1: a chef with a unique flare vision appeared on the
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  Speaker 1: culinary scene. His name was Robert May, and he had
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  Speaker 1: pretty much the exact biography that you would expect a
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  Speaker 1: prodigy restaurant tour The son of a private chef, he
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  Speaker 1: grew up in the kitchen and was employed as a
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  Speaker 1: cook at the tender age of ten. As a teenager,
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  Speaker 1: he spent five years in Paris studying European cuisine. He
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  Speaker 1: returned to England at the age of twenty one and
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  Speaker 1: immediately began working in the kitchens of the tutor aristocrats.
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  Speaker 1: With his talent and experience, May probably could have made
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  Speaker 1: a good living sticking to the typical dishes of the day,
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  Speaker 1: but he wasn't interested in the typical. He wanted to
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  Speaker 1: give his guests an experience that would stay with them
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  Speaker 1: long after the meal was done. May was particularly inspired
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  Speaker 1: by the medieval feasts of England's past, when royals would
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  Speaker 1: dine at long tables way down with more food and
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  Speaker 1: wine than they could stomach, serenaded by minstrels and heckled
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  Speaker 1: by court jesters. He wanted to recreate that feeling of spectacle,
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  Speaker 1: but update it for a new age. For what he
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  Speaker 1: was a man dinner and a show wouldn't be enough, No,
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  Speaker 1: his dinners would be the show. May began developing feasts
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  Speaker 1: around breathtaking spectacle, which he lovingly called triumphs and trophies
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  Speaker 1: in cookery. They were often as dangerous as they were exciting,
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  Speaker 1: and nothing was off limits. For one dinner, he created
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  Speaker 1: a pastry castle and a ship outfitted with tiny functioning cannons.
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  Speaker 1: When his staff lit the fuses, the cannons fired, filling
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  Speaker 1: the dining hall with smoke and the odor of gunpowder.
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  Speaker 1: And another feast, he hollowed out eggshells and filled them
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  Speaker 1: with rose water, then distributed them around the tables. Dinner.
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  Speaker 1: Guests soon started hurling the fragile eggshells at each other,
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  Speaker 1: causing them to burst and fill the room with perfumed water.
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  Speaker 1: He particularly loved incorporating live animals into his dishes. Pie
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  Speaker 1: crusts would be filled with live birds and frogs. When
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  Speaker 1: guests cut into the crust, the animals came flapping and
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  Speaker 1: hopping out onto the table, knocking over candles and started
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  Speaker 1: the guests. These feasts, as you might imagine, were a sensation,
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  Speaker 1: and for the next fifty years, Robert May toured the
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  Speaker 1: country dazzling nobles and aristocrats with his taste for spectacle.
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  Speaker 1: But as he turned seventy one, he started to think
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  Speaker 1: more about his legacy. He realized that his feasts were
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  Speaker 1: inherently transient things, and worried that his work would soon
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  Speaker 1: be forgotten. So he did what all good celebrity chefs
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  Speaker 1: do once they've hit it big. He wrote a cookbook.
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  Speaker 1: It was called The Accomplished Cook and it was a
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  Speaker 1: massive tome. And while May had made his career working
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  Speaker 1: for aristocrats, his book had something for everyone, with approachable
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  Speaker 1: dishes right alongside more aspirational ones. Like his spectacle feasts,
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  Speaker 1: May's cookbook was ahead of its time in many ways.
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  Speaker 1: He organized his recipes into logical categories, provided woodprint reliefs
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  Speaker 1: of the dishes, and even included a self portrait inside
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  Speaker 1: the front cover. These elements would eventually become typical of
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  Speaker 1: recipe book, and they made The Accomplished Cook an overnight bestseller.
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  Speaker 1: The book became a major self promotional tool for Robert May,
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  Speaker 1: cementing him as one of the most significant chefs of
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  Speaker 1: his age. So while it was ostensibly a recipe book
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  Speaker 1: of European dishes, it can also be read as a
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  Speaker 1: template for a celebrity chef, one part creativity, two parts talent.
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  Speaker 1: Fold in lots of hard work and a heaping spoonful
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  Speaker 1: of showmanship and mix it all together and you've got history.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: World of Lor dot com. And until next time, stay curious.