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Watermelons: Nature's Gift to the World · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and this is Stuff you Should Know,
0:16
Speaker 1: featuring Jerry and Livia on watermelons. I don't know. I
0:26
Speaker 1: think I just literally came out with this idea because
0:27
Speaker 1: I was eating watermelon and I was like, you know what,
0:31
Speaker 1: watermelons delicious? But I know there's a history there, and
0:35
Speaker 1: I know there are square watermelons, and and like, uh,
0:40
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're like me, but like like
0:42
Speaker 1: nine eleven and like when Reagan was shot. I remember
0:46
Speaker 1: where I was the day that I saw my first
0:48
Speaker 1: square watermelon. Huh yeah. It was during house to work.
0:52
Speaker 1: I think it might have even been you. I showed
0:54
Speaker 1: you a square watermelon. I mean not in person, but
0:58
Speaker 1: they're expensive. You're like, hey, come here and look at
1:00
Speaker 1: this over my shoulder and I was like, la, la,
1:03
Speaker 1: what's going I opened up my trench coat and there
1:05
Speaker 1: was a square watermelon. But yeah, I think I just
1:10
Speaker 1: the square watermelon has uh enchanted me for years now,
1:15
Speaker 1: and I didn't even know that they were heart shaped
1:17
Speaker 1: watermelons until two days ago. That's so cute? Are you bombed.
1:21
Speaker 1: Now that you understand the how the watermelons get so square, well, no,
1:26
Speaker 1: because I knew how they got square. But whoever told
1:30
Speaker 1: me about this and how stuff works at our old
1:33
Speaker 1: job told me it was because in Japan they have
1:38
Speaker 1: small refrigerators and they make them to fit more easily
1:42
Speaker 1: in a Japanese refrigerator. But I don't think that that
1:44
Speaker 1: part is true, right, That I believe, based on what
1:48
Speaker 1: I've read, is a myth that we're gonna crumble. Yeah,
1:53
Speaker 1: should be going from square watermelons? Yeah? Sure? Why not? So?
1:58
Speaker 1: Um they were invented in Japan and as pretty much
2:01
Speaker 1: all perfect things were, And there was a guy named
2:04
Speaker 1: um Tomoyuki on No and he was an artist. He
2:07
Speaker 1: also happened to be a horticulturist and back in the
2:10
Speaker 1: seventies he figured out how to make square watermelons and
2:13
Speaker 1: created a patent on it. And they're so charming that
2:17
Speaker 1: within a year they were all they were ready for sale.
2:20
Speaker 1: They went from an art gallery like basically an art
2:22
Speaker 1: project too for sale in Tokyo within you know, less
2:26
Speaker 1: than one years. Uh. And they are grown in Japan
2:29
Speaker 1: and they are grown in containers. Uh. And it's sort
2:32
Speaker 1: of like a goldfish. They grow to fit their container,
2:35
Speaker 1: including the round ones and the pyramid shaped ones, which
2:38
Speaker 1: are really interesting looking, but they are not very good
2:42
Speaker 1: to eat, and they cost about a hundred bucks in Japan.
2:46
Speaker 1: And so I think that it is definitely a crumbled
2:49
Speaker 1: myth that they are grown justifitted into Japanese refrigerators. Yeah,
2:54
Speaker 1: because nobody eats them. You don't eat them, so myth crumbled.
3:00
Speaker 1: And as a Japanese refrigerator small, that is probably true. Yes,
3:06
Speaker 1: I mean most most appliances in Japan are smaller than
3:10
Speaker 1: the ones you find in America. I think America leads
3:12
Speaker 1: away in humongous appliances, right yeah, and humongous portions and
3:17
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Us everything we need humongous appliant. So yeah,
3:21
Speaker 1: I mean, if you haven't ever seen a square watermelon
3:23
Speaker 1: or a heart shaped watermelon, especially at heart shaped watermelon
3:26
Speaker 1: is cut open, because that's the real money shot. Oh,
3:29
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about that. It's it's really amazing looking
3:32
Speaker 1: in a little bit of a brain twister, do you know,
3:35
Speaker 1: I'm such a loser. I didn't bother to look up
3:38
Speaker 1: what a heart shaped watermelon looks like, like what a
3:41
Speaker 1: heart looks like, you know what waterlon looks like? Yeah,
3:43
Speaker 1: let's put together. And then you said cut open. I'm like,
3:46
Speaker 1: cut open, yes, you gotta see that. And the little
3:49
Speaker 1: the pyramid when it looks more like a hurchies kiss,
3:52
Speaker 1: like a giant arches kiss. Okay, I imagine like pretty
3:56
Speaker 1: much a perfect rounded edged pyramid. But she's kiss. I could,
4:00
Speaker 1: which is would be great for a fridge because part
4:02
Speaker 1: of the problem with a watermelon in the fridge is
4:06
Speaker 1: the shape. Those things roll around in there and they're
4:08
Speaker 1: huge that it is a big problem. But as we'll see,
4:11
Speaker 1: you shouldn't really be keeping in the fridge very much anyway. Um,
4:14
Speaker 1: but let's talk watermelons where they came from, because they
4:18
Speaker 1: It turns out watermelons are beloved around the world. I mean,
4:23
Speaker 1: people love watermelons around the world. From what I read, Chuck,
4:27
Speaker 1: there's only livestock have more agricultural land dedicated to raising
4:33
Speaker 1: them than watermelons. They take up so much space, but
4:37
Speaker 1: people love them so much that they just go ahead
4:40
Speaker 1: and give the watermelons the space. And apparently by weight,
4:44
Speaker 1: it's the third most eaten fruit in the world, really
4:47
Speaker 1: the second because the tomato. Come on, I mean it's like,
4:53
Speaker 1: but like, if you think fruit, I'm just gonna go
4:56
Speaker 1: ahead and say the order is banana than watermelon. As
4:58
Speaker 1: far as most eaten, I agree. I think calling a
5:02
Speaker 1: tomato fruit is like saying cooded grass at a party.
5:05
Speaker 1: You're saying a brownie's a cookie? Right? Yeah? What kind
5:09
Speaker 1: of a jerk would say something stupid like that, especially
5:12
Speaker 1: insist on it in in a pedantic army That wasn't
5:15
Speaker 1: even you. You were just you were seeing stuff online, right,
5:18
Speaker 1: you didn't invent that? Yeah, I was misled by internet rumors. Uh.
5:23
Speaker 1: The watermelon, though, is a berry technically, which means it
5:26
Speaker 1: has the outer part is hard, it's got a fleshy
5:28
Speaker 1: metal and then the inner part is softer and has
5:31
Speaker 1: the seeds. Uh. We'll get to the ced part later,
5:35
Speaker 1: of course, because we don't really have seeds in our
5:37
Speaker 1: watermelons anymore. And then, if you want to talk more specific,
5:41
Speaker 1: it's called a peppo p e p o, which means
5:44
Speaker 1: as a thick rind, like a squash or a pumpkin.
5:48
Speaker 1: You're going with peppo. I'm I don't care what it's
5:51
Speaker 1: called peepo for me, peepo peepo watermelons peepo, dude, I
5:57
Speaker 1: love it. Yeah, peepo. Okay, and it's a berry too.
6:01
Speaker 1: I mean, watermelons just got twice as good to me. Yeah.
6:04
Speaker 1: I dare you to go to the uh grocery store
6:07
Speaker 1: next time and say, hey, where do you keep the
6:09
Speaker 1: people berries? The square ones? You've got these square people berries. Security. So,
6:18
Speaker 1: watermelons are also related to squash and pumpkin, but they're
6:21
Speaker 1: most closely related to cucumbers because they're part of the q.
6:25
Speaker 1: Curbitacea family. Um, and other melons are too, but I
6:29
Speaker 1: believe cucumbers and watermelons are pretty close together, um, even
6:34
Speaker 1: though you wouldn't necessarily know it to look at them.
6:37
Speaker 1: But specifically, watermelon species are Citrellis leonatus, and all of
6:44
Speaker 1: the different kinds of watermelons that we have from what
6:47
Speaker 1: I understand, our varieties of that species. That's right. Uh.
6:53
Speaker 1: And we've known for a long time that watermelons came
6:55
Speaker 1: from Africa. Thank you Africa for this gift to the world.
7:00
Speaker 1: But it was more recently where they kind of zeero
7:02
Speaker 1: it in on exactly where Uh. There are a lot
7:05
Speaker 1: of melons in Africa that you could call a watermelon. Um,
7:09
Speaker 1: they are different kinds of citrilis uh citrilus citrilush either
7:15
Speaker 1: one okay species uh, but these are a little more pale.
7:20
Speaker 1: They're not like that deep sweet red and which means
7:23
Speaker 1: they're not going to be a sweet either let in taste.
7:26
Speaker 1: So they're they're more bitter or more bland. Uh. And
7:29
Speaker 1: they can be used over there. They still use these things.
7:32
Speaker 1: They'll mash up the seeds and using them to thicken
7:34
Speaker 1: a soup, or maybe they'll just eat the seeds, roast
7:38
Speaker 1: them up and eat them, or maybe they'll use them
7:40
Speaker 1: for water, just like clean water, because a watermelon is
7:44
Speaker 1: mostly water. Yeah, I think um oh, I can't remember
7:47
Speaker 1: the main character and the gods must be Crazy's name,
7:51
Speaker 1: but he cuts open like uh something that I assume
7:54
Speaker 1: is of a species of watermelon and drinks the water
7:58
Speaker 1: out of it. Um. So yeah, there's a bunch of
8:01
Speaker 1: different kinds of species of watermelons, but none of them
8:04
Speaker 1: are like the ones that we um commercially grow and produce,
8:08
Speaker 1: which are typically referred to as dessert watermelons to differentiate
8:12
Speaker 1: that they're sweet and tasty and not like it. Yeah,
8:16
Speaker 1: I ran across it, and that's I think. It's a
8:18
Speaker 1: great little almost like cellar door dessert watermelon. Yeah, because
8:22
Speaker 1: you usually do hand it out after a meal. Uh,
8:27
Speaker 1: it's a It's a great American tradition. It's delicious. I
8:30
Speaker 1: have wonderful memories being a kid eating watermelon with my
8:34
Speaker 1: granddad and spitting those seeds out back when they used
8:37
Speaker 1: to have seeds where I would put them in between
8:39
Speaker 1: my fingers because they're slippery, and I would shoot them. Uh.
8:42
Speaker 1: Just great memories of watermelon. And I still love it.
8:45
Speaker 1: And my daughter just can eat ungodly amounts of watermelon.
8:49
Speaker 1: Is that right? Oh? Yeah, she loves it. That's cute.
8:52
Speaker 1: It's delicious, it's sweet, it's watery. Who didn't like it?
8:56
Speaker 1: Apparently there's somebody who ranked watermelon and said it's gross
9:01
Speaker 1: it it says that. Okay, The name of the fruit
9:05
Speaker 1: literally tells you that eating it is going to be
9:07
Speaker 1: the most boring experience of your life. It has the
9:10
Speaker 1: same bland, mediocre taste of all the melons, except the
9:13
Speaker 1: pleasantly chewy melon flashes are replaced by barely fruity flavored
9:17
Speaker 1: wet sand What a fun, fun person to be around.
9:24
Speaker 1: Please corner me at the next party I'm at. Yeah,
9:27
Speaker 1: they probably say cooded grass. Give me all your opinions.
9:31
Speaker 1: So you said that eating watermelon is a is a
9:34
Speaker 1: great American tradition. Indeed, but Americans are relative newcomers compared
9:39
Speaker 1: to other countries that have long standing traditions of enjoying
9:43
Speaker 1: watermelon too, because like you said, they've kind of figured
9:46
Speaker 1: out that somewhere in Northeast Africa, perhaps Egypt, perhaps the
9:52
Speaker 1: area that's now sudan Um where the Nubians used to
9:55
Speaker 1: run the show. They probably speaking on from recent genetic tests, um,
10:02
Speaker 1: are the ones who domesticated the watermelon over many, many hundreds,
10:06
Speaker 1: if not thousands of years of just selecting for sweeter
10:09
Speaker 1: and sweeter seeds. And then it spread, starting probably with Egypt,
10:14
Speaker 1: because Egypt treated with everybody in the Mediterranean, uh, pretty
10:18
Speaker 1: much everywhere. Um. It reached across the Mediterranean by uh
10:23
Speaker 1: maybe twenty four to twenty years ago. It hit India strangely,
10:28
Speaker 1: um the ninth century CE, so not that long ago.
10:33
Speaker 1: China by the tenth century. So it's it's weird that
10:35
Speaker 1: it took that long, but it definitely spread. One of
10:38
Speaker 1: the reasons why it did spread is because it's fairly
10:40
Speaker 1: easy to grow, and it grows just about anywhere. It's
10:44
Speaker 1: adapted from plants that can survive in semi arid conditions,
10:49
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, and this you know, we have the
10:51
Speaker 1: Spanish to think for bringing it to the America's and
10:55
Speaker 1: you know, they introduced them to the Native Americans and
10:58
Speaker 1: they were like, hey, a this is this grows like
11:02
Speaker 1: one of the three sisters are beloved squash. Uh and
11:05
Speaker 1: so we think we could grow this stuff. And the
11:08
Speaker 1: Native Americans grew it in abundance, traded it in abundance,
11:12
Speaker 1: such that by the end of the seventeenth century there
11:15
Speaker 1: was watermelon all over what we now call the United States.
11:19
Speaker 1: And when the Europeans arrived, they were like they thought
11:21
Speaker 1: it was native to hear because they were growing so
11:24
Speaker 1: much of it. Yeah, I guess as late as the
11:26
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties they were like still debating whether it was
11:29
Speaker 1: of European origin or if if the North Americans had
11:33
Speaker 1: it first, but they've definitively traced it back to Africa.
11:36
Speaker 1: What still um under debate, Chuck, is whether it was
11:40
Speaker 1: the Spanish that introduced it or oh yeah, or whether
11:44
Speaker 1: it was some of the first um enslaved people from
11:46
Speaker 1: West Africa that brought it over with them, UM that
11:49
Speaker 1: I think is still up for debate. Oh interesting, Okay, yeah, yeah,
11:54
Speaker 1: they'll get to the bottom of it someday. Uh. Livia
11:57
Speaker 1: does point out though, that there are different words for
12:00
Speaker 1: watermelon that are completely unrelated in Arabic and Hebrew and
12:05
Speaker 1: Sanskrit and Greek and Spanish, and that's a good indication
12:09
Speaker 1: that it is if the words aren't like one another,
12:11
Speaker 1: that they have all had watermelon for a long long time, right,
12:17
Speaker 1: So watermelons all over the world. It's been a long
12:19
Speaker 1: standing part of UM, the United States history pretty since
12:24
Speaker 1: before the United States was even a thing. UM. And
12:27
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson apparently famously grew watermelons at Monticello and so
12:33
Speaker 1: that there was nothing better than a Virginia watermelon, and
12:36
Speaker 1: he was kind of onto something because apparently I don't
12:38
Speaker 1: know if it was after Jefferson or not, but yeah,
12:42
Speaker 1: it would have been after Jefferson. Because as the railroads
12:45
Speaker 1: came along, UM, and it was getting easier and easier
12:48
Speaker 1: to ship things like watermelons long distance. UM, they they
12:53
Speaker 1: developed a kind of watermelon that wasn't quite as good
12:56
Speaker 1: but traveled a lot better, and they would keep the
12:59
Speaker 1: good stuff of themselves in the South, where the watermelon
13:02
Speaker 1: naturally grows and flourishes best, and they would send these
13:06
Speaker 1: other ones that didn't taste quite as good up north
13:08
Speaker 1: because they figured they didn't know any different. That's right,
13:12
Speaker 1: And um, you know, for there was a time in
13:14
Speaker 1: America after the Civil War when former enslaved people actually
13:20
Speaker 1: could support themselves and sustain themselves outside the plantations by
13:24
Speaker 1: growing and selling watermelons and being farmers. But of course
13:28
Speaker 1: that got ruined because uh, starting at about the Civil War,
13:32
Speaker 1: white people turned it into a racist trope of black
13:35
Speaker 1: people eating watermelons, and it has been in everything from
13:38
Speaker 1: Birth of a Nation to uh to yard art kind
13:43
Speaker 1: of supporting this racist trope over the years. Yeah, and
13:45
Speaker 1: what really sucks about is that like it had its
13:48
Speaker 1: intended effect and that there are Black Americans who report
13:52
Speaker 1: still being uncomfortable eating watermelon around other white Americans, which
14:00
Speaker 1: is it's just so maddening that that's still a thing,
14:03
Speaker 1: and I mean it is and it's going to be
14:06
Speaker 1: a thing until people just say like this is this
14:08
Speaker 1: ridiculous And hopefully learning about the watermelon from us will
14:12
Speaker 1: help some people say this is ridiculous and stupid, and
14:15
Speaker 1: it's always been because one other thing about it, to
14:17
Speaker 1: Chuck is that at the time, those same racist Southerners
14:22
Speaker 1: and white people across the country who are associating watermelon,
14:26
Speaker 1: enjoying watermelon with with black people, we're enjoying it themselves.
14:30
Speaker 1: They liked it just as much. It was just because
14:33
Speaker 1: they could grow and sell watermelons and it represented freedom,
14:38
Speaker 1: black independence, and that threatened them that they used watermelons
14:42
Speaker 1: as a trope and just very juvenile e started equating
14:46
Speaker 1: it with all sorts of just dumb stuff. It's just
14:50
Speaker 1: so suck the stuff, Chuck. All right, well, let's take
14:55
Speaker 1: a break and uh, I'm gonna give you a little
14:58
Speaker 1: shoulder rub through the computer. Thank you. Thanks to be fantastic.
15:01
Speaker 1: It'll settle you down. And we're going to talk about
15:04
Speaker 1: the great Charleston Gray right after this. Okay, I mentioned
15:31
Speaker 1: Charleston Gray. If you're like, who's Charleston Gray? And why
15:33
Speaker 1: do I care? It's a great hotel check in name. Yeah,
15:36
Speaker 1: that is pretty good. That's the kind that they comp
15:39
Speaker 1: up free breakfast to. You know what I'm saying that
15:41
Speaker 1: that's that kind of name. Well, Mr Gray, doctor Gray,
15:44
Speaker 1: do you ever put any weird prefix when you're checking
15:48
Speaker 1: into stuff and signing up for stuff. Sometimes esquire, all right,
15:52
Speaker 1: I'll do esquire doctor. Usually it's always fun. I don't know, reverend. Occasionally,
15:57
Speaker 1: even though technically I am or reverend now, ID not
16:00
Speaker 1: want to be cornered on that one, so never shied away.
16:03
Speaker 1: But yeah, you can be like I've got the bona fides. Uh.
16:07
Speaker 1: So Charleston Gray was uh is the name of not
16:11
Speaker 1: a human being, but it's the name of a watermelon.
16:15
Speaker 1: The humans name was Charleston and Charles Andres of the U.
16:19
Speaker 1: S d A's Agricultural Research Service, the A R s
16:23
Speaker 1: UH and the vegetable Breeding Laboratory there, and he created
16:27
Speaker 1: the Charleston Gray watermelon in ninety four. And why do
16:32
Speaker 1: you care? It's because of the watermelons grown all over
16:36
Speaker 1: the world now have a lineage tied to the Charleston Gray. Yeah.
16:41
Speaker 1: And so remember we said that like all of the
16:44
Speaker 1: watermelons that you would ever come across or eat that
16:47
Speaker 1: you buy at a store, that's all just one species
16:49
Speaker 1: of watermelon. They're just different varieties of those are related
16:54
Speaker 1: to the same variety. And that means that they came
16:57
Speaker 1: upon one that tastes really good, ships really well. That
17:01
Speaker 1: was a big one. It's also resistant to some diseases
17:04
Speaker 1: and pests, but it also makes it extremely vulnerable. If
17:08
Speaker 1: there's ever a pest or a disease that can attack
17:12
Speaker 1: the Charleston Gray, it's going to wipe out all the
17:15
Speaker 1: watermelons because they're all very genetically similar. That's right, and
17:19
Speaker 1: that's why the a RS not the Atlanta Rhythm section.
17:23
Speaker 1: We're gonna have us a Champagne ing, all right, here
17:26
Speaker 1: we go. A RS is still looking into how to
17:31
Speaker 1: make watermelons more hardy, and they're looking at why wild
17:34
Speaker 1: watermelon species in Africa. They're looking at all kinds of
17:38
Speaker 1: varieties around the world and looking how to breathe them
17:41
Speaker 1: with less pesticides and that though, so the big watermelon
17:44
Speaker 1: apocalypse never happens. So yeah, one thing they're doing with
17:48
Speaker 1: the reason that they're really looking at is there's something called,
17:50
Speaker 1: I think methyl bromide, which was like a fog pesticide
17:56
Speaker 1: and maybe fungicide, killed a bunch of stuff that that
18:00
Speaker 1: um Charleston Grays are vulnerable too. But it also burns
18:04
Speaker 1: a hole in the ozone layer. So it got banned
18:06
Speaker 1: in Europe ten years ago, and it was recently banned
18:08
Speaker 1: here in the United States, and so they're really trying
18:11
Speaker 1: to figure this out. So they look to Europe and said, hey, Europe,
18:13
Speaker 1: what do you do when you couldn't use methyl bromide?
18:16
Speaker 1: In Europe said, we started using different roots stock. So
18:19
Speaker 1: they'll take the rudy part of the plant from squash plants.
18:22
Speaker 1: Apparently you are really useful for this, and they graft
18:27
Speaker 1: a um watermelon plant onto the top of it. The
18:30
Speaker 1: top part of the watermelon plant stems and seeds and
18:33
Speaker 1: all that, and it grows together to create the superplant
18:36
Speaker 1: that has It produces great watermelons, but it's also resistant
18:39
Speaker 1: to these diseases and pests, which goes back to the
18:42
Speaker 1: Native Americans being great at growing watermelons because squash is
18:46
Speaker 1: one of the three sisters exactly. It's really cool. I
18:50
Speaker 1: love that stuff. Maybe we should do a short stuff
18:52
Speaker 1: on the three sisters would be cool. You know they
18:55
Speaker 1: factored heavily into pops Up a bunch in that of course. Yeah. Um,
19:01
Speaker 1: so we mentioned seedlessness because if you have eaten a
19:04
Speaker 1: watermelon in the past oh thirty something years, it's probably
19:11
Speaker 1: doesn't have seeds like they did when you were a kid.
19:13
Speaker 1: If you're an old timer like us, at least not
19:16
Speaker 1: those big mature black seeds that were great for spitting
19:20
Speaker 1: and uh and flicking. They have those little undeveloped white
19:23
Speaker 1: seeds a little bit. But the seedless watermelon was another
19:27
Speaker 1: invention by another Japanese geneticist. I think the other one
19:32
Speaker 1: was an artist in horticulturalist, but this is geneticist Hitoshi Kihara,
19:37
Speaker 1: and in ninety nine invented this seedless watermelon that started
19:41
Speaker 1: being available in the nineteen fifties. And what's remarkable about
19:46
Speaker 1: this is is that it's basically a manual operation that's
19:53
Speaker 1: required to make seedless watermelons. Yeah, you use some something
19:58
Speaker 1: called culture is seen, which takes a regular diploid watermelon
20:03
Speaker 1: with two pairs of chromosomes two copies of the chromosome
20:07
Speaker 1: um and turns it into a tetraploid, so that there's
20:10
Speaker 1: four copies of each chromosome. And you take the diploid
20:14
Speaker 1: and the tetraploid and you pollinate them, you cross fertilize them,
20:19
Speaker 1: and what you produce is called a I think a
20:22
Speaker 1: triploid and a triploid plant because it doesn't have an
20:25
Speaker 1: even number of copies of chromosomes. It's sterile, so it
20:29
Speaker 1: doesn't produce seeds. So that's how you get your seedless watermelon.
20:32
Speaker 1: And it's a real b word to raise seedless watermelons
20:35
Speaker 1: because part of your crop has to be diploid, regular
20:39
Speaker 1: seeded watermelons to use to fertilize them. But um, and
20:44
Speaker 1: at first, I guess farmers are kind of like, I'm
20:46
Speaker 1: not doing all that. Who wants a seedless watermelon anyway?
20:49
Speaker 1: And there was a guy named Oreste great name is like,
20:55
Speaker 1: people are gonna love this, and this guy just worked
20:58
Speaker 1: away at it, worked away at it, and kept for
21:00
Speaker 1: affecting the seedless watermelon. Um. But it wasn't until the
21:03
Speaker 1: late eighties that um, he finally managed to get it
21:08
Speaker 1: to take off. He partnered with a company called sun
21:10
Speaker 1: World International. Right, yeah, his first company was American Seedless
21:14
Speaker 1: Watermelon Corp. And uh, it took partnering with the giant,
21:19
Speaker 1: like a giant in the industry, a big agribusiness company
21:23
Speaker 1: to to really have it take off. And it did. Um.
21:26
Speaker 1: But you know, like I said, it's amazing. I think
21:28
Speaker 1: a lot of people, uh, I think it's a commodification
21:32
Speaker 1: and that is not true. It's actually a manual process that,
21:36
Speaker 1: like you said, is a real pain in the butt
21:37
Speaker 1: to farmers, and they had to get on board with
21:40
Speaker 1: this because the way they have to grow them and
21:43
Speaker 1: keep them separated, and uh, it's really a lot of work.
21:47
Speaker 1: But they were Uh, I guess or he was right
21:50
Speaker 1: on the money because people do love the seedless water.
21:52
Speaker 1: I kind of missed the seeds, but I have to
21:54
Speaker 1: admit the seedless or are easier to work with. Yeah,
21:58
Speaker 1: I think nine center are seedless. And if you walk
22:01
Speaker 1: into a grocery store today, Chuck, and you asked for
22:03
Speaker 1: a watermelon with seeds, you're gonna be hard pressed to
22:05
Speaker 1: find one because they're just seedless, are so prevalent, And
22:09
Speaker 1: it's so crazy to me, Like, I I realized that
22:13
Speaker 1: my niece Mila, who stars as j in the twentieth
22:16
Speaker 1: century Fox movie No Exit, has was born into a
22:20
Speaker 1: world where there's never really been a seeded watermelon. She's
22:24
Speaker 1: never seen a seeded watermelon in her life. Yeah, Like
22:27
Speaker 1: she wouldn't walk into a grocery store and say can
22:31
Speaker 1: I have a square seated pepa berry? You know, and
22:37
Speaker 1: they would say, hey, wait a minute, aren't you The
22:39
Speaker 1: star of the Hulu hit motion picture Its stars such
22:45
Speaker 1: a relative term, isn't it. Where did they shoot? That
22:47
Speaker 1: was Atlanta, New Zealand. Oh geez, m man, So she's
22:51
Speaker 1: really get to live the life, huh. They shot it
22:54
Speaker 1: in New Zealand at the height of the pandemic, when
22:56
Speaker 1: New Zealand had like zero cases. That's where you want
22:59
Speaker 1: to be. Yeah, it was pretty neat, but they had
23:01
Speaker 1: to like quarantine and everything for fourteen days on either side,
23:04
Speaker 1: and it was really something. But yeah, they she know
23:07
Speaker 1: she went. It was a real real shoot, all right.
23:09
Speaker 1: So eating watermelons, you think, like it's such an American thing.
23:13
Speaker 1: We surely lead the world in watermelon consumption, and we
23:17
Speaker 1: eat a lot. We eat about fifteen pounds per person
23:19
Speaker 1: per year here in America, to the tune of about
23:23
Speaker 1: five billion pounds of watermelon a year. But Jack, that
23:27
Speaker 1: ain't nothing compared to China. In Chinese residents ate more
23:32
Speaker 1: than a hundred and fifty billion pounds of watermelon. Yeah,
23:36
Speaker 1: that's fifty ms per capita. So we in the US
23:40
Speaker 1: fifteen pounds per person a year. They eat a hundred
23:43
Speaker 1: and ten pounds of watermelon per person per year. I
23:47
Speaker 1: had no idea it was so big in China. Well, yeah,
23:50
Speaker 1: I mean it's and again it's been there for over
23:52
Speaker 1: a thousand years, so they've they've had a long time
23:56
Speaker 1: to really come to appreciate the watermelon and Buddy do
24:00
Speaker 1: day ever, Well, we grow about two thirds of our
24:03
Speaker 1: own watermelon here in the US. The rest generally comes
24:06
Speaker 1: from Mexico. You probably are eating Florida watermelon. Maybe Georgia
24:12
Speaker 1: is number two, followed by Texas and California. But Florida
24:17
Speaker 1: is great for growing those watermelons because of the weather,
24:20
Speaker 1: because watermelons don't do well in the cold, so you
24:24
Speaker 1: can kind of grow them year round in Florida. Yeah,
24:26
Speaker 1: there's really nothing better than Florida weather this time of
24:29
Speaker 1: year in particular. So um, one of the things about
24:33
Speaker 1: the watermelons is that they're growing season takes a little while,
24:36
Speaker 1: I think a hundred days, right, Yeah, so you're not
24:39
Speaker 1: going to grow them up north, probably unless you start
24:42
Speaker 1: them indoors. Yeah, I mean, you can't grow them anywhere.
24:44
Speaker 1: Like one of the things they spread so far and
24:46
Speaker 1: wide among Native Americans that the Hurons of the Great
24:49
Speaker 1: Lakes and Canada were growing them. So you can't grow
24:52
Speaker 1: them anywhere. It's just you can grow them all year
24:54
Speaker 1: round in Florida, you can grow them for a very
24:56
Speaker 1: limited window around the Great Lakes. But again, they'll grow
24:58
Speaker 1: just about anywhere. But one of the things about them, too, Chuck,
25:01
Speaker 1: is that they need a lot of space. Um. I
25:03
Speaker 1: saw in a University of Florida UM website which I
25:07
Speaker 1: apologize for using that, but I did. It's become so
25:12
Speaker 1: much more normalized to me since moving to Florida, Like
25:14
Speaker 1: dealing and seeing like University of Florida stuff doesn't trigger
25:17
Speaker 1: me at all anymore. Yeah, not at all. Well, Georgia's
25:22
Speaker 1: national champions in Florida, so who cares? So um. They
25:27
Speaker 1: watermelon needs eighteen to twenty four square feet per plant
25:32
Speaker 1: to grow. That's like a lot of space. Yeah, we
25:35
Speaker 1: thought about growing watermelons here. It's um Again, like squash,
25:39
Speaker 1: they tend to really take over. So just I mean,
25:43
Speaker 1: grow your watermelon, but make sure you got the room
25:45
Speaker 1: and you don't mind being annoyed by how much they spread. Yeah, um,
25:50
Speaker 1: which really, I mean, are you gonna be annoyed by
25:52
Speaker 1: some great watermelons growing in? Of course not. Um. They
25:57
Speaker 1: also can rot, so you want to grow them on
26:00
Speaker 1: something that's going to keep them from rotting because they
26:02
Speaker 1: gotta they're gonna connect with the ground there. You can
26:05
Speaker 1: grow them on a treillis. If your treillis is basically
26:08
Speaker 1: a steel crane. That's kind of what it takes um
26:13
Speaker 1: and I saw that that it's it's tough to figure
26:16
Speaker 1: out when they're ripe. Some varieties will have the stripe darken,
26:21
Speaker 1: you know, the contrasting greens. But I also saw in
26:25
Speaker 1: a few different places, if you pick up a watermelon
26:27
Speaker 1: there's a bald spot on the bottom where it rested
26:29
Speaker 1: on the ground. If that bald spot is white or
26:33
Speaker 1: pale green, it's not ripe. If it's cream or yellow e,
26:37
Speaker 1: it's ripe. That's the best way to tell a watermelon
26:40
Speaker 1: is ripe. My mom would always thump them in the store.
26:43
Speaker 1: I've read that doesn't actually tell you anything, and that
26:45
Speaker 1: it might actually tell you that they're overripe, because that
26:50
Speaker 1: just sort of a thing that you do that you
26:52
Speaker 1: see other people do. Have you ever smelled a cantaloupe. No,
26:57
Speaker 1: that's an amazing smell, and that's a good way to
27:00
Speaker 1: tell whether candle upe is right. It should be rather pungent,
27:03
Speaker 1: but from the from the outside that rhyme yes. That's
27:06
Speaker 1: how you tell that's that's a really good way to tell.
27:08
Speaker 1: It's right. Give a give a candle up a good smell,
27:10
Speaker 1: and you'll smell it right through that. My deal is,
27:13
Speaker 1: I don't like other melons that much. I love watermelon,
27:16
Speaker 1: but candle up has always been a little too bitter
27:18
Speaker 1: for me. And uh, what's the green one? Une melon?
27:26
Speaker 1: It's okay, I'm a watermelon guy, though I am not
27:29
Speaker 1: a melon guy of any kind really, oh not even watermelon. Huh. No,
27:33
Speaker 1: I've got no problems with any of it. I'm not
27:35
Speaker 1: like you gross, but I also like don't really crave it,
27:38
Speaker 1: and like you know that fruit salad that you'll get
27:41
Speaker 1: with different kinds of melon and breakfast, and not like
27:46
Speaker 1: I don't live for that or anything. What's your ideal fruit? Melange?
27:50
Speaker 1: Describe it? Fruit milan? Just probably pretty pedestrian. It's fruit.
28:00
Speaker 1: Would I maybe strawberries and blueberries together, just eating them
28:03
Speaker 1: by the handful? Okay, so you don't do it like
28:06
Speaker 1: a fruit mix? No, all right, what's yours? Well? I
28:11
Speaker 1: mean that we will have big weekends at the lake
28:13
Speaker 1: with lots of families and stuff, and that's always a
28:15
Speaker 1: really good thing to put out for breakfast. If you
28:17
Speaker 1: don't want to cook a big breakfast, put out at
28:19
Speaker 1: a bunch of pastries and things like that and like, uh,
28:22
Speaker 1: and then mixed together a big fruit melange. So I mean,
28:24
Speaker 1: I'll throw everything in their strawberries, blueberries, cut up pineapple, grapes. Um.
28:32
Speaker 1: You know, any kind of melon is always good to add.
28:36
Speaker 1: Raspberries don't hold up that well. You know, they're pretty soft.
28:38
Speaker 1: So I try to put in things. A chop up
28:41
Speaker 1: a banana, put that in there. I think all that,
28:43
Speaker 1: all that stuff is really good mixed together. I don't know,
28:46
Speaker 1: mixing a banana in there could get mushy real quick. Yeah,
28:50
Speaker 1: they can get a little mushy. And when a banana
28:52
Speaker 1: becomes discolored by other fruit juices, it's not as appealing looking.
28:58
Speaker 1: It's not as appealing. I generally thought that was funny.
29:07
Speaker 1: I've got one for you, Chuck. Have you ever had
29:09
Speaker 1: a wal door salad? Uh? Sure, mayo and grapes and
29:14
Speaker 1: apples and walnuts maybe. Yeah, apple is good to put
29:18
Speaker 1: in there, too, Okay. Yeah, I mean I'm fine with
29:21
Speaker 1: all those and I would basically eat them all individually.
29:25
Speaker 1: Be like cheap bastard can get us some real breakfast
29:30
Speaker 1: and just be be mad for the rest of the morning.
29:32
Speaker 1: Could you find me up some bacon or make some
29:34
Speaker 1: biscuitoon scratch? Would you kill you to make some cinnamon? Rules?
29:39
Speaker 1: I do that too, Um, all right, should we take
29:42
Speaker 1: another break? All right, we'll take another break, and we'll
29:45
Speaker 1: finish up with whether or not watermelons are even good
29:47
Speaker 1: for you? After all? Right after this m okay, chuck,
30:14
Speaker 1: chemistry and nutrition time? Are they good for you? Uh? Sure,
30:20
Speaker 1: I don't think they're particularly bad for you. Um. Olivia
30:23
Speaker 1: says that a cup of watermelons has forty six calories,
30:28
Speaker 1: most of them coming from sugar. UM. A lot of water.
30:32
Speaker 1: But unfortunately they also seem to have diuretic properties, which
30:35
Speaker 1: means that it would cause you to expel more water
30:38
Speaker 1: than you took in from it. Um. That does have
30:41
Speaker 1: a little vitamin A, vitamin B, six, vitamin C, some
30:45
Speaker 1: amino acids. I don't I don't think it's bad for you.
30:48
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a health food necessarily, although
30:51
Speaker 1: unless you cook it and you unleash the power of lycopene. Right. Yes.
30:56
Speaker 1: Lycopene is that pigment that makes tomatoes red. Uh. Sort
31:01
Speaker 1: of related to beata carotene with the orange of the carrots.
31:05
Speaker 1: But watermelon it actually has more like a peine than
31:08
Speaker 1: tomatoes do. And some people say, hey, a lot of
31:10
Speaker 1: antioxidants in there, so that's got to be good for you.
31:13
Speaker 1: But like you said, you have to cook the watermelon,
31:17
Speaker 1: which you can do. You can grill watermelon. Uh, it does,
31:21
Speaker 1: It does very well on the grill. Actually you've done
31:24
Speaker 1: that before. I've never done that. I mean, I like
31:26
Speaker 1: at raw, but you can grill it up. So it
31:29
Speaker 1: says that it causes the meat of the watermelon, um
31:33
Speaker 1: to be chewy? Does that you haven't experienced super chewy?
31:38
Speaker 1: But I may not have left it on as long
31:40
Speaker 1: as you need to to reach that point because I don't.
31:43
Speaker 1: I don't like chewy things generally. So um, what about watermelon?
31:50
Speaker 1: Rhyme pickles? I've always been interested in eating this, and
31:54
Speaker 1: I don't think I've been in too many places where
31:56
Speaker 1: they were there. And I guess when I was I
31:58
Speaker 1: was in in the mood for him. So have you
31:59
Speaker 1: ever had pickled watermelon right now? Because you know I'm
32:02
Speaker 1: not into pickled things generally. Oh that's right, that's right. Well,
32:07
Speaker 1: I'm going to try umph for the both of us. Okay,
32:09
Speaker 1: I did used to salt my watermelon a little bit
32:11
Speaker 1: when I was a kid. Uh, don't do that anymore,
32:15
Speaker 1: not for any real reason other than I just like
32:17
Speaker 1: the taste is is. But some people put a little
32:20
Speaker 1: little chipotli pepper, a little hot spice on there. Sometimes
32:24
Speaker 1: you can juice them. Uh, you can make them in
32:29
Speaker 1: alcoholic beverages, drop a little watermelon ball in there. Yeah,
32:33
Speaker 1: you can also, um, so if you like. It's kind
32:37
Speaker 1: of a kin to salting them, but it goes really
32:40
Speaker 1: well with um, salty and non sweet tastes like um,
32:46
Speaker 1: you mean, I had a watermelon salad years back at
32:49
Speaker 1: a place called Harry's Pizza in Miami. They had chunks.
32:53
Speaker 1: It's very simple, but it was just an explosion of flavor.
32:57
Speaker 1: You had chunks of watermelon. Okay, Um, snipped up mint,
33:03
Speaker 1: a little snipped up fresh tyme mint is good with watermelon. Yes,
33:07
Speaker 1: it's amazing. Stretchy tella, which is like a very much
33:11
Speaker 1: waterior mozzarella, like a looser mozzarella. Um, and then some
33:16
Speaker 1: chopped up kind of just pecans, and all of this
33:19
Speaker 1: in like minor amounts. You're not like making the Campbell's
33:22
Speaker 1: chunky super version of this. It's all like just kind
33:24
Speaker 1: of sparse because it doesn't take much a little bit
33:26
Speaker 1: of olive oil. Maybe you throw a couple of grains
33:30
Speaker 1: of salt on there, but you probably are getting enough
33:32
Speaker 1: from the stretch tella to do um and it is.
33:36
Speaker 1: Everything just works really really well together and it's really
33:40
Speaker 1: easy to make. Like you can get all of those
33:42
Speaker 1: ingredients at any grocery store anywhere and it's there. It's
33:47
Speaker 1: an amazing little treat. I strongly recommend that. That sounds delicious. Yeah,
33:52
Speaker 1: maybe you'd have trouble finding the stretch of tella. It
33:54
Speaker 1: just used like a buffalo mozzarella, just some mozzarella that
33:57
Speaker 1: comes in like a water of some sort to use that. Yeah,
34:01
Speaker 1: and don't say mozzael no cooded gross the whole thing
34:06
Speaker 1: with watermelon. And like you'll see it at you know,
34:09
Speaker 1: a party sometimes someone will bore a hole in a
34:12
Speaker 1: watermelon and turn up a full bottle of vodka and
34:15
Speaker 1: stick it in there. Yeah, good idea. That's a thing.
34:19
Speaker 1: I've never tried it, but there. Olivia points out, there's
34:21
Speaker 1: a food writer for the Washington Post that said that's
34:25
Speaker 1: a myth. There's so much liquid in there. Their vodka
34:28
Speaker 1: has nowhere to go. Just pulls it like it does.
34:33
Speaker 1: So where does the vodka go though, It goes somewhere, right,
34:36
Speaker 1: it's not like a the ideas. It doesn't infuse all
34:40
Speaker 1: of the watermelon. I think it will come dribbling out
34:44
Speaker 1: after a while because the watermelon is it's ninety two
34:49
Speaker 1: or ninety six percent water, right, Yeah, so yeah, some
34:52
Speaker 1: of it will get sucked in before. It's not going
34:54
Speaker 1: to do what you're what you wanted to do. I've
34:58
Speaker 1: never tried it either, but but haven't either. So apparently
35:01
Speaker 1: the same food writer says you should scoop the watermelon
35:03
Speaker 1: out and then marinate it and and I guess being
35:06
Speaker 1: exposed to air, it will dry out some and suck
35:09
Speaker 1: in whatever alcoholic marinager you're marinating it in. Okay, well
35:13
Speaker 1: that makes sense, but that also brings up the idea
35:16
Speaker 1: of watermelon flavored things like watermelon jolly ranchers or chewing gum. Uh.
35:23
Speaker 1: It's I think it's got a better track record than banana.
35:27
Speaker 1: I've come to appreciate banana my older age. Yeah, but
35:30
Speaker 1: it never tastes like banana. It tastes like whatever they do. Yes, yes, totally.
35:36
Speaker 1: But watermelon kind of has that same wrap, which is like,
35:39
Speaker 1: there's nothing that truly tastes like watermelon, no kind of candy. Uh.
35:42
Speaker 1: And apparently there's a reason for that. Uh. It is
35:45
Speaker 1: because that flavor is probably a product of an organic
35:50
Speaker 1: compound uh called an aldehyde. Uh specifically, I don't even
35:54
Speaker 1: know how you would read this z mma Z DASH
35:58
Speaker 1: three six known a dienal aldehyde. Sure, okay, you enjoyed that,
36:06
Speaker 1: didn't you. Yeah, but the flavor of that specific organic
36:12
Speaker 1: compound is green cucumber melanie, fatty and rindy with a
36:17
Speaker 1: hint of meat fat. But apparently that breaks down so
36:22
Speaker 1: fast that they can't in the lab. They can't convert
36:26
Speaker 1: that flavor into uh something they can replicate very easily
36:30
Speaker 1: because they break down so quickly. Right, So I mean, yeah,
36:34
Speaker 1: I just give him a break. Basically is the upshot
36:36
Speaker 1: of all that they're trying. Now that I now that
36:40
Speaker 1: you say that about banana flavor, I wonder how much
36:43
Speaker 1: of banana flavor seeming like, oh it's banana flavor. The
36:46
Speaker 1: candy is from the yellow that's always associated with it.
36:50
Speaker 1: So like if you handed somebody just like a noncolored,
36:54
Speaker 1: like just gray piece of candy. They had that same
36:57
Speaker 1: banana flavor and didn't tell him what it was supposed
37:00
Speaker 1: to be, Like, what chance would they have of actually
37:02
Speaker 1: identifying it as banana? You should start a line of
37:06
Speaker 1: great candy, right, it's called who cares? Josh is famous?
37:11
Speaker 1: Great candy? Earth diesse? Who cares? No? I think I
37:16
Speaker 1: think with you? Uh, In fact, I think there's enough
37:18
Speaker 1: for a short stuff there. There's actually a lot of
37:21
Speaker 1: information about banana flavoring. Okay, cool, let's do it. Maybe
37:25
Speaker 1: we should, But apparently not one on a watermelon flavored
37:29
Speaker 1: short stuff, No, I don't think so. So what else, Chuck?
37:33
Speaker 1: You got anything else about watermelons? Not really? I mean
37:37
Speaker 1: there are you know, watermelon festivals and stuff like that
37:40
Speaker 1: all over the country. If here into that kind of thing,
37:42
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of like any time a town has
37:45
Speaker 1: a prized fruit or vegetable and it's in the sticks
37:48
Speaker 1: in the United States, they're probably gonna have a parade
37:50
Speaker 1: about it, that's right, Which is can be a lot
37:53
Speaker 1: of fun. I'm sure why not. There's probably lots of watermelon,
37:56
Speaker 1: and everybody loves watermelon, so it can't be all that bad,
38:00
Speaker 1: right right? Um? Okay, Well, that's it for watermelon everybody.
38:04
Speaker 1: If you want to more about watermelon, go check out
38:07
Speaker 1: your local store and get started eating a watermelon. And
38:11
Speaker 1: also shout out to a really um great episode of
38:14
Speaker 1: gastro Pod. They covered the watermelons, social and natural history
38:18
Speaker 1: and that's worth checking out too. Um. And since I
38:22
Speaker 1: said that's worth checking out too, it means it's time
38:23
Speaker 1: for listening mail. I've been waiting to read this for
38:29
Speaker 1: an episode that was a little shorter because this is
38:32
Speaker 1: a little baggy, but it's worth reading. And here we are,
38:37
Speaker 1: uh with this email from Ian Bowers. Hey, guys, been
38:41
Speaker 1: listening for the better part of a decade. Well it
38:44
Speaker 1: might be the bane of some listeners existence. I love
38:46
Speaker 1: the off the wall tangents you guys fall into. You
38:49
Speaker 1: never know what's going to trigger a memory, remind you
38:52
Speaker 1: of something that happened the other day, And at the
38:54
Speaker 1: beginning of decided to keep a running tally at the
38:56
Speaker 1: best tangents then on throughout the year. Did you this No?
39:01
Speaker 1: I didn't. It's fantastic. Notice many of them tend to
39:04
Speaker 1: be movie or music related, but here a few of
39:06
Speaker 1: my favorites and what episode they were from. Are you
39:08
Speaker 1: ready for this, I'm ready. This is great. So in
39:12
Speaker 1: the episode Space Weather, What's that? We had a tangent
39:14
Speaker 1: on John Mayer and the Grateful Dead apparently. Uh. In
39:18
Speaker 1: the Hydro Power episode, we had a tangent on buttless chaps,
39:23
Speaker 1: John Belushi and Steven Stills. Okay, is the free radical
39:29
Speaker 1: theory of aging wrong? We had a tangent on justin
39:32
Speaker 1: timber Lake's attempt to revive my Space remember that it
39:36
Speaker 1: sounds like you. Uh. In Space junk Ahoy, we had
39:41
Speaker 1: a tangent on lighting farts. Yeah, I remember that one too.
39:45
Speaker 1: That that took me by surprise. Yeah. Uh. In the
39:49
Speaker 1: Havana Syndrome, we had one on Will Ferrell as Glenn
39:53
Speaker 1: Frey on s n L Glenn Fry plus two more
39:58
Speaker 1: Eagle Stories, hair Loss, The Pits colon the Pits. We
40:02
Speaker 1: had one on the smell of pizza hut, reminding Josh
40:04
Speaker 1: of solid gold. Yeah, how corporate taxes work? Hubba Bubba
40:10
Speaker 1: versus bubble yum versus bubbalicious. This is like a trip
40:14
Speaker 1: down memory lane. It really about memory lanes on our
40:19
Speaker 1: live show on Cocoa the Gorilla, I didn't know. Of course,
40:22
Speaker 1: we have tangents there too, Huey Lewis is showing his
40:25
Speaker 1: wiener in a movie. It sounds like me. I'm always
40:30
Speaker 1: talking about Huey lunas Huey Lewis is weener. I don't
40:33
Speaker 1: remember that one. Uh yeah he showed his his uh
40:36
Speaker 1: his penis and shortcuts the Robert Altman movie. Oh that's right,
40:41
Speaker 1: just taking a leak into a river. How reverse osmosis
40:45
Speaker 1: will save the world. Uh. Cypress Hill still stands up
40:49
Speaker 1: is the quote, and then another short Cypres Hill tangent
40:52
Speaker 1: shows up during heat Waves. Talked about them twice on
40:57
Speaker 1: short Stuff. Colon Chameleons, both of your favorite scenes, and beetlejuice. Yes,
41:04
Speaker 1: there's a couple of more here. The creepy legacy to
41:06
Speaker 1: Cecil Hotel, mysterious bag of crystal beans, the chuck in
41:09
Speaker 1: the middle of the night, and then a crystal food discussion,
41:14
Speaker 1: and then finally the wars somebody buying the silence of
41:18
Speaker 1: the Lamb's house and turning it to an airbnb. Yeah
41:21
Speaker 1: that's right, so Ian says, keep up the great work.
41:23
Speaker 1: I think these things really let both of your personality shine,
41:27
Speaker 1: and I think that's why most dedicated dedicated listeners continue
41:30
Speaker 1: to tune in after all the episodes you've released. I'm
41:33
Speaker 1: not going to keep track of tangents in two, but
41:36
Speaker 1: I happily welcome them. Ian, Come on, buddy, keep it up.
41:40
Speaker 1: We'll do this once a year. If you keep keep
41:42
Speaker 1: up with them, we should release Sean from his obligations.
41:47
Speaker 1: This is Ian's across to Bear. Ian could do it
41:51
Speaker 1: or not stand Ian, no one else. Yeah, there you go.
41:56
Speaker 1: I think that's fair. You know, if he wants too cool,
41:59
Speaker 1: if he doesn't, we won't think any less of him.
42:01
Speaker 1: That's right. What's his last name? Tangent Guy, Ian Tangent.
42:07
Speaker 1: I are you sure it's okay? Ian Tangent Guy Bowers
42:11
Speaker 1: Tangent Guys. Definitely his new nickname for sure. Um, well,
42:15
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Ian, that was very nice of you
42:17
Speaker 1: to do that. And yeah, if you want to do
42:18
Speaker 1: it again, we'll definitely read it next year. Uh. And
42:21
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us and
42:23
Speaker 1: try to start an annual thing, take your best shot.
42:26
Speaker 1: You can try it via email at stuff podcast at
42:29
Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
42:34
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
42:38
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever
42:41
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows,