Latest / Family Tree Food Stories / A Goat Stomach, a Nobel Prize Winner, and How the Grateful Dead Saved a Yogurt.

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A Goat Stomach, a Nobel Prize Winner, and How the Grateful Dead Saved a Yogurt. · Family Tree Food Stories

0:00
Nancy: A story about a goat's stomach, a guy on a horse, a Nobel laureate,
0:04
and the Grateful Dead trying to save a yogurt company from financial ruin?
0:09
Yes.
0:10
It sounds ridiculous, but it's all true.
0:13
Wanna know more?
0:14
Stay tuned and have your spoon ready, because this one's all about yogurt.
0:21
Hey there, food lovers and history buffs.
0:23
Welcome to Family Tree Food and Stories.
0:25
Sylvia: Pull up your chair to the table and get ready to dig
0:28
in as we take you on a wild ride through generations of flavors.
0:31
Nancy: That's right, we're dishing up the juiciest family history secrets, some
0:35
epic dinner disasters, and intriguing tastes behind your favorite dishes.
0:39
Sylvia: From Grandma's legendary cheese crust apple pie-
0:42
Nancy: To Uncle Bob's questionable casserole-
0:44
Sylvia: There's a lot more going on at that table than you might realize
0:48
Nancy: So join us as we eat, laugh, relive the past, and create
0:52
new mealtime memories together.
0:53
Sylvia: Because every meal has a story and every story is a feast.
0:57
Let's dig into the show
1:05
Nancy: Hello, everybody.
1:06
Welcome back to another episode of Family Tree Food and Stories, where every meal
1:10
has a story and every story's a feast.
1:13
And, well, honestly, there's a bit of history in every bite that we take, and my
1:18
kitchen has a few history-related secrets hiding in the pantry right now, and I'm
1:23
gonna guess that yours does, too, Sylvia.
1:25
Sylvia: Oh, you bet it does.
1:27
Nancy: But today's secret reveal is quietly sitting in your fridge, dear
1:32
listeners, right now, and likely behind the orange juice, maybe the milk,
1:37
and, well, it is summer, and I've got a bottle of Limoncello in mine.
1:42
I'm gonna guess you probably have yours hiding somewhere in yours, too, Sylvia.
1:45
Sylvia: Oh, absolutely.
1:46
Nancy: But before we start, could you help us real quickly by going to subscribe at
1:52
podcast.familytreefoodstories so that you don't miss any episode going forward, we
1:57
drop every Thursday morning, and send it to someone who loves a good food story.
2:02
So now, that fridge secret reveals, Sylvia, let's get into that.
2:07
What's hiding under that lid?
2:10
Sylvia: Well, it's actually in plain sight.
2:11
Well, sort of.
2:13
Today, we're talking yogurt.
2:15
The lid says, "Live and active cultures." Read that out loud.
2:19
We're eating something that's alive on purpose.
2:22
Nancy: That kinda sounds like controlled spoilage that you paid extra for.
2:26
Sylvia: And this week, I made some in my Instant Pot.
2:30
Two ingredients and one button, plus eight hours.
2:34
Nancy: I know you're the experimenter in the kitchen, so we'll get back to
2:37
that one, but first, let's share that this stuff, we're talking yogurt, is
2:41
7,000 years old, and there's a saddle bag, a Nobel Prize, and a Grateful
2:47
Dead story on this one, no joking.
2:50
Sylvia: So it's all in one cup.
2:51
Pull up a chair.
2:52
Something's fermenting.
2:54
Nancy: So who invented yogurt, Sylvia?
2:57
Sylvia: Nobody.
2:58
Nancy: Nobody?
2:59
Sylvia: It's an accident about 7,000 years ago in Central Asia.
3:03
Herders carried milk in pouches made from animal stomachs.
3:07
Nancy: Ooh, that's disgusting.
3:09
Sylvia: And a stomach is full of exactly the bacteria you'd
3:12
need to turn milk into yogurt.
3:14
Body heat, a day on horseback, and by sundown, thick, tangy yogurt.
3:20
Nancy: So the first yogurt maker was a guy with a bag, a stomach bag, on a horse, and
3:25
the first starter culture was something that was living in that disgusting bag.
3:31
Sylvia: Yes, and somebody was brave enough to taste it, just
3:34
like they did with sourdough.
3:36
They lived, and now we're doing it all the time.
3:39
Nancy: That sounds like every fermented food, some disgusting story along the
3:43
way, but a person deciding what went a little wrong and then decided to
3:48
experiment and have it for dinner.
3:50
Sylvia: Or maybe for a snack.
3:52
Nancy: And here's the part that I love.
3:54
The word yogurt is Turkish.
3:55
It means to thicken.
3:57
Sylvia: There's no poetry in that at all.
3:59
Nancy: None, just a little got milk, and that's the whole name.
4:03
Kind of like the commercial, Got Milk?
4:06
Sylvia: Now it's time for a story break.
4:07
100 families and one accident.
4:10
Once yogurt existed, it traveled everywhere milk animals went, and
4:14
every culture made it its own.
4:16
India folded into marinades and thinned it into lassi and called it dahi.
4:21
The Middle East strained it into labneh, thick enough to spread on bread.
4:25
Iran stirred the cucumber and herbs.
4:28
Iceland strained it into skyr.
4:30
Bulgaria kept its own famous strain alive, and that strain is about to
4:35
matter a great deal in this story.
4:38
Same accident in the saddlebag.
4:40
100 different families deciding it was theirs and passing it down
4:44
Nancy: Okay.
4:44
You said you made a batch this week.
4:46
Why don't you tell me that story?
4:48
Sylvia: Most yogurt you buy comes in a little plastic cup.
4:51
Mine's sitting in a glass jar in my fridge.
4:54
I made it with whole Fairlife milk, two tablespoons of Fage yogurt, hit the yogurt
5:00
button, walked away, and went to bed.
5:03
If you use ultra high temperature pasteurized milk, you can skip the
5:07
step of boiling it first, which makes it a lot easier and less intimidating.
5:13
Nancy: So it's really pretty simple.
5:14
You made it in an Instant Pot, and that's the recipe?
5:17
Just press a button and go to sleep?
5:19
Sylvia: Exactly.
5:20
Eight hours later, thick, tangy, real yogurt.
5:23
Same thing the saddlebag did, except mine has a digital display.
5:27
Nancy: And you didn't have to ride the horse.
5:29
It's the 21st century equivalent of the goat skin pouch.
5:34
Sylvia: And mine probably smelled better.
5:36
Nancy: I'm sure it did.
5:37
Sylvia: And every question I had is one people type into
5:41
artificial intelligence all day.
5:43
Why is my yogurt runny?
5:45
Under-incubated.
5:46
Too cool.
5:47
Can I use my batch to start the next one?
5:50
Absolutely.
5:51
Nancy: So it's kind of like a Fred thing, your sourdough starter.
5:55
Feed it, keep it alive, pass it down.
5:57
Next.
5:58
Sylvia: Same word even.
5:59
It's culture, the bacteria in the jar, and the thing a family
6:02
keeps alive by passing down food.
6:04
Same act.
6:05
You keep something going on purpose.
6:08
Nancy: I know you've got some kind of family-related yogurt story.
6:12
I think there was something about an Afghan restaurant that you told me about?
6:16
Sylvia: Oh, absolutely.
6:18
When I lived in Silicon Valley just south in San Carlos, there was a place
6:21
called Kabul's where they had the most amazing, tender, and lovely meats.
6:27
So of course, I had to ask the owners, "How do I make it?"
6:31
It was even funnier that when I had friends that would, you know, come
6:35
over and I didn't wanna cook, I would say, "Hey, let's go have Afghan
6:38
food." And they would always say, without a beat, "Ew, I don't do spicy.
6:44
I don't wanna try Afghan food."
6:46
Nancy: Well, that's kinda snobby, but it's not spicy.
6:50
Sylvia: No, it's not spicy at all.
6:52
Not even a little.
6:53
It's savory, it's warm.
6:55
So I had this idea to throw a make your own kebab party in my
7:00
Omaha backyard just to prove it.
7:03
Nancy: Love that.
7:04
So of course you did.
7:05
Sylvia: Oh, it was tons of fun.
7:07
It had yogurt-marinated chicken.
7:09
We had all these different onions and pineapple and green peppers, so
7:14
everyone got to build their own skewer.
7:17
The kids were running around with squirt guns the whole time, and by
7:20
the end, the I don't do spicy crowd was going back for second or thirds.
7:25
Nancy: Because it was never spicy, and probably it was fun.
7:29
It was a participatory sport, or food.
7:31
Sylvia: When you have a bunch of boys with squirt guns, yes,
7:33
it was definitely participatory.
7:35
But what was really great about it, and what I learned from that original recipe,
7:39
it was just yogurt doing what it says it does, quietly making everything better and
7:44
putting the whole backyard together, and the parents could actually get a break.
7:48
Nancy: I love that.
7:49
Now, the most unhinged chapter in yogurt history is…
7:54
Sylvia: Early 1900s, a scientist, Elie Metchnikoff, Pasteur Institute, Paris,
7:59
wins the 1908 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
8:03
Nancy: So a serious guy, not some really wackadoo quack.
8:07
Sylvia: Oh, he was actually dead serious, and late in life he gets obsessed
8:12
with aging, just like both of us.
8:14
Nancy: Right?
8:15
So dead serious, I love that term, because this is the guy that invented
8:20
the term gerontology, correct?
8:23
I mean, he literally coined that word.
8:25
Sylvia: That's him, and his story was very grim.
8:28
The bacteria rotting in your gut are what kill you.
8:31
Nancy: Cheerful story, for sure.
8:33
Sylvia: Then he notices that peasants are living forever in Bulgaria, eating yogurt
8:38
every day, and he decides it's yogurt, good bacteria crowding out the bad.
8:43
Nancy: And he tells everybody, that loudmouth.
8:46
Sylvia: He tells everyone.
8:47
Story
8:49
Nancy: break.
8:50
Sour milk, the elixir.
8:52
Metchnikoff didn't keep it quiet.
8:54
He gave public lectures in Paris and drank sour milk every single day
8:58
himself, and the press went crazy for it.
9:02
Newspapers ran headlines like, "Sour milk is the elixir, secret of long
9:07
life," and, "Can old age be cured?"
9:11
Kind of like the National Enquirer of its day.
9:13
Then drugstores across Europe and America began selling these little,
9:17
teeny, tiny tablets of Bulgarian bacteria prepared according to the
9:22
instructions of Professor Metchnikoff.
9:24
Those pills are the direct ancestors of every probiotic on the shelf
9:29
today, and the entire modern wellness aisle was born from one Nobel
9:35
laureate, not a quack, and a region full of healthy Bulgarian grandmas.
9:41
So every support gut health cup traces back to this one guy.
9:46
Sylvia: Straight back to him.
9:48
Nancy: And this is an extra Bulgarian part.
9:50
In 1905, a Bulgarian scientist named Stamen Grigorov
9:56
actually identifies the bug.
9:58
Yes, bug, and that's why it's still called Lactobacillus bulgarius,
10:04
named of course for Bulgaria.
10:07
Sylvia: You did a lot of homework for this episode, Nancy.
10:10
Nancy: I sure did.
10:12
There's an old story that yogurt cured a king of France.
10:16
Is that one real, or is that just one of our fork laws?
10:20
Sylvia: Well, it's a great story, especially with my name being France.
10:24
It can't be verified, no real record.
10:27
It just got repeated until it felt true.
10:29
Nancy: Well, and they say a lie told 1,000 times becomes a truth,
10:34
and we wanted to cure a king, so eventually we did, at least in story.
10:40
Sylvia: And look, yogurt is good for you.
10:42
Metchnikoff just oversold it by about 2,000 years.
10:46
Okay, it's your turn.
10:48
I've heard you've been on a whole yogurt journey.
10:51
Nancy: I have.
10:52
So about six months ago I went on a taste test because my old favorite was,
10:58
Sylvia: eh,
10:58
Nancy: not kind of sticking up to its reputation.
11:01
But- I won't name names right now.
11:04
Sylvia: Oh, come on.
11:04
Please name names.
11:06
Nancy: All right.
11:07
You twisting my arm or bending my spoon?
11:09
Both.
11:10
It was Chobani.
11:12
It started tasting a little dry and mealy, so I thought, "Let's hunt for something a
11:16
little different." And I tested all sorts of brands, but I found one brand called,
11:23
and I'm not kidding you, Nancy's Yogurt.
11:27
Sylvia: That sounds a little fishy to me, but I do like the name.
11:30
Nancy: How could I resist?
11:31
It's whole milk, grass-fed.
11:33
At least, that's the variety of the brand that I like the best, but
11:37
there's a story hiding behind it.
11:39
Sylvia: Oh, please do tell.
11:42
Nancy: It all started with a little creamery in Oregon called Springfield
11:46
Creamery, and in 1960, Chuck and Nancy Kesey and Chuck's brother,
11:52
Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, founded it.
11:56
Sylvia: Well, it does make sense.
11:57
And the book was actually set in Oregon.
12:00
Nancy: And they had a bookkeeper named Nancy that was making yogurt
12:02
from her grandmother's recipe.
12:04
And in 1970, it became the first US yogurt with live probiotics.
12:10
Didn't even have a name then.
12:11
They still kept making it, and orders kept coming in and coming in.
12:16
So they decided just to call it Nancy's Yogurt.
12:20
They named it right after the bookkeeper, since it was her recipe.
12:23
Sylvia: The yogurt is named after the bookkeeper?
12:26
Nancy: Yep, after the bookkeeper, but there's more.
12:29
Story break.
12:31
The day the rock band saved a yogurt company.
12:34
By 1972, the little creamery was about to go under.
12:39
It owed roughly $14,000 in back taxes that it didn't have.
12:44
So Chuck Kesey drove all the way down to California and asked his
12:49
brother's old friend's band called the Grateful Dead if they would
12:54
consider playing a benefit concert.
12:56
Sylvia: Grateful Dead?
12:58
Nancy: Yep, the Grateful Dead.
13:00
And on August 27th, 1972, in a field in Veneta, Oregon, the Grateful Dead played
13:06
a concert to save the yogurt company.
13:09
More than 20,000 people came, and to save money, the tickets were printed
13:13
on the back of the Nancy Yogurt labels.
13:17
The show raised enough money to pay off all the tax bill and keep the doors open.
13:23
Yay.
13:23
Yogurt company saved, and that company is still family-owned
13:28
three generations later.
13:30
Sylvia: I understand the tickets were printed on the labels.
13:33
I wonder if my good friend in Silicon Valley who is a Grateful Dead
13:36
groupie was actually at the concert.
13:38
I really wouldn't be surprised.
13:39
Nancy: Well, I don't know him, but you never know.
13:42
But before you hear the rest of the story, we're gonna take a quick
13:46
break and leave you in suspense.
13:49
We'll be right back.
13:53
Sylvia: Can you smell that meal that your grandmother, mom, or even
13:56
dad made at every special family
13:58
Nancy: celebration?
13:59
The one that you can still taste with your eyes closed?
14:02
Sylvia and I created My Family Tree Food and Stories book because we kept hearing
14:06
your heartbreaking stories of favorite foods and family meal memories lost.
14:11
This isn't just a cookbook.
14:13
It's a specially designed type of journal where you can relive and
14:16
share your family recipes and stories.
14:19
Honestly, most people think of a plate of food as just that.
14:23
But when paired with a good story, each bite becomes a banquet of joy,
14:27
laughter, maybe even a few tears, and memories that never go stale.
14:32
To get more details, go to Podcast.FamilyTreeFoodStories.com and
14:37
select book at the top of the page.
14:39
We've got a lot more fun and a lot more to come down the
14:42
road and to put on your plate.
14:44
But for now, let's get back to the rest of this My Family Tree Food Stories
14:51
So do you wanna know the rest of that story?
14:53
The guy who helped drive that yogurt truck all the way down to San Francisco
14:57
and then back, his name was Huey Lewis.
15:01
You know, before the news?
15:03
Sylvia: I can't believe Huey Lewis was hauling yogurt.
15:06
Nancy: Yeah.
15:07
Huey Hauling, we should call it.
15:10
Still family-owned three generations later.
15:13
Sylvia: A grandmother's recipe, a family business, a town that wouldn't let it die.
15:17
That's the whole show in a cup.
15:19
Nancy: I love that.
15:20
And it's not the only one.
15:21
Because lots of yogurts are named after family members.
15:25
You know Dannon?
15:26
Well, that one was named after the company owner's son, Daniel, and
15:30
that was back in 1919 in Barcelona.
15:33
And Chobani, a Turkish immigrant buying a plant that was about to
15:37
close, that's how that one started.
15:39
And every juror somehow has somebody's heritage in it.
15:43
Sylvia: Okay.
15:43
Let's time to get skeptical.
15:45
Because not everything in that aisle is a grandmother's recipe.
15:49
Nancy: No, it's not.
15:51
And this is where I got kind of fired up or pissed off, because something
15:55
to do with the term Greek-style, that one g- has got me really, as Bob would
16:01
say, it's got my panties in a wad.
16:04
Sylvia: Real Greek yogurt is just yogurt that's been strained.
16:07
The yogurt that I made in the Instant Pot actually spent overnight in a colander
16:11
that was lined with coffee filters.
16:14
Yes, coffee filters.
16:16
But that's what makes it thick and high protein.
16:19
It's expensive because you lose volume.
16:21
Just for giggles, of course, I had to measure how much water
16:25
came out of the yogurt, and it was almost three cups of water.
16:29
Nancy: Ooh, that's a lot.
16:31
And Greek style, I'll put style in quotes.
16:34
Sylvia: That skips the straining altogether.
16:36
It fakes the thickness with corn starch, gelatin, milk protein concentrate.
16:40
Style is just doing a lot of quiet work.
16:44
Nancy: Yeah.
16:45
Style is the lie.
16:46
Then there's sugar, and lots of it.
16:49
Some flavored yogurts, the ones especially with the cartoons aimed at kids, have
16:54
as much sugar as a can of soda in it.
16:56
Sylvia: I know.
16:57
I confessed.
16:58
I did give my kids Go-Gurts.
17:00
I would even actually put them in the freezer and put them in their lunch
17:02
boxes so they would be the perfect temperature when they ate their lunch.
17:07
Nancy: You're a good mom.
17:08
Sylvia: But I didn't realize that I was giving my kids something
17:11
that for breakfast or in their lunch that wasn't really healthy.
17:15
Nancy: Well, I won't blame you, because you just didn't know.
17:18
Some don't even have real food in them.
17:20
It's kind of like a dessert in a healthy costume.
17:23
Sylvia: So this is what I learned.
17:25
I had to read the ingredient list.
17:26
Short is good.
17:28
Milk and live cultures.
17:30
You're in the home stretch.
17:31
If it reads like a chemistry set, put it back immediately.
17:35
Nancy: You can also make your own for about a third of the price or a
17:38
quarter of the price, like Sylvia did.
17:40
Sylvia: Exactly, 'cause of course, I had to do the math
17:43
on how much I paid per ounce.
17:45
So I can actually speak with authority here.
17:48
Nancy: I like that.
17:49
The part that we're starting to add to the show is use it tomorrow or use
17:53
it today, and the six rules to do so.
17:55
So write them down.
17:57
Sylvia: The rules of real yogurt.
17:59
Read the ingredient list before the front label.
18:02
Milk and live cultures is the whole recipe.
18:05
The shorter the list, the closer to real yogurt.
18:09
Treat Greek style as a question, not a promise.
18:13
Real Greek is strained.
18:14
Corn starch and gelatin are a different food.
18:18
Check the sugar, especially anything aimed at kids.
18:21
Compare it to a can of soda.
18:23
If it's close, it's dessert.
18:26
Make it once, cold start, whole milk, two tablespoons of live culture yogurt.
18:32
The yogurt button on your Instapot for eight hours.
18:36
You'll never fear yogurt again, and it tastes so much better.
18:39
Save a few spoonfuls of every batch to start the next one.
18:43
That's your lineage.
18:44
You're keeping the culture alive.
18:46
And the whole point, a culture only survives if somebody keeps it going.
18:51
So pass it down.
18:52
Make the family recipe.
18:53
Teach the technique.
18:54
Save the starter.
18:56
Be that somebody.
18:57
Nancy: Two ingredients, one button, and a starter you have
19:01
to pass on to the next person.
19:03
It's a 7,000-year-old tradition.
19:05
You can start right now or tonight on your kitchen countertop.
19:10
Sylvia: And maybe you can start it next time I come visit.
19:12
Nancy: Absolutely.
19:13
I've got my grass-fed milk ready to go.
19:16
Sylvia: There you go.
19:17
Three things that you can take with you: one, yogurt's a 7,000-year-old
19:21
accident we keep making on purpose.
19:23
Nancy: Two, half of what you've been told is marketing.
19:26
Marketing slime, as Bob likes to say.
19:29
It doesn't cure old age, it doesn't heal a king, and Greek style isn't Greek.
19:35
Oopa!
19:36
I'll drink to that.
19:37
Sylvia: And three, behind the best yogurt is always a family, a grandmother, or
19:41
in my case, a nonna, a bookkeeper, a creamery, a rock band that wouldn't
19:45
let it die, and a hot hauler.
19:47
Hot hauler.
19:48
Nancy: That's the best part.
19:49
Well, maybe the rock band.
19:51
So tell us your stories.
19:53
What cultures do you keep in your family alive?
19:56
The recipes that no one wrote down or the starter that you still feed.
20:02
Tag us on Facebook, on Instagram, or DM us.
20:05
Leave a voicemail and a review.
20:08
We read every one.
20:09
Just go to podcast.familytreefoodstories and click the button on the side
20:13
that says, "Send us a message."
20:15
Sylvia: Next time, we celebrate America's 250 with a four-part series on the food
20:20
of the American Revolution, what the soldiers ate, what the average person
20:24
ate, the gentry, think Martha Washington, and authentic all-American recreations.
20:31
This topic is important to both of us because we are both descendants of the
20:35
scrappy and resourceful Revolutionary War patriots, both male and female.
20:40
Nancy: Well, we kind of needed both to get here.
20:42
Until then, make something.
20:44
Even two spoonfuls of yogurt into warm milk can be your next kitchen story.
20:50
Sylvia: Every story has a feast.
20:52
Bye.
20:52
Happy cooking and happy experimenting.
20:55
Nancy: Bye bye everyone, and keep your cultures alive.
20:58
Un-pun.
20:59
Ha ha.
21:00
Ciao.
21:02
Sylvia and I hope that you've loved this episode of Family Tree Food and Stories.
21:06
If there's a family recipe or a story that's been passed down at your table,
21:10
or even just something that happened yesterday, we'd love to hear it.
21:14
Maybe your special dish or family moment could be featured on
21:18
one of our upcoming episodes.
21:19
You can share it by just heading over to Podcast.FamilyTreeFoodStories.com
21:25
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21:27
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21:39
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21:49
Lastly, you can join us by going on over to Facebook and Instagram at
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Family Tree Food Stories to keep up with the fun, the stories, and the ideas.
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Let's continue to celebrate the joy of food, family, and gathering
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with friends that we love.
22:03
Thanks for listening.
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Until next time, happy eating, happy storytelling, and ciao.
22:08
Bye-bye.