Latest / Ridiculous History / Did a real-life rainmaker almost drown San Diego?

Transcript

Did a real-life rainmaker almost drown San Diego? · Ridiculous History

0:24
Speaker 1: Into every episode of Ridiculous History, A little rain must fall. Hi,
0:29
Speaker 1: I'm Ben. I'm no. Well that was nice, Ben, thanks
0:32
Speaker 1: man like changing it up a little bit for the
0:34
Speaker 1: for the opening and uh. We are joined as always
0:37
Speaker 1: with our super producer, Casey Pegrum. He's on the ones
0:41
Speaker 1: and the twos, mainly just the ones. He just came
0:43
Speaker 1: the twos just occasionally if he needs a little extra
0:46
Speaker 1: push over the cliff. Um. Can I do a reading? Yeah? Please,
0:50
Speaker 1: It's just just I love this. The first line in
0:53
Speaker 1: this article from How Stuff Works by the very talented
0:56
Speaker 1: Candice Gibson goes as such, I just think this is perfect.
1:03
Speaker 1: Quaker born Charles Mallory Hatfield, tidy in appearance and straightforward,
1:08
Speaker 1: with a salesman's bearing and a farm boy's self assuredness,
1:12
Speaker 1: made an eyebrow raising offer to the desperate city Council
1:15
Speaker 1: of San Diego in nineteen fift and this is where
1:21
Speaker 1: our story begins. Let's give you a little bit of
1:24
Speaker 1: background about Charles Mallory Hatfield. Charles Mallory Hatfield was what
1:30
Speaker 1: he preferred to call a moisture accelerator, a pluviculturist to
1:35
Speaker 1: the average person at the time that meant he was
1:39
Speaker 1: a rainmaker, or we should say he was a self
1:42
Speaker 1: proclaimed rainmaker. And San Diego at the time was in
1:47
Speaker 1: a really tough arid spot. Yes, they were in desperate
1:53
Speaker 1: need of rain to help refill the city's dwindling Marina reservoir.
1:58
Speaker 1: So this meeting, as this scribed by Candice Gibson, took
2:02
Speaker 1: place in which Charles Mallory Hatfield offered up his services
2:07
Speaker 1: to do just that, refill the city's reservoir. Mallory's fee
2:13
Speaker 1: ten grand ten grants seems low for the magical gift
2:17
Speaker 1: of rain, but back in those days it equated to
2:19
Speaker 1: around two d and thirty thousand dollars um. And he
2:23
Speaker 1: would receive payment upon delivery of services, right because they
2:28
Speaker 1: were understandably skeptical, and then you know, the question would be, well,
2:32
Speaker 1: what's to stop us from giving you ten thousand dollars?
2:36
Speaker 1: And then just learning that you skipped down and he
2:38
Speaker 1: said pay on delivery. So that's why I think that's
2:44
Speaker 1: what really convinced them total power move to, don't you think.
2:48
Speaker 1: So they accepted his offer. However, they accepted it verbally,
2:52
Speaker 1: was a smile and a handshake, and no one signed
2:56
Speaker 1: anything on paper. Guaranteeing Mallory this ten large. But he
3:01
Speaker 1: went about his business nonetheless. Yeah, apparently he had to
3:06
Speaker 1: his estimation, perfected a particular formula of cloud seating through
3:12
Speaker 1: seventeen other contracts with other known commercial organizations, as ranging
3:17
Speaker 1: for cotton growers in Texas to mine operators in Alaska.
3:21
Speaker 1: And what he developed was this technique. I guess it
3:25
Speaker 1: was an early form of cloud seating. Now, this wasn't
3:28
Speaker 1: the stuff of Kate Bush songs chronicling the eccentric pseudo
3:31
Speaker 1: science of Wilhelm Reich's attempts to harness the weather using
3:34
Speaker 1: Oregon energy. Any Bush fans in the house, Casey's Villa Reich,
3:41
Speaker 1: William Reich fans too, I'm yeah, but cloud busting daddy. Yeah,
3:46
Speaker 1: but no, it's not that. This is much more. There's
3:49
Speaker 1: a touch more actual science involved here. Um So, As
3:53
Speaker 1: Lauren Ricketts, a broadcast meteorologist with NBC four in Washington,
3:58
Speaker 1: d C, puts it, cloud seating is form of weather
4:01
Speaker 1: modification in which we can enhance precipitation development by using
4:05
Speaker 1: certain chemicals to create an environment within clouds that it's
4:09
Speaker 1: conducive to forming precipitation, right, accelerating moisture almost And this
4:15
Speaker 1: sounds like it's a little pseudo science, right, But it
4:21
Speaker 1: turns out that there have been multiple experiments with the
4:25
Speaker 1: concept of affecting what the weather and specifically affecting clouds
4:31
Speaker 1: through the use of substances like silver iodide or potassium
4:35
Speaker 1: iodide and dry ice. Mallory seventeen times before he had
4:41
Speaker 1: spoken with San Diego, had attempted to do something like this,
4:46
Speaker 1: and uh, he stood by his results. He had a
4:50
Speaker 1: cloud gathering formula that was comprised of twenty three substances.
4:55
Speaker 1: At this point, the exact ratios or the identity of
5:00
Speaker 1: those substances is unfortunately lost to history. He took it
5:03
Speaker 1: to his grave. By all accounts, whenever I hear somebody
5:08
Speaker 1: talking about, uh, secret ingredients, I always think of the
5:12
Speaker 1: current trade secret ingredients, Like how the how Coca Cola
5:16
Speaker 1: has a secret recipe and the three people who know
5:20
Speaker 1: it are not allowed to be on an airplane at
5:22
Speaker 1: the same time, right, or like they maybe only one
5:25
Speaker 1: person carries a piece or the ingredients. You know, you
5:28
Speaker 1: have to have all three of them in a room
5:29
Speaker 1: at the same time, and they also have to turn
5:30
Speaker 1: secret keys. And how we watched him many movies. Yeah,
5:34
Speaker 1: but this guy Mallory, he built this giant tower, right,
5:37
Speaker 1: it's like a wooden tower that he used to um
5:40
Speaker 1: ionize the atmosphere. And I had a hard time finding
5:42
Speaker 1: details about like did he pump it up? Did he
5:45
Speaker 1: did he shoot it? Yeah? What did you do? Check
5:48
Speaker 1: this out? Okay, So he builds this twenty foot tower
5:51
Speaker 1: and it's in the woods east of town. And one
5:55
Speaker 1: city official this is my favorite part, and this is
5:57
Speaker 1: the least proven part of this whole Shenanigan uh. One
6:01
Speaker 1: city official said that Mallory recited an incantation aimed at
6:07
Speaker 1: ringing moisture from the air. Yeah. I didn't catch that detail.
6:12
Speaker 1: That's also it's, you know, hearsay from a city official,
6:16
Speaker 1: and we'll learn why they may not be the most
6:18
Speaker 1: um objective witnesses in the story. We know that he
6:23
Speaker 1: put these troughs on top of the tower, and that's
6:27
Speaker 1: where he put his mixture, Like he poured it into
6:29
Speaker 1: these troughs and ignited it, creating smoke that drifted upwards.
6:36
Speaker 1: And I was missing the delivery mechanism. And we talked
6:38
Speaker 1: about the makeup of what they think his concoction might
6:42
Speaker 1: have been. Well, We've just mentioned some of the operative
6:46
Speaker 1: ingredients in cloud seating, but we haven't. We haven't made
6:49
Speaker 1: any guesses about this. Do you think there was maybe gunpowder?
6:53
Speaker 1: There was, Yeah, that was speculated that it was gunpowder
6:55
Speaker 1: and maybe hydrogen um. But whatever was in it, apparently
6:59
Speaker 1: then the concoction it worked like like a lot, like
7:04
Speaker 1: a lot a lot. Yes, yes, whether by miracle or
7:08
Speaker 1: measurable quantitative science. It rained, It's poured. It was a
7:12
Speaker 1: biblical deluge. It occurred a few days. Were likely old
7:16
Speaker 1: men that snored right it uh. It occurred just a
7:20
Speaker 1: few days after Hatfield began his process. It was in
7:25
Speaker 1: January and early February of nineteen sixteen that thirty inches
7:30
Speaker 1: and estimated thirty inches of rain fell and Mission Valley flooded.
7:36
Speaker 1: The San Diego River overflowed, entire farms and homes and
7:41
Speaker 1: bridges and businesses were swept away. Can you picture the
7:45
Speaker 1: city council just watching this from their offices and first
7:49
Speaker 1: being like high fiving each other, and then just gradually
7:52
Speaker 1: the realization setting in. It's like, what have we done?
7:56
Speaker 1: And I just picture Mallory rubbing his hands together. Mr
8:00
Speaker 1: Burns kind of fashion doing like an evil villain, Like,
8:05
Speaker 1: is he a real life weather modification super villain or
8:08
Speaker 1: is he kind of like the Mickey Mouse Wizard and
8:11
Speaker 1: Fantasia who makes the you know animates that one mop
8:15
Speaker 1: You know, I like that a lot. I think I
8:17
Speaker 1: prefer to think of him as as the as the
8:18
Speaker 1: creepy guy watching from afar, as the chaos that he
8:22
Speaker 1: has unleashed devours the city. Uh, maybe he had a
8:25
Speaker 1: big grudge against the city council of San Diego. Maybe
8:29
Speaker 1: maybe his like high school sweetheart broke up with him
8:32
Speaker 1: and lived in San Diego. That's all pure speculation. I
8:35
Speaker 1: just I don't want people to be villains, so well,
8:39
Speaker 1: whatever his motivations, Telephone lines snapped and washed away, the
8:43
Speaker 1: roads and railroad tracks cracked under the pressure of all
8:46
Speaker 1: of this water. But this was just the beginning, right,
8:49
Speaker 1: There's more. It continued to just beat the hell out
8:52
Speaker 1: of drought parched county, which was I think in maxed
8:57
Speaker 1: out around thirty inches by the end of January, and
9:00
Speaker 1: the reservoir, you know, it was mission accomplished. The reservoir
9:03
Speaker 1: was full, but the lower Ote Reservoir couldn't contain all
9:07
Speaker 1: of this water, and the dam broke and the water
9:10
Speaker 1: is killed nearby residents. Estimates put that number it around
9:14
Speaker 1: between a dozen to fifty deaths, and farm animals and
9:18
Speaker 1: homes were destroyed. I mean, you know, yeah, there was
9:24
Speaker 1: a there was a real and genuine loss of life. Unfortunately, Uh,
9:30
Speaker 1: this quickly becomes obviously a disaster. But Mallory and you
9:37
Speaker 1: have to you have to wonder how he broached this
9:40
Speaker 1: topic of conversation. So about that money. Yeah, so Mallory
9:45
Speaker 1: walks out and walks up to city council and says, well,
9:50
Speaker 1: I uh, I think my work here is done. And uh,
9:55
Speaker 1: and they're saying, you know, people are dyeing and they're
9:57
Speaker 1: probably still like soaking wet themselves. In the city council
10:00
Speaker 1: people have to looked at him with like just dead eyes,
10:03
Speaker 1: just like, hey, now you got some nerve turning up here, buddy.
10:10
Speaker 1: So ordinarily, a lot of rain, right if you if
10:14
Speaker 1: you're just guessing, it's understandable how we could think a
10:17
Speaker 1: lot of rain is good for a drought stricken area.
10:20
Speaker 1: But the problem that occurs is that when there is
10:23
Speaker 1: a drought and the soil itself is very dry, it
10:28
Speaker 1: won't be able to absorb the rain exactly, and so
10:33
Speaker 1: this means that instead of going into the ground, it's
10:36
Speaker 1: going across the ground. And that's how those buildings end
10:39
Speaker 1: up washing away when the valley floods and the and
10:42
Speaker 1: the dams are broken, and this, you know, leads to
10:46
Speaker 1: the loss of human life. Without knowing the specifics of
10:50
Speaker 1: their conversation, it's fairly safe to say that the city
10:53
Speaker 1: council members said, what the hell are you thinking, you monster? No,
10:58
Speaker 1: we're not giving you in thousand dollars. Uh. And they
11:02
Speaker 1: thought that if they paid hat Field money for this,
11:07
Speaker 1: first off, they'd be ridden out of office on a
11:10
Speaker 1: rail at minimum. Well, they look like they co signed
11:13
Speaker 1: the whole thing. And then they were complicit and they
11:15
Speaker 1: essentially paid a dude to like destroy their town, which
11:18
Speaker 1: is which would probably go on their permanent council member record.
11:22
Speaker 1: That's going on your permanent record the time he tried
11:26
Speaker 1: to drown the city. That at the point of yeah,
11:29
Speaker 1: so hat Field notices that people are infuriated and looking
11:35
Speaker 1: for someone to blame, right, and he ditches town. He
11:39
Speaker 1: lights out for the territories on his own, and then
11:42
Speaker 1: he waits for the waters to settle, for the water
11:45
Speaker 1: level to decrease, and after the water level decreases. Get this.
11:50
Speaker 1: He tries to take San Diego to court and he says,
11:54
Speaker 1: I did what I said I would do. I should
11:57
Speaker 1: be paid for my services. And this court case goes on,
12:03
Speaker 1: It goes on for a year, it goes on for
12:05
Speaker 1: five years, it goes on for twenty years. Eventually it's
12:11
Speaker 1: dismissed and he never got a dime. Poor guy. It's
12:17
Speaker 1: tough to call. It's a tough call to make. Like
12:19
Speaker 1: I said, I'm still kind of picturing him cackling, you know,
12:24
Speaker 1: in his secret underground layer. Here's the weird part though,
12:28
Speaker 1: It's even more complicated when we think that, well, did
12:32
Speaker 1: he ruin his life because he underestimated the impact of
12:36
Speaker 1: his secret his secret concoction? Right? Well? Also, but like
12:43
Speaker 1: when I first saw this article, I was like, is
12:45
Speaker 1: that a thing? Is that is? You know, weather control?
12:49
Speaker 1: I thought I thought we couldn't control the weather. It is.
12:52
Speaker 1: It is absolutely a thing, but it is not by
12:55
Speaker 1: any means of precise science. I think that's that's where
12:58
Speaker 1: my brain kind of like hit a wall with this. Okay,
13:01
Speaker 1: so he had some stones, right, He came back to
13:04
Speaker 1: the city council and said, hey, where is my check
13:07
Speaker 1: and they laughed him out of the room. Court case
13:09
Speaker 1: drug on. Ultimately he got nothing, but he wasn't like
13:15
Speaker 1: lacking for work. I mean it's kind of a big deal.
13:17
Speaker 1: Even though the city council didn't pay him or necessarily
13:21
Speaker 1: openly co signed his activities, everyone knew that he was
13:25
Speaker 1: what he was doing. I mean, it was like, you know,
13:27
Speaker 1: kind of an odd thing to have happened, and I
13:30
Speaker 1: think it certainly turned some heads, right, and so his
13:33
Speaker 1: reputation got around and nations like Canada, Cuba, and even
13:39
Speaker 1: Honduras helped, you know, sought him out for his you know,
13:43
Speaker 1: supposed expertise um and so this you know, catastrophe ultimately
13:49
Speaker 1: made a name for him and kind of boosted his career.
13:52
Speaker 1: Uh though his usefulness kind of dwindled as water storage
13:59
Speaker 1: technology and more of a thing. Oh that's a good point. Yeah,
14:02
Speaker 1: I didn't consider that, because as we learn more about
14:07
Speaker 1: how to reuse, store, and collect water, maybe we don't
14:13
Speaker 1: need so many rainmakers in the world. But circumstances suggests
14:20
Speaker 1: that Hatfield probably made the made an error and probably
14:24
Speaker 1: wasn't taking in the droughts effect on the land and soil.
14:28
Speaker 1: He was probably so fixated on proving that his technology worked,
14:34
Speaker 1: that he didn't think about the ramifications of his actions.
14:37
Speaker 1: So that's what I'm saying that if you really think
14:39
Speaker 1: it was he totally made this happen, like no, no question. Yeah,
14:43
Speaker 1: I think I think no question. Furthermore, I would go
14:45
Speaker 1: on to say that Hatfield's work paved the way for
14:50
Speaker 1: cloud seeing technology, but do you think we should explore
14:53
Speaker 1: a little bit of his successors in this field? Absolutely?
14:58
Speaker 1: Like I said, this is all kind of like really
15:00
Speaker 1: fascinating to me, And before looking into this story, I
15:03
Speaker 1: really did not think this was something that was was
15:06
Speaker 1: achievable by by humans. So there's a lot of debate
15:10
Speaker 1: about this stuff, not just in Hatfield's time, but in
15:14
Speaker 1: the modern day and several decades. Before going back to
15:18
Speaker 1: the meteorologists we mentioned earlier, Ricketts says that clouds that
15:23
Speaker 1: are seated are getting about a five to increase in precipitation.
15:29
Speaker 1: So there precipitation potential is being enhanced, not necessarily magnified.
15:35
Speaker 1: You know, it's not going to be a hundred sure thing,
15:39
Speaker 1: but modern governments are using this technology. Uh, China creates
15:47
Speaker 1: about fifty five billion tons of what they would call
15:50
Speaker 1: artificial rain per year, and it costs about a hundred
15:54
Speaker 1: and sixty eight million dollars per year to do this
15:59
Speaker 1: at one point five billion one as of January twenties seventeen.
16:03
Speaker 1: We can use we being the human species, or I
16:06
Speaker 1: guess technically also you, Casey and myself. We can use
16:10
Speaker 1: cloud seating technology to influence the weather, but without being
16:17
Speaker 1: a meteorologist. I'm just reminded of every every sci fi
16:22
Speaker 1: horror movie where somebody pipes up and says, you're meddling
16:27
Speaker 1: with things you cannot possibly comprehend. The world's weather system
16:31
Speaker 1: is so complex and interconnected that I feel like if
16:34
Speaker 1: you if you influence something in one area, you're inevitably
16:39
Speaker 1: influencing things in the other parts of the world. China
16:45
Speaker 1: famously used cloud seating technology in the two thousand eight Olympics.
16:50
Speaker 1: I really did need to look into more of this stuff,
16:52
Speaker 1: because this is so mystified. Apparently it's just the only
16:55
Speaker 1: a thing and everybody knows about it except little me. No.
16:57
Speaker 1: I I don't think a lot of people know about
16:59
Speaker 1: it because it sounds like science fiction, that's I think
17:02
Speaker 1: what it is. And the fact that there is sort
17:04
Speaker 1: of like a gray area and like, how do we
17:06
Speaker 1: get specific results or how or just like in the
17:10
Speaker 1: case of this, this story completely jack everything all to hell.
17:18
Speaker 1: The US also is attempting cloud seating and still in California.
17:24
Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine, in Sacramento, California, some people
17:29
Speaker 1: had set up a tall metal platform with a crude
17:33
Speaker 1: furnace and silver iodide solution that scientists were hoping would
17:38
Speaker 1: provide relief from a drought. And we can only hope
17:42
Speaker 1: that they had more reasonable results there. But according to
17:47
Speaker 1: Arlen Huggins, who is a research scientist at the Desert
17:50
Speaker 1: Research Institute in Reno, what's going on in the US
17:55
Speaker 1: concerning this sort of stuff is tiny in comparison. The
18:00
Speaker 1: Chinese government has been working with cloud seating technology since
18:03
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty eight when it was given to them via
18:06
Speaker 1: the Russian government. That's fascinating. It's fascinating, but it's also
18:10
Speaker 1: kind of scary. You know. We also have experiments done
18:14
Speaker 1: by the US in foreign countries with weather modification. Do
18:18
Speaker 1: you think this could be potentially like used as a weapon, Absolutely, yeah,
18:22
Speaker 1: or attempted to right now. I don't. The thing about
18:26
Speaker 1: a weapon is you would want it to be able
18:28
Speaker 1: to be targeted. Is it like the movie Geo Storm
18:31
Speaker 1: that's coming out. Is Geo Store about that? Well, it's
18:34
Speaker 1: just about like a satellite that shoots the laser beam
18:36
Speaker 1: and makes the weather all crazy, and you know it
18:39
Speaker 1: turns you know, like California into the ice age and
18:42
Speaker 1: it looks terrible, but you know, kind of fun. Yeah,
18:45
Speaker 1: is it? Are you gonna see it? I don't really
18:47
Speaker 1: go out for the big you know, the big blocks. Yeah. Well,
18:50
Speaker 1: especially like the disaster movies, it just doesn't seem like
18:53
Speaker 1: fun to me. Although I really enjoyed Independence Day when
18:55
Speaker 1: I was a kid. Here, maybe this is a good
18:57
Speaker 1: place for us to wrap up. This is something I
18:59
Speaker 1: didn't know about. And when you talked about, when you
19:02
Speaker 1: asked whether whether whether weather modification there we Go could
19:07
Speaker 1: be used as a weapon, I thought, no, you know,
19:12
Speaker 1: that's that's ridiculous. But the US government did not. During
19:18
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven through nWo, they had a weather modification
19:24
Speaker 1: program in Southeast Asia called Operation Popeye. This was during
19:29
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War and they were attempting to extend the
19:34
Speaker 1: monsoon season over areas of the Ho Chi Minh Trail,
19:39
Speaker 1: and they were hoping that this would support the efforts
19:43
Speaker 1: of the US government in the area. Their objectives where
19:48
Speaker 1: to be softened road surfaces, caused landslides along roadways, wash
19:52
Speaker 1: out river crossings, and keep the soil saturated beyond the
19:57
Speaker 1: natural time span. Their slogan that the fifty four Weather
20:01
Speaker 1: Reconnaissance Squadron used was make mud not war. It's not
20:08
Speaker 1: as solid as that's still Yagi win from earlier Man,
20:11
Speaker 1: make mud not war. I think there is not a
20:13
Speaker 1: better place to wrap up than with that quote. However,
20:21
Speaker 1: we do have one more surprised and very happy to
20:26
Speaker 1: be with you here today man, because this is a
20:29
Speaker 1: little bit of a milestone for us. Yeah, you specifically
20:33
Speaker 1: you Man. I'm happy to be here with you two. Buddy,
20:36
Speaker 1: we're doing our first listener mail. In our first of
20:41
Speaker 1: two listener mails we received at the inbox ridiculous at
20:45
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot Com. We've got one coming from Zachary,
20:49
Speaker 1: he says Nolan Ben. My favorite thing that has been
20:51
Speaker 1: repeated in history is the crazy amount of times people
20:55
Speaker 1: have tried and failed to invade via the bak Dong
20:58
Speaker 1: River in Vietnam. Eight China failed to invade, and then
21:01
Speaker 1: in twelve eighty eight they tried and failed again. Both
21:05
Speaker 1: times they were easily beaten by Vietnamese forces placing spikes
21:08
Speaker 1: in the river during low tide and then watching Chinese
21:11
Speaker 1: forces getting destroyed. Why am I laughing? This sounds horrendous,
21:14
Speaker 1: but it's pretty smart and pretty ridiculous, um, watching Chinese
21:17
Speaker 1: forces getting destroyed and then tried coming through in high tide.
21:21
Speaker 1: As for my favorite Chinese food, it's probably the amazing
21:23
Speaker 1: potato beef and rice dish I had when I studied
21:26
Speaker 1: abroad in chin China. But I'm also a huge fan
21:30
Speaker 1: of orange chicken. Love the show, Zack Um. I think
21:34
Speaker 1: orange chicken was my pick. I think I said mall
21:36
Speaker 1: orange chicken, Um, But I'm also all about more traditional
21:39
Speaker 1: dishes like the amazing potato beef and rice dish mentioned
21:43
Speaker 1: here in this email. Thank you so much for writing
21:45
Speaker 1: in dude. Yeah, thanks so much, zach Um. When I
21:47
Speaker 1: first when I first brought up orange chicken, I was
21:50
Speaker 1: just sort of, uh, it was. It was just sort
21:53
Speaker 1: of picturing what would be on almost every Chinese menu
21:59
Speaker 1: in the West at least. And then yeah, and when
22:02
Speaker 1: you pointed out mall orange chicken, it inspired me. I
22:06
Speaker 1: got really close to grabbing some recently, but I was.
22:11
Speaker 1: I was way laid in New York, so I had
22:14
Speaker 1: some awesome hand pulled noodles. Did you go to Shans
22:17
Speaker 1: Famous Foods? No? No? If you heard of this trip, yeah, yeah,
22:20
Speaker 1: I've been there before. Listeners, if you ever in New York,
22:23
Speaker 1: if you live in New York, Shan's Famous Foods. They
22:25
Speaker 1: have these. The reason I brought it up in as
22:26
Speaker 1: the hand pulled noodles. Um, it is literally like in
22:29
Speaker 1: a bowl. It's like a single noodle, but it's insane,
22:32
Speaker 1: but it incorporates into this whole bowl of food and
22:34
Speaker 1: they do like one with ground lamb and the spices.
22:36
Speaker 1: It's just it's what what's the I think? But it's
22:39
Speaker 1: like kind of a different it's gotta it's it's almost
22:42
Speaker 1: Indian qualities. Yeah, it's got almost a I would want
22:45
Speaker 1: to say western region of the continent. Absolutely right, it's
22:50
Speaker 1: totally what it is bad. Uh. So, thank you so much, Zach,
22:54
Speaker 1: and I would love to hear more about your time
22:56
Speaker 1: studying abroad. In the meantime, we have a second listener
23:03
Speaker 1: mail from our friend Tom W who says, Bennell, Hello
23:07
Speaker 1: from the Sunny city Berlin, Germany. I just found your
23:11
Speaker 1: podcast ridiculous history. Really enjoyed it. Thank you. He says
23:15
Speaker 1: he's gonna put it on his favorite list. He has
23:18
Speaker 1: a comment on the subject of butter tax and Germany
23:21
Speaker 1: as follows. I'm retired here, says Tom in Berlin, and
23:25
Speaker 1: there are certain says I have experienced in German which
23:27
Speaker 1: I find very interesting. There's one saying that goes is
23:31
Speaker 1: alas butter and it translates to it's all in butter.
23:35
Speaker 1: I know it means it's all taken care of. But
23:37
Speaker 1: during Martin Luther's days, butter was transported in barrels and
23:40
Speaker 1: to avoid paying the full tax on the butter, porcelain
23:43
Speaker 1: was pushed into the butter when it was stopped for inspection.
23:46
Speaker 1: The explanation for the butter was that it was packing
23:48
Speaker 1: material for safe transport of the porcelain. So it's like, oh,
23:52
Speaker 1: you can't tax the butter. It's essentially like a styrofoam
23:57
Speaker 1: peanut thing. Uh. Speaking of the butter tax, as Tom,
24:00
Speaker 1: there are also some other strange food tricks. For example,
24:03
Speaker 1: a meatless Days, the church reclassified the beaver as a
24:06
Speaker 1: fish because the beaver swam. Therefore, beaver could also be
24:10
Speaker 1: eaten on meatless days with a clear conscience. People who
24:13
Speaker 1: had meat to eat started cooking meat on meatless days
24:16
Speaker 1: by wrapping the meat in dough. I believe they thought
24:19
Speaker 1: God could not see what was inside the dough. And this,
24:22
Speaker 1: says Tom, is how Rabbioli came about being popular. And
24:26
Speaker 1: Tom gets the prize for the most uses of the
24:29
Speaker 1: word meat in a single sentence. Uh. And Tom says
24:33
Speaker 1: one final thing. The monks dug thousands of ponds throughout
24:35
Speaker 1: Europe in order to raise carp to be sold to
24:37
Speaker 1: the people. These ponds still exist today. All the best, Tom,
24:41
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Right in Tom, I think I
24:44
Speaker 1: am going to launch It's all in butter as a
24:47
Speaker 1: catchphrase here in English and see how it goes. Wish
24:49
Speaker 1: me luck, you know what I say, Ben, don't tell
24:52
Speaker 1: me not to live just sitting putter, life's candy and
24:54
Speaker 1: the son's a ball of butter. Don't bring around a
24:57
Speaker 1: cloud to rain on mydiculous history parade. And this concludes
25:02
Speaker 1: our listener mail. But as my good friend Ben would say,
25:06
Speaker 1: but not our show, because we haven't been canceled yet.
25:09
Speaker 1: We're new. It's a new show. I think we're doing well.
25:11
Speaker 1: Thank you guys for listening and writing in and and
25:14
Speaker 1: not being too overly pedantic. I think we've only gotten
25:16
Speaker 1: one uh punchable email. Um, but no, just the one,
25:20
Speaker 1: just the one. Everything else everyone has been lovely and
25:22
Speaker 1: um you know you guys, if you like the show, um,
25:25
Speaker 1: do to us a solid Go to iTunes and write
25:28
Speaker 1: a review, give us like all the stars, and you know,
25:30
Speaker 1: say that we're engaging and enjoyable to listen to or
25:34
Speaker 1: or or whatever. Tell you, tell your friends we were
25:36
Speaker 1: good at jokes one time. The one time. Yeah, we
25:39
Speaker 1: we might get there one day. Uh. And in the meantime,
25:42
Speaker 1: while you're online, you can find us on Facebook. You
25:45
Speaker 1: can find us on Instagram, where you'll see all sorts
25:48
Speaker 1: of other equally ridiculous tidbits about human civilization. You can
25:52
Speaker 1: find our latest pony themed vision board on Pinterest. Not
25:57
Speaker 1: really you can. You can find our Lady re enactment
26:01
Speaker 1: Martin Luther's feces on four square? Is that a thing still?
26:07
Speaker 1: Four square? Is that? Is that a like a like
26:09
Speaker 1: a Yelp kind of thing? It was one of those.
26:11
Speaker 1: It was one of the check in yes services that
26:14
Speaker 1: just had you check in, which we recome with those
26:17
Speaker 1: about that drove me crazy. Do I just essentially want
26:21
Speaker 1: to tell every criminal on the planet that I'm not
26:23
Speaker 1: at my house? Ben still has a live journal active
26:27
Speaker 1: is one of the only remaining users, so you can
26:29
Speaker 1: check him out there um or you can just write
26:31
Speaker 1: us an email at ridiculous at how stuff works dot
26:34
Speaker 1: com and you know, maybe we'll read your email on
26:36
Speaker 1: the show. Well, do you still have any MySpace or
26:39
Speaker 1: friends serve pages? Up? Got a MySpace page? What do
26:42
Speaker 1: you think about the idea of whether modification or or
26:45
Speaker 1: cloud scene? You're so called rainmakers. Have you had any
26:49
Speaker 1: experience with this? You can contact us we all the
26:53
Speaker 1: social media my apartment only are just named, or you
26:56
Speaker 1: can write to us directly at ridiculous at house up
27:00
Speaker 1: works dot com. And most importantly, we really look forward
27:03
Speaker 1: to joining you again for the next episode of Ridiculous History.
27:08
Speaker 1: See there