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Fine Dining · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes the greatest institutions can come from the most unlikely places.
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  Speaker 1: The money sharing app Venmo wasn't created by a tech company,
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  Speaker 1: but by two musicians looking for an easier way to
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  Speaker 1: split costs for their band. Nintendo tried its hand at
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  Speaker 1: playing cards, taxis, and even instant rice before landing on
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  Speaker 1: video games, and in nineteen hundred, two French brothers created
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  Speaker 1: one of the greatest honors in fine dining, all to
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  Speaker 1: sell tires. In eighteen eighty eight, brothers Edward and Andre
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  Speaker 1: Michelin launched a business together, the Michelin entire Company. They
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  Speaker 1: helped to cash in on the new automobile industry that
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  Speaker 1: was just starting to take over France, but by nineteen
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  Speaker 1: hundred their sales had stalled. The issue wasn't their tires, though,
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  Speaker 1: it was the cars, or rather the lack thereof because
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  Speaker 1: cars were new and expensive. There were only three thousand
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  Speaker 1: on the road in France at the time, so the
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  Speaker 1: brothers knew that they had to expand their business, and
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  Speaker 1: to do so they would need to get more French
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  Speaker 1: people into cars and wearing out their tires. The brothers
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  Speaker 1: began publishing a free travel guide to France, which included
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  Speaker 1: instructions on car maintenance, maps, lists of mechanics and gas stations,
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  Speaker 1: and most importantly, recommendations for where to eat. The guide
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  Speaker 1: was immediately popular. There might have been only three thousand
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  Speaker 1: cars in France, but they were able to distribute over
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  Speaker 1: thirty five thousand copies of their first guide. They quickly
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  Speaker 1: published guides to other countries as well, like Belgium and Germany.
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  Speaker 1: But the part customer seemed to like the most was
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  Speaker 1: the dining recommendations. When people were out on the road
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  Speaker 1: in a new part of the country, they wanted to
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  Speaker 1: know what was good to eat and where, so the
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  Speaker 1: Michelin brothers decided to change the guide from a roadmap
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  Speaker 1: to a culinary compass. They hired a team of critics
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  Speaker 1: and food lovers to act as anonymous inspectors and sent
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  Speaker 1: them to restaurants across France. These secret judges started putting
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  Speaker 1: together a list of some of the best restaurants in
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  Speaker 1: the country, and the Michelin brothers decided that such great
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  Speaker 1: food deserved an award. In nineteen twenty six, the Michelin
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  Speaker 1: company began awarding stars to find dining restaurants. At first,
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  Speaker 1: it was just one star. It simply meant a very
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  Speaker 1: good restaurant in its category. Then in nineteen thirty one
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  Speaker 1: they expanded their system. One star was still a very
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  Speaker 1: good restaurant, two stars, though, meant that it was worth
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  Speaker 1: a detour, and three stars that was the best of all.
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  Speaker 1: Any place that got three stars was worth a special journey.
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  Speaker 1: To earn the stars, the restaurants were tested rigorously. Michelin
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  Speaker 1: would dispatch their anonymous inspectors multiple times, sending different people
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  Speaker 1: at different times of the day and on different days
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  Speaker 1: of the week. They were judging restaurants based on five
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  Speaker 1: categories ingredient quality, technical mastery, chef personality, value for money,
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  Speaker 1: and consistency and since then. The only time Michelin stopped
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  Speaker 1: publishing guides was during World War II when Germany occupied France. However,
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  Speaker 1: their older guides came in handy in a different way
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  Speaker 1: during the war. When the Allies stormed the beaches at
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  Speaker 1: Normandy in nineteen forty four, many soldiers carried a nineteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty nine edition of the Michelin, the reason why it
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  Speaker 1: had the most recent available road maps in France. Over
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  Speaker 1: the years, Michelin expanded its Star system around the world,
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  Speaker 1: beginning with England in nineteen seventy four. Today, Michelin publishes
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  Speaker 1: guides in nearly thirty countries across the globe. In nineteen
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  Speaker 1: ninety seven, recognizing the limited accessibility of some of the
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  Speaker 1: Michelin Star restorans, they added a new category, bib Gormond.
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  Speaker 1: A restaurant that earned a bib Gourmond designation meant that
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  Speaker 1: it had exceptionally good food at a moderate price. Over
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  Speaker 1: the decades, the pursuits of a Michelin Star became an
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  Speaker 1: all consuming quest for the world's top chefs. Receiving a
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  Speaker 1: star was also no guarantee of keeping one. Michelin inspected
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  Speaker 1: all of its designated restaurants annually, and many have been
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  Speaker 1: downgraded or lost their stars entirely if they failed to
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  Speaker 1: remain consistently excellent. As you'd imagine, some chefs have criticized
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  Speaker 1: the Michelin system for this, complaining that by getting a star,
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  Speaker 1: they were effectively locked into the menu items that earned it.
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  Speaker 1: This meant that they could be punished for innovating by
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  Speaker 1: losing their stars. Others have argued that Michelin had a
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  Speaker 1: bias for fine dining restaurants with tasting menus and elaborate plating,
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  Speaker 1: often overlooking the incredible food from restaurants who didn't fit
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  Speaker 1: that mold. Regardless of these objections, a Michelin star today
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  Speaker 1: is still usually an indicator of an amazing meal. They
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  Speaker 1: help people identify some of the best restaurants in the
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  Speaker 1: world and celebrate the chefs that make the dining experience unforgettable.
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  Speaker 1: They become such a trusted and desired marker of quality
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  Speaker 1: they're almost like the food world's version of a Nobel prize.
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  Speaker 1: Not bad for a tire company. Everyone knows that chess
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  Speaker 1: is an ancient game. The European version has been around
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  Speaker 1: for many hundreds of years. Earlier forms originated in the
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  Speaker 1: medieval Islamic world, before traveling west and becoming a crucial
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  Speaker 1: part of chivalric culture. Knights would play chess with each
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  Speaker 1: other to demonstrate their ability to think strategically and outmatch
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  Speaker 1: their opponent. The appeal of chess is one that remains
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  Speaker 1: constant into the present day. Its rules are complex but
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  Speaker 1: contain no hidden information. Once you know how all the
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  Speaker 1: pieces move, you've pretty much got everything you need to
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  Speaker 1: be a chess master. There's no hand of cards to
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  Speaker 1: hide behind, no fog of war, no power ups that
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  Speaker 1: make an experienced player more physically powerful on the board.
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  Speaker 1: Both players have the same pieces before them and the
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  Speaker 1: same layouts on the board. Chess is all about starting
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  Speaker 1: on equal footing and learning to anticipate how your opponent thinks. Now.
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  Speaker 1: The oldest mention of the European version of chess comes
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  Speaker 1: from a Spanish language book called The Book of Games.
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  Speaker 1: It was published way back in twelve eighty three as
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  Speaker 1: a synthesis of chess rules from Arabic sources, and it's
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  Speaker 1: books like these that show us the long cultural lineage
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  Speaker 1: of the game. But even they do not predate the
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  Speaker 1: oldest chess pieces ever found. In eighteen thirty one, on
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  Speaker 1: the coast of the Scottish Isle of Lewis, someone made
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  Speaker 1: a discovery that altered our perception of the game forever.
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  Speaker 1: It was a small trove of chess pieces which were
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  Speaker 1: carved of ivory and may have been as old as
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  Speaker 1: the year twelve hundred. These archaic figurines were exhibited for
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  Speaker 1: a while in Edinburgh, though some would find their way
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  Speaker 1: to the British Museum, where they would become the most
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  Speaker 1: iconic symbols of medieval chess. There are seventy nine pieces
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  Speaker 1: in all, eight kings, eight queens, sixteen bishops, fifteen knights,
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  Speaker 1: thirteen rooks, and nineteen ponds. Compared to an average chess
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  Speaker 1: set that holds thirty two pieces, that's quite a lot.
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  Speaker 1: No one really knows if these constitute at least one
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  Speaker 1: complete set or multiple incomplete sets that got mixed and
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  Speaker 1: matched over the years. The ivory their carved from is
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  Speaker 1: from walrus tusk and sperm whale teeth. At the time
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  Speaker 1: of the discovery, some had the trace stains of red
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  Speaker 1: mercury sulfide, implying that this was their original color before
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  Speaker 1: wear and tear reduced them to the color of aged ivory.
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  Speaker 1: As for how they wound up being buried in a
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  Speaker 1: beach on the Isle of Lewis, that's anyone's guests. Stories
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  Speaker 1: circulate about their origin to this day, but even the
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  Speaker 1: person who found the pieces is a mystery. The carving
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  Speaker 1: style suggests that they're Norwegian in origin, and the Isle
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  Speaker 1: of Lewis was owned by Norway in the twelfth century,
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  Speaker 1: so it's likely that they came from traveling traders on
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  Speaker 1: their way to northern Ireland. What happened between Norway and
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  Speaker 1: their intended owner is anyone's guess now. Local folklore naturally
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  Speaker 1: has the most colorful version of the events. A Gaelic
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  Speaker 1: legend says that the chess pieces were part of a
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  Speaker 1: horde of valuables stolen off of a ship in the
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  Speaker 1: seventeenth century. The sailor fled the scene on foot, buried
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  Speaker 1: the treasure, but was unable to return to collect his
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  Speaker 1: hidden prizes. He was captured and sentenced to death as
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  Speaker 1: a thief, leaving the horde of Chessman to wait until
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  Speaker 1: their discovery in eighteen thirty one. And weirdly, there's also
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  Speaker 1: at least one of these pieces that exists independent from
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  Speaker 1: the rest of the set. It sold at auction for
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  Speaker 1: over seven hundred thousand pounds, quite a sum for such
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  Speaker 1: a small piece of ancient ivory. It's impossible to predict
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  Speaker 1: what objects will and will not hold value in the future.
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  Speaker 1: Much can be said about the declining value of stamp
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  Speaker 1: collections and the fiasco that was the Beanie Baby's bubble.
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  Speaker 1: It honestly seems that the only reliable predictor of value
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  Speaker 1: is human interest, set proven by the Lewis chess pieces,
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  Speaker 1: because there are still chess fanatics today. Just like there
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  Speaker 1: we're back in medieval times. Few parts of social life
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  Speaker 1: have remained so consistent. If you learn how to play
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  Speaker 1: chess in our modern day, you are sharing a skill
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  Speaker 1: with the knights of the Middle Ages, which means that chivalry,
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  Speaker 1: in some ways at least isn't quite so dead after all.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.