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How Horrible Chocolate Helped Win World War II · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is the production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's give it up for the Man,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the myth, the legend, our super producer, Max, the candy Man, Williams.
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  Speaker 2: Who and the condom on and where Joey does always with?
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  Speaker 1: Uh? Well, can I say we're joined because I'm I'm
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  Speaker 1: anyway I've been. We've got the one and only nol
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the bagman Brown here.
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  Speaker 2: Oh you remember, of course, I just want to be
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: the man. It's I think it's just the most underappreciated
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: of the heist crew. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: You know, Rolls, we should talk hold the bag we
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: we should. It's a very powerful and crucial role. We
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: should talk about this. We've been into heist for quite
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: some time in our professional careers.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Together, and we have yet to pull one off.
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  Speaker 1: We have yet to uh, we have yet to have
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  Speaker 1: been caught in hest That's that's a little bit of
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  Speaker 1: pr spin. Yeah, we haven't. We haven't made a heist yet.
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  Speaker 1: But we have spent over the years a lot of
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: time discussing our roles in heist, and we've appointed several
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: of our colleagues in heist. I think we made uh.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I think we made our pal Jonathan Strickland aka the
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  Speaker 1: quist Or, aka Baby j the Patsy.
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  Speaker 2: Uh.
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  Speaker 1: No one tell him because that will mess up his
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  Speaker 1: role in the heist. But we're not talking about that today, Noel.
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  Speaker 1: We're talking about something crazy. We're talking about a role
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  Speaker 1: that chocolate played in war.
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  Speaker 2: Surprising role. Yeah, you're not really use think about chocolate
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  Speaker 2: and war and the same thought. But it turns out
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  Speaker 2: that the Hershey's Chocolate Company played a big role in
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  Speaker 2: the war effort, specifically in World War two. So let's
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  Speaker 2: talk about World War Two. On June sixth, nineteen forty four,
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  Speaker 2: the Old D Day took place whe one hundred and
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  Speaker 2: sixty thousand troops stormed the beaches of Normandy. You know,
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  Speaker 2: it was the big turning point in the war. And
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  Speaker 2: many of those soldiers, likely on their persons, would have
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  Speaker 2: been carrying a somewhat styled on Hershey's chocolate bar. So
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  Speaker 2: not like the ones that we know and tolerate, because
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  Speaker 2: let's be honest, the worst chocolate I mean, it's it's chocolate,
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  Speaker 2: it's barely chocolate.
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  Speaker 1: It's like the cult forty five of candy bars, but.
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  Speaker 2: It is a slice of history and you can't deny that.
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  Speaker 2: And apparently Hershey Park has some pretty fantastic roller coasters,
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  Speaker 2: so not going to throw them under the bustle. Gee,
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  Speaker 2: and I don't mind the like cookies and cream Hershey bar.
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  Speaker 2: Those are from just the standard Hershey bar. It's better
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  Speaker 2: in Europe. Bro. Yeah, that's probably true on us more.
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  Speaker 2: I'll take it sure on its own, No thanks, And
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  Speaker 2: I mean yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I love the town of Hershey. Back during the days
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  Speaker 1: of my very first podcast, you and our pal Casey
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  Speaker 1: Pegram please give me the sound cue if we got it, Uh,
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  Speaker 1: you and our palell Casey Pegram and the legendary Scott
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  Speaker 1: Benjamin took a long road trip participating in a road
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  Speaker 1: rally that found us in Hershey, Pennsylvania, where we saw
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  Speaker 1: this just absolutely stunning, astonishing car museum. For guy likes cars,
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  Speaker 1: that was like poetry and even if you don't like cars,
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  Speaker 1: it's a fascinating dip into American history.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Hershey the company is as a huge part
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  Speaker 2: of American history in terms of branding, in terms of
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  Speaker 2: their you know, advertising and marketing and all of that stuff,
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  Speaker 2: you know, selling chocolate to the masses. Hershey's Chocolate Company
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  Speaker 2: also made kind of a deal with Uncle Sam during
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  Speaker 2: World War Two. You talk about I think you talked
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  Speaker 2: about it on the show. We have done an episode
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  Speaker 2: on it, but I think it's time we do have
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  Speaker 2: one coming up. In stuff they don't want you to
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  Speaker 2: know about mrs Meals Ready to Eat, maybe not a
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  Speaker 2: whole episode. We've talked about go bags in the past,
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  Speaker 2: things that you need for preparing for a disaster, you know,
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  Speaker 2: for preparing to be in a situation where let's just say,
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  Speaker 2: conditions are not ideal for survival, like war, you know,
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  Speaker 2: and so you have these MREs, these meals ready to
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  Speaker 2: eat that are portable, they don't necessarily have to be
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  Speaker 2: heated up, and they need to supply you with the
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  Speaker 2: appropriate amount of calories to keep you going. And there
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  Speaker 2: were different ones. Ben, I'd love for you to speak
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  Speaker 2: a little bout it. There's like the K rations, the DC,
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  Speaker 2: the C rations, exactly. Once you talk a little bit
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  Speaker 2: about some MREs that you're aware of that were kind
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  Speaker 2: of historical, because that's the whole community of people that
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  Speaker 2: like collect these and even like still will eat them.
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  Speaker 2: I love I saw so YouTube videos of people like
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  Speaker 2: cracking open these yeah K rations from seventy five years
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  Speaker 2: ago and they'm like, ah, it's still pretty good.
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  Speaker 1: It's edible, it's food, I guess, you know, like Checker says,
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  Speaker 1: you got to eat the most honest tagline ever.
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  Speaker 2: But yeah, I've got.
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  Speaker 1: A bunch of MRIs actually just off screen here too.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, an army needs to feed itself and many,
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  Speaker 1: many conflicts throughout human history have been decided based on
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  Speaker 1: sustenance more so than whether or not the leaders had
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  Speaker 1: good military tactics. It's dependent upon whether the army or
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  Speaker 1: the military forces has the ability and the infrastructure to eat.
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  Speaker 1: We're traveling to D Day, the infamous date on June sixth,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen forty four, when more than one hundred and sixty
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  Speaker 1: thousand troops stormed the beaches of Normandy. It was a
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  Speaker 1: successful invasion. It was an absolute bloodbath. One thing that
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  Speaker 1: you might not know, folks, unless you happen to be
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  Speaker 1: there and have taken very good care of yourself and
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  Speaker 1: then listening to a podcast in twenty twenty three, one
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  Speaker 1: thing you may not know is that Hershey's chocolate bars
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  Speaker 1: played a role and Noel, you and I have talked
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  Speaker 1: about this. I can't even remember if it's on air
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  Speaker 1: at this point. Man, we've talked about amazing inventions along
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  Speaker 1: with our pal Matt Frederick, who is perhaps most famous
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  Speaker 1: for the Max with the Fact sound cube, that.
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  Speaker 2: Seeking in the Fons bags and peace Fall in Love,
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  Speaker 2: It's just for you right now here with the.
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  Speaker 1: Bat and many other things. Hershey's also played a role
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  Speaker 1: in the invention of the microwave, which we might get
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  Speaker 1: to at the end of this show, but it's a
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  Speaker 1: great one. So, like you said, they crack this bargain
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  Speaker 1: with the US military during World War Two and they
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  Speaker 1: say we're going to work with the US Army Quartermaster
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  Speaker 1: Corps to make a survival ration bar. This is called
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  Speaker 1: the d bar now modern day US MREs. As a
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  Speaker 1: matter of fact, the vast majority of Western military rations
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  Speaker 1: tend to contain some sort of treat for anyone who
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  Speaker 1: wants to go down this rabbit hole with US. I
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  Speaker 1: will go ahead and tell you that, just my opinion,
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  Speaker 1: the best military rations out right now are the French rcirs.
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  Speaker 1: They're kind of hard to find in the US. You
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  Speaker 1: can order them online, you'll pay a premium, but they,
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  Speaker 1: like the MREs, come with a treat. The last pack
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  Speaker 1: of MREs I opened had some M and ms, so
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  Speaker 1: watch hour.
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  Speaker 2: But the uh but yeah, it's that thin candy shell
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  Speaker 2: that keeps them, keeps them in such good condition.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, man, that's a good call. You're absolutely correct, noal,
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  Speaker 1: And it's also why you will see a lot of
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  Speaker 1: tortillas in MRIs because they keep well and they don't crumble,
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  Speaker 1: and they're easy to pack. So why chocolate, Okay, why
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  Speaker 1: would you put chocolate in a wartime situation? It has
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  Speaker 1: high calories, it's got caffeine, and it gives you that
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  Speaker 1: energy boost. Plus it's a bar, right, so it's it's handheld.
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  Speaker 1: You don't have to have any cutlery or any other
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  Speaker 1: implements to eat it or prepare it. You just peel
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  Speaker 1: it out of the wrapper, chomp, chomp, chop, and you're off.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think you mentioned it has caffeine. And
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  Speaker 2: it also has a history in military service. Like George Washington,
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  Speaker 2: for example, in the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War,
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  Speaker 2: would have eaten chocolate, probably in beverage form, which is
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  Speaker 2: still a thing that can be done with these chocolate
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  Speaker 2: rations because they're all cubed out and there's actually if
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  Speaker 2: you look at the text on some of these rations,
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  Speaker 2: these d rations, He'll say, can be crumbled into boiling
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  Speaker 2: water if wished to be consumed as a beverage. So
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  Speaker 2: you think about these MRIs, like you said, Ben, and
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  Speaker 2: you kind of mentioned they were edible at best, you know,
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  Speaker 2: because again they are going to be packed with certain
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  Speaker 2: preservatives that are going to be really good for the
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  Speaker 2: shelf life of them, but not necessarily super good for
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  Speaker 2: the flavor of them. So the first run of these
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  Speaker 2: bars from the Hershey's Chocolate Company go over really well.
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  Speaker 2: They actually received the Army Navy e Production Award in
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  Speaker 2: a ceremony that was held in nineteen forty two, and
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  Speaker 2: the Quartermaster General, a fellow by the name of Major
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  Speaker 2: General Gregory, came to the Hershey Company and presented Milton
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  Speaker 2: Hershey with this award of achievement. And the General had
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  Speaker 2: this to say of the Hershey Company's assistance in the
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  Speaker 2: war effort. The men and women of Hershey Chocolate Corporation
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  Speaker 2: have every reason to be proud of their great work
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  Speaker 2: in backing up our soldiers on the fighting fronts. Because, Ben,
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  Speaker 2: to your point, yeah, it's a treat, but it also
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  Speaker 2: in a pinch, it's got enough calories to keep you going.
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  Speaker 2: You know, this actually could mean the difference between life
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  Speaker 2: and death. Here's the thing though, okay, so oh, but
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  Speaker 2: by the way, of course, the corporation got a flag
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  Speaker 2: that could fly above their plants there in Hershey and
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  Speaker 2: lapel pins for every everyone gets a lapel pin, you know.
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  Speaker 2: And by the end of the war in nineteen forty five,
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  Speaker 2: they received a total of five of these awards. So
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  Speaker 2: this is the thing, Ben, and I know that you
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  Speaker 2: know this more than anybody. They made a ton of these.
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  Speaker 2: I think the figure that I saw is like half
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  Speaker 2: a billion of these chocolate bars or in production where
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  Speaker 2: we're you know, we're rolled out. But the problem at
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  Speaker 2: first was we need to figure out how to a
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  Speaker 2: make this this delectable treat not so treatly that a
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  Speaker 2: serviceman would just gobble it on down, right out the right,
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  Speaker 2: right out of the box, because then it might not
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  Speaker 2: come in handy during a time where it was crucial
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  Speaker 2: to have that caloric intake, you know, when you were
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  Speaker 2: really suffering from a deficit, if maybe you were holed up,
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  Speaker 2: you know, or pinned down or whatever in the jungle.
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  Speaker 2: So that was problem one right, they they had aquate
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  Speaker 2: make it taste crappier. What was problem too, Ben.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, So there's a there's a series of problems, a
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  Speaker 1: cavalcade of challenges. If we're being diplomatic. They're not designing
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  Speaker 1: this to taste delectable. They're designing it to be rugged
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  Speaker 1: to withstand a lot of things. So they're thinking in
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  Speaker 1: terms of caloric intake, and then this problem too, they're
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  Speaker 1: thinking in terms of temperature. They say, we'll figure out
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  Speaker 1: to taste stuff. At the end, what we need to
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  Speaker 1: do is make sure we build a thing that can
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  Speaker 1: feed people X amount of calories, and we also need
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  Speaker 1: to make sure that it can withstand terrible temperatures forty
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  Speaker 1: nine degrees celsius Ballpark for US in the US, that's
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  Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty degrees fahrenheit. And this is for
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  Speaker 1: the quarter master. The temperature and the caloric value are
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  Speaker 1: the two big things, because he needs to find an
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  Speaker 1: emergency ration. So they create this thing that's called the
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  Speaker 1: d ration. This is what Hershey Corporation initially comes up
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  Speaker 1: with from this request. If you have three of these
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  Speaker 1: d ration chocolate bars, then you can ingest one thousand,
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  Speaker 1: eight hundred calories in an emergency situation again with nothing else.
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  Speaker 1: You don't have to cook it, you don't have to
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  Speaker 1: put it in water. You can if you want to
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  Speaker 1: be kind of gross. But this is an elegant, efficacious
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  Speaker 1: answer to the problem and the idea. They even had
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  Speaker 1: instructions on how to eat it right, like you you're
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  Speaker 1: not supposed to gobble them all down all at once,
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  Speaker 1: Like what's that kid's name in Willy Wonka it gets
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  Speaker 1: sucking something.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, he just eats the chocolate river.
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  Speaker 1: You're right right, you can't eat him the way he does.
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  Speaker 2: You got it.
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  Speaker 1: You got a munch on him slowly. And this guy,
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  Speaker 1: this Quartermaster Paul Logan, who comes up with the idea.
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  Speaker 1: He's writing to Hershey's and the dude literally says they
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  Speaker 1: just need to taste quote a little bit better than
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  Speaker 1: a boiled potato.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and apparently, according to some sources, the boiled potato
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  Speaker 2: may have been preferable. But it's so funny, though, man,
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  Speaker 2: because I watched a video YouTube video. I mean, give
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  Speaker 2: this guy credit or credit? Are you talking about Mr Eats? Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: It must be. It must be because he actually had
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  Speaker 2: one of these and he unboxed it like did a
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  Speaker 2: whole unboxing kind of situation, and he ate it, and
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  Speaker 2: he was describing he described the flavor as being sort
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  Speaker 2: of a combination of like hot cocoa mix, sort of
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  Speaker 2: like a cocoa powder and in a hint, just a
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  Speaker 2: hint of cardboard. So it certainly doesn't sound like it
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  Speaker 2: was the most And he was also eating one that
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  Speaker 2: was seventy five years old, and they're really really dense, apparently,
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  Speaker 2: you know, when they were in circulation, it would be
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  Speaker 2: very difficult to bite, so that folks would have to
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  Speaker 2: actually shave off little pieces of it with like a knife,
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  Speaker 2: you know, to even get a taste of it. And then,
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  Speaker 2: like I said in this video, I'll get the get
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  Speaker 2: the name of it in a second. He actually makes
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  Speaker 2: hot cocoa out of one, because the text on the
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  Speaker 2: thing indicate that you can use a square of it
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  Speaker 2: and crush it up in boiling water, and it makes
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  Speaker 2: this kind of kind of gross, unadvertising looking chocolate soup.
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  Speaker 1: Is it the guy Steve nineteen eighty nine, MRI info?
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  Speaker 1: I follow him?
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  Speaker 2: Let's see it is Steve nineteen eighty nine, Mr Info, Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: he's the guy nineteen forty nine US Army Field ration
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  Speaker 2: D emergency MRI, and the text indeed reads it actually
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  Speaker 2: gives you the the ingredients, so it says chocolate, sugar, skim, milk, powder,
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  Speaker 2: cocoa fat, oat flour, which is actually the added ingredients
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  Speaker 2: that would not have been in mass produced you know,
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  Speaker 2: hershey chocolate bars, artificial flavoring. I guess that's their secret.
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  Speaker 2: Sauce zero point four or five milligrams of vitamin B
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  Speaker 2: thiamine hydrochloride six hundred calories, like you said, says to
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  Speaker 2: be eaten slowly in about a half hour, can be
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  Speaker 2: dissolved by crumbling into a couple of boiling water if
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  Speaker 2: desired as a beverage, which you kind of have to.
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  Speaker 1: It's almost like Hardtack for sailors, like easily that was
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  Speaker 1: to dilute it with water, and you nailed it.
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  Speaker 2: Man.
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  Speaker 1: The oat flours, why it's so dense. So go back
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  Speaker 1: going back to this guy Paul Logan again, I think
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  Speaker 1: he's kind of a pill. He says, you know, we
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  Speaker 1: want this to not be the kind of bar you
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  Speaker 1: would buy it a candy store able to be resilient.
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  Speaker 1: And the problem was Hershey's when they had this recipe,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the chocolate sugar, the cocoa fat instead of
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  Speaker 1: cocoa powder, skim milk powder instead of milk fat, that
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  Speaker 1: oat flour. They couldn't get the gunk of it to
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  Speaker 1: liquefy enough to get into standard chocolate bar molds, so
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  Speaker 1: they had to knead it into specially made molds. And
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  Speaker 1: not only did it not taste good, not only was
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  Speaker 1: it physically difficult to bite into, which which is nuts
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  Speaker 1: because your jaw is the strongest muscle in a human body.
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  Speaker 1: It also was no good no bento for your digestive system.
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  Speaker 1: Over time, soldiers hated this stuff so much they started
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: calling the d rats Hitler's secret weapon.
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  Speaker 2: Yep, that's right. You must have infiltrated the infiltrated the
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  Speaker 2: Hershey company. I guess No, No, these things weren't necessary, though.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: It's a good point, ben, because to eat it too
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  Speaker 2: quickly would be wasteful. It would not spread it out,
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  Speaker 2: you know, those calories as much as we're talking like,
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  Speaker 2: you know, really difficult situation. So if you eat it
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: all at once, it would not be good for that,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: and it would give you a pretty gnarly stomach ache.
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  Speaker 2: But you're right. It was not beloved by the servicemen
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  Speaker 2: of World War Two, and it was often just thrown
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: away because, as our YouTube friend Steve nineteen eighty nine
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  Speaker 2: MRI info points out, there could be some surface kind
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: of bubbling that actually, you know, he points it out,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: it sort of looks like almost like mold growing on
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: the service of it, but it's actually just sort of
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: a discoloration that comes from the shrink wrapping process or
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: the cellophane process, which was actually I believe what was
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: the company that was making the cellophane. It was DuPont
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  Speaker 2: I think anyway, there was like another giant American corporation
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  Speaker 2: that was making the cellphane. When you take it out,
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  Speaker 2: even if it was fresh, it would still sometimes have
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  Speaker 2: this kind of distort, this discoloration on the top. So
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  Speaker 2: there is a massive surplus of these because they were
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  Speaker 2: often either discarded or they just you know, were returned,
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  Speaker 2: you know. And so you're gonna see some of these
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  Speaker 2: floating around out there in MRI land if you're like
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  Speaker 2: in those circles.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and hershey is hearing the people they're trying to
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  Speaker 1: respond to this. By the end of World War two,
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  Speaker 1: they had made more than three billion ration bars overall,
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  Speaker 1: but they weren't all the same version. Later in the war,
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  Speaker 1: they introduced something called the tropical bar, which was specifically
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  Speaker 1: designed to be used in the Pacific, but it became
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  Speaker 1: a thing that everybody in the arm services. Heck, probably
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  Speaker 1: everybody in the US knew these bars taste terrible. On purpose.
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  Speaker 1: Probably the army goes back to Hershey and they say,
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  Speaker 1: all right, we've had enough. It's nineteen forty three at
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  Speaker 1: this point, and the company says, all right, we're going
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  Speaker 1: to try to make something that tastes better. This is
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  Speaker 1: where they make the tropical bar. It still didn't taste
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  Speaker 1: that great, and a lot of soldiers said, you know what,
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  Speaker 1: I get it.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: You tried.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: It was a big swing, but this chocolate is so
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: bad that it's not worth the calories. They were throwing
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: a bunch of this stuff away, and then they took
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: up a new practice. They would trade it to people.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: And you know, they would say, okay, we will trade
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: this chocolate over to other folks, because it's a ration
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: that you can tolerate if you're already sick with dysentery.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Right. Not only that, though, the rapper was different and
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: it looked a little more commercial, right, so they could
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: trick people sometimes into like giving them a trade if
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: they didn't know, you know.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Right, they thought it was a civilian one, right, tropical. Okay,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: So this chocolate bar thing, it continues to be a
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: part of the standard military rations through the wars in
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Korea and the fifties, through the Vietnam War. It doesn't
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: get discontinued until after Vietnam. And we got to talk
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: about this idea. So these guys are trying to for
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: a long time, they're trying to make sure this chocolate
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't melt, right, That's why they got the weird oat
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: flour in it.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Never everything.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: They want it to be in a solid, a solid,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: easily consumable form. But if you're a fan of chocolate,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: let's be honest, you like it when it's melty. It's
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: kind of like the rule with cheese. Melted cheese is
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: pretty great.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely, I mean, it has its place. You surely
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: don't want it melting in your pocket, you know, which
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: is why they made such efforts to make sure that
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: the melting point was higher for these rations. But melted
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: chocolate and is a great part of a recipe used
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: as a topping, you know, great for baking obviously, and
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: an important use of the chocolate. If you watch any
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: kind of great British baking show you know about like
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: tempering chocolate and all that stuff, it's a whole other
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: use for the stuff. And the question then becomes what
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: is the best, most effective, quickest way to do that thing.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and when we get to the idea of melting chocolate,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: we find there's another invention that was accidentally created due
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: to melting chocol We want to give a big, big
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: thanks to Percy Spencer explored this in a previous previous
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: show He's to do back in the day called Stuff
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: of Genius with Matt Frederick with our pal Paul Deckett
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: and several other folks including Christian Steinman's formerly of stuff
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: that they're blew your mind. Percy Spencer is the reason
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: we have the microwave of it, and chocolate is the
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: reason Percy came up with the microwave of it.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a junior engineer. He only had They
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: make it real clear on this article in New England
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Historicalsociety dot com that he only had a fifth grade education,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: but he actually he was no slouch. He earned patents
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: that were really important towards the war effort, you know,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: and also to you know, zapping yourself a nice stofer's
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: you know, in a pinch. So he was actually the
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: fourth person hired by a little company out of Cambridge,
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Massachusetts called Wraith. You may have heard of it now
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: much more known as a defense contractor, right Ben.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Raytheon and get their tentacles and a lot of pies.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: I would say, if you want to learn more about that,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: check out stuff. They don't want you to know. Raytheon
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: plays no okay role here. They're relatively innocuous.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, I say, what's most important is that this fellow
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: has a chocolate bar in his pocket, a Hershey's chocolate
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: bar in his pocket, and he's hanging out in the
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: lab like you do, and testing these things called magnetrons
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: in nineteen forty five at Raytheon and he walks by.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: It's a type of vacuum tube that creates and emits
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: microwaves that are used in radar systems. But he noticed
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: it's like so many of the stories of like incredible
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: inventions and Eureka moments are all about kind of happenstance.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: He walks by one of these tubes and he notices
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: that the candy bar in his pocket is getting a
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: little warm, he's trying to melt. So he's like, hmm,
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: let's explore this. So he goes to the lab in
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: the city of Waltham the next day and he takes
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: some popcorn and he notices a similar but much more
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: noisy effect. The colonels start to pop. So he houses
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: one of these magnatrons inside a metal box, just like
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: for his own purposes at this point, right then.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well you're getting situations. I mean, he's he's unfailingly curious.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: We should also say he has a he has a
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: lot of patents that he is accruing here. He's a
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: very very curious guy. But yeah, just for his own
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: what if giggles, he does a choose your own adventure move.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: He makes Maguyver level microwave we could call it. And
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: at first, you guys, he entirely uses this to reheat
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: his lunch at work.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: That's what I mean. Yeah, it's kind of like as
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: a lark, you know, so I made this thing. Yeah no,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know again, it's not oftentimes the job
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: of the inventor to see the big picture of the thing.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: It's more just someone who's curious about how science interacts
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: with stuff. And then it's the job of like marketers
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: and the whole nother department to figure out how to
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: put to slap a label on it and ship it
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: and you know, make gazillions of dollars, which did, of course,
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: inevitably happen with the old microwave oven. Here's my question
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: about it. Did he know if this was safe? Because
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: he's just like, takes this stuff, and it's ever know
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: if it's there.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: There is if you just very slightly tilt this axis
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: of this story, there is this guy in my co
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: words of stuff. He died three weeks later for a radiation.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Maybe I'm playing too much fall out right now,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: but I'm like reading this no, man.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: But I mean, you know, she paid him, she paid
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: him blood for her tremendous breakthroughs. Yeah, you don't. You
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: can't know what you don't know. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: whom I do not respect.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: No, yeah, that guy's a real dick. But no, it's true.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: I mean an oftentimes adventures are using themselves as guinea
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: pigs in their own experiments, you know, And I think
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: that's it can be noble, you know what I mean.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: It's certainly better than you know, human experimentation without people's consent,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: that's for sure.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Somebody's got to be first, right, somebody's got to be first.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: And Raytheon sees the advantage here, They see the potential,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: I should say, they patent the technology. They're sampling microwave
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: meals in the C suite, in the executive dining room,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: and soon they're selling something called the radar range, which
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: is fun to say. It's very expensive at the time.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: It's primarily used for commercial cookers. And we can go
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: on and on about the history of the microwave, but
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: that may be a story for another day. What you
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: need to know is that if that guy had not
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: liked chocolate, we might not have microwaves today. Chocolate has
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: many many other stories to tell. As Noel said, you
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: can tune into an upcoming conversation we're gonna have on
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know, to learn more
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: about it. But in the meantime, thank you chocolate for
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: helping the Allies win World War Two.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and hershey chocolate remains he even at its best,
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: not tasting super great again, I do stand by the
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: white chocolate took cookies and cream variety. But you know,
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: big ups to the company, you know, for for for
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: taking one from the tea. By the way, during this time,
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: we didn't mention this, but maybe it goes without saying.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Chocolate was much less available back home to regular folks. Yeah,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: they were rational and then they were They made, like
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: we said, I think we said that at some point
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: half a billion of these things. And if you if
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: you're looking around, and if you maybe go to military
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: surplus stores, uh, you may run into some of these.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: And like I said, the Mr Guy he ate it,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: and he certainly didn't lose his lunch on camera, and
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: you know, he said it was actually not that bad.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: He even shows the inside of it. You can see
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: how dense it is, but it also is a little
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: bit porous, yea, which maybe is a product of the age.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: But it almost looks like a little bit airy. You know,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of intrigued. I don't know, Ben, have you
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: ever eaten an ancient ration?
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Yes, not really recommended unless you specifically want that experience,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: But having hung with people who have tried those chocolate
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: bars too, I think for us in the modern day,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: it will taste less bad because we all know it's
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: supposed to taste horrific. But if you know, imagine your
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: young kid is World War two and you say, oh wow,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: a chocolate bar and you try to bite into it.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: So it's all about expectation, right, that's so much of
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: a fine dining in the first place. But you guys,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: of course, Noel Max, of course you are cordially invited
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: to come over to my place or hang out. Then
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: try MRIs whenever you would like. Because I got a
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: deal on some I basically got a pal I got
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: a palette of them.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys, I'm making these go bags and stuff.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: So thanks to thanks to that hookup who will probably
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: for legal purposes stay anonymous, and uh thank you again
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: thanks to thanks to chocolate.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: You know, I wonder how many people how to get
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: serious medical attention from eating these things.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I mean MRIs too.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: They already have.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: They still have the reputation of the modern day, you know,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: the it's got a bunch of street acronym meanings.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: One of my favorites is meal refusing to exit. Yes,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: oh boy, I get an exit like the boy. It's
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: a poop joke. We're doing poop jokes.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: We can vote, isn't that crazy? We can? We can
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: and we do this for a living. So how far
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: we have fallen? But huge thanks to the Hershey Corporation.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Uh to Max Williams, super producer extraordinaire, to Alex Williams
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: compose this theme.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Big big thanks to Jonathan Strickland aka the Quister, Big
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: big thanks to Ease, Jeffcoat, to our pals and research associates,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: doctor Z and Jeff B. Big thanks of course, do
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: you know into you once again?
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Next We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: you listen to your favorite shows.