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The Strange Story of Canadian Margarine Bootleggers · Ridiculous History

0:23
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors, lactose, tolerant and intolerant alike. Boy,
0:29
Speaker 1: do we have a story for you today. Hi, my
0:32
Speaker 1: name is Ben, my name is Nolan Ben. We try
0:34
Speaker 1: to stay tolerant on ridiculous history. True. Yeah, And I
0:38
Speaker 1: have a new nickname for you. It's I can't believe
0:40
Speaker 1: it's not Ben Bowling, but it is. Its Ben Bowling. Thanks.
0:43
Speaker 1: And and you're Noel Brown. And of course we are
0:47
Speaker 1: accompanied as always by our superproducer, Casey Pegrum. And today, no,
0:54
Speaker 1: we are exploring something that I have to be honest
0:57
Speaker 1: with you, I had no understand ending of before our
1:01
Speaker 1: research for this episode began. Yeah, we're talking about marjarine,
1:05
Speaker 1: and not just marjarine, the perennially tolerable uh spread butter substitute.
1:11
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe I have an Instagram. Um. I.
1:14
Speaker 1: My whole thing is, I've always been a little confused
1:16
Speaker 1: about what marjarine really is. But before we get to that,
1:21
Speaker 1: people cared a lot about marjarine back in the day.
1:24
Speaker 1: Oh they did, they did. Marjarine, it turns out, is
1:27
Speaker 1: the first domestic food to be regulated by the federal
1:30
Speaker 1: government in the United States. It has a very strange
1:33
Speaker 1: history on this continent that has been explored in very
1:38
Speaker 1: strange pseudo buttery depth. Uh. There's a great article by
1:43
Speaker 1: an author named Ruth Duprie called if It's Yellow, it
1:46
Speaker 1: Must be Butter. Marjarine regulation in North America since eighteen
1:50
Speaker 1: eighty six. And the reason that date is important is
1:54
Speaker 1: because it's not just a story of this substitute. It's
1:59
Speaker 1: a story of what eventually escalated into a continent wide
2:05
Speaker 1: war of sorts, a bit of a war. And you know,
2:07
Speaker 1: last episode we talked about a war involving eggs um.
2:11
Speaker 1: This episode, we're talking about a war involving various incarnations
2:17
Speaker 1: of animal parts and stuff that you can put on
2:19
Speaker 1: things to eat and cook with. That year you mentioned,
2:22
Speaker 1: the six is very important because that is the year that, uh,
2:27
Speaker 1: the United States passed the Marjarine Act, which severely limited
2:32
Speaker 1: It was kind of this cap off of what had
2:34
Speaker 1: already been a war on butter in the United States.
2:36
Speaker 1: We're talking about Canada today, but just to give a
2:38
Speaker 1: little bit of background, in the United States, big butter, right,
2:43
Speaker 1: kind of like big Brother, but more buttery. They fought
2:47
Speaker 1: tooth and nail against this substitute they were so protective
2:51
Speaker 1: of their industry that anything they saw is potentially stepping
2:54
Speaker 1: on their terrain. They had friends in high places and
2:58
Speaker 1: they made sure to quash that. And Margarine was persona
3:02
Speaker 1: non grad I was m enemy number one. Yes, and
3:05
Speaker 1: we are, ASNAL said, we are focusing on Canada for
3:09
Speaker 1: today's purposes. But we found so much fascinating, hilarious and
3:14
Speaker 1: wait for ridiculous history about butter and Margarine in the
3:18
Speaker 1: United States that we're going to have to throw some
3:21
Speaker 1: of these awesome quotes. And there's one I've been waiting
3:23
Speaker 1: to do, like all all week. Yes, and and lest
3:26
Speaker 1: we get ahead of ourselves, just know all of this
3:29
Speaker 1: is to set the stage for the demonization that did
3:33
Speaker 1: spread to spread to Canada. That's good because that year
3:38
Speaker 1: of when this act was passed in the United States
3:42
Speaker 1: was the same year that Canada banned marjarine completely, no
3:46
Speaker 1: its ands or but substitutes. I know we're skirting the
3:50
Speaker 1: family show a line here is fine. So we'd like
3:53
Speaker 1: to give you this quote from Governor Lucius Hubbard of Minnesota, who,
3:59
Speaker 1: in this time time bemoan the fact that the quote
4:03
Speaker 1: ingenuity of depraved human genius has culminated in the production
4:06
Speaker 1: of oleomargarine and it's kindred abominations. I have never heard
4:12
Speaker 1: a food stuff or group of food items referred to
4:16
Speaker 1: as abominations, kindred, or otherwise. This was such a big
4:20
Speaker 1: deal that other senators spoke out on the issue as well.
4:24
Speaker 1: Senator Joseph Quarrels of Wisconsin, also known as the dairy
4:29
Speaker 1: State UH, said that butter should come from the dairy,
4:33
Speaker 1: not the slaughterhouse. I want butter that has the natural
4:37
Speaker 1: aroma of life and health, said Senator Quarrels. I declined
4:41
Speaker 1: to accept as a substitute. Call fat matured under the
4:44
Speaker 1: chill of death, blended with vegetable oils and flavored by
4:47
Speaker 1: chemical tricks and the last one. The butter lobby in
4:50
Speaker 1: the United States had such an asta grind with margarine
4:54
Speaker 1: that they throughout all kinds of spurious, awful misinformation to
4:58
Speaker 1: completely malign this product, which we need to need to
5:01
Speaker 1: talk more about what the product actually is. But let
5:03
Speaker 1: me do this quote and then we'll see what you
5:05
Speaker 1: can do about that quote. They called it the slag
5:08
Speaker 1: of the butcher shop, a compound of diseased hogs and
5:11
Speaker 1: dead dogs, also implying that it contained quote the germs
5:17
Speaker 1: of cancer, that is from the War on Margarine from
5:19
Speaker 1: the Foundation for Economic Education, written by Adam Young. So, Ben,
5:26
Speaker 1: we need to take it. We need to pump the
5:28
Speaker 1: brakes a little bit before we we go to Newfoundland, Newfoundland, Canada.
5:33
Speaker 1: I have I think a solution. Yeah. Do you remember
5:37
Speaker 1: earlier when we were at that that shady thrift store
5:41
Speaker 1: and we found that butter dish. I think the cashier
5:44
Speaker 1: was right when they said that it had extraordinary ability.
5:47
Speaker 1: It was imbued with mystical properties. Yeah, which they kind
5:50
Speaker 1: of buried the lead on that, but we we still
5:52
Speaker 1: got it and we have it in the studio. Maybe
5:55
Speaker 1: maybe this can help us explain the difference between butter
5:58
Speaker 1: and margarine. You want to give it a give it
6:01
Speaker 1: a I don't know, knock it on the table, or
6:03
Speaker 1: give it a rub. There we go. Oh wait, wait,
6:08
Speaker 1: do you hear that? I don't. I don't know yet.
6:10
Speaker 1: It has him an added in post right right right,
6:13
Speaker 1: So are amazing acting skills aside, it turns out that
6:17
Speaker 1: this did work. I think we've summoned a factor, Genie,
6:21
Speaker 1: A fact Genie. You say, whoa, whoa, it's Lauren Vogel
6:24
Speaker 1: Bomb from food Stuff fame. I don't know why you
6:27
Speaker 1: guys get to be this surprised. I almost had the
6:30
Speaker 1: reason why magic mushrooms form in circles. I almost had
6:34
Speaker 1: fairy circles figured out why am I here? That may
6:38
Speaker 1: have been part of it, Lauren, You fairy magic carried
6:41
Speaker 1: you here, and it connected with our particular brand of
6:44
Speaker 1: fairy magic for a segment we would now like to
6:47
Speaker 1: forever refer to as the Fact Genie. The fact Genie
6:50
Speaker 1: agreed Lauren in your outside of Fact Genie life, you
6:55
Speaker 1: are one of the driving forces behind our favorite food show,
7:00
Speaker 1: food Stuff, also available for free via House of Works
7:02
Speaker 1: wherever you find your podcast. I I am that's very true.
7:05
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for that compliment. So you know,
7:09
Speaker 1: the mystical powers of the thrift Store universe must have
7:13
Speaker 1: known this and summoned to you on our behalf to
7:16
Speaker 1: answer the question, what's the difference between butter and Marjorie?
7:19
Speaker 1: Let's talk about this a little bit. You have a minute,
7:21
Speaker 1: is it okay? We'll leave to you. Sure, But according
7:24
Speaker 1: to this paper that just fell out of the Magical
7:27
Speaker 1: Butter Dish, you only get three questions and after that
7:30
Speaker 1: I can go seem fair. It did say that on
7:33
Speaker 1: the receipt. I should have mentioned that earlier. It's okay, ben,
7:36
Speaker 1: So okay, So I think that's our number one question.
7:41
Speaker 1: If we only get three, our first question is justice,
7:44
Speaker 1: and said, what is the difference between butter and margarine?
7:46
Speaker 1: Because they're different? Right? Sure? Okay, Well, butter is a
7:50
Speaker 1: concentration of the fatty and fat soluble parts of milk
7:54
Speaker 1: that have been churned and worked to press out water
7:56
Speaker 1: and link the molecules and its solid form. It's actually
7:58
Speaker 1: a crystallization of those fats. Butter. Fats start crystallizing around
8:02
Speaker 1: fifty degrees fahrenheit or ten degrees celsius. Traditionally, butter flavor
8:06
Speaker 1: is a waste product of non pathogenic or friendly lactic
8:10
Speaker 1: acid bacteria, which eat the sugars found in milk and
8:13
Speaker 1: excrete flavor. But these days most butter in America is
8:16
Speaker 1: flavored with lab produced compounds chemically identical to a couple
8:20
Speaker 1: of those bacterial byproducts. More bacteria poop kind of is
8:24
Speaker 1: that what? You're definitely bacteria poop? Yeah? Yeah, And that's
8:27
Speaker 1: pretty that's pretty weird when you think about it. I
8:29
Speaker 1: I personally find butter delicious and I'm starting to wonder
8:33
Speaker 1: if I want to learn the rest of this. But
8:35
Speaker 1: we're here. We have the butter dish. You're here, Uh,
8:38
Speaker 1: what's margarine? Margarine is oil that's been transmogrified so that
8:43
Speaker 1: it is solid at room temperature and then flavored and
8:46
Speaker 1: colored to resemble butter. Though originally made with animal fats,
8:50
Speaker 1: these days it's generally made with plant based oils that
8:53
Speaker 1: have been hydrogenated, fractionated, or interest rified. I understand several
8:58
Speaker 1: of those words. I do. It's almost like the way
9:00
Speaker 1: you are transmogrified to this place. Almost. Uh. They're all
9:04
Speaker 1: complicated ways of changing the chemical structure of a thing
9:07
Speaker 1: to change its freezing points. At that point, you can
9:10
Speaker 1: work the fats to create crystallization, the same as with
9:13
Speaker 1: butter fats. But you know, butter is as old as
9:16
Speaker 1: the hills, right, Lauren. I mean it's like, we can't
9:19
Speaker 1: really credit somebody with inventing butter, right, well, not one person,
9:23
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. But we can do that with Marjarine.
9:26
Speaker 1: Can't wait? Oh yeah, that was a French guy back. Yeah,
9:30
Speaker 1: Napoleon put out an all call in Napoleon put out
9:33
Speaker 1: an all call for a substitute. Correct, Yeah, because butter
9:36
Speaker 1: is so expensive that he was like, we need people
9:39
Speaker 1: to eat food, and this food is expensive to who
9:42
Speaker 1: has a cheaper alternative? And Nolan, I know a little
9:45
Speaker 1: bit about this, but to consult our expert for the
9:49
Speaker 1: pronunciation of Marjarine's inventor, I believe it's time for Casey
9:55
Speaker 1: on the case or what are we calling on? Is
9:57
Speaker 1: this a sub segment we're doing? Yeah, we're doing like
10:00
Speaker 1: segments and segments over here. Yeah, well on the case
10:03
Speaker 1: with Casey. Okay, we're still on the case, but we'll
10:07
Speaker 1: get there here he is, Wow, I guess people just
10:13
Speaker 1: appear here. Lauri's boy, serious history witchcraft here today? So
10:20
Speaker 1: what's what's what's the name of the lovely French scientists
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Speaker 1: who invented Marjarine? Al Right, the inventor of margarine pronounced
10:26
Speaker 1: in my best French accent is epolite mes moy is
10:31
Speaker 1: and Latin gentleman. That's been Casey on the Thank you
10:36
Speaker 1: so much for dropping by and letting us know, Casey
10:39
Speaker 1: how to pronounce the name of this French chemist who
10:42
Speaker 1: invented margarine? In did he did? He invented in eighteen
10:46
Speaker 1: sixty nine? Then as it turns out, without being a
10:48
Speaker 1: fact gene myself, I happen to know. That is the
10:50
Speaker 1: case he invented in eighteen sixty nine. And his recipe.
10:53
Speaker 1: If you guys don't know this, it will be interested
10:54
Speaker 1: to know was was as such he did finally meant
10:57
Speaker 1: to be fat, potassium, salt, fresh sheep stomach, raise the
11:00
Speaker 1: temperature to a d thirteen degrees, the PEPs in from
11:03
Speaker 1: the sheep's guts mixed with the beef to separate the
11:06
Speaker 1: fat from the cellulo tissue. They are put under pressure
11:09
Speaker 1: to separate those oils. Then milk and water was added,
11:12
Speaker 1: and a food coloring called a nato that was made
11:15
Speaker 1: from the seeds of the aquillote tree um. And it's
11:18
Speaker 1: interesting actually because today that is used in butter a
11:22
Speaker 1: lot of the times too, because people want that stuff
11:24
Speaker 1: to be super yellow so they know it's the real deal,
11:26
Speaker 1: even though it's it's not similar to salmon being pink
11:31
Speaker 1: right cartoonishly so, and cheddar cheese being orange. That was
11:34
Speaker 1: a free fact. We didn't ask for that. One counts.
11:37
Speaker 1: That counts. That counts is one of our three. I
11:38
Speaker 1: think we're we're we're going for the third one now,
11:40
Speaker 1: since we have but one more fact to ask for.
11:43
Speaker 1: I think the question that's on everybody's mind is, Lauren
11:46
Speaker 1: Vogel bomb, where can people hear more of you? Oh goodness.
11:49
Speaker 1: You can find me on food stuff and also on
11:51
Speaker 1: brain stuff that's brain stuff show dot com and shows
11:54
Speaker 1: dot how stuff works dot com slash food stuff. We're
11:57
Speaker 1: working on it. Also on social media. Look up food
12:00
Speaker 1: stuff or just google Lauren vocal Bam. I'm literally the
12:03
Speaker 1: only one on the planet. And I want to commend
12:04
Speaker 1: you for being such an effective fact Genie that we
12:07
Speaker 1: only really needed to Yeah, and one of them was
12:09
Speaker 1: like a free one kind of so well done, thank you,
12:13
Speaker 1: and we release you from your bonds, right we have
12:17
Speaker 1: to say that, I think, so go go be free, Genie. Well, hey,
12:26
Speaker 1: congratulations though, us man. That was not only our first
12:29
Speaker 1: fact Genie segment, but we had a segment in a segment.
12:31
Speaker 1: You know, it's not every day you get to do
12:33
Speaker 1: a segment within a segment. I'm really glad though, that
12:35
Speaker 1: we didn't like open up some sort of portal to
12:37
Speaker 1: Hell with that disruption of the universe. Yeah, that's true.
12:41
Speaker 1: We we were pushing the envelope just a bit. But
12:45
Speaker 1: I believe the gambit was worth it because we learned
12:49
Speaker 1: a lot in a very short span of time, and
12:51
Speaker 1: we have set the broad brush context of the great
12:55
Speaker 1: painting that is the Margarine butter War. So we established
12:59
Speaker 1: that this margarine is French in origin and it is
13:04
Speaker 1: designed at the time to fulfill a need because not everyone,
13:09
Speaker 1: for one reason or another, would have access to butter,
13:13
Speaker 1: despite the fact that it was often considered a staple. Yeah,
13:16
Speaker 1: even in our story about Martin Luther and his relationship
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Speaker 1: with butter and indulgences in the Roman Catholic Church, butter
13:22
Speaker 1: was kind of considered to be uh, not only a staple,
13:26
Speaker 1: but a sign of opulence in some way. But notice
13:29
Speaker 1: that we said for various reasons people might not be
13:33
Speaker 1: able to access butter. It could be uh, it could
13:37
Speaker 1: be related to a a social thing such as income
13:41
Speaker 1: or the influence right of an institution like the Catholic Church.
13:45
Speaker 1: It also could just be a matter of climate. And
13:48
Speaker 1: that's where we journey to Newfoundland's right. In a paper
13:52
Speaker 1: called Margarine in Newfoundland History by Wealth H. Hike from
13:56
Speaker 1: Newfoundland and Studies to UM, he talks about the reason
14:01
Speaker 1: that marjarine trade popped up in Newfoundland specifically was because
14:05
Speaker 1: the climate is just not conducive to supporting a dairy
14:09
Speaker 1: industry um cows they need a stable temperature nine months
14:15
Speaker 1: of the year um. The costs were prohibitive for that region,
14:19
Speaker 1: and because of that, there were no significant industrialized dairy
14:24
Speaker 1: interests in Newfoundland at all. Right, so butter had to
14:28
Speaker 1: be imported, and this created a market demand for something
14:33
Speaker 1: to fill the gap, because importing something will automatically make
14:36
Speaker 1: it more expensive in most cases. And this is where
14:40
Speaker 1: people began to manufacture marjarine. Well, they heard tell, they
14:44
Speaker 1: heard tell Ben of our French inventor, whose name I've
14:49
Speaker 1: already forgotten how to pronounce correctly. But you can backtrack
14:52
Speaker 1: to the casey on the case segment and you'll hear
14:54
Speaker 1: all about it there. And it was blowing up in
14:56
Speaker 1: the United States, and it went by the name of buttering.
15:00
Speaker 1: At the time. It wasn't even called Oleo margarine there was,
15:02
Speaker 1: Buttering was kind of the name that was being thrown around,
15:05
Speaker 1: and they realized, Wow, we might have something on our
15:08
Speaker 1: hands here that we can use as a butter substitute. Yes,
15:12
Speaker 1: this is interesting historically because we already began to see
15:15
Speaker 1: in sources of the time and contemporary sources the growing controversy.
15:21
Speaker 1: The Daily Telegraph of London ran an article on misleading
15:25
Speaker 1: packaging of buttering that the Newfoundlander paper in Newfoundland, oddly enough,
15:30
Speaker 1: also carried in August of eighteen eighty three, and the
15:36
Speaker 1: people of Newfoundland in general began concluding that this much
15:40
Speaker 1: cheaper substitute, this buttering, could be beneficial, especially for the
15:44
Speaker 1: poorer segments of society. So a merchant firm named Harvey
15:50
Speaker 1: and Company begins to manufacture margarine or buttering in the
15:55
Speaker 1: colony in eighteen eighty three. And not to get too
15:58
Speaker 1: into the weeds with the history of the production of
16:01
Speaker 1: margarine in the region, but at the end of a
16:04
Speaker 1: handful of years there were three primary margarine interests um
16:09
Speaker 1: and one of them, I think, hilariously enough, was called
16:11
Speaker 1: the Newfoundland Butter Company. But they just made marjarine. It's
16:14
Speaker 1: it's sort of like the Egg Company from our earlier episode.
16:17
Speaker 1: What was that the Pacific Egg Company of the Pacific
16:19
Speaker 1: Egg Company, But at least they had eggs the mark
16:22
Speaker 1: the Newfoundland Butter Company and made no butter, right, that
16:24
Speaker 1: is that is true. They were making margarine and the
16:28
Speaker 1: thing that was amazing about this for someone of lower
16:31
Speaker 1: income in Newfoundland was that since marjarine could be made
16:36
Speaker 1: with a combination of vegetable, mineral, and animal oils, most
16:40
Speaker 1: notably seal oil at this time, I know, that's that's
16:43
Speaker 1: a rough one. The end result was that margarine was
16:46
Speaker 1: incredibly cheaper to produce, and these costs trickled down to
16:53
Speaker 1: the consumer and it looked like it might be a
16:56
Speaker 1: win win for almost everybody in society. Almost almost, because
17:02
Speaker 1: there was one group that very very very much opposed
17:07
Speaker 1: the idea of cheap butter for the people. Butter substitute
17:10
Speaker 1: big butter, big Canadian butter. Because at the time we
17:14
Speaker 1: haven't mentioned this, Newfoundland wasn't part of Canada. No, it's colony, colony.
17:19
Speaker 1: It was an English colony. And the English, you know,
17:22
Speaker 1: they were a little more las fair about this production
17:25
Speaker 1: of margin. They didn't see it as a threat. There
17:27
Speaker 1: wasn't a whole lot of exporting they were. They were
17:29
Speaker 1: doing it mainly to satisfy their own needs. But here's
17:32
Speaker 1: the thing. Then, the people in Canada, even before Newfoundland
17:35
Speaker 1: was incorporated into Canada, they wanted that margarine. Yeah, yeah,
17:40
Speaker 1: they wandered to margarine, and you can easily see why.
17:45
Speaker 1: Although you know, there there are gonna be many many people,
17:48
Speaker 1: uh some of us in the studio today, folks who
17:52
Speaker 1: will argue that butter is superior in terms of taste
17:55
Speaker 1: to margarine. There's still many people who say, hey, you
17:58
Speaker 1: know what, it's good enough and it's not breaking the bank.
18:01
Speaker 1: The thing about it, too, is there were like health
18:04
Speaker 1: considerations too, right, because these people that in Newfoundland have
18:08
Speaker 1: become such loyal customers of this food stuff. There were
18:12
Speaker 1: studies that went around in the Newfoundland region that showed
18:15
Speaker 1: that folks there were quite deficient in some vitamins, vitamins
18:19
Speaker 1: A and D, and they also found that margarine was
18:22
Speaker 1: deficient in vitamins A and D. And you know, the
18:25
Speaker 1: health benefits of marjarine versus butter have largely been called
18:29
Speaker 1: into question because of things like saturated fat transfers transpat
18:32
Speaker 1: which both have so you're supposed to use both of
18:35
Speaker 1: them sparingly, right, But at this time, you know what
18:38
Speaker 1: big Marjarine did in Newfoundland, they did a lot like
18:40
Speaker 1: our pals that made the vitamin donuts. Yeah, they just
18:44
Speaker 1: fortified that biz. Yeah, and they wanted to keep the
18:47
Speaker 1: consumers incentivized to eat this. So now they could say,
18:50
Speaker 1: not only is this more affordable than butter, but this
18:55
Speaker 1: is also healthy or it's you know, fortified with for
18:59
Speaker 1: any jamin doughnut listeners out there, so everyone could afford it.
19:03
Speaker 1: Everyone got a little bit more vitamin A and d
19:07
Speaker 1: intake for PEP for pep for for vigor. Right at
19:12
Speaker 1: the time, as we said, Newfoundland was still a British colony,
19:15
Speaker 1: but in nineteen forty nine it became part of Canada,
19:20
Speaker 1: so that eighteen eighties six law banning marjarine in Canada
19:24
Speaker 1: didn't apply to Newfoundland at the time because it was
19:27
Speaker 1: a colony. And we're talking about the idea of bootlegging margarine.
19:31
Speaker 1: Maybe that's a little loaded, but it's interesting because when
19:35
Speaker 1: we say bootlegging, we're talking about bootlegging in the same
19:37
Speaker 1: way that during Prohibition people would uh smuggle illegal booze.
19:43
Speaker 1: They were making it themselves in stills or whatever. Right,
19:47
Speaker 1: the marjarine thing was happening at the very same time
19:51
Speaker 1: people were smuggling it from Newfoundland into the rest of Canada.
19:55
Speaker 1: Because in Newfoundland, even when it got incorporated into the
19:58
Speaker 1: Dominion of Canada, uh, they were still allowed to make
20:01
Speaker 1: the stuff, they couldn't ship it anywhere else throughout the
20:04
Speaker 1: entire country. It was totally isolated to Newfoundland, which is
20:08
Speaker 1: a little bit isolated in and of itself. It's kind
20:10
Speaker 1: of an island, right, yeah, it's it's it is a
20:13
Speaker 1: little bit isolated. I would I I would argue from
20:16
Speaker 1: our perspective down here, Canada's Parliament past federal legislation in nine,
20:23
Speaker 1: the same year that Newfoundland became part of Canada, to
20:26
Speaker 1: prohibit the manufacturing sale of margarine anywhere in Canada except
20:30
Speaker 1: for two places, Newfoundland and Labrador, because they both had
20:34
Speaker 1: this pre existing industrial base for the production of margarine, right.
20:38
Speaker 1: The other one of Labrador being all the retrievers right yes, yes,
20:42
Speaker 1: the famous home of all retrievers. That's where they come from. Um.
20:46
Speaker 1: But this is the thing, the whole um joining up
20:48
Speaker 1: Newfoundland with Canada. There are some caveats, ben because big
20:53
Speaker 1: Butter put its big giant buttery foot down and influenced
20:58
Speaker 1: lawmakers to the point we got this delightful little section
21:02
Speaker 1: from the nineties nine British North American Act, Section forty six.
21:06
Speaker 1: As it happens, OLEO margarine or margarine may be manufactured
21:10
Speaker 1: or sold in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador after
21:13
Speaker 1: the date of the Union, and the Parliament of Canada
21:16
Speaker 1: shall not prohibit or restrict such manufacture or sale accepted
21:20
Speaker 1: the request of the legislature of the Province of Newfoundland.
21:23
Speaker 1: But nothing in this term shall affect the power of
21:26
Speaker 1: the Parliament of Canada to require compliance with standards of
21:29
Speaker 1: quality acceptable throughout Canada. That's the set up, and now
21:34
Speaker 1: we'd like to Now we'd like to share where the
21:36
Speaker 1: rubber hits the road legislatively big time number two, unless
21:40
Speaker 1: the Parliament of Canada otherwise provides, or unless the sale
21:43
Speaker 1: and manufacture in and the interprovincial movement between all provinces
21:47
Speaker 1: of Canada other than Newfoundland and Labrador of oleo, margarine
21:51
Speaker 1: and margarine. It's interesting they call them two different things.
21:53
Speaker 1: We did not realize that was the case. Uh is lawful.
21:56
Speaker 1: Under the laws of Canada. Oleomargin or margarine shall not
21:59
Speaker 1: be sent, shipped, brought, or carried from the Province of
22:02
Speaker 1: Newfoundland and Labrador into any other province of Canada. So
22:07
Speaker 1: there you got the black market marjarine trade popping up overnight.
22:12
Speaker 1: It wasn't overnight though, because it was already happening, right. Yeah,
22:15
Speaker 1: It wasn't like all of a sudden Canada was like,
22:17
Speaker 1: what is this magical marjarine? They knew what it was.
22:19
Speaker 1: You could get to Newfoundland. People knew each other. They
22:22
Speaker 1: you know, they talked. But the dairy industry does have
22:25
Speaker 1: profound influence at this point, and they didn't just wage
22:29
Speaker 1: the war in the halls of parliament. They also waged
22:32
Speaker 1: the war in the public domain. It's interesting. In the
22:37
Speaker 1: Dupre paper, Uh, the author says that in both the
22:41
Speaker 1: United States and Canada, the people who were prosecuting against
22:45
Speaker 1: margarine argued that they were acting in the public interest.
22:49
Speaker 1: In one case, and this goes back to that quotation
22:51
Speaker 1: you had earlier, they would say that they were protecting
22:55
Speaker 1: consumers from a product that was injurious to health, or
22:59
Speaker 1: they were protecting people from the fraudulent sale of margarine
23:03
Speaker 1: as butter. And that is the thing that we see
23:05
Speaker 1: in the United States side of this story as well.
23:09
Speaker 1: In a story from the New York Times from eighteen
23:12
Speaker 1: seventy seven, we have this quote. Christopher Strauss, a grocer
23:16
Speaker 1: of number sixteen Second Avenue, was arraigned before Justice Murray
23:19
Speaker 1: in the fifty seven Street Police court yesterday charged with
23:22
Speaker 1: selling OLEO margarine representing it to be pure butter. S A. Churchill,
23:26
Speaker 1: a former manufacturer of the artificial article and who was
23:29
Speaker 1: now employed as a detective by the Butter and Cheese Exchange,
23:33
Speaker 1: appeared as complaint. Yeah, and this this is strange because
23:37
Speaker 1: it turns out those accusations of fraud are pretty well founded.
23:42
Speaker 1: Margarine was often sold as buttered because both could be
23:45
Speaker 1: sold in bulk, and it was virtually impossible to distinguish
23:49
Speaker 1: between the two by sensory examination, you know, So like
23:52
Speaker 1: if you if you and I just saw blocks of
23:56
Speaker 1: marginal one side, butter on one side, and they were
23:58
Speaker 1: made to look relatively I enticle, we wouldn't be able
24:02
Speaker 1: to tell without a little bit more in depth investigation.
24:06
Speaker 1: And there's a there's a weird thing here because from
24:10
Speaker 1: its inception or a multiple times throughout history, butter was
24:15
Speaker 1: regulated the same way you would regulate the so called
24:18
Speaker 1: vice products like tobacco or alcohol of some sort, which
24:23
Speaker 1: is strange because it's not going to affect you mentally, Right,
24:27
Speaker 1: You're not going to get a butter buzz, or maybe
24:30
Speaker 1: you and I just haven't eaten enough butter and I
24:33
Speaker 1: love the phrase butter buzz dude. I mean sometimes I
24:36
Speaker 1: just take a bite out of a stick of butter,
24:39
Speaker 1: just just to feel that euphoric rush, some a dopamine sensors.
24:43
Speaker 1: I saw the guy at a baseball game casually eating
24:47
Speaker 1: a stick of butter. That's a fair food. They deep
24:49
Speaker 1: fry a stick of butter. They'll deep fry anything at
24:51
Speaker 1: a fair now, and a stick of butter. It's apparently
24:53
Speaker 1: the wave of the future. It's crazy. It looked like
24:55
Speaker 1: he bought it from home, Like he had the foil
24:58
Speaker 1: and it was unwrapping it and he just are to
25:00
Speaker 1: eating it. It's a brave new world, my friend. It's
25:02
Speaker 1: a brave new world, Knoll. And this was a brave
25:06
Speaker 1: new trade front right because there's market demand. Big Dairy
25:12
Speaker 1: is fighting tooth and nail against this. And as as
25:17
Speaker 1: we had said, I I think we'd be remiss if
25:19
Speaker 1: we didn't spend just a little bit of time on
25:21
Speaker 1: the United States version of this conflict totally, man, I
25:25
Speaker 1: think we've drawn the parallels between the two situations. How
25:28
Speaker 1: you know, the American story definitely influenced the Canadian um
25:32
Speaker 1: because all this was kind of happening around the same time.
25:34
Speaker 1: But there are some very interesting little fact nuggets from
25:37
Speaker 1: the American side that we have not mentioned yet. Yes,
25:41
Speaker 1: we owe it to everyone, ourselves included, to dive a
25:45
Speaker 1: little deeper into the butter churn of big dairy in
25:49
Speaker 1: the United States, so in the Midwest, in Wisconsin specifically,
25:54
Speaker 1: in other states like Minnesota and such. This was a
25:57
Speaker 1: tremendous deal because dairy was a huge, hugely influential industry, right,
26:02
Speaker 1: and it provided a lot of jobs. It was super
26:05
Speaker 1: crucial to the economy. And the governors and the senators
26:09
Speaker 1: and the representatives understood this, and they were all kind
26:13
Speaker 1: of many of them were running to be on the
26:15
Speaker 1: side of of butter and dairy right and to fight
26:19
Speaker 1: the perfidious threat of margarine, especially if they were representing
26:23
Speaker 1: constituents who had those jobs and depended on those jobs.
26:26
Speaker 1: I'm sure there was also some some palm greasing but
26:30
Speaker 1: buttering of palms going on, but you know, at the
26:33
Speaker 1: end of the day, they were looking out for their constituents,
26:36
Speaker 1: possibly a little too vehemently. But what happened. Yeah, there
26:39
Speaker 1: was a fantastic example we found in a national geographic
26:43
Speaker 1: account written by Rebecca Rupp called the Butter Wars when
26:46
Speaker 1: margarine was pink. That's a little spoiler for you later too,
26:50
Speaker 1: And it concerns a Wisconsin taste test in nineteen fifty
26:55
Speaker 1: five in which senators were blindfolded and they were It's
26:58
Speaker 1: sort of like the Pepsi challenge. If anybody remembers that
27:01
Speaker 1: from what was that the nineties or so? Yeah, yeah,
27:04
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, an when Michael Jackson set
27:06
Speaker 1: his hair on fire. Taste of a new Generation. And
27:10
Speaker 1: the reason we bring this up is because the arrangement
27:13
Speaker 1: was essentially the same. These senators were blindfolded and they
27:17
Speaker 1: had to taste butter and they had to taste margarine
27:20
Speaker 1: and tell the difference between the two, which, of course,
27:23
Speaker 1: they all claimed that they could do, no question, And
27:26
Speaker 1: most of these folks were not fooled, except famously, a
27:31
Speaker 1: guy named Gordon rose Lip. Yeah. He was extremely pro butter,
27:36
Speaker 1: a huge advocate of butter, and he tasted it and
27:40
Speaker 1: he got it wrong. He preferred the margarine consistently. He
27:43
Speaker 1: told the people who were testing him, who, of course
27:46
Speaker 1: we're not wearing blindfolds, that they were wrong and they
27:49
Speaker 1: must have mixed it up because he knew his butter
27:52
Speaker 1: by gum. Yeah, there is, there is yes, because it
27:57
Speaker 1: turned out that his why have been worried about her
28:01
Speaker 1: husband's health, specifically his heart, and for years she had
28:05
Speaker 1: been sneaking this guy yellow margarine, which was illegal at
28:10
Speaker 1: the time, at dinner, at lunch, whenever they ate at
28:14
Speaker 1: the house. So he literally had no idea what butter
28:21
Speaker 1: was supposed to taste like. You must have forgotten. Yeah,
28:24
Speaker 1: I bet he didn't want to get that out though,
28:25
Speaker 1: because that would have been a pretty soaring co sign
28:28
Speaker 1: on how convincing that butter substitute is. Oh, and we
28:37
Speaker 1: do want to add one thing here, one point of order, uh,
28:41
Speaker 1: just while it's on our minds. We earlier said that
28:44
Speaker 1: the Canadian prohibition was from eighteen eighty six until nine,
28:50
Speaker 1: when they allowed at Newfoundland and Labrador. There was a
28:53
Speaker 1: brief shining moment from margarine during that time, and that
28:57
Speaker 1: was between nineteen seventeen and nineteen twenty two when the
29:01
Speaker 1: band was lifted due to the War Measure Act. Just
29:04
Speaker 1: scarcity of of food stuts in general and stuff. Yeah, well,
29:08
Speaker 1: well we'll give you a pass. But then it was
29:10
Speaker 1: back in full effect. But what's what's the deal with
29:12
Speaker 1: margarine in Canada? Now? Then? It's interesting that we get
29:16
Speaker 1: to this point because as of recent history, butter has
29:21
Speaker 1: surpassed margarine as America's favorite spread. Now people are eating
29:27
Speaker 1: on average five point six pounds of butter a year
29:30
Speaker 1: as opposed to three point five pounds of margarine. The
29:33
Speaker 1: marjarine is still doing gangbusters in both Canada and the
29:36
Speaker 1: United States. Right, yeah, yeah, we're just now we're just
29:39
Speaker 1: talking about like their um their comparison, but by no
29:43
Speaker 1: means is either industry small. When did dwin Did Canada
29:47
Speaker 1: finally bite the bullet and say, okay, all are welcome,
29:51
Speaker 1: you know, make make your make your food substitutes. Oh yeah,
29:56
Speaker 1: it went provincial similar to the way that uh in
30:01
Speaker 1: some regards no one on one comparison. But it's similar
30:04
Speaker 1: to the way that marijuana began to be treated differently.
30:08
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, So provinces could have their own sort
30:12
Speaker 1: of serenity over that law, and they didn't all legalized margarine.
30:18
Speaker 1: At the same time, there were some holdouts. Quebec had
30:22
Speaker 1: a band specifically on colorized margarine because it could look
30:26
Speaker 1: like butter, and that band wasn't repealed until two thousand
30:29
Speaker 1: and eight because like margarine in its natural state, I
30:33
Speaker 1: guess is white. I think it's pure white um, and
30:37
Speaker 1: it's it was different too. And this this came into
30:39
Speaker 1: play in the American story where you had stuff like
30:42
Speaker 1: crisco that was a food substitute, but it was not
30:47
Speaker 1: something you would like eat on its own. It would
30:50
Speaker 1: be part of cooking and be part of baked goods,
30:52
Speaker 1: whereas margarine was a spread, so you had to interact
30:55
Speaker 1: with it in its current form and you would see it.
30:58
Speaker 1: So there was a time where when in the United
31:01
Speaker 1: States that colorization of margarine was banned. There was a
31:06
Speaker 1: company that even had like little packets that came with
31:11
Speaker 1: it so you could diet yourself. That reminds me of
31:14
Speaker 1: the old Great concentrate blocks that were sold during Prohibition,
31:20
Speaker 1: where they said the instructions on the box would say
31:23
Speaker 1: things like don't do the following steps because you will
31:27
Speaker 1: create wine. Okay. Whenever I hear the words steps and wine,
31:31
Speaker 1: I always think of that, uh, that woman at the
31:33
Speaker 1: winery that's stumping on the grapes and then falls out,
31:36
Speaker 1: and just like, oh, no, I think she's actually hurt. No,
31:51
Speaker 1: I think she is. It's just the saddest sound. Beautifully
31:55
Speaker 1: portrayed in Family Guy um. But back to America just
31:59
Speaker 1: brief and we we set this up earlier with some
32:01
Speaker 1: of the quote, some of the anti margarine propaganda that
32:05
Speaker 1: Big Butter put out. Um. You know, Canadians are are
32:08
Speaker 1: they have a reputation as being a little more civil
32:11
Speaker 1: and friendly perhaps than we are. And it does seem
32:13
Speaker 1: like the stories are a little out of whack with
32:16
Speaker 1: one another, whereas the American side, boy, were they ruthless
32:21
Speaker 1: and awful? And you know, there was actually some kind
32:23
Speaker 1: of faux scientists that were employed, um and presented some
32:27
Speaker 1: findings quote unquote in a Chicago newspaper. UM. And this
32:32
Speaker 1: this guy's name was Professor Piper, just Professor Piper. And
32:36
Speaker 1: he said that he did analyzes of margarine samples, UM
32:42
Speaker 1: and and this was in five and in his analyzes, UM,
32:46
Speaker 1: he claimed to have found these the best samples had
32:51
Speaker 1: many kinds of living organisms in them, with masses of
32:54
Speaker 1: dead mold, bits of cellulose, various colored particles, shreds of hair, bristles, etcetera.
33:00
Speaker 1: Well other samples teamed with life. Doubtful portions of worms
33:04
Speaker 1: were also noticed. Core pustles from a cockroach, small bits
33:09
Speaker 1: of claws, corpuscles of sheep the egg of a tape warm.
33:13
Speaker 1: It sounds like a witch's brew. And what as I
33:16
Speaker 1: have Newton here, what's the threshold for a doubtful amount
33:19
Speaker 1: of worms? Yeah? Unclear. All I'm saying is Man America,
33:24
Speaker 1: you mean, be more like Canada. At least they were
33:26
Speaker 1: civil about their muddern war and it was also propaganda.
33:29
Speaker 1: They let Newfoundland keep doing it because they just really
33:31
Speaker 1: liked it. Yeah, and also where they the economic argument
33:36
Speaker 1: is pretty tough to sell, like, no, you have to
33:38
Speaker 1: keep importing butter and pain much more. That's not gonna fly, right.
33:43
Speaker 1: Pro butter cartoonists in the United States also drew these
33:47
Speaker 1: hit pieces on margarine where they have a visual depiction
33:50
Speaker 1: of the stuff that you just mentioned they had. They
33:53
Speaker 1: put straight cats in margarine and soap paint, arsenic rubber boots.
33:59
Speaker 1: There is also an implication by somebody who's probably as
34:02
Speaker 1: legit as Professor Piper that marjarine might cause insanity marjarine madness. Huh. Well,
34:09
Speaker 1: there's a lot to both sides of this story. I'm
34:11
Speaker 1: just again praising Canada for their prevailing level headedness and
34:15
Speaker 1: and u s history. You can chill out a little bit,
34:19
Speaker 1: but I think we can wrap this story up, yes,
34:22
Speaker 1: And the best way for us to wrap it up
34:23
Speaker 1: is to note that this is not in any way
34:27
Speaker 1: unique phenomenon. And in the course of digging into this,
34:31
Speaker 1: we found some what would you call them analogs I guess, so, yeah,
34:35
Speaker 1: that's totally accurate. So you and I both found a couple.
34:38
Speaker 1: One conflict that surprised me from our current day is
34:41
Speaker 1: the conflict between municipal broadband and telecoms. It's a similar
34:47
Speaker 1: situation where and you know, there's one part of country
34:50
Speaker 1: or a state or region where they say we want
34:54
Speaker 1: to build a telecoms substitute for lack of a better word, right,
34:58
Speaker 1: and then the telecoms will use their influence to sty
35:02
Speaker 1: me this in hopes of preserving their own established industry.
35:06
Speaker 1: So we want to be clear this isn't just food.
35:08
Speaker 1: But boy, we did find food comparisons to yeah, lots,
35:11
Speaker 1: and my favorite is because mainly I like to say
35:13
Speaker 1: it is nut milk. Big dairy is out to get
35:17
Speaker 1: nut milk. And when I say that, I mean things
35:20
Speaker 1: like almond milk, um cash. You milk is even a thing,
35:23
Speaker 1: and of course, so a milk and a representative of
35:27
Speaker 1: the national Milk Producers Federation said this in a case
35:32
Speaker 1: that was levied against one of the big manufacturers of
35:35
Speaker 1: some of those nut milks. He says, mammals produced milk
35:38
Speaker 1: plants dun't. This guy's name was Jim mulherne, same last
35:42
Speaker 1: name as my my buddy Frank. I wonder if he's
35:45
Speaker 1: um secretly part of Big Dairy. Yeah, Frank listens to
35:47
Speaker 1: our show. So hey, Frank, let us know, man, spill
35:50
Speaker 1: the beans. We want to know your secret life as
35:52
Speaker 1: a as a dairy soldier. But now here's the thing.
35:55
Speaker 1: It's in the same way that big butter. You know,
35:57
Speaker 1: we'll call it big dairy. We can lump it all
35:59
Speaker 1: under Big Dairy, trying to protect their interests, protect their turf.
36:02
Speaker 1: They're doing the same thing today with products like these,
36:06
Speaker 1: the soy based products, And they're basically saying that the
36:08
Speaker 1: use of the words like soy milk, almond milk that
36:11
Speaker 1: are put together, they're joined together as one words um.
36:14
Speaker 1: The dairy industry says that that's just sort of a
36:16
Speaker 1: cheap way of getting away with using the word milk,
36:18
Speaker 1: which again they say exclusively comes from mammals. Um. This
36:23
Speaker 1: came from an article called dairy producers targeting quote fake
36:26
Speaker 1: milk in latest food fight from CTV News, and this
36:31
Speaker 1: is how the Plant Based Foods Association responded. They say
36:36
Speaker 1: that it's it's it's a different animal entirely from what
36:38
Speaker 1: they're talking about. They say, these companies are charging more
36:41
Speaker 1: money because consumers are gravitating towards them. I think that
36:45
Speaker 1: says it all right there. You know the margarine thing,
36:48
Speaker 1: it was cheaper, you could I'm not saying that Big
36:52
Speaker 1: Butter was doing the right thing at all, and they
36:53
Speaker 1: were clearly jerks about it, but you know, I could
36:56
Speaker 1: see that as being a legitimate threat. Nobody is buying
36:59
Speaker 1: soy milk because they think it's milk, and they certainly
37:02
Speaker 1: aren't getting a sweet deal on it. That stuff is
37:04
Speaker 1: pretty pricey. And with this, we would like to hear
37:09
Speaker 1: from you, folks, what's your take on margarine versus butter?
37:13
Speaker 1: Do you have a preference? Do you feel that one
37:15
Speaker 1: legitimately taste better? Would you ever? I think most people
37:19
Speaker 1: are gonna say no, but would you ever smuggle margarine?
37:23
Speaker 1: Because Casey Nolan I might have a job for you.
37:26
Speaker 1: Then I know you've been waiting for it. Butter smuggler
37:29
Speaker 1: whenever I just let's be clear, I just want to say,
37:32
Speaker 1: butter smuggler. It's been bugging me all week and I
37:35
Speaker 1: know we're talking about Margarine smuggling. So there is our
37:37
Speaker 1: only chance to say I'm glad you finally got that chance,
37:41
Speaker 1: and we hope you'll take a chance and write us
37:43
Speaker 1: a ridiculous at how stuff Works dot com. You can
37:46
Speaker 1: also hit us up on social media on Facebook or
37:48
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History, or on Twitter where we're at Ridiculous History
37:52
Speaker 1: and Instagram. And we're still toying with the idea of
37:55
Speaker 1: bringing back the joke about not doing a pinterest so
37:59
Speaker 1: right and is it a joke? We want to thank
38:01
Speaker 1: everybody who wrote in it told us that they missed
38:04
Speaker 1: us continually debating whether or not we will ever have
38:08
Speaker 1: a pinterest. So we're thinking about maybe bringing that debate back,
38:11
Speaker 1: but we're definitely still never gonna have a pinterest, right,
38:14
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll put it. We'll put a pint artist in it.
38:17
Speaker 1: Uh So thanks to everyone who already wrote into us,
38:20
Speaker 1: and we look forward to hearing from everyone in the future.
38:23
Speaker 1: As always, we want to thank our long suffering super producer,
38:26
Speaker 1: Casey Pegro and Candice Gibson, who wrote the awesome article
38:30
Speaker 1: on the butter Wars for our parent website, House up
38:33
Speaker 1: works dot com. Not to mention Alex Williams, who composed
38:36
Speaker 1: our theme and today's resident fact genie Lauren Vogelbaum, who
38:40
Speaker 1: dropped in um under complete darress. Yes, yes, and most
38:46
Speaker 1: especially thank you for listening and we hope you'll continue
38:50
Speaker 1: doing that and hang out with us next time for
38:51
Speaker 1: another episode of ridiculous History. Take care everyone,