Behind the Scenes Minis: Chocolate and Rabbits

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Wilson. Um. We mentioned I mentioned when we were talking in our eponymous Foods episode this week, which made me giggle a whole lot once we got past the sad part that I would mention a thing that seems to have happened with Leo hirschfeld story, which is very sad that I don't know if it was done deliberately, but I have to wonder if it wasn't to kind of get distance from the way his life ended, which is that if you look at most histories approved by the company that makes that delightful treat his last name is is spelled as hersh Field and not Herschfeld, even though that is how he spelled his name throughout his life. There wasn't. It wasn't like he changed his name at some point or adapted some so that to me made me go, is this so no one can look up what really happened there? But that might be my own conspiracy theory. Just know if you're going looking for him, UM, that that is like in newspaper mentioned, there aren't a bunch other than his obituary, but UM or the news of his death. But there you're not going to find it if you do hersh Field, And if you do Hershfield, you'll get a lot of the officially UM accepted versions, which are much peppier and focus on the candy part and not on the disaster part. Right. We also mentioned that we would talk about TuS roles in the Korean War, which you had actually pinned me and said like, did that come up in your church? And I was like, yes, but it's for Friday. And the reason that I packed you is that nine billion years ago, a listener named Kimberly sent in an episode topic suggestion, which I wrote in the spreadsheet as Tutsie rolls saving people in war question mark right. And so I mean there are I think there are probably many people that would suggest that just because of the quick energy they offered in ration packs like that could have saved many people's lives. But there is a very specific Korean War one where UM that the Marine Corps officially shares this story that during the Korean War, the first Marine Division was in action and they were in this horrible sub freezing situation and they ran out of ammunition and they called for sixty millimeter mortar AMMO, and they called them tutsie rolls and they used that code name, but a radio operator who received this message did not know this, and he called it in order of actual tutsie rolls. And so palettes of tutsie rolls arrived. Uh. They were parachuted onto the front and they weren't ammunition, but the troops ate them because they also did need a little bit of nourishment. We can discussed, you know, the nourishment level of sugar all the time. I would pass out, but for many people it will keep you going UM, and so that UM is often like they're they're kind of heralded as heroic in that regard. Yeah. Well, and when I was reading this episode outline, I was like, someone said years ago that we should do an episode about tutsie rolls saving people in war. And the reason there's a question mark on the spreadsheet is because I was like, I'm not sure what this is about. So I just googled it and it brought up all this um Korean war stuff and some of the accounts were saying that they figured out if they like warmed it up and made it plu liable. They could also use the TUTSI roll to like patch fuel lines and bullet holes and things. And I'm like, there's a lot about this story that just raises question marks for me because it's it has an almost urban legend, and I would say that urban legend depart is also part of the official US Marine Corps retelling plugged bullet holes because they would seal up things that had been shot as they refroze. Not people, obviously, but items like there's a hole in the car door now of the jeep right right, so we don't know. That was another part of the reason I was like, this is not for the episode, And I really wanted to focus on my obsession with German chocolate cake because it's not even a cake that I'm prettically obsessed with. But as I kept finding one new version after another that was like, Mrs you know Blue, but Blue is the inventor of German and I'm like, no, she's no. Well, and I would expect a recipe to suddenly proliferate in that way now in the day of the Internet, and even before the Internet as we know it today existed, like I remember chain email forwards with like the supposed Nemon Marcus recipe and that kind of stuff. But it's, uh, it surprised me that there seemed to be a similar proliferation of a recipe in the nineteen fifties. Yeah, and I mean it really, Like I started making a spreadsheet of each recipe because I just wanted to compare the ingredients. And the cake part is identical from like nineteen fifty two on. Um. Like I said, there's some variations, like there are a couple of versions that say five eggs versus four, there's a little more flower and when, but other than that, they're pretty identical. Now there is part of it that like cake is cake, but this one has enough unique things like using the buttermilk, um, melting the chocolate into warm milk, like all of that that I'm like, this is the same. It's the same cake. Even once you get to the icing. Also almost identical. Um. Although I did make a note that where's that one that the the Austin American Statesman one that we read about that I said kind of reads like they're like that's cute general foods they're icing they specifically say is called angel icing and adamant about it. I don't, but it's the exact same thing. It's butter, egg, yolks, sugar, vanilla, pecom pieces, whipping cream, ready to roll, angel flake coconut. I just thought it was funny that people are very um protective of their recipe even though it's the same recipe that everyone else has. Yeah, I said at the top of the show. I think I think I said I love chocolate. I love it a lot. I would say these are probably my two least favorite chocolate things, Like tipsy roll is something that I mostly associate with the last thing eaten from the Halloween trigger hall um, and I am just not into the texture of the coconut and the coconut texture not a fan um. But then also like the combination of the coconut and the other ingredients that are in the icing, like the just to me makes the coconut worse. And I'm just like you just you just ruined your chocolate cake with See I'm the flip because I don't. I'm not a chocolate person, like I said, but I really like this icing deck. I will say we didn't mentioned it during the episode. I fully expect there to be emails, Let's this not be another crayon, craon, etcetera, because some people say pecan differently than we do. Yeah, our friend Adrian gets very riled up about the pronunciation pecan because that is not where it's uh, that's not how it's pronounced in the areas where the plant is like native to growing um, and its specifically annoys her when it's some kind of advertisement that seems to be implying that it is from that region. She's like, not how we say it. I'm trying to think if there's anything I get riled up about when it comes to pronunciation, I'm gonna say I know one word that makes me irate and well, for having worked on this podcast for almost a decade and specifically also having done episodes about like how languages are living things that are changing all the time, I just give everyone a pass on pronouncing things, and even when it comes to things like the word Appalachian, which I say that way because of where I grew up, living in the shadow of the Appalachian Mountains and loving those mountains with my whole heart. When some of my TikTok through hikers said it Appalachian, I was like you walked two thousand and something. You say it, how you say it. I know this came up recently on the show where we were talking about pronunciation and how it bothers certain people. There is a um, a guy on TikTok named Nick the list that does French lessons, and he has the most wonderful approach because he's always like, do you native English speaker say this French word this way or this way? And he's like, you know what, it doesn't matter, you're communicating. Like he's so charming about it, and he's like French people that say they don't understand you are usually lying now yeah, which is kind of charming. I um I recently, I don't even remember how this happened. I stumbled over an article that was like, here's fifteen French words Americans were saying wrong, and they were all English words for foods that have French origins, whose names have been used used in English for in many cases like centuries. Um So, things like croissant. Oh yeah, I can't say that. You can say it however you want. Yeah, I just physically, like my body will repel. Yeah, it doesn't bother me when other people say it. I can't say it that way. It's which is, which is fine? Uh. And it was just stressing me out because I was like, there are loan words that kind of move from one language to another, and in the language they've moved into, often the pronunciation is a little different. And that's fine. We don't all need to affect French pronunciations when talking about food items that from a fast food joint. Especially. Yes, it's fine. Um uh, yeah, I have one word that makes me I rate irrationally. Is it? Is it mischievous? What have you done to me? I'm so sorry. I'm sorry if anybody says it, that's the one for me. That's my trigger. If I'm the Manchurian candidate, that's my trigger word where I just I go into a few states start doing violence. I don't even I hate it. Here's why I hate it so much. I know why I hate it. Uh huh. That's not how the word is spelled. Yeah, you're making up a syllable that's not any part of the worst. Well that's the thing where now, um some dictionaries have adopted that spelling is an alternate to make up the gap, which is fine. Just it's irrational. If we ever see you tweeting with that extra eye in there, we know you have been kidnapped. Oh yeah, that's a good one. Um. Be like, I hate Greto and I feel mischievous. Definitely not Holly Fry talking right there. My spouse gets very upset if anyone in his presence says that glass is a liquid. Listen, we all have our peccadillos. Sure, it's all fine, It's all fine. Uh say it however you want. It's fine. It's my thing to work through anybody that's hearing this's not yours, um, because it's all evolving anyway, everything's changing all the two. It's all fine. Do we know what you meant? On a very rare case, something really will be unclear because of how someone pronounced something. But honestly, that also happens with words that are just pronounced the same way, so all the time, all the time. Um, But I am anticipating him, and I have to make some German chocolate cake sing because delicious. It's when my mom used to make all the time. She alleged it was my dad's favorite. I still don't know if it was, because there were a few foods she alleged were my dad's favorites that we found it later in life, he didn't like at all. I may have told this story on the podcast before, but when I was a child, my grandmother would make this homemade peach ice cream on my birthday every year, and the texture of it bothered me profoundly. And every year on my birthday, I would be eating this homemade peach ice cream, choking it down so that I would not hurt my grandmother's feelings. And so she kept making right. That's the trick, finding the way to go. This isn't actually my favorite thing. I'm not sure why you landed there. Let's try something else, and then she would make you coconut ice cream and you do the same thing. Honestly, I think I would like coconut ice cream better than the peach ice cream, even if it has flaked coconut in it. I think the flaked coconut texture would bother me less than something about the peach ice cream texture. Is it the chunks of frozen peaches had little bits of peaches in it. Yeah, I love those like they get a little icy and weird, But again, everybody's different. I don't like nuts in my baked goods generally, yeah, Patrick, either you leave that out of fudge. I want the smooth consistency, but I love them in. Like the icing on German chocolate cake. Yeah, well, if we're somewhere together and somebody feeds this German chocolate cake, you can scrape all the icing off and give me the cake part. I'll just see the bucket of ice seems very healthy and good. I still need to make you natural melon flavored syrups to try, and cocktails and whatnot and see if you like. It's on my list, I promise. One of our episodes this week was on scarlet fever, and it really was just because um my friend's kids got scarlet fever and had the same emotional response. I was like I did when I was a child, and I was like, I thought scarlet fever was the thing that killed people in old books that I read. What do you mean I have it now? And the pediatrician was like, it's struck with a rash, and uh, yeah, I don't remember if my brother also got scarlet fever. I got strapped more than once as a kid. That was the only time that I got scarlet fever and I don't really remember anyone else that I knew specifically having it, but surely someone did because I got it from somewhere I don't I didn't have it as a kid that I know of, but I was terrified of it because of The Velveteen Rabbit, which I was not allowed to read. So my parents were not um big on limiting what I had access to, like I read books that were I should not have been reading it any at ages way too young. However, there had been a prior incident where it became a parent that I this RuPaul would say, had a sensitivity on things. And my friends, my best friend's parents had taken me to the movies and we saw where the red Fern grows and I know and by the way, my my family bread the same kind of hounds that are in that movie. So I had, like I didn't just cry a lot, I had a full blown, like nonfunctioning, stopped being verbal meltdown in that movie. And my I remember my friend's parents being so worried that like my parents were going to be mad because they had and I just like fell apart into like a horrific degree and my parents were like, no, that tracks um, but they kind of reassessed when I was allowed to have excellency after that, and velveteen Rabbit was off the table, like there's no way Holly's going to survive this, um and so. And I also am a toy person, Like when I got married, my toys came to the wedding. We had them all over the wedding venue, like minea Brian's toys. It's a big bonding thing for us, like the toys we have saved since childhood. So obviously, like I completely over humanized and animate objects. And I stand this. Listen, do I kiss my shoes sometimes? Yes? Um? But but um, I didn't read it until I was in a adult and I mean like an adult in my twenties, And I was so grateful that I had not been allowed to read it as a child because I was not emotionally tall enough to ride that ride at like the age of twenty four. So I'm pretty sure had I had access to it at like seven or eight, I may have just died of heartbreak, Like sure, yeah, yeah, And I mean I know I know how that story goes. I am very familiar with it. I feel like it got read multiple times when I was a kid, and I was also a very sensitive child, and I have no real memory of how that went in terms of feelings. But boy, just it's in the public domain now. You can read the whole thing on the internet. Google velveteen Rabbit. It's going to be there. And like, I was reading it at my desk and be like, why didn't they read this to children? And I got very upset about it. Um, I as a child was terrified of tuberculosis because my grandmother as a child, UM, she she had a number of tragic things happened in her childhood, and one of them was that she got tuberculosis and had to be sent to a sanatorium to recover, which was like what they did at the time by herself as a little kid. Um. And that was one of several things that were not necessarily his historically or not necessarily likely in the nineteen seventies and eighties. But boy, was I share I was gonna I was gonna get tuberculosis. And then I did get scarlet fever, and I was like what, um, And then that you know, I got penicillin or whatever, and it it was to my knowledge, fine, I'm like, do I have you know there can be various lingering things from various illnesses that can happen later, like the tendency to develop rheumatic fever from especially untreated strap, which was something I somehow knew. And there was one time when I was a kid. I think I might have told this story on the show before UM. I used to spend a week with my grandparents in the summer UM and I had a sore throat one day at my grandparents house and I did not tell them that my throat hurt because I was afraid that they would send me home and I didn't want. I wanted to spend the week with my grandparents, But then also I was scared of what if I had STRAP and what if I got rheumatic fever and what if I died like Beth in Little Women. Ye see, my my fear was largely because someone, whether it was one of my older siblings or another kid, had kind of given me the broad strokes outline of velveteen Rabbit UM, even though I was not allowed access to it. And then I just remember like having covert like promise meetings with my toys where I would be like there was this stuffed walrist in particular where I was like, if I get scarlet fever, here's what we're doing. Like we were not going like I had like plans, like where I was going to hide them in the house and like all of this crazy. I was very very worried for my tid. Yeah. Yeah, and it makes sense because I mean that that story I found it. I found it very horrifying rereading it at the age of for kids. For the record, Tracy had to read that part of the show because I couldn't even physically myself to myself read it without just bawling. Often when we were working on episodes, and there's something that I think that that, having worked with you for this long might be difficult for you. Sometimes I will just I will go through and I'll be like, which part of the outline is this going in? Um? And I did not do that with the velveteen Rabbit part, and I was like, this book's horrifying, and whichever one of us reads this part, I'm going to be like, and it's horrifying. And it turned out I read that part because it was I couldn't right. And I understand I'm not always predictable on those things. Some things You'll be like, this will upset you know. I'm like, Okay, done something that seems completely benign, like oh, and they put up a monument in his honor, And I'll be like, I can't even say it. I don't know. I don't know. We're all creatures with feelings that may or may not be predictable at all time. My brain juice has its own system. I don't understand it. Yeah. Yeah, So anyway, I'm glad that we have antibiotics. They can treat scarlet fever at least most of the time. Not great when there are shortages at those And as far as I know, there has not been a lot of resistance developing in the varieties of strepp that usually caused things like strep throat and scarlet beaver. There's other stuff that's way more dangerous, but fingers crossed that continues to be the case. Uh. Anyway, reading various accounts, reading the Nursing Journal right up, that was like, oh, and that is pretty much what they did in the velveteen Rabbit. I was like, oh, that's that was not hyperbole in this book. That was the real thing that people would do. So anyway, whatever is happening on your weekend. I hope that it's more fun having Scarlet Beaver burning a bunch of children toys if you want to just be upset about something, if you can read the velveteen a good cry, and that's a perfectly fine trigger. Yeah, we'll be back tomorrow with a Saturday classic, and we'll be back next week with brand new episodes. M Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.