Behind the Scenes Minis: Calendars and Kitchen Gadgets

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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 Tracy V. Wilson. We talked about the French Republican calendar this week. We sure did. I love this crazy experiment. I'm still imagining the Day of Convictions as like, well, actually day. I don't think that's what they met by it, but that's just how it struck me. I had similar thoughts when I was reading about that. I will say, like, the idea of not having holidays kind of uh, you know, scattered throughout the year and a clump of them at the end sounds awful to me. But that's yeah. Um, before anyone brings it up, let me just say my husband already did it for you. When I was like, this is bananas? Why would anyone do this? And he was like, aren't you the person that wanted to get everyone on Swatch internet time? And I'm like, yes, I think I had similar thoughts, and I stand by that. But the thing is, that's like one thing, and it wasn't meant to fully supplant everything else, and it would put everyone on the same simplified thing, which Incidentally, Swatch beats would have been the same I think as a minute in the French Republican calendar, since they had separated it out into a thousand beats a day. And that's essentially what would have been happening ye with that calendar, just math wise. But yet that's like one thing simple. Swatch Internet time was also not intentionally trying to make life hard for people who wanted to go to church. Correct. It was not meant to up end the social norm in a way that that made people abandon long held beliefs, which is part of the problem. So I can't remember if I've told this story on the show at any point, but any time now that we talk about the French Revolution in any context, I think about that time that we were in pa Ris, and I think we were in Paris at the tomb of Napoleon. We were I know exactly what you're talking about. We had this tour guide who told us about the French Revolution and the French revolutions values of liberty, equality and fraternity, and then she said and then Napoleon took these values to the rest of the world through the Napoleonic Wars. And I was like, excuse me, Napoleon. What There was a lot of looking around amongst our groups like this is uh, this is a different take on it than we have heard before. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like that's what the French Republican calendar was trying to see. Although Napoleon was like, get rid of this calendar. This isn't working for anybody. Um, it really did strike me how funny it would be to identify your birthday by like a flower. M h, I'm born on daisy. Oh okay, what a what a nice day for you to people are well. And the thing that I really find interesting, and this may just be me applying what I would do in that situation, is that if you have a scenario like that right in this calendar that's intended to secularize everyone, I feel like giving everyone a birthday that's associated with something of nature is really just a breeding ground to like form astrology of a different flavor. Yeah. I read that quote that was like, we're not basing this on a cult, We're basing it on agriculture, and I was just like, welcome to the cult of agriculture. Yeah, I uh, you know, I, as I said, I'm fascinated by change and I love the idea of this as an experiment, but oh what a nightmare. We talked about some more upontumous foods this week, we did. I had a longer list than two, but those two got very very busy in terms of having a lot of information, so they kind of filled up the whole episode. Yeah, those those others will go on to the next one, which will happen at some point in time. Um. But Nana's foster, I feel like I should confess, came up because I was traveling this weekend with friends who were very excited to eat Banana's foster, and I had that moment of like, where did that come from? Um? And so then I started reading in my hotel room that night. That was the end of that. UM. And Salisbury steak is the thing. Let me tell you, this girl loves the Salisbury steak. I love it to this day. Give me that TV dinner Salisbury steak with gravy. I love it so much. I questioned the nutritional value of it, but I'll eat it just the same now and not very often. I have such like seven year old sense memories of it being like a special thing. Because we did not eat out very often, and my mom was very big and always preparing all of our meals, so if we got like a TV dinner, it felt like a holiday. I feel like my mom wouldn't make it. But the reason, as far as I know, was that she had like an economical recipe to make it. Not that not for any like health food reason. It's not the kind of health food my mom would have thought of as no health food, I don't think. Yeah, I mean we mentioned the top of that, like we I'm not a doctor, I'm not a dietitian. I feel like if all you ate were salisbury steak for a while, you would end up with a tummy ache. But yeah, I would also get bored to tears. I'd be like, is there a beschamel sauce in the house? Can we like anything else? Fry an egg? Great? I know there are folks that like eat the same things all the time and that is what works for them. And I will like make a big, a big pot of the same thing and eat the leftovers of that for a multiple consecutive day, but like does not want to do that most of the time. Yeah, I have friends that won't eat leftovers, which kind of makes me sad because some foods get better the next day, for sure. But you know, whatever people want to eat, that's what they want to eat, and that is great. That's uh Salsbury steak though as a as a health food hilarious. Um. We mentioned in the episode briefly, And I don't want to go into it too much because it's a family that still exists, and like, I don't want to be all up in their business. But I think my understanding is that after Owen Brennan died, the main rift happened between his widow and the rest of the family, and that's what caused some of these these differences and some some breaking um. And so I kind of think that is why there are two distinct versions of that story. One that is definitely Owen Brennan making a business decision that we need to use bananas because there's so many, and the other being him tasking his sister with coming up with something special and new. Um, I don't know, you can still eat it Brennan's and it sure is delicious. I'm almost reluctant to say that because there's a very famous person who's now to cease that I was not a fan of that used to talk about how much he loved Brennan's. Um, but uh, don't worry about that. It's still delicious. New Orleans is, as we all know, one of the best food cities in the world in my opinion. Um, and it's pretty amazing. And I know that as Brennan's was getting on the map. You know. Ella Brennan's memoir is pretty fun to read. It's an easy read. She wrote it with her daughter pretty recently. In Ella has since passed away, But she talks just a lot about the restaurant industry in a way that's very matter of fact, and she's like, you know, the best thing you can have in the restaurant industry is a friend, because she talked about like when you make a couple of influential friends that can then help you get the word out, help you get pr for your restaurant, helped get reporters interested, Like that's how you grow a business, like there's and it was just one of those like it's full of good little tips like that. Also, who doesn't want to now eat soft scrambled eggs and caramelized bananas for breakfast? I do I have? UM, I can't always deal with the texture of bananas, but that the caramelized bananas sounded really good to me. I like bananas. Also, the whole story about dealing with just a preponderance of bananas reminded me of when we were in Iceland, which at this point was some years ago. My spouse and I read a restaurant and one of the things on the menu was a curry, and the description of the curry and the menu didn't mention bananas at all. But when it arrived, it was a banana curry, which I wasn't expecting. Um and I have, like I have eaten various foods made with bananas or made with plantains which have some similar these this was a weird flavor profile to me, like the things that it had been made of did not go together to me. And I also just I wasn't expecting there to be banana in it. That just was not on the description at all. And after we had finished eating, we stopped at this grocery store to get some some road snacks for the next day, and we passed by this table that was normally would have been covered in bananas, but the bananas were on sale and they were all sold out, and I was like, is this what happened at the restaurant? Say, hey, there's a sale on bananas, let's make something out of it. Probably not, but that was the story I wrote for it in my head to explain why I had such a strange that's funny bananas, bananas. I just now I'm thinking of Bob's Burgers, because there should do it that Linda sings with Mr fish Shoulder called I like bananas. Also, it's criminal that Kevin Klein has not gotten an Emmy for Mr fish Shoulder's voice. That's all I'm saying, Um, criminal, criminal um. I also wanted to mention the Universal Chopper because reading that passage was the most instant flashback of my life, perhaps because both my grandmother and my mother had those things that they used constantly. I mean, I remember my mom running saltine crackers through it after she was done, using it as part of the cleaning ritual to it, like to help, you know, clean out all of the meat residue and stuff. I think of it so much as like a pillar of our kitchen. It's just it was just fascinating to me, and I was like, Oh, I wonder how old are universal. Chopper was because it looked exactly like the pictures from I was looking like conceivable, conceivable, I suppose, Um, my grandmother's I'm sure similarly aged. Yeah have you ever? And I used to love that thing, like as a kid, I wanted to turn that crank all the time. Oh yeah, the meat grinder. And you can use it to chop other things other than me. You can use it to do vegetables or you know what. ELPs but instant, instant flashback for me memories. We had a I don't think we had one of these. We had a greater thing that had similar sort of set up, but seems like it probably would have been a little easier to take apart and clean. Maybe yeah, um, just because of the way I went together. Kitchen implements, they are right. It's funny, you know, we're always getting like new and exciting kitchen implements right, Like they're little you know, many steamers so you can make kind of fake souvid now. And there are like a jillion mini wafflers, and I wonder which I purchase all of them? Um, and I love a novelty waffle maker. I can't resist it. I have a problem. But then I wonder, like in a hundred years or people going to be like people used to put even eggs in these tiny waffle makers. Yes, my brother and sister in law got us a breakfast sandwich maker one time, which my sister in law had found there's to be incredibly helpful, especially while pregnant and just couldn't like deal with things some of the time. Um, and we did make really delicious breakfast sandwich is out of it a lot. And then after a while we were like, we have this one device that we are using occasionally to make breakfast sandwiches that we could also make without it. So when we were in the process of move, like culling things to move, uh, we found a new home for the breakfast sandwich maker. I ran into a bit of confusion recently, uh, in an interaction with someone on Twitter, because I will mix scrambled eggs with cheese and put them in a mini waffler and make a little That's how I like to make scrambled eggs. It's just easy, um, and then they're cute. That's not how I always scrambled eggs. But this person had replied to me and said, like, oh, I've heard that Americans make scrambled eggs a lot differently than how we do here in Europe. I this explains a lot, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, this is not how people do it. No, no, no, don't let me be your standard. Um. And I got to asking them what the scoop was and they were saying that, like there's milk involved and that there was something else, and I was like, no, but those things you're hearing are not standard ways to make eggs either. Some people put milk in but not everybody, and like there was something else and now I'm forgetting it. But it was very funny. I was like, please, don't think that this is how people make scrambled eggs in the US, because I'm probably an outline. But boy, it sure is a andy way because I can make a very crispy that way with the cheese on the outside, and I can walk around the house eating it like a finger food when I'm getting ready in the morning, like to you know, record, or if I have to go somewhere, I could put it in a napkin and take it on the road. Protein and deliciousness. Scrambled eggs in the mini wom and then I have, you know, scrambled eggs. It look like spider web. Who doesn't want to eat that? I do taking it back to that tarantula and the listener may anyway, that's enough of my blathering about foods and kitchen implements. Uh, this is your weekend coming up. I hope it is delightful that you eat only delicious and nutritious things. And if it's not your weekend, I hope you still get a good nutrition. You find some time to relax now and again, because we need it a little bit every day at least. Uh. We will be right back here tomorrow with a classic episode and then on Monday more brand new stuff. Stuff you missed in History Class is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.