Behind the Scenes Minis: Tracy’s Frustration

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class A production of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. We talked about pelagra. We sure did, I said in the episodes, I was not expecting or planning for two did not know about all the stuff that was involved in Italy. Of course, as we said that there is is, and has been pelagora in parts of the world besides the southern US and Italy, but it became particular problem in those places and still today places where especially people are living mostly on corn, a lot of times corn that has been through well meaning ways donated from the international community to places where there is famine or unrest or war or whatever. Going to talk about Tracy's frustration in this episode, and the frustration is overly reductive Internet videos, Okay, because I watched several videos about nichemalization, and several of them had this sort of narrative of this is how the indigenous peoples of the America's really all across the Americas. Some nuances to how different nations and peoples did things, but like some kind of treatment of the corn with alkaline water, or ash or something that was making the nias and more bioavailable, and then it would be like, but the colonizers thought that was stupid and they didn't want to do it, and that's why there was pelagra. And that's not really accurate, right, because foods like hominy and masa masa arena, all things that are made with with masa like those became foods that the colonists were also eating, how many in particular the poorest people were eating, and that continued to be the case for centuries after colonization started. Like we said in the episode, it is like there seems to be a correlation between milling technologies, particularly the big determinator that was patented in like nineteen oh two. There seems to be a correlation between that and polagorates because now there was a way to give corn a really long shelf life that didn't involve nicheimalizing it that was more labor intensive. So, like, the problem was not that colonizers were being picky about indigenous food ways. The problem was capitalism exploiting people right and trying to give the poorest people the cheapest, lowest quality food possible as they're staple but I watched so many videos that had that as the narrative that I started to second guess myself. I was like, I really thought that people were for sure eating harmony, and poor people for sure eating harmony. I can't speak to Meso America and South America, but like all over North America at least, like, what's going on with this? And I started looking through old recipe books to be like, am I just am I misunderstanding something fundamental? And so now I'm going to read to you from a nineteen twenty four USDA Farmer's bulletin, okay, prepared in the Bureau of Home Economics, a bureau that we have a whole episode on. This is on from a Farmer's bulletin called Corn and Its Uses for Food. And this is a section called lie harmony, or called corn. This is easily made at home from any variety or of white or yellow dent or flint corn. The kinds with fairly large kernels are easier to hull than those with small kernels, and only clean sound ears should be used. The hulls and germs are loosened by steeping the corn in a lye solution, rubbing off the hulls than washing out the lye and finally boiling the corn. Sometimes the kernels are boiled with the lye, but cold soaking is also effacious and gives what many consider a more delicate flavor. The Division of Serial Investigations of the Bureau of Plant Industry recommends the following method. Dissolve five ounces of lye sodium hydroxide or caustic soda in six quarts of cold water, Stir in five quarts of corn, and let it stand fifteen hours. Wash thoroughly to remove the lye and the hulls. Rubbing the hominy in a cloth bag helps to take off the hulls. When the washing is finished, the hull and black tips should be off and the kernel should look clean. The slight discoloration which the lye causes may be removed by soaking the hominy overnight in water to which a little salt has been added. Cover with water to which five tablespoons of salt have been added, and boil in a covered kettle for three to four hours or until thoroughly cooked, making sure that the hominy remains covered with water. Changing the water once or twice during the cooking will lessen the taste of the lye. Five quarts of corn will make from fifteen to twenty quarts of lye hominy. This was just one part of this bulletin that had numerous recipes for things that you can make with hominy. And the Bureau of Home Economics did not advocate for foods that they thought were weird or quote ethnic. We talked about that in our episode on them. So after really just sort of like questioning, I was like, but hominy though, no, real, Like, people really were eating a lot of hominy and it really was not people's personal food preferences that led to corn meal being the only thing that was sold in the company store. Right, So anyway, I got, really, I gotta be in my bonnet about that, Like I get the wanting to make that the narrative. I totally understand that, and there are a lot of Indigenous foods that are totally overlooked or foods that are Indigenous developments that people who are not Indigenous have no idea that's where it came from. All that's valid, But I was like, this is not people were still eating homedy. Though they're still eating homedy today. I could go to the store and I can buy homedy off the shelf. You know what I wondered through this whole thing, what how are people not passing out all the time? Like, I'm a low blood sugar baby, and if I don't have a high pro glow, I'm gonna crash really hard. Yeah. I can't even imagine subsisting exclusively off of corn meal, corn meal, or even just all like you know, relatively simple carbohydrates. Yeah, I would not bet a little fat back in there. That might help a little, but for a minute, but eventually I'm gonna stop functioning. Yeah, like without pelagra involved it all right, right, I'm like, no, the mental illness is because my brain is not getting any of the things it needs to keep going. Yeah. Yeah, that's like the scariest to me is like entire diets with no protein in them. I'm like, what is no brain? Something else that I definitely didn't understand until researching this episode is that I was like, Okay, something about corn was made making people develop plagra. I'm imagining that everybody's just like chomping down on ears of corn on the cob. Like I didn't really have a sense that now the corn was being dried it was being milled into corn meal or grits or whatever. As I understand it, historically, prior to colonization, it was a lot more common to in most of the Americas for the corn to be niche themalized, so that it would have this longer shelf life and not so much to like roast up an ear of corn and eat it right, but you could pop it popping it too. We do have that whole episode on popcorn, which I do love popcorn. Before we started recording, Holly and I started talking about all the types of corn that we love to eat, yes and don't, yeah and don't. Yeah. I'm not like the as we said then, I'm not the biggest fan of just like corn. Although I'm coming around something is happening to my taste buds or like now I'm like a roasted corn I'm okay with. But for the longest time, I just did not want whole corn. Yeah. I do not want cream corn by any stretch of the imagination. I can't imagine a food that grosses me out much more than that. Yeah, But I love popcorn and I love things made with ground corn with corn meal. Oh sure, Oh the flavor, Oh goodness, A good masa. Yeah, I love corn on the cob. I love corn grits, which again most of the like the very mainstream North America food companies that are selling like instant grits. It might have the word hominy on the label, but that's probably not nastimalized corn being used. Some of the more specialty producers will specifically say on on the labeling that it is corn that has been treated in some way with like an alkaline processing. But yeah, love corn on the cop love grits, Love like catfish breaded and corn meal so good. There are a lot of like Mexican Mesoamerican sort of street food dishes that involve corn and various cheese like elotes and esquites. I think that's how there's a pronounce. I did not look it up before coming in here. I'm sorry, but I love both of those all and various things that have corn as an ingredient in there, very into it. And again, if you're eating a ton of corn that hasn't been niche tomalized, as long as you're also eating a variety of other foods, probably fine. Probably fine. Yeah, I was just gonna say, you know, living in the South, there are strong opinions about grits. Huh, But there's only one grit for me, and it is the flying biscuit, creamy, dreamy gras. Oh so good, Holy Moses. Yeah, if you were in the South and you are near a flying biscuit, yeah, and you've never had them. Yeah, get the to flying biscuit, some streaming grits. They're so good. Yeah. Oh man, I also like shrimp and grits. Yeah. Moving to Massachusetts meant less availability of grits. I feel like that's slightly shifted now. But I remember one time, this was shortly after I had moved to Massachusetts. We stopped for some reason, like we were just out and about doing stuff, and for some reason we stopped at a very large but very standard chain grocery store in Massachusetts in Brookline, and they had a whole wall of different varieties of grits in with the oatmeal and all that, and I was my mind was absolutely blown because I had not seen grits in a store in a super long time. And even now, it's like the place that I usually grocery shop has at most one kind of instant grit and that's your option. Tracy. If only you knew someone who still lived in the South and could ship you grit could ship me grits as much as I want. Why don't you just send me your list. We'll get it handled. During the early COVID time, when many of us were mostly at home, we were getting things in bulk through mail order from a place that is sadly no longer in business. And one time, not one time, like they started having like these giant boxes of grits, and I was like, give me the grits all the time, Grits comfort food in these days of uncertainty. Having returned to days of uncertainty, right, what I've actually been doing recently is cream of wheat, which is not it's as good as you remember. Yeah, that was the ad campaign when we were kids for cream of wheat. Yeah, yeah, I don't remember this. I'm telling you. I know all the commercials. Yeah. I was a child raised by television and I love advertising jingles to this day. There is a place in I think this is in Summerville. I don't live there. I don't live in Summerville anymore, so I don't remember this was in Summerville or who was like over the line in Cambridge called the Neighborhood that had a cream of wheat and we would get it sometimes when a bunch of friends we were going to go somewhere and we would stop and get some to go and we would eat it walking down the sidewalk. And I've started trying to mock up their cream of wheat in my own house in breakfast recently. It's got some similarities to grits, but it's not quite the same thing anyway, delicious, yummy foods. The only thing I have to make shrimp and grits for lunch. Thanks Tracy, I'm very excited for you. Shrimp and grits is one of my all time easily in the top ten favorite dish. Yes, and I love I love trying everywhere's version. Yeah, it's the best. We have grits in the house right now, we don't have any shrimp, so sadly for me. So yeah, I like to do grits with a little scallion in the pan. First, fun let that get brown and even a little crispy. Then you do your your grit situation. Yeah, and then there's just scallions spread throughout them making deliciousness. That sounds really good. It is really good. I love it. I love it. I do find more shrimp and grits on restaurant menus, Uh yeah, here always I get so excited when we're going somewhere that has shrimp and grits. I remember mentioning in an unrelated conversation, which was actually about Star Wars when I was at a convention in Salt Lake, that I any restaurant I go to that has shrimp and grits on the menu, especially if I'm somewhere I don't go, I almost order always that's the thing I order. And I was surprised at how many people in the audience of that panel were like, I'm sorry, shrimp and what like. They just thought this sounded like the most gruesome dish one could put before a human, And I'm like, come to the shrimp and grits side, it's really quite delicious. While there was, you know, a Southern pride around these foods and the roles that things like fat back and salt pork plating, cooking and all of that, there was also stigma about some of the foods and Harmony's association with poor people made like other people who could afford a richer variety of food like not really want to deal with that. Yeah, makes total sense that the Department of Home Economics was like, yes, this is how you can do this yourself at home, because part of their whole deal was trying to give people who were facing hardship tools to have like more nutritious foods at home. I had its own baggage that we talked about in those episodes because, like we said, they did not get behind foods that they thought were weird or Unamerican. But yeah, yeah, that defensiveness about you know, regional identity and pride probably cost some people their lives. Yeah. Yeah, Well, and then it became a situation of the people who had really criticized that it could be dietarily related, and it became increasingly evident that yes, this was related to diet continuing to double down because then it sort of seemed like they were going to come off as having been backward and stubborn, So just be more so that's what. Yeah. Yeah, we've seen it everywhere in our lives, the people who were wrong and can't admit that they were wrong about something. Right, So anyway, eat a variety of foods if you are able. Yeah. Yeah, and you know, if you are able, donate to your local food bank. Yes, there is a lot of need right now for food at the food banks. There is. This is where I will talk about briefly the made up Star Wars holiday that I do. Okay, Oh, it's just that every year on Mardi Gras, we have started going instead to Walt Disney World and we go to Galaxy's Edge and we celebrate what we call hut Tong's Day essentially Mardi Gras, but it is in Star Wars and part of that that I always tell friends because they're like, can we run around the parks with you? I'm like, yes, absolutely, We've gotten quite a nice herd together. But the thing that we always do is like, I'm not gonna police you, but please, as part of this, donate to an organization that feeds people. Because the whole point of like having a very yummy time running around and playing should be that, like may we all have plenty. It's my governing thing. So that's just our goofy way that we do it among our like friend group, which you know, it spans delightfully each year and makes it a fun thing out of reminding everyone to take care of each other by donating to food organizations. But everybody celebrate Hot Time's Day with me this year in whatever way you want to. If you're not into Star Wars, you can just donate to a food org on Mardi Gras or anytime. I have a food bank, and also we have a local food rescue organization that goes and gets the stuff that's going to be thrown out from the restaurants and grocery stores and they redistribute that and then also meals on wheels. Yeah, who's federal funding I think was frozen? I think so, yes, Yeah, And I don't know what the situation is with that at this point, and I'm sure it will be different by the time this episode comes out, because the time we're speaking about it today to when you hear us speaking about it, who knows what will have happened. So we've alluded to the chaos of the times that we're living in. I really hope that everyone is able to find some moments of joy and peace, because there's moments of joy and peace can make the other stuff that we've got to deal with more deal with able. Yes, and we will be back with a Saturday classic tomorrow, and something brand new on Monday. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.