The Fantastic History Of Food
Stories of the fun, bizarre and often ridiculous, history of food. Join me as we explore The Fantastic History of Food.Contact me on [email protected] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-fantastic-history-of-food--3591729/support.
Tarrare: France's Hungriest Spy
In eighteenth-century France, a young man named Tarrare became notorious for an appetite that no amount of food seemed able to satisfy.
From swallowing stones for paying crowds to devouring meals intended for fifteen people, his extraordinary eating habits left doctors baffled.
But where medicine saw a mystery, the French army saw an opportunity, deciding that his stomach might be the perfect hiding place for military secrets.
It was a remarkable plan, with a few rather unpleasant and unintended consequences.
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Mad Honey & The Fall Of A Roman Army (Part 2)
Mithridates has claimed his throne, built a reputation for being remarkably difficult to poison, and made himself one of Rome’s most determined enemies. Now the Romans are coming to deal with him.
In the second half of our mad honey story, we follow the Poison King through decades of warfare, meet the mountain tribes who prepared a rather unusual welcome for Rome’s soldiers, and discover how a few bowls of roadside honey became a devastating military trap.
And for Mithridates, a lifetime spent trying to make himself impossible to poison is about to have one...
Mad Honey & The Poison King (Part 1)
After surviving months of fighting, starvation and freezing mountain passes, thousands of Greek soldiers finally stumble across something worth celebrating: an enormous supply of free honey.
And naturally, they start helping themselves, but before long, they're barely able to stand!
In part one of our mad honey story, we discover how bees around the Black Sea produced this strange substance, before meeting Mithridates, a young prince whose father’s murder left him deeply suspicious of everyone around him as well as his own dinner.Â
From an army defeated by it's own lunch to the mak...
The Titanic's Chief Baker Survived By Getting Drunk
There are probably very few people listening to this podcast who don’t already know at least some of the story of the Titanic.
But as with all famous stories like this one, there are always miniature sub plots playing out in the background that don’t become quite as famous, but once you hear them add life and color to the story as a whole.
Today’s story is just one such tale and stars a man name Charles Joughin. He was the ship’s Chief Baker and on the fateful night of April 14, 1912, he found hi...
The Sublime Society of Beefsteaks
In Georgian Era London, some of Britain’s most powerful men formed an exclusive dining club devoted almost entirely to eating enormous steaks, drinking heavily and celebrating the virtues of beef.
They took their society so seriously that they even appointed their own bishop and when the Prince of Wales told them that he’d like to join their club, they simply told him they had a strict 24 seat policy, and all 24 seats were already full.
This is the strange story of The Sublime Society of Beefsteaks.
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The Great "Electric Sugar" Fraud
In the 1880s, Henry Friend claimed he had invented a secret electrical process that could revolutionise the sugar industry.
His demonstrations were convincing and at the time, investors were throwing money at him. But almost nobody was allowed to see how it worked.
So what exactly was going on inside his locked refinery?
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Thank you to my all of my supporters!Â
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When A Navy Destroyer Fought A Submarine Using Potatoes
War often calls for quick thinking and unconventional tactics, but few battles have ever been won with… potatoes. But, during World War II, the USS O’Bannon, a U.S. Navy destroyer, found itself in a tense standoff with a Japanese submarine. With the enemy dangerously close, too near in fact for their deck guns to be effective, the crew resorted to a rather unexpected weapon.Â
This is the incredible tale of how the USS O’Bannon used quick thinking, and a well-stocked pantry, to help sink a Japanese submarine.
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Defending A Town With Just Two Loaves Of Bread
At it’s very core, war is essentially throwing everything you have at your enemy hoping that they break first, and at times that breaking point can be as much a psychological one as a physical one.Â
Wars of attrition, as in the case of prolonged siege warfare, is all about seeing who can last the longest.Â
And today's story is all about one of those siege warfare breaking points, and how an army was defeated by a woman who had nothing but her cunning, boldness and two loaves of bread.
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56 - Robert May's "Spectacle Feasts"
The entire experience of eating a fancy meal these days is no longer just about the food itself. For decades, chefs like Heston Blumenthal have been creating entire culinary experiences to delight all of your senses at once, pairing sounds, smells and textures along with the already delicious flavours of their food.
But while this trend has taken off again more recently, this is by no means a modern practice. In fact, as far back as the early 1600’s an innovative chef by the name of Robert May was creating similar sensory dining experiences all ar...
55 - How Sausages Helped Win A Battle
It’s well into the northern european winter season at the end of 1939. Five hundred thousand Russian Soviet Soldiers are making a collective push northwards, swarming the countryside as they go. They are armed to the hilt with tanks, explosives, machine guns, grenades and a staggeringly overwhelming number of troops.
But there is one thing that they didn’t count on, one thing that threatened to derail their entire military offensive altogether. And that one thing, was the humble sausage.
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54 - When Pineapples Were Status Symbols
For the majority of history they were considered the ultimate delicacy by European nobility who just couldn’t get enough of them. From snack to status symbol, the pineapple has graced many a King and Queens palace courts, while outside of them they took on a mythical quality akin to some sort of precious jewel.
Today, we’ll track the pineapples voyage across the seas and into the history books as it became synonymous with the very peak of royal de rigeour.
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53 - Fat Men's Clubs
For as long as so-called civilised societies have existed, equally uncivilised clubs and groups have sprung up within them, allowing their members to revel in all sorts of weird and wonderful excesses.
In previous episodes we have heard about secret food clubs with a goal of eating every type of animal on earth. Todays story may not be so different, although this clubs members were’nt so picky about reaching any particular goal other that just eating every type of food they could get their hands on.
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52 - The Kentucky Meat Shower
Turn on the tv or radio, or scroll any news site online and you’ll no doubt be inundated with stories about crazy weather anomalies happening all around the globe.
Volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, earthquakes, tornadoes and so much more.
But none of us, thankfully, have ever lived through one of the strangest events in history when something a lot more dense than rain began falling from the skies onto some unsuspecting farmers in the small town of Olympia Springs, Kentucky.Â
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Ple...
51 - The London Beer Flood
In our modern age we have lived through natural disasters and floods in various parts of the world, and no matter what, they are always tragic. But tragic floods are not always a cause of nature.
In episode 7, we discussed the great molasses flood that occurred in Boston and the ensuing devastation of that event. Well today, we’ll be taking a look at a similar, albeit less gloopy tidal wave of destruction that occurred 100 years before that.
And, as much as any of us may love a beer every now an...
50 - How Alcohol Prohibition Created NASCAR
This episode is a look at how in the early to mid 1900’s the abolitionist laws banning the production and consumption of alcohol played a majorly significant role in the creation of what, today, is a veritable institution of the American South, NASCAR.
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Sources for this episode's research:
https://winstoncupmuseum.com/nascar-and-prohibition/#:~:text=Across%20the%20country%2C%20bootleggers%20had,cases%20of%20liquor%20as%20possible
https://www.history.com/news/how-prohibition-gave-birth-to-nascar
49 - Charles Domery Ate Cats, Grass & A Fellow Soldier's Leg
There are many stories throughout history of individuals with freakish appetites, who seem to be able to consume quantities of food well past what a human stomach should be capable of handling.
Today, we’ll be diving into the story of Charles Domery, a Polish-born soldier who tried to eat the whole world.
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Sources for this episode's research:
https://historianandrew.medium.com/the-man-who-couldnt-stop-eating-including-cats-rats-grass-and-his-friend-s-leg-c7ec7e1fce01ht...
48 - The Dutch Once Ate Their Prime Minister
For most of history, the Dutch have been an almost all-powerful force to be reckoned with. They were the forerunners for a lot of the world's exploration, and for a long time dominated the seas and trade routes through the stranglehold of the Dutch East India Company.
In the preceding century, they were still under Spanish rule, with 2 of their kings, Charles the Fifth and his Son Phillip II, simultaneously ruling as the kings of Spain and the so-called Low Countries of The Netherlands.
But the Dutch weren’t having any of this for long and at...
47 - William McKenna the "Human Ostrich"
For today's story we will be diving into the life of a truly extraordinary man named William V McKenna, and while he fits the category of “people who eat random things”, those things that he ate can’t really be classified as food.
So let's see just how this man, William McKenna first discovered his talented digestive system.
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Sources for this episode's research:
https://www.picuki.com/tag/humanostrichhttps://www.weirdhistorian.com/appeti...
46 - Turning Hitler Into A Woman By Poisoning His Food
WW2 was raging onwards, with men fighting and dying each and every day. It was so delicately poised that there seemed to be no end to the fighting in sight.
Weeks and months dragged on into years, and with them came more and more plots of how to win the war. Some were impractical, some were impossible, and some were downright insane.
But every now and again, one of these plots would be just insane enough to work.
And so, out of this think tank came possibly one of military history’s greatest-ever schemes.
Bonus Episode - Interview with Author, Dr. Lydia Moland
Hello and welcome to this very special bonus episode of The Fantastic History Of Food.
Today, I'm breaking away from my usual format of pure storytelling to chat with the amazing author Lydia Moland.
Lydia is so much more than simply an author, she is also a philosophy lecturer at Colby College in Maine, an institution that has been around for over 200 years.
She has written for publications like The Paris Review, the Boston Globe, and the Washington Post to name but a few.
We chat about her upcoming book all about...
45 - A Spice Worth Killing For
There is a spice we use so commonly today that it's hard to believe that at one time, wars were fought, people were killed and entire civilizations almost wiped out, simply so that the strongest force could get their hands on this prized spice.
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Thank you to Four Sigmatic for being a sponsor for this episode.
To make it easy, Four Sigmatic is offering you 30% off anything in their range when you use promo code: FOODHISTORY at checkout.
Check out their range here: https://us.foursigmatic.com/
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44 - Were The Salem Witch Trials Caused By Infected Food?
If ever you’ve doubted food's integral place in history, today’s stories are sure to remind us all, that no matter what life and history in general, wouldn’t and in fact, couldn’t be the same without the daily rituals that food brings.
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Thank you to Athletic Greens for being a sponsor for this episode.
To make it easy, Athletic Greens will give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit www.athleticgreens.com/EMERGING to take...
43 - Foodie Fortune Tellers
Many old food-based fortunes were light-hearted party games mainly played around Halloween time, but some of there were deadly serious, and their results were taken as gospel truth. And at the time, all you needed to tell the future, was a full pantry and a little imagination.
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Thank you to Athletic Greens for being a sponsor for this episode.
To make it easy, Athletic Greens will give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit www...
42 - Delicious Robberies
Today's stories aren’t just about the small-time pilfering of food here and there from your local grocery stores. No, today we’ll be talking about people stealing truckloads of the stuff at a time, not it seems to quell their stomach's callings, as much as to refill those empty wallets.
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Thank you to Athletic Greens for being a sponsor for this episode.
To make it easy, Athletic Greens will give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is v...
41 - The World's Worst Sandwich
There are few things more universally loved than a good sandwich.
We as humans love the simplicity and deliciousness of having something to hold all of our favourite fillings together.
But there was a time in our history when the venerable sandwich was used not for sustenance, or delight in a tasty meal, but rather as a loophole with which to get around some rather limiting laws.
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Thank you to Athletic Greens for being a sponsor for this episode.
To make it easy, Athletic Greens will give you a...
40 - The Tapeworm Diet
As soon as people became wealthy enough not to have to spend every waking hour of their day, working, cleaning, hunting or cooking, they had enough to look in the mirror and decide what they didn’t like about themselves.
From the truly horrific and crippling footbinding practices in imperial china to modern day plastic surgery, people have been searching for ways to achieve their body goals. Victorian England, the initial setting for todays story, was possibly one of the craziest times in history when it came to the number of diet fads and body morphing practices. So wh...
39 - Julia Child: WW2 Spy Who Created Shark Repellent Cakes
Even the most famous and lauded among us still have a few tasty secrets up their sleeves, and today we’re going to dive into this fascinating side of one of modern cookings most famous gourmands: Julia Child.
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Thank you to Athletic Greens for being a sponsor for this episode.
To make it easy, Athletic Greens will give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit www.athleticgreens.com/EMERGING to take ownership of your health and pi...
38 - The Great Goldfish Eating Craze of 1939
Not only were western cultures happily eating raw fish for ages, at one point they were uh, in fact eating it so raw as for it still, in fact, to be alive.
That’s right, today we’re talking about the 1939 craze of college students competing to swallow as many as they could of the humble goldfish.
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Thank you to Athletic Greens for being a sponsor for this episode.
To make it easy, Athletic Greens will give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your...
37 - Michigan Held A Funeral For 30 000 Pizzas
There is nothing quite like pizza. The variety is endless, the experience is magical, the taste is delicious and they can be found in almost every single country on earth with any number of local variations.
Which makes todays story all the sadder, when we find out that from their humble italian origins, 30 000 of these delicious delicacies were once condemned to mass burial in Michigan.
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Thank you to Athletic Greens for being a sponsor for this episode.
To make it easy, Athletic Greens will give you a FREE 1 year supply of...
36 - Black Banquets & Funeral Feasts
There are quite a few stories from historical banquetry that weren’t of the presumed fun and hearty nature. Instead it seems that there was an occasional trend, in wealthy circles specifically, to up the ante so to speak and either trick their guests into believing one thing when in fact an entirely other thing was true, or making them believe that they were about to face actual real death at any given moment. Listen to find out more.
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To make it...
35 - How A Tea Craze Took Over Tunisia
We continue to follow the journey of tea as it makes its way to Europe and the Americas. We’ll see the large role tea tends to play politically amongst rival nations as well as internally in Turkey, and we’ll get to have a look at how this humble beverage has made its way to each and every corner of the globe.
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Thank you to Athletic Greens for being a sponsor for this episode.
To make it easy, Athletic Greens will give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE...
34 - Healed By Tea After Fighting A Dragon
The history of tea is as long and complex as its variety of flavours. It's a history quite literally infused with tales of spirituality and mysticism. It has evolved over the ages to become world renowned for it’s science backed health benefits, but to find out the true origins of tea throughout history, we need to go back almost 5000 years.
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Take the next step in your life by getting in touch with life coach, Dr. Binyamin Klempner.
You can find out more on his website: https://yourcoachdrb.weebly.com/
Whatsapp Dr. B at...
BONUS: KFC Chickens In Space (With Melissa McCue-McGrath)
The time Kentucky Fried Chicken teamed up with NASA, some space ready chickens, and an 8th Grader FOR SCIENCE.
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Follow and Subscribe to Melissa's show Bewilderbeasts here: https://bewilderbeastspod.podcastpage.io/podcast/bewilderbeasts
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33 - The Candy Bomber Of Berlin
This is the story of Gail Halvorsen, who was known to the children of Berlin as Der Schokoladen Flieger or The Chocolate Flier, Uncle Wiggly Wings or the most widely known of all, The Candy Bomber of Berlin.
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Please support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/foodhistorypod and get early access to episodes, and bonus content.
Find transcripts and sources on the website: www.foodhistorypodcast.com
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Thank you to my all of...
32 - A Banquet On Horseback
In today's society, those who are able to, are always seeking out new and wondrous dining experiences. More than a hundred years ago, men and women with too much time on their hands and more money than they knew what to do with, were hosting equally bizarre and fascinating dinners of their own. But it was a man named C.K.G Billings who would go down in the history books as being the host of one of the strangest of them all.
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Please support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/foodhistorypod and get...
31 - Using Onions To Heal Gunshot Wounds
Onions have been a part of human history since long before records began. It's played a vital part in our diets, but also in our mythology, representing eternal life to some cultures, as well as playing a part in the origin stories of the stars. Onions are one of natures most versatile products and in this episode we dive deep into the role it's played throughout the ages.
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Please support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/foodhistorypod and get early access to episodes, and bonus content.
Find transcripts and sources on the website: www.foodhistorypodcast...
30 - Japan's Accidental Killer Rice
In the late 1800s in Japan, there was a disease that seemed to target not just inner-city dwellers in Edo, what we know as modern-day Tokyo, but it affected mainly the upper classes. Not even the emperor and his family were immune to this slow, agonizing disease that saw people waste away in front of their loved ones. It would be a few years until the true culprit was discovered and it would throw Japanese culture into a frenzy when the cause was found to be none other than their beloved, white rice.
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29 - Food Obsessed Pirate William Dampier
Pirates weren’t known for their discerning tastes in cuisine. If movies and television are to be believed they seemed to subsist purely on rum alone. But it was out of this quagmire that one of food history's earliest pioneers arose. He was so incredibly influential in fact that he is responsible for giving us the words barbecue, cashew, tortilla, soy sauce, breadfruit, and chopsticks.
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Please support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/foodhistorypod and get early access to episodes, and bonus content.
Find transcripts and sources on the website: www.foodhistorypodcast.com
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28 - When Parmentier Tricked People Into Eating Potatoes
It’s almost unthinkable that just a few hundred years ago, potatoes were only eaten in a very small corner of the earth. They are now one of the most widely eaten vegetables around the globe and a lot of that has to do with the cunning and trickery of our man Parmentier.
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Please support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/foodhistorypod and get early access to episodes, and bonus content.
Find transcripts and sources on the website: www.foodhistorypodcast.com
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27 - The Nottingham Cheese Riot
The people of Nottingham don't take kindly to people fleecing them for their very own cheese. The time had come to stand up and fight the gouda fight.
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Please support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/foodhistorypod and get early access to episodes, and bonus content.
Find transcripts and sources on the website: www.foodhistorypodcast.com
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PODGO is the easiest way for you to monetize your podcast. Providing podcasters with a flat rate for ad space so you always know how...
